Sponsorship and the Big Book – Ppg Santa Cruz Sponsorship Workshop – Part 1 of 2 – R. M. – Myers R.

Last weekend I did one of these deals and there was a clock on the wall that was blacked out just like that and my watch, and I never could get them to line up, and so I'm like 20 minutes into the talk and I look up there and the clock hadn't moved much. It moved a little bit and I'm looking at my watch and now I don't know which one to believe and so my head is all... It's like that little thought that comes in that you just don't want to even consider like that piece of jerky I've got in my bag that I wasn't supposed to bring in here. No, I didn't. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding I'm kidding you know what's weird I was a vegetarian for almost three years and which is in Texas it's kind of I mean that's like unheard of like you're what talk about getting judged but a plate of barbecue took me out and I'm just I'm back over to the dark side again and I just, um, did I tell you how weird it is talking barefooted? I just kind of like, it's just like, I guess I'll get used to it. I feel scrawnier. I feel, I feel like in Texas with a pair of cowboy boots on, at least you feel like you got some, some stuff going, you know, and you're like, I just feel a little sensitive right now. There's nothing wrong with being sensitive. I want to read you a couple of little pieces like this. Now, this is nuts and bolts stuff. So what we basically try to do is get you willing to at least look at the idea that perhaps there was something else to look at. Perhaps there was Something Different that's available. And then we're going to look AT that and look at some nuts and volts of what sponsorship looks like that's closer aligned with what the big book said. I mean, this isn't sponsorship according to Myers. This is sponsorship according because what you find is as men and women slide closer and closer to the big books of the text of Alcoholics Anonymous what you'll find is there's a lot of similarities and you'll go to it's like have you ever sponsored somebody from the bigbook and then they move someplace else and the very first question they ask is can you help me get hooked up with another big book guy someplace else? Because the worst thing in the world is to sober up using the text and using everything that it brings to the table and then go to a geographical area where they're not using the texts at all. And then you talk about some little guys floundering and going... I mean, you talk About a Lifeline Needed. I mean these guys are just... It's a bloodbath watching that happen. And so there's just enough similarities. If I go to Southern California where Angie and them guys are, if I go out there and I'm talking to guys that go to that group, It's amazing how aligned we are with our thought processes. And there's not a lot of pushback on certain things, you see? So, we'll see. This was printed. I can't remember the date on it, but it was a good bit. This lady wrote this thing. This is a little piece out of her letter. And it said, Coming into AA and finding the acceptance and love I'd sought in a bottle was a relief beyond description. I'm with her so far. But reading the steps was a shock. Fortunately for me, my home group did not hammer the steps into newcomers. Rather, they talked a lot about the slogans and the need not to drink one day at a time. I needed that. Oh, I'll swallow that. This makes me so nauseated I can't hardly stand it when I read this kind of stuff. Here's why. Because for some of us like this, that if alcoholism is something that was just a bad day, then go have a better day. Go do something different. If alcoholism kicked your rear end, the idea that we could bring something to the table rather than some slogans, rather than just some love... Listen, if love was enough to get you sober, I guarantee you you would have already been sober. Your mom and daddy would have got you sober. That man or woman you were married to would have gotten you sober Love is not... Love is a great thing. I'm not knocking it, buddy. I'd be a lost little cookie if it wasn't for love. But the idea that love is enough flies in the face of everything that they spent time and effort writing our textbook about on this thing. At break, I was talking with this nice lady about some stuff and one of the things that we talked about was how obnoxious some big book thumpers look. You know, I stayed away from those big book guys for a long time because they were just so obnoxous. Listen, we created a lot of problems ourselves I mean, we cause a lot of problems because of the things that we do and the thingsthat we say. Nobody likes to be beat up with a big book. I have these guys... My email stuff, I answer emails for two hours every morning and I'm blown away by how many times we get these young guys that will come in like this and they'll get excited and they'l go, well, we went in that meeting last night and we really roughed those guys up. It's like they're spoiling for a fight and I am going, stop that! Stop! Listen, I love your enthusiasm. I am telling you, we could use some more enthusiasm. But this idea that it is funny to go into a meeting and beat people up with a big book, it's just obnoxious. It's obnoxous in any form and fashion. Quit it. Quit it." Deal with the people that you're sponsoring. When you can share, share from the big book if you can. But it's not done as a... This isn't a weapon. We're not trying to beat people up with this thing. And so I'm not sure. I'm Not Trying to Judge Anybody, but I'm NOT sure that we don't all get there at times. I'm NOT sure that in the beginning we don'T all get kind of excited about the idea of what the text brings us and the idea that there's some clarity around what step work looks like. And some of us get excited enough that we do come in a little strong and we do get a little vocal. If you bastards would just do it this way, go ahead and try. But at some point in time you'll get your head handed to you and that's painful. And after the third or fourth time you do it you'll go, you know what? Maybe I better not do that anymore. You guys know who Bob Darrell is? Bob D? I did a talk at a Pacific group the specific group not Pacific group big geographical difference in Las Vegas one time there was like 600 people in this meeting and I did little share Bob wasn't there that night but he left but later on during the week we talked and he was traveling and I said so how did the deal go and he goes well you know and I kind of went uh oh that's kind of a bad deal when you ask somebody specifically how you did, and they go, well, you know. And I said, what was it? And he said, you don't mind? He said, I'm not sure that there was anything that you said that I disagreed with, but I'm Not Sure That I Dug How You Presented It. And he says, did you listen to the talk? And I went, no, I never listened to the talks. And he goes, maybe you ought to. And so I went and listened to it, but I really didn't because I was always afraid that I wouldn't like what I sounded like and I didn't want that kind of beat up but the reason I mention this is because this guy saved my life he really did a great job and he loved me enough we've been friends for a long time and he loves me enough to tell me the truth about this stuff and when I listened to the talk the very first one I went man, wow you really did sound arrogant you really sounded like you were preaching to those guys and nobody wants to be preached to I'll bring some heat sometimes But I mean, because I think that some of you guys are as hard-headed as I am. Some of you are sensitive and it doesn't take much at all, but some of them you've got to hit them in the face before they'll ever go, okay, I'll listen, I'LL LISTEN. You sponsor men like that too, don't you? I mean where some of em are so sensitive you can just go, hey, and they go, yes sir. You know, but you also have guys like this that you literally have to find something blunt to hit em to get their attention. Well, you get that. So here, for the sake of an example for a couple of minutes now, let's look at what sponsorship looks like. And this will be an interesting deal because for some of you who were content to just let things sort of flow on their own, being directed by the protege, the new guy, this may be a little hard to deal with. But if you'll stick with me, I think you'll see the wisdom in it on the other side. This was the hardest single thing for me to learn when I got here and I got over to where these big book guys were. because I got this idea that we absorb what we need and that's how we sponsor if they come long enough they'll hear what they need well the thought process is good the problem is is that experience doesn't line up with a thought process and so what we find out is is we have a lot of people that come and come and come and now every day they're getting sicker and sicker and we just let them sit and hoping that they'll stay long enough this is the reason why we entertain them this is why we befriend them and we take them to coffee and I understand all of that. It just doesn't work real well. Look, if you've got your book, turn to page 24. We'll launch this piece of this based on this little piece of text. If you don't have it, don't worry about it. I'll read it in the italics in the top third of the page. The fact that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure have lost the power of choice in drink. This is the stuff that they're talking about. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago, we are without defense against the first drink. For the first seven years that I was in AA, I didn't even know this was in here. But pay attention to what it just said. Because it's telling us that we are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory and humilation of even a week for a month before. I'm not even going to remember my own story with sufficient oomph to keep me here much less your story. The idea that we can scare ourselves into this deal and that we could hold ourselves with our own terror I remember what it was like you may remember what is was like but you got a head that's working overtime selling you the idea that it wasn't that bad that it wouldn't be like that You don't believe me? Look at your own personal experience How many of you guys ever gone to a treatment center to work with guys in treatment? Some of you have, some of you haven't Or some of you are just really shy and don't want to raise your hand. It's okay. One of the cool things that you'll find is that the experience looks like this. You walk in, and there will be this little fried pie guy in there like this, his hair is all singed, and his face is all messed up, and he's just a mess. He's been on the street, and he is leaning against the back wall like this and you do a pitch and he comes up afterwards and he says, man, I'll do anything you ask me to do. Would you help me? Yes, I will do. I'm right there. This guy is as compliant as he's going to get right there. He's two weeks removed from his last drink or last, you know what, and he's just, he's compliant. At that stage of the game, this kid would eat a handful of spiders if you said, here, take the big fat one and eat it right there, he'll eat it because he knows he's hurting like a big dog. Pain motivates the situation. Now, because the treatment center has a deal against people working steps with them from the outside while they're in treatment, so 27 days later, he gets ready to coin out He's had 27 days of looking at women, eating good, having a little therapy. I mean, he feels much, much better. So you walk into the room. You're going to work with him. You're gonna start step work right there like this. And where is he? He's in the back of the room, he's got his hat on backwards, he's gotta glasses on like this and he's leaning against the back wall, ignoring you completely. You know he sees you, but he's ignoring you completely. And so you walk over and you go, hey, Sid, remember me? Step, remember we were gonna do some stuff? Oh, yeah. Hey, you got a smoke? Yeah, I got a smok. You know, you hand him a... Got a light? Yeah, got a light. And then he starts talking with his buddies and pretty soon you realize that you've just been dusted. He got what he needed. Now, this isn't always the situation, but it happens with such frightening regularity that you begin to look at this thing from your experience. I don't care what people tell you. I'm telling you right now. You let somebody come into your meeting and sit in jail for a while and I promise you they're going to slowly, slowly push off of you until they go away. That's the nature of alcoholism as we understand it. I don't care how engaging you are or how well you understand this kind of stuff. That's why there's some urgency in the things that we do. If we're going get them from point A, busted up drunk, to over here, recovered alcoholic, if we're gonna do that, we're have to move a little quicker with it. I'm not saying we gotta stand on their neck and rip their head off and pour a bunch of stuff in them. I'm saying we've got to jam a bunch stuff up there. You get it. I'm not saying that. But we've got to be quicker with it than what we're doing. Now, there's only two reasons why men and women don't want to work with other people. Because the one is they either don't think that they need to, which is a story in itself, or they don't understand how to. And I'm telling you right now, we can handle both of them if you'll be honest. Every time. The problem we run into is that a lot of people that are here in the room have already got an idea that they don't want to tell anybody that they do not understand. And if you have been around for a little while and you began to sponsor older men, you will see this tons. It will blow you away how many men I have worked with that have no clue about how to help somebody with the deal. So let me ask you this. What would be the first thing that we would do if a brand new guy walked in the room? If you have a brand New Guy and he walks in and he sits down, we will use Marcus again because we will choose Marcus. Because he's got broad shoulders and he can shoulder the weight of the situation, okay? So Marcus comes in. It's his first night there and we're going to sit and talk to him for a second like this and we hope the meeting went well regardless of how the meeting Went, regardless of what we talked about. I'm going to watch Marcus and afterwards I'm gonna see anybody... He's mine. I'll get him in about three seconds. In our meetings at Primary Purpose Group Dallas there's 260 people there on a Tuesday night studying the text and I don't care who you are. I don' t care if I'm sponsoring you. I don''t care if i'm in the middle of a conversation. and I see somebody walking in that's new, we'll talk about this in a minute. If I see them walking in, I give them five seconds outside. Five seconds. 1,001. 1,022. This guy is still talking to me. 1,03. By 3, I'm leading off. I'm going to go get him. You see? Because I'm gonna go get... How do you know he's new? He's looking at the floor. He's look at the ground. Looking at the door is the first way you can tell if a guy is brand new. The second way, he immediately finds a place to sit and he starts reading a big book. Let me let you in on a little secret. Nobody comes to an AA meeting to read the big book unless it's a big-book study and we're already there. But newcomers don't come to a meeting to read a big Book. If you see somebody reading a Big Book in a meeting and you don't know them, they're uncomfortable, they're scared, they're coming apart, go get them. Well, that's making an assumption that you don' t know. I've been doing this a long time. And I'm telling you right now, I've watched men and women sit in meetings, come apart, just sitting there. They're so nervous. They don't know what to do. They don' t even know where the coffee is. They don´t know where the crapper is. They don''t know what to do, what´s the format. They don'T know any of this kind of stuff and we´re sitting back like this going, oh well, somebody will get them. We´ll just let them, we might come by and say welcome, glad you´re here or something and then just walk off and leave them. Man, I´m going to, while Marcus is there brand new, I´am going to ask him these questions. Marcus, tell me about your experience at AA. You went before but now you´ve back. you went out and we start talking like this. I'm just trying to get to know this guy. Marcus, can you tell me what alcoholism is? Why do you think you belong here? Oh, well, I got this DWI and I'll let him go for a second and I go, no, no. Stop. Time out. I know that's the drama around it but can you tells me what alcohol looks like? No. I said, Marcus, do you have five minutes? Sure. Let's talk about it. And in five minutes I had that dreaded Q word. I qualify him. Well, you can't qualify him? sure he can I can't label him that's not my job but shame on us for letting people sit in meetings for years and years and years seven years in this fellowship nobody ever told me what alcoholism was seven years of me sitting there scratching my head one night I remember at primary purpose group I got there I'd been there about a week and a half maybe two weeks and I remember going home and I walked in the front door and I kicked the door open and I walk in and my wife was sitting there and I went guess what I'm an alcoholic And she goes, no shit. And I went, no, really? I mean, really, I'm an alcoholic. And she said, I thought we had that decided years ago. I said, you may have decided it. But I just now figured it out. I just know how to do it. I've just now connected it up that I have a chronic disease called alcoholism that's going to kill me if I don't get busy. And she sat back and she goes wow, no kidding. Well tell me what it is. And then I explained it to her. I began teaching right there. And we need a fellowship full of people that know and understand so we can help Marcus understand what his deal is. And so once we get it, once we understand what alcoholism looks like and he gets it like this... Now, have we been in a meeting yet? Maybe, maybe not. This may have all occurred while we were out smoking a butt. You understand? So the idea that he had to be in a meet to get that, turn back over to page 44. We'll just clear this up right now. Okay, we read through the two qualifiers. If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely. Okay, we've gone through the... You've lost the power of choice and control. We understand that. And then look at the last sentence in that first paragraph and pay attention to the way it sets up. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. Wow. Now listen, if they had written me, if they'd called me and Bill had called from the grave and said, Myers, we have some problems with that old big book. Would you just rewrite a couple of things? Well, in my old day, that's the first thing I would have done. I would have rewritten that because what it said was that I'm going to say which only 90 meetings in 90 days will conquer. That's what I was taught. The problem is that the book doesn't say that. I know some of you meeting makers make it guys are getting real cranky about this and I love you to death. I'm encouraging you, go to 600 meetings in a week if you can do it. Do whatever you want to do. But I'm telling you right now, we must stop telling people that their solution lies in a meeting. We must, must tell them. You can have a spiritual experience sitting in a parking lot in front of the meeting hall with somebody that knows and understands. Page 19, they talk to this line and they say, we concluded to write this book to share our what? Our experience and knowledge. Experience, strength, and hope didn't get added until the third edition, guys. Experience and knowledge They knew that if we could explain how we got here You ever hear any of you guys pick up Desire Chip? pick up birthday cakes on birthday night and they go, well, I just have no idea how I got here. Listen, I understand the attempt at humility. I understand that. But wouldn't it be cool to go, I'm delighted I'm here, I love you guys, and I know exactly how I Got Here. I know Exactly How I Got There. I Got here because I worked 12 simple steps that put me on a spiritual path that connected me to a God that I didn't even know existed, didn't ever want to believe, and my life was profoundly changed. Wouldn't that be cooler at a birthday night? I mean, if you're a brand new guy, I want what he's drinking. I do. So we got a brand new guy. He comes in. We're going to qualify him. We're gonna help him see what his truth is so that he can understand what's going on. And now we have a guy that's got a case of alcoholism and we're gonna move from there. And I'll say, so listen, we got a couple of minutes. You got a couple minutes more to talk? And he goes, yeah man, I got as much time as you want. I said, let me just ask you this question real quick. Tell me what you believe about God. Where's God in the big picture? Oh, I hate God. Okay, check. All I needed was some information. I just need to know whether I'm talking about are we dealing with an agnostic? Are we dealing avec an atheist? Are we dealin' with a pagan? I mean, I just nee to know where we are so we can proceed. If I got a guy that hates God and it's all goofy, I'm gonna tap the breaker. We're gonna slow up a little bit and then we're gonna get into the agnostics. We're going to read a little bt if he can do it. We might have to meet another day To read that part of the deal But we're going to let Bill Do his wonders in this thing And start breaking down the prejudice That we brought into this deal Around the idea of God And he does it masterfully He does a great job on this thing But what if My new friend says I'm okay, I believe that there's a God out there I'm not really clear about him anymore And I've got some animosity About stuff like this But you understand what I'm saying? We're okay at that stage of the game. I mean, how many times have you sat in meetings and heard people go, well, I'm working on step two. And then six months later you hear them going, well,I'm still working on that old step two Did you make stars? Uh-uh. Did something? Uh-huh. Next. Step three. Quit. Quit. It didn't say that we had to have a fully formed idea of what this God was right now. It didn' t say that. It said we came to believe. It didn''t quit. I know the tendency is I want it fully formed. I want doctrine in place. The problem is though, guys, that some of us have doctrine shoved up our you-know-what sideways and it's stuck there. And I don't want that. Some of us who have backed up a little bit reinvestigated it and walked headlong back into the original religion of our youth. It's okay. The point is is that we have to make a beginning someplace. God, is He everything or is He nothing? I get that you see and if we can get there like that then we can begin to make this beginning now in our conversation with my new friend here I mean we've done this step one thing we've been doing we've gone this step two thing right there in the parking lot man I wish we had some place where we could be quiet for a second we might even hit this third step tonight I'm ready let's go do that a lot of times that's what you'll hear now wait a minute am I forcing this on him no I mean this guy is making decisions based on what it is that I'm saying. Instead of letting him get sick again, I'm getting him... Look at the big picture of this. Folks, this is saying you know what? I love you more than anything in the whole wide world. I want you to have everything that this fellowship has to offer but I want you to wait a year to get it. I mean, isn't that crazy? That doesn't make sense. Some of you are already pushing back. Some of you don't want to hear that. I understand that. But I want to look at if we If we could, I want to look at why we're pushing back. Why is this such a hard deal? Well, you'll kill them if you go too fast. Okay. I would hand that to you. I think that there's probably nothing that's more offensive than somebody that's standing on somebody's neck making them do things they don't want to do. This is the reason why I don't like multiple third steps with big large groups because I think it puts people in situations where peer pressure dictates a decision that needs to be made and sometimes they're not ready. Sometimes they're not ready, but they're looking around and their buddies are all ready and it's just, if you do that, rock on. I'm not knocking it. I am not going to judge it, but in my experience, it has been problematic because if you get a guy that does a third step before he is ready to do the third step, his program will begin to unravel later on. As soon as you hand him a pencil and say, meet Mr. Pencil. Here is Mr. Notebook. Go right. As soonas you start that action stuff like this, unless he is plugged in a bit, what he is going to do is he is gong to struggle and eventually he will push off that and you got you a guy that's adrift, and you're going to need to go catch him up and see. The most controversial thing that we talk about in the big book is that the big book paints a picture of what the pace of step work. They talked about this stuff. Go back and look at Claret Snyder's memoirs and look at how Bob's story, Fred's story Jim's story any of these earlier guys and in every one of them the consistency that ran through there is that once they got there they wasted no time in getting them a qualified and b getting them into the work so that they could have that that that experience um and yet in our fellowship for some reason other we keep selling ourselves the idea and the most the grindiest thing for you guys that are studying the text isn't that the biggest obstacle that you run across is people object to the fact that we tend to lean more into the idea of working guys through the steps in a more timely fashion than those that want to just take their time i'm saying right now and i'll say it without any I'm not ashamed at all about this. I'm just telling you the truth as I've seen it over the years working with thousands and thousands of drunks. You give a drunk enough time to sit on his butt and he will do absolutely nothing until the illness that is alcoholism rekindles itself. Remember, alcoholism is an internal condition. You cannot fix it by rearranging your external stuff. And the illusion is because we spend so much time in AA talking about the external stuff, we need to stop that idea. Take the external self completely out of there. I'm not making light of the fact that you were molested. I'm no making light on the fact you had issues. I'm NOT! But the idea that we could work the external stuff out and we could get sober doing that is problematic. And I'll ask you this, and then we'll move on to some other stuff. My buddy Marcus. Marcus, did you drink when you had lots of money? Or no money? Sure. when you had a hot babe on your arm or the sister of Satan under your arm it didn't make any difference if you were living in a big fancy schmancy house or a burnout trailer down by the coast somewhere I don't know even I'd live in a burnout trailor on this coast but you understand my deal the idea that we could how many times I'd never be an alcoholic if I could just get a job we call it the AA trinity the job, the girl and the car for guys it's always been like this. If I can just get the job, I can get the car. And if I can't get the girl, I'll never have to drink again. But it's like herding cats because you never get it all worked out. If you're like me, the internal condition will become so unbearable that holding a job is almost impossible. So the income stream is going to get cut off and now the car is going to go away and she's going to go away. I mean, it's not going to be It's like building a deck of cards but what happens when they start going south? Your sobriety is based on an external set of circumstances that you think is going to work. And yet there's nothing in our text that says that. There's nothing there that ever says that." And so we spend countless hours in meetings talking about the external stuff. How to teach you how to get along with your mother-in-law. How to teacher you to accept your grandkids. How to teaching you how to deal with your shopping issues. I don't know. You fill in the blank. I'm not making light of any of it. It's all important stuff. It just has nothing to do with your alcoholism. And if you're drinking because of those issues, I love you, but go away. Please, go away, because you're killing us here. All of that stuff. If you can stop drinking by controlling your external circumstances, then the book describes you as not one of us. The book describes me as a drunkard. The book described you as a heavy drinker. And I'm delighted you're here. I pray that you'll stay. We'll love you. But maybe you could just share a little less in the meeting. Because it's always those people that feel that way that are going, well, they're the ones that always want to share. You know, I never worked any of these steps and I've been here for 15 years. We hear this all the time in Texas, you see? But we don't understand the damage done. I'm so delighted that you could do that. But I'm sitting in front of a room full of people right now that I've talked to and I got news for you. There's a bunch of you that would be dead in a month or two if you did that. Go ahead and push off a program and see what happens to you. We see this. Wow. I get it. I know you meeting guys hate me, but it's okay. All I'm asking you to do is look at your own experience. Regardless of what the text says, just simply look at your own experience in your time in AA. How many times have you seen people that were here that didn't stay and when you ask them later what happened they're going to tell you, I didn't work the steps. I didn't get a sponsor. You understand? We see this stuff all the time. They didn't do what we do. Or they're here, maybe they worked the steps when they first got here. Fifteen years later, they're looking at the experience like this. They're coming apart at the seams. They're bone dry sitting in meetings. These are the guys that are scowling and angry and they're pissed at everybody like this and you're going, holy cow, when's the last time you worked some steps? When's the next time you tried to help somebody? And they go, well, I don't have to do that. Newcomers do that Wow. When did we start believing that we could stop doing what worked then. Wow, it's just amazing. You get that, right? So we got a brand new guy like this and we got him up to one, two, maybe three in the very first meeting. Maybe it will take another meeting to get him on third step stuff like that but whatever the deal is like that. We get up after saying the third step prayer. We're looking at the book and the book says next we launch out on a course of vigorous action. I'm struggling here trying to figure out what Take Your Time lines up with Next We Launched Out on a Course of Vigorous Action. I mean, if you've been in AA very long, how many in our personal experience have we sat in meetings with people for six months or a year while they talked about doing inventory? Well, I'm working on that old four-step. Well,I'm still working on it. I'm still looking on that four-stepped. But the weird part about it is in AA land, we go, they say, I'm looking on my four-step and what's our response? Oh. And you'll hear everybody in the room groan like it's this horrible, you know, oh, you poor guy. if you ever get it done. I know, the problem is keep your mind on this thought like this. The problem is this. Every moment that he's sitting there making excuses to not do this thing the clock's going tick, tick and it ought to get pretty loud it ought be going tick. Tick, tick because the disease of alcoholism is still progressing. Restless, irritable and discontent is sneaking right up on him sometimes not so subtly either. And the whole time we're making excuses why we can't do this stuff. You all get that, right? I think most of you do. I mean, some of you may not, but look at it in your own experience. For years I just went, but that's not the way I was taught. I was told that we do it this way. Look at your experience. Did it work for you or did it not work for me? Did it not look for you? In your friends at AA, did they stay sober doing that or did they not stay sober? Did they leave? In 2010 in the Dallas-Fort Worth intergroup office, they gave away. I'm rounding the figures off because I'm mathematically challenged. You put a decimal in something and I just crash. I'm an art guy. I can push a pencil all day long, but you put a math book in front of me and I'll just implode right there. And so in 2010, the last year I've got figures for like this, they gave way 16,000 desire chips. 16, 000 desire chips Let me give you the exact... I want you to see this Because you'll get a kick out of this. 16,000 and... Oh, there's that. I need more time. 16,284 desire chips. 4,000 one-month chips were given. Was that 11,000 people gone? Or was that 12,000? 12,000 12,00 people gone you see you get down to one year we're barely over 1,000 people so that's 15,000 people if I round them off that's 15,00 people gone now listen I'm going to hand it to you there are people that come to this fellowship they see what we are and they say I don't want any part of it and they leave or maybe they decide to go to church and they get sober there I don' t know I don''t have any idea the Salvation Army was getting people sober 100 years before AA even got here maybe they just went Salvation Army. I don't know, but I'm telling you right now, as responsible members we need to look at those figures. If 15,000 people left in one year that had the courage to pick up a desire chip we have to start asking ourselves the questions. Did they leave? For what reason? And I think if we're responsible, some of it has to rest back on our scrawny little shoulders. Some of it has to come back where the fact is did the people that came in and picked up those desire chips did they hear the solution in our meeting or did they not? If they're in Dallas-Fort Worth area and they're not in our meeting, there's a real good chance that they didn't. You say that's arrogant? I'm saying I live there. Really. And it blows you away what passes for AA in a lot of places. And this is the reason why it's so important that we look at this, okay? Don't assume because they're here they're going to stay. The old timers used to always go, well, you know, booze will drive them back in here. I don't buy that anymore. I've been here too long and I've seen too many, I've buried too many drunks. What booze does is kills them. And I see this especially in the elderly and I see it especially in women. Young guys that go out like that, sometimes they're pretty resilient and they'll go back out and get twisted up in a bunch of dope stuff like this and sometimes they are so resilient that it's a while before they get back in there if they make it at all. We bury a lot of them in Dallas. But what pains me are women and the elderly who come in and are discounted like it's not important. You see? And I don't get it. I mean, it always comes back to the same problem. Either we don't know what we're doing or we don' t care what we' re doing. Either way, we need to address it. Either way we need check it and find out what the low down is. If I don' T know the work, what's stopping me from relearning? What's stopping m e from going to a good book study and getting plugged into good solid sponsorship that can help teach me what the text says so that I can set a new baseline. What is wrong with that? Why is it that we have to be so bowed up and arrogant about it and staunchly go, I know what I know. It was good enough for me. Wow. Wow. Please stop. One of the most freeing things that you'll ever do, one of the greatest things that will ever happen will be if you find yourself in a situation where you just simply get the courage to say, I'm screwed. I have a friend of mine a guy that married he's my age and he married a girl that I've known in AA for a long time and they used to go to what I call a disco group. They're there and it's a big huge group the prettiest people you'll ever see not pretty as y'all but almost as pretty as y´all and they go to these meetings and it just is a big you know palin kind of thing not too many people get in their trenches and do things they just go and he was coming over for a while based on her You know, she would come over and sit in our book studies and he finally started coming over like this. And he'd sit in the back of the room and he'd fold his arms up like this and he just gets this stoic look. I'd throw everything I had during the meeting. I'd show everything I have and I could not get him to smile. I could no get him laugh. I couldn't get him do anything. After about maybe two months, he comes up like that and he said, can I talk to you for a minute? And I said, yep. And he said any chance you could sponsor me? And I say sure. I've been waiting for you to ask. And he kind of smiled at me and he goes, well, I'll see you next time. And I go, whoa, whoa stop. There ain't no next time now. You ask, let's go visit. And so he said, well okay. So we go in the back room and we have a little chat and then that meeting leads to another meeting which leads to other meetings and about the third or fourth meeting he walks up to me and he said maybe we just talk for a minute and he's like really hush hush and I said yeah come on let's Go. He goes, well, I don't want everybody to see me going back there with you. I just want to go quiet back there. Okay, like we're going to molest gerbils back there or something? I don'T know what it means. It's like, what? So we go back there, we get in this little private room and he's looking over my shoulder to make sure nobody's in there and he says, I've got to tell you something. And I'm going, okay, he's going to tell me that he's gay or that he killed somebody or that there's goingto be a big piece of news. And he goes, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING THAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. And I said, okay. Been sober 18 years. I said, what do you mean? You don't know anything. He said, I don't know anything about what you're talking about. And I went, rock on. So what's the problem? And he goes, I've been sober for a while. I said yeah, so what? So they call you a guru back over at your old group. Guess what? You're not. Quit it. You're a guy that's dying of alcoholism that is untreated and this is the reason why you and your fiance can't get married. This is the reason why you spend more money than you make. this is the reason why a lot of these things happen. The internal condition is kicking your butt and you're trying to treat it other ways and you need to figure out what we do. And he said, would you teach me? I said, yes, and we get in the deal. Have you all noticed how many people, older people in AA that have been around for a long time are relapsing? They get twisted up in pain meds or they get twisted uppen whatever kind of med that there is out there. But we see a lotof these guys that are out there, the internal condition, their life is getting goofy again And so instead of recognizing it as spiritual malady that's kicking their butt again, they're going, well, I'm falling apart. I'm going to go to the doctor and he's going to give me some mood elevators. Look at me. I'm not knocking it and I'm nicht judging it. And if you're on them, rock on. Take more. Take a double handful tonight. I don't care. I'm just saying, I mean, it's like, come on, guys. I sponsor a bunch of guys right now who are having trouble sleeping at night. And the very first thing they want to do is go to The Doctor and get a prescription for Ambien or for whatever sleep meds. And I'm just saying, I'm not saying don't take them. I'm juste saying, had it ever occurred to you that maybe we could sit down and do some more inventory and maybe you could get the stuff off your mind that's keeping you awake at night? Maybe you could go to bed and you could back to a level playing field. Wow, really? And it's amazing how many of these guys, we go back and work through these things and they don't have to do it. A pill doesn't fix everything. It may appear to. And I'm not saying get off of them, and I'm not saying don't do it. There's some clinical reasons why we need to be on meds. I get that. Trust me. Some of us would not be here today if it wasn't for medication. Truthfully, I getthat. I just say that we ought to be a little more diligent and pay attention in meetings. When we see people saying and acting and doing crazy things, let's address them first and say, when's the last time you got gathered up with the steps? Are you sponsored by anybody? Oh, you sponsor yourself. I remember that. Okay. We see it all the time. We see het all the time. I've been around here a long time. I don't need a sponsor anymore. That's for beginners. Okay. I get it. In the early days in AA, almost everybody that worked through the steps worked it in 30 to 45 days. That's based on the historical evidence of talking to 100 archivists who will show me everything that they've got. JR gave me a book one time that's got a bunch of letters from the late 30s up through the early 40s of newspaper articles that were written and it will blow you away. There's hundreds of them collected from all over. Hundreds of these articles about members in Alcoholics Anonymous and there's not a single letter in there that leans on the idea that their solution was about going to a meeting. Their solution was always about being involved in sponsorship and being involved with working with others. As a matter of fact, it's so profound when you read the articles that you just kind of go like, wow, are they even talking about the same program? Are they talking about AA as we know? Because it just sounds so different. So we get him gathered up like this. We're going to get him some inventory to do. I don't see men drinking because they did inventory wrong. I see them drinking because they didn't do inventory at all. We see this all the time. This idea that it's going to be a perfect inventory, this idea that I can tell him how many resentments he has. If you're telling people, I don't want to see you until you have 600 resentments, you're killing them. I'm telling you, you're just killing them There are a lot of us that got here and we didn't have that kind of wreckage in our life. We didn't had that kind stuff. I mean, I had some pretty profound things. They don't call us curverts for nothing. I mean, I had some pretty weird stuff going on in my life. But we would deal with it in this inventory. Let's talk about something real quick. And I think it will give you an idea about where we're heading with this. On page 60, 61, 62 and 63. Let's just talk about this real quick on this third step deal. I always thought this really hard. This was another one of those areas that I thought Bill Wilson and those cats should have consulted me first before they actually printed this book. Next time you're not doing anything, go back and read through this stuff and see how different it is. Starting on page 60, we start talking about some stuff and then we get down to about the ABCs mid-page. And then guess what? There's no more talk about booze. For the next three pages, they don't even mention it. They introduce us to the idea of, huh? Selfishness and self-centeredness? because I think this is something that we propagate in this thing we talk about this all the time how many of you thought that when you sobered up everything would get better that everything would go back to being okay and it was an illusion it may not have even been better then but we set this thing up if I just stop drinking I'll be okay and the reality is we stop drinking and what happens if you're a real deal alcoholic it got worse alcoholic was effectively treating the internal condition which was alcoholism for years and years and physically if we hadn't gotten really sick physically or mentally most of us would have stayed out there because it worked great for some of us it did but you remember times when it all greased it up it wasn't so I could feel better than everybody else but it put me on a level playing field where I could be social I could talk to you, I could quit being so introverted I could, yeah, if it had just stayed like that. The problem is it doesn't. So booze gets out of the picture and now we're smacked in the face with this idea that there's something else amiss. There's something less. You can see it in brand new guys all the time. They get better for a while and then all of a sudden it just kind of starts dropping off and it gets kind of, you know? And we're going, what's going on here? Where's all this crazy stuff going? Why do you have so many relationships? Once the guy sobers up or once the girl sobersup, Then you find yourself in a situation where the relationship looks like it's dying on the vine. Because we haven't addressed the selfishness and self-centeredness part. And there's the rough. 62 at the top of the page, they start describing this. If you're ever curious about this, guys, put yourself in the context of a relationship with a woman. Because I see guys going, I'm not selfish. Okay, we don't have time to go through all of it. But for the sake of the example, go back and look at your relationship with the woman. can you be a good guy? Can you be a bad guy just to get what you want? Can you be a good guy and a bad guy in the same night? Sure you can. Sure you can. Girls, have you dated men like that? That could be a great gregarious just a peach of a guy and then at the end of the evening he could be an SOB demanding mean egotistical I mean he could be a real jerk in the same night. I want what I want when I want it and I'll do whatever I can to get it, but you'll see it in relationships quicker and faster and more black and white than in any other area of your life. Yeah. Yeah, I have three daughters and a Wi-Fi door, and I'm telling you right now, women still baffle me to death. They just freak me out. But look at the line at the top of that page. Selfishness, self-centeredness, that we think is the root of our troubles. If they had called me, it would have been written like this. VO and methamphetamine, that we think is the root of our trouble. I mean, what has selfishness got to do with it? It's got everything to do with it because once we begin to get to this part, once we began to see this thing, we can find out who we are authentically. Girls, let me ask you a question because I think it applies both to girls and guys. Did you ever start out the evening one way and maybe in one persona and by the end of the evening you're a different girl? Okay, or let me ask you this. Let me ask this question. How many of you guys would be one way with your work friends and another way with your church friends and another day with your... I mean, all you've got to do is just however many friend sets you have. You see? The guys you bowl with on Friday night, what would they think about your... I mean would your church friends like to come with you? Uh-uh. we're acting a fool over there you see but the problem is there was a guy named Big Frank that did this deal called Theater of the Lies or Circus of the Lives one time if you ever get a chance to get it on tape or a CD someplace go get it it's pretty interesting because they talk about this thing about finding out who our authentic self is most of us you ever remember how tired you were when a brand new guy gets here or when you got here how just whipped you were physically sometimes if you pay attention to what you did when you were drinking and trying to keep all those lies moving and trying TO KEEP ALL THOSE DIFFERENT PERSONAS MOVING. Buddy, it's like there ain't no telling how many different personas I have in my life. I'll tell you one thing and I'll Tell her something else and I'm trying TO JUGGLE all this stuff and it's all based on a tissue of lies that keep me getting what I want. She's not going to go out with a bookbinder so I'll TELL HER I'M A DOCTOR. It makes perfect sense to me until she starts wanting to have me diagnose some weird problem and then all of a sudden it's just... You understand what I'm saying? Then I've got to change lanes real quick. Well, I'm really an attorney doctor. I'm more of an attorney than a... And we just play these games like this and juggle this stuff like that. The inventory, this is what they did. They introduced us to the idea that maybe self was a problem. And they introduced us to the spiritual malady on page 64. And they get us to this idea of understanding that maybe there are some things that we need to look at that have nothing to do with alcohol. Wow. You see? Bill and those guys, when you use words like next we launch down on a course of vigorous action, Bill and these guys knew this. I don't care what we do in 1, 2, and 3. I don' t care how fast we do it. I don''t care how profound the experience is that you will lose steam as you run down field. In AA land worldwide, we have people doing 1,2,3, 1,1,2,,1,1,,2,1.,2,,3 They relapse and they come right back over again We see this all the time. And yet everybody wants to just sit back and validate it like it's just a part of recovery. It's not. The next time they do one, two, three, get them started doing inventory right there. Get your date book out. You've got seven to ten days. Pick a day. I'm traveling that weekend and that weekend, but I'll be back then. How about the 19th set? That's it. Well, you can't rush them. Yeah, you kan. Listen. we forget who the healthy one is and who the sick one is you're a sick guy if you give go ahead give him six months you know when he'll start the inventory five months twenty nine days later he'll pick up a pencil and he'll work I don't care how long you give it to him he'll talk about it in meetings ad nauseum he'll waste your time on the telephone but he won't start it most guys won't stop it until they're sitting in the parking lot waiting for you to show up at the place where you're going to do the deal and they're writing like a mother but their hands are bleeding and shaking like this. And they go, like I was riding like this? I hate that bitch. And then, whoo, next page. And it's just like, wow, wow. Just set the date. We'll get into some questions. I just want to clarify something real quick on this inventory thing. This inventory is not life story in terms of your life story. I was born here, and I did this, and you can write it like that if you want to. In Texas, it's real big to journal your life story. And so you'll have 60 pages of you trying to justify your bad behavior. It's horrible. Ten-hour fifth steps where women are doing... One of the things they're doing in Texas now a lot with women is on an inventory, they'll go over and they'll start on Friday with a bunch of fuzzy toys and they have a little camp out in the living room and they will put sleeping bags out and big pillows and they light a bunch OF candles and they'LL be in there the whole weekend. Sunday, they'ILL be done with the inventory. and I'm going, guys, I'm not knocking it. If you did that, great. I'm nicht knocking it, I promise you. I'd like to kind of do some of that myself. You ever say something and wish you had the moment and you said it again? Maybe not, maybe not. Man up. But the deal is this. If you're sponsoring one woman or one man and you do this, great! I mean, that's super. But what if you're sponsoring 20 men or 30 men or 50 men? How do you do that? Nobody has that kind of time. Nobody. And so if you go back and you look again at the archives, look at the experiences of the first 100 and how they did these things, most of those inventories didn't last anywhere near that deal. I've listened to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundred of inventories. Scouts honor them. I've listen to hundreds of them And the longest inventory that I've done in the last 10 or 15 years was three hours. And most of them, I can do in an hour and 40 minutes, block to block, an hour and 40 Minutes. If you've got a guy that can't see his truth in an hour and forty minutes, then he's spending way too much time justifying bad behavior. Remember in the book, they always talk about it. They liken it to what? A commercial inventory. Well, I mean, if you're doing a commercial inventory in a store and you're looking at stuff that's bad, can you sell it? No, get rid of it. We don't need to look at why we can't sell it. I mean, serious? You guys that have done inventories like that, some of you aren't laughing at all because you're going, well, I like to listen to all this stuff. How many times does the piece start like this? Well, I was listening to my girlfriend and I had this dispute and we kind of got in a row and that kind of set the day up bad and then I was driving through Garland trying to... Well, I don't remember if it was... Yeah, I started out in Garland like this and I'm over there like this going, would you... It's a commercial inventory. Milk. Sour. Next. I don' t give a rat's butt why the milk was sour. We don' d need to know. We don't need to known because I promise you all you're trying to do is justify it. You see? In the last meeting that you were at where you felt slighted? What's the first thing you did after you got out of the meeting? If you felt that you'd been wronged in a meeting by something somebody said, if you felt like you'd be slighted some way or another, what's the very first thing you did when you got out of a meeting? I promise you, if you're like me, you reached for a cell phone and called somebody and said, did you hear what that guy said to me in there? Did you? Did you ? I mean, see, if I can get Marcus to hate you too, we can kind of get a little... I mean... And so we'll tell... This is the reason why some of us, once a piece of drama happens, we tell 40 people because we try to build this grievance against this guy so that I can justify my own behavior. But you're naturally like that. This is what selfishness and self-centeredness looks like at its ugliest because none of us will sit in our truck and look straight ahead and go, wow, I blew it in there. I had no right to dump on that guy that way. I had not right at all. I need to go find that guy. Healthy, it happens every day. but sick so pay attention to it like that and the inventory is trying to get us to see authentically who we are so we can see the ugliness and then once we see the ugniness we can take it in six and seven and get rid of this thing the reason I'm doing we're not walking through the whole steps I'm just saying in this first piece of this things because this is the problematic part if we this is like triage stuff the guy said well I like to read them through the whole book read them through the whole book but not now they're bleeding out you understand they're dying right there in your meeting like this scoop them up get them through the work. If you need to go back later and shore some stuff up, fine. Fine. But this idea of assuming that he's going to stay together until you get six months down range to get him through the steps, look at your own experience. I'm not saying it never happens that way, but I can tell you right now from doing it both ways, and I have the first seven years in AA, that's all I did was that. And the last year, the last years in EA where I've sponsored, I sponsored two men the first time, first round in AA in those seven years. And since then, I've sponsored hundreds and hundreds and thousands. I have no idea. And I can tell you right now that without a shadow of a doubt, a quicker, more focused path through the book is a much more profound ending to the story than to let them flounder and watch them get sick and you're sitting there powerless as they hit on women and do all kinds of crazy things in your meeting and say all kinds OF crazy things to their family members and do ALL this other kind of stuff. Just shore them up. Sponsorship, and then we're going to get some questions. Guys, sponsorship is like kids. How many of you guys got little kids? Like little bitty kids at one time? Or you've ever had little kids like this? When you have a toddler, what do you do? I mean, you're with him all the time. I mean you just can't let him go. I mean if they move that way, where do you go? To get coffee? No. I mean You don't. I mean If he moves that way you're right there with him like this. he moves this way I'm like right here and it's exactly the same way with brand new guys we're going to hold them we're gonna love on them we're kind of stay right there with them like this a couple of weeks they're getting healthier they work through this stuff you can see the power of God flow into the situation you can start making better decisions and what do you do by now your kid is in junior high by the time your kid is in senior high you better be able to go you're still seeing the problems and you're given advice you're saying okay really her come on I mean, you're still doing this, but by the time they're in high school as a parent, shouldn't we be able to sit back like this and go, okay, Lord, please. But you need to be more hands-off. Listen, your protege is a high school guy. By the time you've had him in that length of time like this, two or three months down range, if you still happen to be right on top of him at every meeting, if you can't take your eyes off of him because he's still hitting on women and doing crazy things, If you're still doing this, shore him up. Go grab him. Get him in and y'all have a chat. What's going on? By now, you should be plugged in here. What is it we didn't get covered that we should have gotten covered? What is It You're Lacking Here? What makes you think that you get this, right? But when we look at sponsorship from that perspective, then it's not so undaunting. It's not such a big issue because sometimes we think we've got to raise these guys. I have to take them. One of the most contentious arguments I ever had in AA was with a man who said, you can only sponsor one man, maybe two in your whole AA career. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, because you've got to be there for them and you can't do that. You can only effectively do that with maybe one or two men. And I'm going, we ain't raising them. We're getting them to God. We're giving them a spiritual path. That's what we signed up to do. I don't want the responsibility of raising this guy. I don' t want to have to make all of his decisions about his relationships and his money. I don''t want that responsibility. Come on. I'm just trying to get him on a spiritual path. Wow, that's good. And then sponsorship gets fun. And then if you're sponsoring five or six guys at a time, rock on. It's a scream. You guys that have already done it know exactly what I'm talking about. Life gets full and rich and you just get blown away by how exciting it is to be in the trenches helping other people. It's pretty cool. Okay, we've got... I talked two minutes too long. Any of you guys got any questions specifically about stuff like that? Go ahead. While we're asking questions, we're going to pass the Seventh Tradition can too. Ah, I love the Seventh Tradition. Let me... The interesting thing about AA and about questions around sponsorship especially is there's no stupid questions. I've never ever fielded a stupid question about any of this stuff because we all come in here with experiences that were spoon-handed to us, that were spoonful fed us and some of them are dead on and some are not so dead on and so we just kind of look at that stuff. If we don't talk about it now, We can talk about it later too if you're feeling particularly shy. Is weasel porn okay? No, it's not. I'll tell you. But you may not want to ask that in front of them. Ferret porn is okay. You guys got any questions? Anything? Okay. Yes, ma'am. Yeah, go ahead. Give me a question and I'll repeat it in here so they can do the deal. I can relate to being around for a while and not understanding anything about the book. Okay, that's not a question. But my question is this. A lot of people with years of sobriety will go, eh, progress, not perfection. Progress, not perception. And it's been pointed out to me by going to the Selfish group in one or another I go to. It specifically says spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection. And it's like that quote has been misused and misguided. And everybody sits there and goes, progress, not perfection. And I just want to upchuck the side of the head and go, spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection. Yeah, this is not so much a question as it is just a point, but it's a great point. The idea about spiritual perfection as opposed to people in AA just saying this is about progress, it's not perfection, I understand that we're never going to meet perfection. But let me tell you this, in the answer to that deal, Everything in AA is causal. Everything is connected. If you do this over here, you get this over there. So as you're working step work with a guy over here if he's doing the stuff over here it should manifest in a tangible way here. It should. And if it doesn't there's a question. We need to ask the question why? Why isn't it lining up over here? If you've got a guy that you'reworking with and he's acting a fool over here you've gotta shore it up. You've gotta... Bill wanted us to... I think it's always important to understand is the battle here is against your own head that sells you these ideas that self doesn't play any role in this thing. And all you have to do is simply look around your AA rooms at some of the nut jobs that are still sitting in the meeting talking about crazy stuff and you begin to ask the questions. Could that man benefit from another pass through the steps? Yes. Have him call me. We'll chat about it on the telephone. It's a great point. Yes, ma'am. When you're speaking to Andrew That's a great question. So if you've got a guy that came out of treatment that purportedly worked the steps in treatment, or especially 1, 2, and 3, and then he gets out, but he doesn't want to go back through 1, 2, and 3 with you as a brand new mentor out of the program. I just don't do it. I just tell him, look, here's the deal. Everything that we're doing from now on in AA is built on a foundation that's based on what you did, really what you said. I'm not doubting that you did the work, but if you did The Work, then you won't have a problem in going back through it. We can do it quickly. It's not going to take a bunch of time, But I don't base anything in AA on what somebody tells me. I'm not being disrespectful, but I'm just saying that there's too much stuff that's said out there that doesn't line up with somebody's actions. As I've gotten older, I pay much more attention to what people do instead of what they say. I'm não sendo desrespeitado. Mas se você diz que trabalha o trabalho, então deve estar manifestando na maneira que você está tratando os outros e na maneira como você está agindo e esse tipo de coisa. E se eu sentir qualquer coisa lá dentro, I'm going to take you back through and usually what I'll do is I'll say this I understand that that's the way you feel about it like this I'm not here to quarrel or argue with any of it why don't you do this if you work this work like this why don'T you teach me the first three steps you see and then we'll let them go listen if I asked right now if I said does everybody understand the first 3 steps every head in the room would go uh-huh if I passed out a piece of paper and I said would you write down the first 2 steps if you can explain it to me like this there'd be about ten of you that would start writing and then most of you would quit and look at me and most of me wouldn't even pick up a pencil because I've done this I've seen it happen like this that's my own story if you ask me if I understand it I'm going to go you bet I get it I got an ego but if you ask me to write it down so I have to be concrete about what it looks like but this is the reason why we're so enamored with the idea of studying the text this is why it's so effective if you understand it well enough to teach it then it's going to be groovy. Everything about this thing gets fun if you can teach it. There's far too many people that are here that are wonderful people that can't teach. And we just need to get everybody else on the same page teaching. Yes, ma'am? I have a question. I'm fairly new to the program and I haven't been involved in school that will be taught to people and I'm wondering how that works. I mean, I don't feel I'm ready because I don' t have experience Do you ever read how it works, chapter 5, how it works? We read it in front of every meeting in Dallas. We don't in our meetings, but they do in most AA meetings. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed a path. If you read down into the second paragraph, it'll nail it. It'll tell you exactly what the deal is on it. Our stories disclose in a general way what we It used to be like what happened and what we are like now. If you've decided that you want what we have, thing one, and are willing to go to any length to get it, thing two, then you're ready to take certain steps. So it's possible, it's impossible that a man, one day sober, could be ready to do that thing and then he's ready to make the decision and he's going to be ready to take some steps. And once you've begun taking the steps, the only thing that stops you from sponsorship is whether or not you've had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. And that's black and white, guys. That's like talking about sex and having sex. You see what I'm saying? I mean, it's just like if you've had this experience that's fairly profound as a result of doing this thing. Now listen, if you haven't, and I don't care how long you've been sober, if you have not had the experience, let's talk about that. Why? I mean there is nothing that says, well if you don't get it when you first get here, you're just screwed. Just go away. Come on. I was seven years here before I ever even knew what a spiritual experience looked like. Much less have. But once I had it, I remember sitting back going, holy cow. Wow. You see what I'm saying? I got articles from early guys in AA that were talking about sponsoring people two weeks sober. Two weeks. So, I mean, your head's always going to sell you the idea that you're not good enough. I don't care how long you've been in AA. I don'T care how prolific you are. I DON'T care what you bring to the table. Your head's ALWAYS going to say, I'M NOT GOOD ENOUGH. And you've got to nip that in the bud. We're going to talk about that tonight. Yes, ma'am. Oh, yes, sir. Yeah, last time I looked, there's no diploma on my wall behind me. I'm not a doctor. I don't get mixed up in the idea of meds and whether or not... There are a lot of medications that people need to be on in order to function. And so I'm going to be I'm just not going to get into this deal going I'm NOT going to sponsor you if you're on benzodiazepine or if you are on some things like this that may be problematic. I'm gonna want to sit down and ask you some questions about when you were assessed and if you could possibly be reassessed. Because how many of you guys told your doctors the truth when you were out there acting a fool? I mean, most of us didn't. I mean most of them told bold-faced lies about that stuff and so then we were assessed based on the information that we gave these doctors and so this is the reason why. You understand what I'm saying? Sometimes we paint with a brush that's way too big around that area. If they're on any kind of meds, I don't work with them because they're not sober. Wow, I think that's a mistake because there's some folks that must have the meds in order to function as human beings. Clinically, that's where they are and I'm not going to judge it. I'm going to do the very best I can. I signed up to do one thing, help. I want to be of help and I'll do as much as I can, see? I'm sorry, we had a couple... Huh? We'll take one more and then tonight I'll deal with it. I'll give you the deal like that. You were up earlier. Yeah, I just made a suggestion This almost always goes back to step one, truth. Either they don't understand how to do it and if that's the case, they needed to tell you that. I don't know how to teach them or I don' t understand how to do this and that's my responsibility to teach him. but if they understand what they're doing or they pretty much have an idea about what they are doing and they don't do it it's because they don' t think that they have to do it this is step one issues I don't think that I have a chronic disease flip it around and look at it from a perspective of if I told the cat he had cancer and he says oh shit what do I do Monday be at the clinic they open at 8 o'clock where do you think you would be Monday at 6.30am at the clinical because you take it seriously The problem is we get warm and fuzzy sitting in meetings like this and we start to sell ourselves the idea that it wasn't that bad. So you show me that, and usually it goes back to step one truth. We really do have to stop because of the taping stuff. But I'll tell you what, tonight I'm going to do a little piece of story stuff if you guys can make it back, and then we'll answer some more questions if you'd like to, okay? Thank you all very much.