Why the Big Book Says the Newcomer Should Not Just Sit and Sit – Myers R.

Hey, you guys. Thanks, Al. I appreciate it a whole bunch. I think the screen makes me look older than I actually am. No, maybe not. It's amazing. I'll meet people sometimes and they'll go, I've been listening to your talks for a long time and I thought you'd be bigger. And I'm just going, leave me alone. Okay. Just please. it's really good to be here y'all I for those that I haven't met my name is Myers Raymer a very grateful recovered alcoholic for 40 years I was from Dallas and we just moved to central Texas which is down kind of west of Austin and it's real it's Real Pretty down here but it's a weird deal to when you've lived in one place for a long time and then you move someplace else Some of y'all would know that, but I wasn't even sort of prepared. You know, so here's what I wanted to do. I said, you know, I need to tell you a little piece of story to connect up some dots so that you'll understand where I'm coming from on some of this stuff. But I'll be real quick with that because I really want to talk about some nuts and bolts stuff about um about alcoholism and about what recovery looks like and um you know it's funny um i got an email the other day from this guy and he was absolutely nuclear on the on the email he was just like he he needed to to practice some i don't know patience maybe i don' t know he was he was real angry and and he says you can never recover from alcoholism And I said, well, OK. I said you do know that the book asked you to introduce yourself as recover over on page 90. Well, we won't read it now, but just just saying the some of what I want to talk about tonight is some some ticket items like that. Just some some some things that will kind of connect some dots. Now, you need to in full transparency, you need to know that I'm the guy who was sober quote unquote for seven years in AA and couldn't tell you who the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous were. I didn't know we didn't talk about that stuff. We talked about your squirrel dying and your job interview that didn't go well. And we talked about all that. I'm never knocking that. I think it's important to have a place to talk about your pet squirrel dying, but I'd say this, the brand new guy sitting in the room that's been sober for three days just between me and you, they don't care. They want to talk about something. Can I get up in the morning and not drink? Which would be pretty cool. which would be pretty cool. Um, so anyway, the, the my twin brother, Chris, um, uh, took me to my very first meeting, um in January, January 15th of 88. Chris had sobered up November of 87 two months before me and he never lets me forget that ever. Um I'm three minutes older so I'm the wiser one but i guess i never let him forget that either but um he took me to my first meeting and um and i'm i'm one of those kind of guys that fell in love with this fellowship i there's i love the stories i love people i love everything about this stuff um and uh at that one sobriety day i just but but it got weird and and i see this a lot of times i used to think i was the only guy that ever struggled with this. But at about two years sober, the stories aren't very fun anymore. And it's just kind of odd. I'm kind of struggling with some things. My wife, who was totally digging the fact that I was sober, is kind of not digging it so much. We had another daughter, so I've got two daughters now and we'd end up having another one too. But they're not digging me very much and and um i'm doing this space over one day at a time stuff i'm going to to a bunch of meetings i have a sponsor in name only i've never worked the steps and i've never read the text um i just every time somebody says something like you know you're the most important person in the room you just sit and listen tonight well i didn't know that they meant I thought they meant forever. I didn't know that I had to actually get in the game at some point in time, but by the time I'm four, almost five years sober, I'm struggling with some anxiety disorder. I've got some depression issues that's starting to come back that I thought was gone completely. I'm starting to have suicidal thoughts, which I had never had before. I had some depression but never like this um i'm starting to do crazy things at the end of my sixth year of sobriety my wife has now said i think i'm done with this and she's packing to move to uh houston and they were gonna she's gonna live with her sister and um we it's just a real uncomfortable life that we're living um the um let me ask you how many of y'all have ever um left an aa meeting feeling like a spiritual giant you there you just what a fantastic share in there tonight and then by the time you get home you're twisted around the axle about something that happens somebody cut in front of you and you flip them off and you're all of a sudden and you walk in the door like some wild man and your family's looking at you going like well who i mean they don't know who's coming home is is is the spiritual giant coming home or is the marquee the side coming home, who I'm just my kids are terrified of me. My wife is just I don't want to have anything to do with you like this. And and my head, as goofy as it is, is reciting over and over. Well, at least you're sober today. At least you're sobre today. And that's, you know, that's kind of the deal. And so I'm starting to manifest these things later, I would understand that it was restless, irritable and discontent um but i didn't understand it at the time i'm starting to eat i'm eating like a half a gallon of bluebell ice cream every night y'all come to texas i don't know if they have that up there where y' all are but i hope they do because it's like that's what god eats every night is bluebell iced cream it's amazing but i'm eaten a half a gallon every night my face is about this big and i just i'm looking at a bunch of stuff that i that i shouldn't be listening to well there you're back my phone just rang it didn't um and the the um i'm spending money on lots of things that i don't need um guys i learned how to fly uh an airplane when i first sobered up that was my big goal in life i wanted to finish i'd been studying for a pilot's license uh for years and years but i couldn't stay sober enough to fly with an examiner. And so I didn't think I was ever going to get to do it. And so the, I think the FAA is a little bit picky that they won't fly with a drunk guy, but that's just me, you know, maybe I'm being too sensitive. Um, but the, the, um, I finally got that license and got another license and then got another licence. And then I bought this airplane and it wasn't big enough. So I had to buy another airplane. And Then eventually i bought another one and my wife is over there looking at me going let's see she's my business partner too in the bindery and so she's looking atme and she's going listen we can't afford one airplane and you own three now um it just it just but i'm i'm just my the point i'm making is is that later i would recognize this with great clarity that i'm struggling with restless irritable and discontent stuff. And I'm trying to fix it any way that I can. I don't want to drink and I don'T want to go do any of that other crazy crap. I DON'T, I DONT WANT TO BE LOADED AGAIN. AND I KNOW THAT, BUT GUYS, THIS, THIS PICTURE STUFF, THIS GOING TO MEETINGS AND STUFF. THIS IS NOT SCRATCHING THE ITCH. THIS Is NOT TAKING CARE OF WHAT'S GOING ON. AND SOME of you may have have done that i'm i'm never bad mouth in meetings but i get concerned when people put the meeting at the center of the program and then um end up kind of wondering later if that's all there is because i'm telling you i don't care how dynamic the meeting is at some point in time down range you're not going to dig the meeting it's going to be uncomfortable for you and and i just think that that there's more that bill wilson um uh was was uh was on to something um i'm almost i'm just three weeks shy of seven years sober and i almost drank and it scared me really bad i didn't want to do that and i wasn't i didn' t i wasn' t prepared for what was happening and um i uh called chris and and he said man i've been trying for a long time to help. I've been trying to tell you that he's since moved to the hill country down where I am now, and he said I knew that you needed to find some help. You need to find more than just going to a meeting with a bunch of nice people. There's a program there that would help, and so that's what I did. Well, he connected me with a guy named Cliff Bishop. He was a crusty old dude he passed away three or four years ago and he was an amazing guy he was sponsored by joe mcquain of joe and charlie fame so you could see where the big book stuff was coming in and so here i am at seven years in the program um and finally starting to connect up dots a little bit of this and a little Bit of history and a Little bit of what bill's intention was and what the first 100 really intended for us to glean from that book, which was flat magic. I never ever dreamed. I thought the big book was just something we carried into a meeting sometimes and set a coffee cup on, and you can read it if you're new, but I'm not new anymore, so I don't need to read it. It was just sort of uncomfortable, and no wonder I missed so much during the beginning of that. Um, one of the things early on that, that occurred to me after talking to Clifford and after working the steps, we worked back through the work in about 35 days, I'd had this amazing experience with it. And it was kind of a life changing deal. And I, um, one OF the things that happened was, is that he began to explain how important it was that I work with others. And I said, well, you know, I'm going to a bunch of meetings. He said, you don't think that's what bill was talking about myers they only had one meeting a week when when the book was written and so i they the meeting wasn't the center of this stuff it was some other stuff and i went well okay and eventually i kept putting it off and literally guys for two years after i met clifford i still put off this this uh obligation to help others and it was a little embarrassing eventually what happened was I he tricked me into going to a place a wind-up joint to carry a message and and I did and they sort of overwhelmed me with questions and and my life was just sort of transformed and I realized that I didn't have to be witty I didn'T have to be real smart I DIDN'T have TO BE ANYTHING ALL I HAD TO DO WAS HAVE A BASIC UNDERSTANDING of the text that I could pass on to others. There's a little piece on page 17. I want to read a couple of things, and then I'll set this book down. On page 17, there's a little piece in there two-thirds of the way down the page. It says, The feeling of having shared in common peril is one element in powerful cement which binds us. the fact that we're all together in a room the fact that we are together that's cool and it's a cool piece and then it goes on but that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined the tremendous fact for every one of us is that we've discovered a common solution now y'all this common solution is what had eluded me because I didn't know don't get me wrong the way that I carry the message and the way that Al carries the message or the way that Andy carries the message, we're going to carry the message differently. But the message that we carry is going to be really, really close to the same thing based on something. Something's got to set the baseline. Something has to set that so that we're all carrying the same thing. Otherwise, we'll just being confusing and we're causing more damage than good. than good. Let me give you a quick example. How many of y'all have ever been to a meeting where somebody would share some, you're digging all these people, okay? And somebody shares, well, you know, my sponsor had me through the work in 35 or 40 days and I had a great experience and it was pretty powerful experience. And then a couple of shares later, somebody shares well, you know my sponsor said that it's no race and we're doing one step every month and we are going to eventually get through it okay now it's fine there is not a real problem except that what if Al was sitting in his second third or fourth meeting that he had ever been to and he is sitting there listening to these people who he already loves he already adores these people and respects them for, for what they're doing, but he can't help but being confused. Wait a minute. This guy over here said this, and this guy over there said this and they're diametrically opposed to each other. What do I do? You see what I'm saying guys? One of the, one of the big mistakes I think that we make sometimes in the, in these rooms is that we allow the newcomer to make a lot of decisions early on that maybe they don't need to be making. Um, uh, maybe we could help them, um, by qualifying them, helping them see what their truth is and helping them understand the need to kind of get through some of this stuff. I remember one time having breakfast with Joe McQuaid and Clifford, and we were talking about a bunch of this and, and, uh... I learned a lot from those breakfasts because they were, they were just talking casually about some of these. And one of the things that he said was, he said Myers um I sometimes get the impression that you think that you can control a lot of stuff and I said well I guess I do to to an extent and he said let me tell you two things that I can't give you in AA and I went okay I canít give you gratitude and I canít give you willingness and I meant well okay and at the time I didnít even understand why it was important like that Listen, setting gratitude aside for a minute and just looking at willingness. Have you all ever experienced that? How fleeting willingness can be? Listen, I spent a lot of time in AA working part-time for some treatment places up in the Dallas area and then later for one down in South Texas. I used to fly down for 10 days every month for eight years. I'd fly down, teach for 10 días, and then go back to Dallas. But it was fun times 10. It was a terrific experience. But I'm amazed at how you would see people that were at one particular point, they were so excited about AA and about recovery and about doing this work and stuff that it was just phenomenal. But you let them sit for a while. Let them sit doing absolutely nothing except trying to figure out the mistakes that they made, and when I get rid of that girlfriend and I get me a new girlfriend, things are going to be groovy, and I'm going to get me a good car, got to have a fast ride, and they're just kind of putting this together up in their head, and i've watched these people go from 100 willing i'll do whatever it takes here to over here going you know i'm just going to go to some meetings and try to enjoy the fellowship for a while i don't really need to do this this work right now i get it i mean i understand i i completely get under where you're coming from like that the problem with this stuff is um is it bill wilson and the first 100 they used words like let's see next we launched out on a course of vigorous action remember that and there's a half a dozen other places in there where they speak next next they they're there's some energy there and they're trying to get us to move um towards something um one of my favorite questions when i travel to conventions and conferences is to ask folks um why um uh what they think the bill wilson in the first 100 the early aa um how long did it take people to get through the work. Um, and everybody wants it to be long, long and drawn out. We go back and read the, the, um, autobiography of, uh, of Clarence Snyder is a great one, but there's a whole bunch more out there that have been written online that you can read them out like that. And it's amazing how quickly people were getting through the Work, how, how fast they were doing that um and they were circumventing that willingness problem they were getting people ready and then they were just going straight to it which which i think lines up better with with the with the basic text um so it's one of those things where i think my job as a sponsor going into this thing is to help you understand a what your truth is around your addiction guys listen you can be a member of alcoholics anonymous if you say you're a member there's no qualification to be a member you just have to if you want to be a member come on but if you're an alcoholic you have to walk like an alcoholic and quack like an an alcoholic i mean it's like the old duck thing it's not like you you have that you have to fit a particular deal or stories are 100% in different directions they go everywhere like this look at the way the book set up let me take one little nerdy side road here and then i'll get it over with i promise um look at the way the book is set up silkware story in the early part of the book talks 98 percent of everything that they talked about in that in that uh story in that story in doc's opinion was about the physical allergy which was amazingly unique in those days they i mean all of a sudden they just got kind of bitch slapped by this idea wait wait a minute some of these guys um can't can't keep from coming back they it's just kind of crazy and they start looking at this thing and they realized that some of these guys were were drinking um more than they intended to they genuinely didn't want to but when they started the physical piece kicked in and it was a wild idea that was most of what his story was talking about on this kind of stuff then we get we have uh bill's story in the center of that right after that and then we have two chapters chapter two and chapter three where uh more about alcoholism and there is a solution where they're talking primarily 98 of all of that is talking about one thing this weird mental obsession that comes into the picture let me ask you something how many of y'all have ever told your family you were never going to drink again ever and then you did let the taping record show we do that i mean we we do that but after a while if you do it long enough you will realize and recognize that man this is crazy what i'm what what's happening here people say oh well if you're an alcoholic if your mouth's moving you're lying quit saying that a it's disrespectful and b it's not true it's it's not true let me tell you something when i told my wife like like she's standing right in front of me and I'm in tears because of what just happened. And I tell her, I'm never going to do this again. I wasn't playing games with that woman. I mean, she's my business partner and my wife of 40 years. I'm the mother of my kids. There's no way I was playing games with her. I was 100% serious when I told her that I wasn'T going to do it. I WASN'T going to. And then 48 hours later, I get a little thirsty coming home from work and I'M thinking, And you know what? I could drink one beer. It's no big deal. It's not, I understand. I've got complete control of this now. And I drink a beer and there it is all over again. Did I go, did I go home stinking drunk and throwing things? Not necessarily, maybe not, but here's the deal. I told her I was never going to do it again. And I did it. Now, if that doesn't look like insanity, but that's why Bill Wilson spends so much time talking about it. You got 20 straight pages in there where they're not talking about anything other than this insanity of stone cold sober. No booze anywhere in me. Why do I pick up that drink again? I can be perfectly normal, guys. I've got a building with my name on the side of it and I've Got I've GOT all the stuff I want. I got, uh-uh. This has nothing to do with me being a nut job. This has to do with I can be perfectly normal in every area of my life except where this booze thing comes from and I'm baffled and it seemed to take me forever to finally connect up the dots and realize that they were telling me the truth. Sometimes when you're in a book study when y'all are just studying the text like that Go back and look at how many times Bill Wilson refers us back to the chapter on alcoholism, chapter three. They do it in the chapter of the wives. They do It in the week Gnostics. They're referring us back To these chapters because they want you to understand what the nature of alcoholism looks like. Guys, if you can't explain what your own disease is, how can you teach it? And if you Can't teach it, how could you help others? people go oh myers come on you're just it's no big deal we all we all are on the same page with that i'm going well if we're on the samepage how come it is that every time we're in a meeting and somebody says something about alcoholism what is alcoholism guess um um how how many shares it'll take before somebody says well you know i know that but you know for me it was that dwi eye and then it's where's a 90 degree angle right there we deserve turn right and now everything we're talking about is the drama around our alcoholism but the drama doesn't define your disease it doesn't what defines your disease is is is this this physical allergy and this mental obsession that won't let me um do what i say i'm gonna do later 64 pages into the book bill will introduces to the third component of this thing, the spiritual malady. Now when I'm teaching it, if I'm teachin' it like in a workshop or somethin' like this, well, you have to teach it. You have to let people know that it's there, but I teach it separately because I want people to understand this physical component that's kickin' my rear end, that's just between me and all you other little drunks that are in this room. It's the same thing with the mental obsession. Why is it that I cannot let go of that, that it just creeps in even after I say I'm not going to do it like this. The spiritual malady that Bill Wilson talks about on page 64 is of great interest, but it affects everybody. All God's kids struggle with a spiritual malody, all God's kids, and here's the deal. When my wife, who is a picture of mental health, when my wife gets goofy, if she gets depressed or if she get agitated, she'll call somebody. She'll talk to somebody. She'll go see a preacher. She will go see therapist. I mean, talk to friends. She will deal with it like healthy people do. You know what I do? Well, I don't want to drink, but I could smoke a joint, a joint would probably connect up the dots. And you know, it would be just like my head's always turning back towards the quick fix of dealing with what it is. It's insane. Anyway, once you begin to once you connect up the dots with that, then you're you got 90% of the battle won once you understand that you're not going to exert willpower to make this happen. stop and look about, let me, I want to tell you a quick story first, and then we'll get over there and look at that stuff. They, how many of you have talked about or heard in meetings people talking about just staying sober one day at a time? Well, most of us do. We talk about it all the time, and we'll hear it like this. The interesting part is, is Bill and those guys in the first 100 never wrote that in the big book it was there they talked about staying sober for good and for all we live life one day at a time there's a big distinction here guys um the uh we used to have this guy named horse jim i never did figure out what his other name was but horse jem is what we always called him and and and horse this was in my early days in aa before i left that first group and horse would always go well my name's horse jim and i'm sober today okay great that's that makes me really want to move towards what you got i'm telling you but um the um it it was crazy there was a there's a guy in um that i met down on the island when i was working down at for origins and um he was a winter texan he was come he came from minnesota or someplace and he'd come to, to the Valley and he'd stay the winter. And we, I'd always see him on Saturday night meetings. We take our patients over there. And the and he started, we had this great topic one night. We were talking about the big book and stuff. And he said, I know we've been talking about this, but I want to talk about something else. And, and he was right toward the end of the meeting. And I said, everybody said, okay, go ahead. And so he said. I want you to tell me a story that happened this morning. And he starts telling this story about taking his dog on the beach with no leech which you don't do down there and um the um he got into a pissing contest with a bunch of folks and they called the cops and it got all goofy and it was just sort of a crazy deal and um and he said now before you any any big book guys jump in here and correct me here i just want to make sure that you're clear of one thing this program is about staying sober one day at a time and this guy's been sober 34 years and i and i didn't say anything it's a candlelight meeting and I'm just going to sit back like this. And next day in big book, those guys said, Mars, we could see smoke coming out of your ears. And I went, ah, it's okay, guys. It's fine. That's just what he'd been taught. AndI get that. That's okay. The problem I have with it, the problem I had with it is that it sells a message to every new person that walks in the room, that this whole thing is about staying sober one day at a time. And it's not all I'll tell you the reason why if you go back and you look at any of the literature, early literature, they don't mention it like that the book doesn't mention about that. And it's one of those things where I in the words of Mark Houston, I smell more, I smell more. I, it was one of those things where I just, um, uh, I think that it's one of those things Where, um there's so much cool stuff going on that we could have if we just would look at the text and recognize what's there and then teach that to the, to the folks that are over there. People talk about being sober one day at a time. I mean in the words of Mickey Bush, so is the cat. I mean, I don't understand where that deal is, where it's so important. Anyway, one of these days when you don't have anything else to do, go back and look at the big book starting at the ABCs on page 60 and read from 60 to 63 where the third step prayer is so you got two and a half pages there and i want to point out a couple of things really quick one notice that bill wilson stops talking about alcohol completely he doesn't mention it in those pages what he does do though is introduce us to an idea that's completely foreign to most of us that maybe canadian whiskey and later methamphetamines was the root of my problem he doesn't say that what he says was selfishness and self-centeredness that we think is the root of our problem and i'm sitting there going no way no way because all i need to do is i need you get the booze out of the picture and i am going to be a stellar dude i am gonna be the kind of guy that my wife wanted from day one right well that's wrong because you know what happened i'm seven years sober quote unquote and i'm um i people can't live with me my kids hate me and my wife is scared spitless of me because she doesn't know who i am anymore i'm manifesting all kinds of weird stuff and this is why this stuff was so important to understand and and bill knew that that's the reason why that stuff was dropped right there any of y'all ever wonder why he put it there. Why did Bill Wilson set that there? And of all the places, it was like they found part of the manuscript later and went, Bill, what the hell are we supposed to do with this part right here? And he said, I don't know, just stick it right there. Because it's a complete change in what it was that they were talking about. They've stopped talking about alcoholism and what it is. And they've started talking about this idea that maybe we need to look at other things too. Listen, the reason that I take up the time to talk about it, the reason I mention it is in sponsor land, what I am blown away with is how few men that I'm working with will understand that maybe there's more to look at here, maybe there's more to look at than just the sobriety part of this deal. I'm not making light of the sobrietty deal. Let me bring in another little piece of this puzzle and then we'll, I'll join it back up again, I promise you. Well, maybe not, but I'm going to try anyway like that. Don Pritz, one of my favorite iconic AA guys, sobered up in the federal penitentiary system in the 60s, and Don was an iconic guy. He was pretty amazing like that, and he truly was a remarkable guy. When sometimes, if y'all get tired of looking at reruns of Storage Wars sometimes, and you just want something fun to look at or listen to, go back, and all of those talks are online now. Go back and look at some of those talk. And in some of early talks in the late 60s early 70s, Don would, there was one talk in particular that really caught me off guard. He said, you know, as a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I am concerned that these days we tend to spend more time talking about sobriety and less time talking About Recovery. And it was the first time that I connected stuff up and began to realize that maybe, and then later, I would hear more and more and eventually i understood exactly what it was that he was saying because the book begins with the idea that we could recover from a hopeless disease of mind and body it begins with that and time after time after times they keep telling us that recovery is what we were after that we can recover from this will i always be an alcoholic sure sure will i have to deal with the obsession stuff no that's the point if the insanity goes away then i can just stand by my my original idea of not doing this um and and that's the reason why i'm not a big fan of trigger lists and a lot of you know programs that are trying to throw a bunch of other stuff in guys i'm i'm telling you zoom land in the last year and a half i've heard some amazing things and i've hurt some things that made me sit back and went oh my gosh um i understand the the wonderful people that will still talk about thinking through the drink and all the little aphorisms off the wall and this kind of stuff but i gotta tell you guys if if if we're depending on you to keep you sober we're we're in trouble because it's a train wreck getting ready to happen like that this is the reason why our reliance on our on our creator was so important that we understood that lack of power that was our dilemma and we had to find the power and then they give us 11 more steps to get us to get rid of the stuff in them that are standing between us and that's the reason why bill wilson put all of that stuff right where he did right before the inventory we're going to do the third step prayer and then we're gonna jump next we launched out of, of course, the vigorous action to this inventory. And Bill was trying to get us to understand this is no longer about the alcoholism or the addiction. This is not about that. I mean, in an indirect way it is, but in the bigger picture, this is about what if you wake up one day and realize that you're the turd in your own punch bowl? That you're not a likable guy, that you are inauthentic as you can be. When I read that 60, 61, 62 stuff like that, and they talk about this stage character, it makes me sick at my stomach to remember how bad I felt when I finally connected with those two and a half pages and went, holy crap, no wonder my wife doesn't want to be around me. No wonder my kids are scared of me. I'm as inauthENTIC as I can be. This is the reason this stuff gets to be so important, y'all. It gets to be real important. How many of you sometimes feel like a stage character? You ever, I used to ride motorcycles and fly airplanes with my buddies and we'd be cussing like sailors and acting crazy and saying all kinds of horrible crap to each other. And it was just like, and then I'm trying to live this spiritual life. It's like how many times have you seen spiritual giants in a meeting and then two days later you found out that he was cheating on his wife it happens guys i'm not standing from some mountaintop pointing fingers at people i'm just saying that that bill wilson if you read anything that bill Wilson wrote after the early 50s when they got the traditions codified and and accepted anything that he wrote after that was about emotional sobriety. It was about this, who are we inside? Are we authentic? Are we still inauthentic idiots? And I was, I was. Listen, y'all, I'm totally swept away even today by the fact that I'm sober. That 33 years later, I still am sober. It's the coolest thing in the whole wide world. But I'm far more impressed. I'm far more excited that today I get to live a life where I care about my character, where I cares who I am. I think Bill Wilson from early on realized that authenticity was huge, that we had to quit playing the stage character. We had to quick play in that guy that can be really nice early in the evening until he figures out that he's not going to get what he wants and then he turns into an absolute yeah bad guy yeah that i mean that's i'll tell you a quick story it was just it was just a um i've run a lot and i've always been obsessed with it sort of and it's always real fun for me to get out it's like church for me to be out running and and i was running down on the down on the coast one time down that island and i happened to be running during spring break, which is not a good thing to do. And I remember as I was running around a group of kids that were there, there was probably 25 or 30 kids in this little army walking down the seawall there. And as I went around them, I stepped on my shoelaces, which I'm too lazy to double tie and I fell and just busted my ass. I felt like it sounded like a big old bunch of sticks hitting the ground like this. And that is kind of like, oh man. And, and I hear this kid behind me starts laughing. And then another kid starts laughing and then another kid starts clapping. And pretty soon the whole group of people are just laughing their asses off like this. And about that time, somebody picks me up from behind and I look back over my shoulder and there was a little guy that used to live on the beach. He was like a little indigent guy that use to just live down there in a tent. And he was standing out there watching the whole thing and he picked me up and he said, he said, Hey, old timer, you okay? And I went, I'm okay. I'm just going to learn to double tie these shoestrings so this doesn't happen again and he laughed and said you want me to walk with you for a minute and I went no I think I'm okay and he said all right I just just just let me know and and um I took a hard left to get away from the kids as I'm walking as I'M walking and then trying to run again down that road it occurred to me that there were people in that group that probably would not have laughed had it not been for everybody else laughing. I think some of those kids' mamas would have said something about them if they had seen that, and this is the part I'm trying to make, the point I'm starting to get to like that, is that we get to decide every day when we get up if we're going to be men and women of integrity, men and woman who will do what they say they're going to do um or we can drift back towards this life of inconsistency and i'm going to do what makes me feel better and and what seems to be the right thing to do guys one of the funniest things i get a chance to do is watch the men that i sponsor in big aa meetings and our one that we had in dallas was over 200 people there on a tuesday night and it was interesting watching the men that i sponsor and how they would interact with other men that we sponsor and and other people in the room and sometimes they'd be stellar and then sometimes you'd see them and they would be um you know kind of co-signing other people's crap letting you know turning their head when when somebody is one of our guys is doing something they shouldn't be doing and it's just it speaks of who we really are. At the end of this all, as you get older, eventually you'll get old like me and you'll look back and decide what's important in life. If just being sober one day at a time is enough, then walk on. Do that. But I think what you're going to find is if I could recognize that I'm a stage character in 60, 61, and 62, and then I could deal with the inventory that's just getting ready to come up and then i could take the things that i see the inconsistencies and the goofy stuff and ask god in six and seven to remove them these are the things that i say are objectionable i didn't before but i do now you see um um i think it's important to to to see and then I could find myself in a position where I could be okay um in my own skin. Let me, I want to circle back and talk about something real quick before we get out of here. This idea of sponsorship, it's a funny thing through the COVID stuff and the stuff. I've met some wonderful people, but I've also seen a really kind of a dearth of people willing to step up and sponsor people. It's amazing how many people I get. I get 10 or 15 emails every week from people looking for people to help them. And I'm trying to find out where they are. And it's just it's so easy just to go click and you're off the deal. You know, you're off the Zoom. And so as we get back to in-person stuff, or even if we stay on Zoom stuff for a while, let's hang out. Let's stay and so that we can try to help new people that are coming in. This is from a man that's going to have to jump out of here right after this talk is over because I've got an in- person meeting 100 yards down the street where we are here in central texas but um normally i'd hang anyhow here's the deal um um we get to decide how many of y'all and it's okay if you do but um the idea in the old days there used to be a lot of conversation about reading the big book to the newcomer where we're going to read the big book from start to finish when we work the steps i love the idea i i kind of cringe because it doesn't seem to be really possible in a lot of situations, especially with the Zoom stuff, trying to get that kind of scheduling together. This is the reason why I'm 110% in love with book studies. You can't mess up a book study. 110% newcomers can come in and get information that they need. It's an amazing thing. My big fear in the discussion realm is that somebody will take a meeting hostage. The topic will slide sideways and pretty soon they're listening to things that don't mean anything to them. I always want to make sure people are clear. I'm never saying that it's not important to have a place that you can share goofy stuff, your crazy day or whatever's going on. Really, I think a sponsor sounds better than a group, but I could be wrong. But I love the idea of just being able to call a sponsor and saying hey i'm off the chain and i need to talk about that and i think that's a that's a fine thing y'all remember how it works in in in chapter five we read this so often that i think sometimes we forget what's in it in most meetings we'll read it before the meetings and and um we don't in ours because we've got some other stuff to read but in i bet you most meetings they do read that which is which is groovy halfway down the page on this thing it says our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like what happened what we're like now we get cool on that and then this line just just blew me apart one night in a meeting in a book study and uh because i've never seen it before if you've decided that you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it then you're ready to take certain steps no no no stick with me okay this is amazing stuff right here because what it's telling of me is when to work the steps with somebody that I'm working with. If I'm sponsoring Andy, and we're visiting on this stuff, and I'm going to ask him at some point in time, we're sitting on the tailgate of my pickup 30 minutes before the meeting starts, and I'M ASKING ANDY SOME QUESTIONS. I'M GOING TO GO TO PAGE 44, AND I'M GONNA ASK HIM THE LITTLE QUESTIONS IN WE AGNOSTICS, THAT LITTLES FIRST PARAGRAPH, IF WHEN YOU HONESTLY WANT TO, YOU FIND YOU CANNOT QUIT ENTIRELY, THAT PIECE. I'LL TRY TO QUALIFY HIM A LITTLe BIT. i'm not trying to run him off i'm trying to help him see the truth about his condition and then um we may get to a place i'll ask him a little bit more and then i'm going to ask me if you've decided that you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it then you're ready to take certain steps which means that we could theoretically start working the work right then and i could ask him some questions about step one and about step two and about step three guys i cannot count i can't count how many men i've done step one two and three sitting on the tailgate of my pickup and they hadn't been to a meeting yet i know everybody goes nuts they go no you can't do that why not why not i mean it's just so we're going to let him go into the meeting and sit and sitand sit and set and sit until eventually he builds a case against us because that's what will happen and i've watched this we don't have time to go into it tonight but i've got the stats from the um harris county intergroup office which is down around houston down on the coast um uh and it will blow you away how many 1600 desire chips given out um in in um and guess how many what um um one month chips they gave away it rounds off to about 10 000 i mean about 6 000 you ended up with 10 000 people that left in one month now come on guys this is disturbing this is distrubing if that's the case and And statistically, anyway, it appears that that's the case. All Andy has to do is sit in enough meetings and listening to me. I'm going to talk about eating out of a dumpster and Al's going to talk about some sex party with collie dogs. And I mean, I don't, I'm kidding now, but, but it, but Andy's going be sitting there like this going, man, I never ate out of dumpster. And I'm not even a big fan of dogs. I'm Not even going to go close to dogs like that. And then all it takes is a couple of days of listening to things that you can't identify with. And pretty soon you'll build a case against us and you'll just go, I probably don't want to y'all. And you'll Just Disappear. We see it all the time. If you think I'm making this stuff up, y'ALL, the next time you have an opportunity in a discussion meeting to talk about something seriously, bring up the topic of qualifying the newcomer and watch how many people's hair just explodes. People, you'll have smoke coming out of people's ears. They'll be so irritated. listen, we're not trying to run anybody off. I want to be as inclusive and as kind and as gentle with everybody I come in contact with sitting in these meetings like this. But I'm telling you, based on the statistical stuff and based on what the big book says, time is not your friend. How many of y'all have ever paid attention to that little italic piece on page 24? It always makes me laugh when I read it because people this this is for all the folks that talk about. This is not a race. This is this is not. Yeah, it is more like that. Listen to what this says. I'm going to skip down. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force. The memory of suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago were without defense against the first drink. i've watched literally thousands and thousands of people coming into treatment willing ready to do whatever's necessary given enough time they'll do just what we were talking about a minute ago they'll simply move to the side of the room and and shut down um they're not going to be motivated to do this stuff guys if y'all ever get a chance there was a cat named paul fisher um that i think is dead now i think he passed away some years ago but he was a guy down in arizona i have a copy of his of this little uh uh it's two and a half page deal that wrote years ago called reflections of step one i'm not going to read a bunch of it but i'm Not even going to Read any of it, but what I wanted you to hear what they're trying to do is get us to understand um that um this step one truth shouldn't be an intellectual exercise It should be an emotional, in-your-gut kind of understanding that the disease that I have, genetic in nature, it may be exacerbated by trauma, but it's genetic in nature. This disease is destined 100% of the time to kill me or get me locked up. It's progressive. It gets worse, never better. You're not going to wake up someday and it's just going to be gone magically. That would be swell. This is the reason it's so important. I think that as quickly as we can, and as gently as we can, we help newcomers see and understand the nature of the disease so that they can see clearly because listen, if I understand on a gut level, I'm not talking intellectual because my I'll fight the fight in my head intellectually. I want to know on a cut level that I have something that's destined to kill me or get me locked up. And once I make that connection, the motivation is there. i will do anything and everything i can to move towards a solution as quickly as i can so that i can get out of this nightmare and once i begin to experience the steps once i began to experience what being with my creator looks like because of these disciplines i'll begin to find out that bill wilson really meant some of the things that he said i'm thinking specifically about some other promises come on guys walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe i mean this is some heady stuff but i think bill wilson meant it when he wrote it i think that those folks that put this together understood that we could do that and yet we have millions of us over the years that sell that stuff short i think one of the greatest services that you can do to yourself and to others is to help folks in these rooms understand, have you had an experience with this work that was profound enough that you moved to a different place? Read the traditions, ninth step traditions. I mean, these promises, ninth step promises, tenth step promises fifth step promises. And there's big pieces of them everywhere, but read any little piece of and then ask yourself have these manifested in my life if they have rock on rock on now get off your ass and go help somebody i mean this is a this isa very good thing you see but but what if it's not what if you're still consumed with anxiety and fear and and and all of these things that are going on what ifyou still feel this great distance between you and your creator like that. Listen, I'd rather know it and get busy moving back in the direction that I'm supposed to than to keep fooling myself that just because I have 16 years of sobriety or 18 or 20 or whatever it is that I am okay. One of the coolest things in the universe is being in a situation where you can work step work with somebody that's been in a room for 20 years and have them sit back and look at you and go, holy cow, I had no idea. I had no idea that life could be like this, that I could get up in the morning and sit still and be with my creator and know that life is okay. Guys, this is some heady stuff. And the only thing that's more heady than that, the only thing that it's even better than that is that a busted up train wreck of a drunk like me could work these steps have an experience that i never dreamed i could have and then be able to carry that message to others that are struggling that i could paint a picture that i can pull people with a vision of an amazing life transformed because i was willing to do this work now that at the end of your your gig here on earth at the end of this stuff and you're heading to see big homie, um, um look to be able to look back on your life and recognize that you could affect change in other people's lives. That's, that's amazing. The greatest gift that I've ever been given, um is that, um I'm not that smart. I'm not that quick. I am not but because I was able to listen to an old guy who had the courage to Tell me the truth. Myers, Myers, stop. You're going to die if you don't learn this. You're gonna die ifyou don't work these these steps the way they work that if we do what they did, we get what they got, which is just heaven. Guys, I think I'll hush up, man. I love y'all, and by all means, please send some cold weather like now, okay?