Why the Traditions Are Speed Bumps – Billy N.

And now, please help me welcome our main speaker for this evening, Billy N. from Beaufort, Georgia, on the topic of AA myths and misconceptions. I'm Billy, I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is January 5th of 1990. My home group is the Early Morning AA Literature Discussion Group. It meets at the NABBA Club, 730 every morning. Please, if you're ever in town, come by. I want to thank the committee for having me here. I was here last year. Looked forward to coming back. It's weird, you know, as you get older and you stay in AA longer. I hosted an event this week at a winery. It's crazy, my life, you Know? Like, I was in Napa all week with a bunch of other people in my industry. And, you know, it's so hard to think back about, you know, what can you really pull off in life? When you're smoking cigarettes somebody already smoked and put out. When you eat food somebody already ate and pushed outside. I mean, it is so hard. It is so difficult to explain to people, you know, the life that we're given here. Um, it's interesting. I'll tell you quickly that last year I was a trustee this year. I'm not a trusty. I am a past trustee, which is awesome. And I've embraced that role. I've embarrassed it. Um. But you know, life's funny and God can be do the right things to humble you. But, you know last about a year ago, I guess almost a year ago, I took a new position at my company. And when I took this position, um, I had to sit down with somebody in HR and they basically reviewed all the disasters that I just inherited that worked for me. You know, they had like a stack of files and they just gave me the five minute lowdown on some problems. And, uh, one of the people that they gave me, the lowdown on sounded awfully like myself. The story sounded very, very familiar. And then lo and behold, I'm in Boston. I'm meeting like 12 other people that I work with. And we all meet at this steakhouse the night before to get ready for our meeting. And I noticed that he's drinking. And I'm a big fan of To the Employer. I mean, I think that's one of the greatest chapters in the big book. One of the greatest chapters, not only about how to be an employer, but actually how to be a sponsor. If you follow what's in that, you will be on track. But anyway, he's drinking and I'm thinking, oh, this is not good. But what's funny is that a couple of weeks later through some circumstances, I heard that he was back on track and doing well. And so I hadn't run into him for a while, although technically he reports to me. But anyway, I was in Chicago and I met another 15 people for work to get ready for a big meeting the next day. And as I was coming out of the men's room, I ran into this guy. Now everybody knows, most people know I don't drink. Few know I'm a member of the club. But it's funny, you know, God is funny because he stopped me as I Was coming out to the men'S room and wanted to have a quick discussion with me. And he's a very bright, educated, successful 35-year-old way past where I was at 35. And you know, he said to me, he says, you know I just want you to know I got 110 days for the first time I have a home group, I have sponsor, I actually have a service commitment. And then he goes, you probably don't do any of that stuff anymore. And I'm standing there like Standing in the hallway of the bathroom, you know, leading out to the restaurant. And all you can do is chuckle to yourself, right? You can just chuckle. I was at a conference, I don't know, a month and a half ago. And I happened to be sitting at a table outside, minding my own business, smoking a cigar, enjoying the solitude. And a couple of guys sat down pretty close by. And I didn't know them. They didn't Know Me. and they started talking about service and they started talking the service manual and they started talking concepts and I'm just listening to all this and one thing led to another and all of a sudden I was in the conversation a little bit but it was very funny because when I when we all left to go back inside the one guy said to me do you have a service manual would you like one and I just said to my I just laughed to myself, all right, God, like it's exactly where I needed to be. I have quite an interesting topic tonight and a lot of directions I could go, a lot. This is not an audience of archivists and historians, a few but not all. If it was an audience of archivalists and historians, I would probably be debating very finite issues in the history of Alcoholics Anonymous and those myths, you know. Is AA's birth date right? How many people really wrote the big book? I mean, I could go on and on. But I had decided a couple of months ago that I wanted to be effective. If you've any heard... I mean... That word is a word we don't use a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous, but if you get a couple or two years ago of Tom I tapes, you probably can't go seven minutes into a tape without seeing hearing the first effective and then hearing effective used many times. Like there's a lot of things we do that are not effective. That's the truth. That is just the truth and so when I thought about this topic, how do you be effective to really talk about some myths and misconceptions that I see out there that really affect our lives as active members of Alcoholics Anonymous and active members of home groups and things that affect our fellowship as a whole. And so I asked some other people, I thought about it myself. I mean you can see I have quite a list of myths and misconceptions that I believe are out there. And you know the greatest thing any speaker can really do is piss off somebody in the audience because there's nothing worse than everybody just nodding their head in agreeing because then we become just some cult and we all think the same way. The best way to get somebody to read our literature is to say something that they don't agree with and let them start looking for themselves. I tell people all the time, my job when someone calls me with a question is not to give them an answer usually. It's more to tell them where they can find their own answer. My job as a service sponsor is not to have my own political party in Alcoholics Anonymous. My job, in fact, if I want to know I did my job right, then my service sponsees should be willing and able to vote against me even if we're sitting in the same vote. That's a sign that I did mine. That's my job. That's the sign that they did all their homework And believe it or not, they came to a different conclusion than me. We should celebrate that in Alcoholics Anonymous. The day that that stops happening, we don't have what we have today. And so I have my list of myths and misconceptions that I just wanted to talk about a little bit. But the first one that I have to talk about that I'll just mention quickly, maybe one of the greatest myths in Alcoholic Anonymous, is that AA was perfect in the beginning. If there was ever a greatest myth, it's that from June 10th, 1935, up until most of the founders and old timers died, AA was perfect. And they had no problems. I mean, I could put that right along with the myth that people used highlighters in 1937, right? It's not true, right. I mean there were no highlighters. There was no book. So when I hear people say things, or when I hear people saying, I want what the first hundred had. Well, which one of the first hundred? Because that's a pretty iffy proposition. You want really the 21, or I'll argue 22 who stayed sober until the book actually was published? Or you want some of the others who had tragic consequences? Because if you're believing that just because you heard somebody say, I Want the Program the First Hundred Had and you're believing that the first hundred stayed sober for the rest of their lives, I just want to point you, you might want to do some research. Because that is absolutely not true. And AA was not perfect. There is a term that drives me crazy in Alcoholics Anonymous and it's called contemporary AA. When people say, I can't stand contemporary AA, well, I have bad news for them. Contemporary AA has existed since June 10th of 1935. There has always been division and divisiveness inside Alcoholics Anonymous. To say that it's gotten worse, so this whole belief that things were perfect is such a myth. But I really want to get into some useful ones that I think are useful in today's world of Alcoholics Anonymous. Probably one of the things that is quoted most often, that is really not in our literature, that it seems newcomers learn within 90 days and throw it out there, is that all you need is a resentment in a coffee pot to start a group, okay? If ever something has caused more damage to Alcoholics Anonymous and our unity as a fellowship in society. It is that ridiculous quote. I would be the first person to tell anybody they have a right to start their own home group. If, and it's a big if, they're really starting a home group and not a meeting. If they're starting a group that's going to be connected to the rest of AA, if they're starting a group that's really going to be a home group then I couldn't jump, I couldn'T be more happy for them but we have all these meetings where people took coffee pots and resentments and they're nothing more than one hour gatherings that's it there is nothing else there I mean some old speakers said it better than I did. You know, you judge the quality and I'm not going to debate any prayers tonight. Whatever prayer you use, God bless you. If you don't believe in God, it doesn't even matter. I'm nicht going to argue. But in the old days, it was very common in most areas that meetings started with the serenity prayer and ended with the Lord's prayer. So I'm just going to work off that basis. But you know, there's a couple of great old speakers who used to say all the time, You can judge the quality of a meeting by what happens between the serenity prayer and the Lord's Prayer. But you cannot judge the equality of a group by that. The quality of the group gets judged by what happened between the Lord and the church. The Lord's prayer, and then next time they say the serentity prayer to start that meeting. What happens when they're not meeting? What are they doing as active members of Alcoholics Anonymous between when their meeting ends and when their meeting starts. Are they connected to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole? Are they going into detoxes or panels or whatever you call them? Are they involved in a group? Are they in the group? Are they not involved in general service? Does the group actually care about each other? Does the groups actually fellowship together? That's the real sign of a home group. And this resentment and coffee pot, I mean, and I know it's hard for people that are not members of AlcoholicsAnonymous us to understand that concept. But we have way, way too many meetings. That's my humble opinion. And all it does, you know, you can talk about the spiritual breakdown. You can say finances aren't spiritual, but then you'd have to debate me on the seventh tradition. And the seventh traditional tells me that there is a spiritual aspect to money and finances. And the truth is, no wonder AA had a contribution problem. I mean, you can't keep dividing and dividing and dividing and be self-supporting. It's impossible. It is mathematically impossible. The cost of milk, the cost of rent, the cost to coffee, the cost of sending your GSR to Prosser or wherever they go, the cost of sending them to assemblies? Once you divide a group, you just multiply by two. Sometimes three. And that is not productive to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. I mean, all you have to do is look at a grapevine or a box 459 from 19. I'm just going to throw out 80. So if you have a chance, take a look at one. Take a look at the calendar and take a look at how many conferences and conventions there are. And then look at today. Today people have to base their budgets, their disposable AA income on which ones they can go to and which ones that they can't. No different than all these groups we have. How can we possibly be self-supporting when, I mean, it's so alcoholic. so alcoholic and you know because if a new member or even a member sober a long time sits down with someone that's been in AA a long time and tells them that they're in financial ruin they have no money left in the bank got a bunch of credit cards maxed out behind on rent three months all of that most often if you talk to aa members who have sponsored people it's not usually that complicated a problem usually and i'm just going to say usually if you get into the details they are usually spending more money a month than they make a month that's what it usually comes down to it is not anything super complicated it is just that the amount of money that comes in is less than the required money to go out. And some in Alcoholics Anonymous would tell that person, part of being sober is we spend less than we make. Actually, we kind of discount it by 20%. And then we spend that because we save for hard times. And that's just part of Being Sober. And I don't think there's anyone here who would argue. Now, I'm, listen, I've been homeless. I've had money problems. So I'm not talking like, but I think most of us would agree that nobody would tell that person to keep spending more than they make. Nobody would. However, when you get a bunch of alcoholics together as a group, whether it's a home group, a district, an assembly, or the general service board, or AOL services, something happens to our alcoholic group kind of scenario. As a group, we forget what we tell our sponsees. We convince each other that it's okay to spend more money than we make. Groups do it. Districts do It. The last time I checked, almost 40% of the areas out of the 93 had deficit budgets. How is that possible? How is it possible that general service areas are able to convince each other that it is okay to spend more money than they take in? How is het possible that the last time i even just did a quick study, There were still 15 areas out of the 93 that didn't expense income, budget income. Only budgeted expenses. I hate to get a little technical on use of the word budget, but that's not a budget. That's a wish list. That's kind of like having three credit cards and just saying, well, we want this, so we're going to take it. We don't know what money we're gonna use to pay for it. we're going to do it. But that evil and corroding thread, as the big book uses, all comes from the resentment in the coffee pot. It all breeds from that belief. Now, and like I said, there are times to create a new group, no doubt about it. But you have to ask yourself, are you creating a home group or you're creating a meeting? and I want to get to that kind of next myth or debate that we have in AA all the time. Meeting makers make it, right? God knows, will that stir the pot in certain places, right ? That'll just send the place into a tizzy, you know? And if you have certain of my favorite big book speakers there, they will just be the first to jump up and say that that statement, meeting makers is killing people. I'm out of that debate for a couple of reasons. Number one, I don't believe that it means just go to meetings and don't do anything else. I think it means if you're brand new, spiritually broken, can't even read more than one paragraph without losing concentration, that it would be a good idea to go to another meeting tomorrow. I believe that's what it means. but i've started to not to say my response to that is i don't know about that because i don'T HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH THAT BECAUSE WHAT I KNOW IS THAT HOME GROOM MEMBER HOMEGROUP MEMBERS MAKE IT THAT'S THE STATEMENT THAT I KNOW Is TRUE THAT'S A STATement THAT I KNOW RESONATES WITH ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS YOU KNOW I WAS TALKING TO SOMEONE BEFORE THE MEETING AND TONIGHT And, you know, one of the things, you know, we say we have our issues. But when you meet people in other fellowships, when they see some of the real active home groups that we have, sometimes they get a little jealous. I mean, sure, you can work the steps and decide to leave Alcoholics Anonymous and maybe never drink again. I have no doubt about that. But are you giving up on the deal you made with God? Are you deciding that you have no responsibility to pass this on to the people who were here when it was passed on to you? I mean, how can you tell me you don't need a home group? All you have to do is work the steps. But that sounds awfully selfish. Which I could go into that myth. It's a selfish program. I mean where did that come from? Where could that have possibly come from. I try to think sometimes, who made that up? Is it a selfless program? Of course. It's a selfness program, but it's not a selfish program. In fact, we know if you care about yourself more than others, more than 50% of the time, chances are you'll drink. That's just what we know because it's what we see. We are people who are so, so self-centered that our very lives depend upon helping others and doing service. You can become the perfect big book thumper. You can have the perfect leather bound inventory notebook. You can have all of that. But are you active in some type of service back to the very fellowship that saved your life. Let's see, I highlighted the ones I know I wanted to get to. So I think next I'm going to go to promotion. That word is a tricky word inside Alcoholics Anonymous, and it seems to be used very, very badly. Just my opinion. I want to cross off the ones I got. First of all, let's deal with the first part of that. There's no such thing as promotion inside Alcoholics Anonymous. So when you go to a district meeting or an area meeting or an intergroup meeting or somewhere else, and somebody says, oh, we don't promote? Well, yeah. But inside Alcoholics Anonymous, we promote the hell out of AlcoholicsAnonymous. We scream from the rooftops and let people know about our area events, about our workshops, about what's ever going on inside Alcoholic Anonymous we want AA members to know about. That's not the type of promotion that they're talking about, especially in the long form of the traditions. The long form of the tradition uses a couple of words together like sensational advertising. You know what sensational advertising is? That's if we had a billboard with a picture of a car crash or a picture of somebody in a hospital with all kinds of lines coming out of them and a doctor with paddles. That's sensational advertising. I've seen some of the greatest examples of attraction actually lately. I have seen one area that started to put Alcoholics Anonymous, whatever that saying is, you know, if you have a problem with drinking, that's your business. If you want to stop, that is ours, whatever little saying you use. But on supermarket carts, How awesome is that? Everybody gets a supermarket cart right there. I've seen it on the side of buses. How awesome is that I've seen now these digital boards where it's even cheaper to rent space because they can flip flop them and you can only pay for one tenth of the time but promotion was never about inside our fellowship which brings me to an interesting point about promotion. I am a person who, to my core, believes in these traditions. But I have to say clearly, I don't think it's impossible to believe in our traditions and not take advantage of the powerful communication tools available in the world today. You can be both. You can observe all 12 traditions and take advantage of the communication channels in the world today. It's just a little tougher when you apply the traditions. But the traditions, I'm going to guess a lot of people in this room have been a group treasurer, have been on some committee where money is involved, obviously this event. But anyone who has held an event or held a position in Alcoholics Anonymous, what we all know is the traditions don't make it easier to do something or to put something on or to hold an event. They actually make us stop and think it's a little bit more difficult. But they're supposed to be that way. They're supposed to be speed bumps like you're driving down a street. You're supposed to roll over it and say, oh wait a minute, Whole Foods wants to donate money to our convention or wants to give us food? Or when I'm in an elevator at a supermarket and I'm going up to the parking deck and the elevator is decorated with all the organizations that that supermarket has given stuff to and one of them says Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm like, what? Like the traditions were made to make things a little bit slower and to be thoughtful and contemplative about what are we doing as a whole. But it doesn't mean that Facebook is bad or Twitter is bad, or the internet is bad. What's bad or irresponsible, I would go so far to say, is if we as a fellowship don't help new people on how to do it responsibly. But we seem to stay away from that. And we seem to want to publish in paper. It's crazy. If you are online, right? And you're on Facebook and you want to know if something's okay, I don't think you're going to look for a piece of paper. I think you want to go to AA.org, and you're going to hope that there should be something listed there that says, Facebook helpful hints. How do you respect your own 11th and 12th tradition, and also take advantage of this wonderful tool? Now, I'm not pro or con Facebook. Just using it as an example. But I was joking around. I was talking to somebody who's been around a while. I told a couple of people at dinner. I'll tell you how long he was around, and he wasn't a member of the fellowship. In 1941, he answered an ad for a part-time bookkeeper for a publishing company. That publishing company was called Works Publishing. Up until the year 2000, he was the only man alive who had been to all 50 general service conferences. His name is Dennis Manders. He passed away a few years ago. I had the honor of meeting him. He spoke at the 50th General Service Conference for a few minutes. And he had me and him, I was the youngest delegate that year, and him and I struck up a relationship. I was telling the people at dinner because at one point he looked over to me and he looked at the rest of the crowd of delegates and he said, you know what the good news is? And I didn't know what he was talking about, and I said, nope, I don't know What the Good News Is. He says, you're the only one in here with a shot at being at the 100th General Service Conference. All these other people, they won't be here. You, you have a shot. But that endeared me to him, and we talked a lot. But I want to pass on something he told me that stays in the back of my head all the time. He said, Billy, if Bill Wilson was alive, AA would have been on the cover of Wired magazine years ago. He told me that in the mid-2000s. And you can just, listen, go online, take an A comes of age, take a pass it on, take a language of the heart, take an electronic one and just type in a search bar communication and see how many times Bill Wilson uses that word, that it is vital to our very existence. So the myth that we can't take advantage, we know where newcomers are. I was at a regional forum A couple years ago in Oklahoma A 19 year old woman got up to the podium Or up to The microphone She said Two years ago Drunk hammered out of her mind In her parents house in the middle of the night She typed into a search bar I am a teenage female and I can't stop drinking That led her to the AA.org page eventually And I say eventually Because we better get a handle on SMO, on SEO, search engine optimization. We shouldn't be afraid of that. Instead, we've stayed back and did nothing. And the first seven things that come up because people bought words, newcomers get led to treatment facilities and not Alcoholics Anonymous when they wanted to go to AA. Why are not we making that a total high priority? that when somebody types in something about Alcoholics Anonymous or help with drinking, we should be the first thing that comes up. And there are ways inside our traditions to do that, and we've failed, to be perfectly honest. We have not done it. But this woman, I use her as an example, 19 years old when she made the statement, she eventually got to the AA.org page, which led her to the Houston Intergroup page, which led to two women coming over her house the next day. And guess what? She's sober today. Why? Because we were where she went to, and that is the most important thing for the newcomers of today. I'm not saying everybody goes there, but we have to make sure that we're everywhere. And you know, I want to give another example because people get all crazy about certain things, but the phone book, I actually have one at my house. But I don't say it's a joke. I say it because it's a tool that I use and I used to use when I was on the board all the time. I'd make photocopies of it because there are some people who would tell you that, oh my God, if we have this or if we had that and all of a sudden an ad pops up, we're affiliating with that company. Okay, so let's go back 30 years to my phone book where in the yellow pages and white pages Alcoholics Anonymous is listed and guess what's right next to it? The person who bought the half-page ad for AAA towing, the person who brought the ad for the A club whatever bowling alley, what's right next to that, the Anderson law firm that handles personal injury cases. They all paid more money so it's bold or it's big. Does that mean AA was affiliating with all of those companies? Apparently not because I've researched the general service conference. It never made it to the board or to the conference.It was just accepted that people have a right to buy ads in the phone book But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be there, because newcomers go to the phone book. So our reluctance to grab on to not the future, but the current, could definitely be a detriment to us. And that promotion word has been something that's really gotten in the way of us, and I would just encourage anyone to read the long form of the tradition, to read A.A. Comes of Age to read the 12 and 12 and to really examine and study what were they really talking about so I think the next one I'm going to go to so inside Alcoholics Anonymous God knows, I always joke around The greatest thing about AA, it's membership. The worst thing, it' s membership, right? I mean, on any given day, you could love it or it could drive you crazy. And I always joke around with intergroups because sometimes I say I'm jealous of intergroup groups because at least they get to work with the drinking people, right. You know, the sober alcoholics are almost a tougher customer service crowd than the drinking alcoholics. but what I want to stress is that there's definitely a feeling in some parts of AA that we have too much literature some people feel that way some people feel that there is literature they don't like but when we start talking like that sometimes you can hear something like all pamphlets are bad we only use the big book everything else is watered down, Alcoholics Anonymous. And I want to tell you that there are some pamphlets that should be musts. There are some pamphets that should be put in big books when you give somebody one. I'll just give you a sample. Not all, but a sample The AA group is must-reading. This pamphlet is must reading. But I will tell you that you will read this in a parking lot to somebody and they will look at you like you just discovered America, right? Like, where did you get that? Who told you that? This pamphlet is must-reading. Both problems other than alcohol. The small one, the big one, it's must-read. The AA member of medication and other drugs is one that I love when I'm in a meeting where people start practicing medicine. I love to have this. I love to be able to let somebody know that, listen, not that I want to disagree with that other person, but we don't do that. And even though if you don't want to believe me, you should read it right here. We actually follow doctor's orders. We don't go against doctor's order. It's actually an outside issue. We stay away from it. The 12 traditions illustrated. The 12 traditions illustrated, I mean if somebody doesn't really want to ever read the 12 and 12, I'm not going to complain. But God are there some good examples in this pamphlet. Now I hear the myth about we have too many pamphlets or too many special interest pamphets or but I just want to say this and I feel this to my heart. There was a past trustee, his name will come to me quickly, Alan Ault. Is that his last name? Yes. So Alan was a non-alcoholic Class A trustee and a man who worked in prisons his entire life, and I served with him when I was an appointed committee member. And I grew to really respect him, but he said something sometime that really caught my attention, because he talked about all the debates inside AA about literature and pamphlets, and he talked about audience. And now, because I speak a lot at work, I speak a lot publicly, and I realize that the most important question to ask yourself when you're speaking in public, it's not really your notes. It's not real. It's really studying. the most important thing you need to know is who is your audience. You can't do anything without knowing who is your audience and what Alan Ault said which is so wise he said you know the one thing I've learned in Alcoholics Anonymous he said every pamphlet that we print for alcoholics I mean for professionals, alcoholics hate and every pamphet we print for alcoholics, professionals hate. He said, but that's okay because they're reading the wrong pamphlet for the audience. Even certain pamphlets that are geared towards bringing people in, when it comes to pamphets that are for alcoholists, there are pamphrets that are for people already in AA and pamphlets for people not in AA yet. Even in that subculture or subset of people, people already sober, been through the big book, have a sponsor. They read some of those other pamphelets. They're like, that's garbage. They don't even remember mention the big books. But it's not for the person with a foundation who has 36 spiritual principles in their life, has a sponsor and a home group. You know, I've said before, you know, I always compare it to shark fishing. I've never been shark fishing, but I've watched a lot of shows on shark fishing! I've seen a lot OF shows. I don't really know a lot about shark fishing but I know this, that they take a lot Of buckets of blood and they dump It into the water and it's called chum. And the sharks are attracted to that, and then they catch a shark. You can't catch a Shark with chum you can only attract it. The same for me with some of our pamphlets. You can't CATCH an alcoholic with a pamphlet. You can't take them through the steps with a pamphlet, but you can attract them so that they'll want to do that. I always tell the story. You know, in 1999 when I was a delegate, there was a big discussion. I'm not going to go into the debate about the African-American pamphelet. That's a whole workshop on its own, but I got to read a lot of good background. A lot of good background. And some of that background has changed my thought on literature, from wanting to ban all of it to now appreciating it, that three letters in particular, three women, all from different parts of the country, actually two from the same general vicinity. the first letter was from a gay woman and it really caught me because I can be so judgmental so I'm going to point to that pamphlet rack right out in the back there I'm sure you've all seen a rack in a home group but she wrote that she went to her second meeting she wasn't sure if gay people belonged in AA At that time in society, she wasn't even sure if people would like her because she was gay, based on where she lived, what part of the country. But she wrote in her letter that at her second meeting, she saw the gay and lesbian pamphlet in the rack. She even wrote in Her Letter that she never read it, ever. But its very existence there allowed her to believe that she could be an AA and she could get a sponsor and she could get home group. The other two were from people of a certain religion, two women of a certain religion from a certain part of the country that had been in and out of correctional facilities for a long time, over 20 years from their teenage years on up. Alcoholic drinking since their teenage years for the next 20 years. And the religion that they believed in and the pastors that they went to would not send people to Alcoholics Anonymous because we don't tell you what God to believe in. And so I never thought about that. That never really crossed my mind, but their letters sure impacted me. So the myth is all pamphlets are not bad. Some of those pamphets are the greatest gold we have in Alcoholics Anonymous. So let me go to an easy one. Other fellowships. You know one of the greatest unproven myths in all of Alcoholics Anonymous that you hear talked about by people that have never been to where they're talking about? One of the biggest myths in AlcoholicsAnonymous, and I won't even single out another 12-step fellowship, is when somebody in a meeting screams out loud that some other fellowship doesn't work. or that some other fellowship is not solution-based or that some of the fellowship is all about this or that. All said by people who have never been to that fellowship. And it is a death sentence that we're doing when we do that. It is not a myth, it is a death sentence. We have no right whatsoever to be putting down other 12-step fellowships. but we do it. We laugh, we do it. You know, I had to finally realize that if I run in, if I go to some meeting regularly and there's somebody there who's not an alcoholic, but they're dying of something and they hear somebody like me say stupid things, like that other fellowship doesn't work, there's a chance that that person, because they've interacted with one of us, maybe has started to look up to one of us. And because I say something stupid like that, they think, oh, Billy said that that doesn't work. And then what happens? They die. That sounds like I'm stretching the truth, but I'm not stretching the true. The myth that Alcoholics Anonymous can cure or arrest drug addiction is one of the worst myths in all of AlcoholicsAnonymous. One of the worst. I'll go back, so that I'm not saying it, I'll go back to the group pamphlet. The primary purpose of any AA group is to carry the AA message to alcoholics, period. Experience with alcohol is one thing all members have in common, period? It is misleading to hint or give the impression that AA solves other problems or knows what to do about drug addiction, period, end sentence, end of paragraph. If we don't believe that that's AA, we should change it. But for today's date and time, that's our group conscience. Now I'm not up here telling you or telling anybody because depending on where I am in the country, some days I'm a liberal, some days I am a conservative. It depends on the audience and what they think of my views so I really don't care, to be perfectly honest. But I can tell you that I am a person. I wish we would throw out the short form of the third tradition. I wish мы would get rid of certain statements because the long form is so good. It couldn't be any clearer, as somebody just said. We ought to be for all those who suffer from alcoholism. Period. It doesn't say you can't have any other problem. I'd be curious. I'll ask right now, has anyone in here who has served as a sponsor and Alcoholics Anonymous ever worked with an alcoholic that had no other problems? Okay. I am not saying if you've used drugs, you don't belong in AA. I'm not saying If you're a drug addict, but you're also an alcoholic, you Don't belong an AA? Of course they do, and you do. Of course. But we've taken that so far down the road it is very sad. I lost a good friend of mine last Saturday night because his girlfriend found him and he OD'd. 28 years old. My friend Billy. Who I took him out of his mother's basement apartment, I don't know, nine years ago with another friend of mine. And I only mention him because I'm tired of taking pictures of Facebook posts that say, rest in peace for somebody who died of a drug overdose that I know from Alcoholics Anonymous. I am tired of taking those pictures. I am tied hired of certain members of Alcoholics Anonymous who have convinced themselves, because of the alcoholic ego, that because they have been through the 12 steps, they can help anybody. It is simply not the truth. And so I have to be brave enough to stand up and say that. I have TO BE BRAVE ENOUGH THAT I THINK EVERYBODY IN AA SHOULD HAVE AN NA MEETING BOOK OR A HA meeting book in their car. I think everybody should be brave enough to not just want to humiliate or scold or anything else inside a meeting, but be willing to stand outside in the parking lot for a half an hour and find out where can that person go to get their life saved like my life was saved. And it's just as much my A responsibility to get them there as it is to tell somebody I'll be their sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous. To just be so flippant to say, well, they're not an alcoholic. I don't need to do anything. I don'T know how you would rectify that with the big book. I DON'T know if that how that's being of service to God and those around you. I mean, we really, really as a fellowship need to get rid of this myth that we are all things to all people. Singleness of purpose where a lot of places I get accused of being a liberal. Singleness of purpose is not about exclusion. It is about saving lives absolutely positively. Read our history, read where it comes from. And so I think this myth, you know, and again, I'm going to go to the group pamphlet because there's something that ties very into this. And that is on page 13, another one of the biggest myths of all of Alcoholics Anonymous, the definition of an open and closed meeting. Probably misunderstood by 90%, maybe a little more. But open and close meetings are clearly laid out here. When I meet a young kid at a club by where I live, I always joke around when I'll say that I hate the term ism. That term just drives me nuts. When I ask some young kid why they think they're an alcoholic, and they say, oh, I have the ism, and I'm like, really? Because what I have to report about that is that over the last 20-something years in my career as I've had to manage people and manage more people and manage people that manage people, I have found out one thing. Everybody has an ism. Everybody. Every single human being has some ism Most of them have multiple isms. But a lot of them are missing two very important things. they do not have the physical compulsion to have to have another drink once they start drinking. And worse than that, they do not, the next day when they are completely physically sober, regardless of the consequences of the night before, their brain does not tell them to light the fuse again and to do it again. The other thing that I've learned about talking to some new people is if they're at a closed meeting is how many people are irresponsible in Alcoholics Anonymous and will tell somebody, I'm just going to play out what happens. It's probably happening, well, it's five to nine on the West Coast, but it probably happened at least a thousand times in the last three hours. This is pretty central meeting time across the country. More meetings happen between 6 p.m. Eastern and 9 p.n. Pacific than any other time of day. But I know what's happened in parking lots. Somebody has said to another AA member, oh, this is a closed meeting. I can't go. And somebody has looked them in the eyes and said, oh, just tell them you have a desire to stop drinking. That is not what this book says, this pamphlet says. That is that. That is the group conscience of Alcoholics Anonymous. It says very clearly, closed meetings are for AA members only or for those who have a drinking problem and have a desire to stop drinking. Having a desire to stop drink is only 50% of the requirement to attend a closed meeting. Not according to me, according to this. The other 50% is to also have a drink problem. But yet we have people who irresponsibly tell people just say you don't have just say you have a desire to stop drinking. And then we go to the open meeting, which again, we could probably do a workshop for three days on. Open meetings are available to anyone interested in Alcoholics Anonymous' program of recovery from alcoholism. Non-alcoholics may attend open meetings as observers. I think we can safely say that in a lot of places, open meetings have become all Addictions Anonymous. That's just a fact. It was never supposed to be that way. Observer means observe. And again, I love and embrace the group conscience of Alcoholics Anonymous so much that if you disagree with me, I respect that. If you disagree mit this, I respekt it. But you should send in an agenda item. You should send an agenda item in to the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous, and you should say, me or my group or my district or my area does not believe in this definition of a closed meeting. It is okay to just have a desire but not to have a problem with drinking. If that's what you believe, somebody should send that in. But until that happens, that is not what a closed meaning is. You need to have both. So that quickly takes me to the next myth, which is the good old tradition about group autonomy. I'm not sure which of the 12 are the most misunderstood, but I will safely tell you that the autonomy tradition is definitely in the top three of misunderstood traditions. There is no doubt about it in my experience traveling and sponsoring people and talking to people, it is very important to embrace the word custom. Very important. Because there is a big difference between a custom and a tradition. A custom is what kind of coffee do you drink? What night of the week or month do you have your anniversary meeting? A custom may be even how you tell people to dress, even if I don't agree with it. A custom may be that you use group money to buy anniversary trips, which drives me personally crazy, but so be it. That's a custom. A custom maybe what nights of the week you meet. Another custom may by that you have a picnic every year. Those are all great things in Alcoholics Anonymous. and exactly what group autonomy was created for. Group autonomy, though, was never, if you read any of the history, had anything to do with being a veto power over one of the other 11 traditions. Tradition 4 does not override any other of the 11. if you are breaking one of the other 11, you are affecting other groups or AA as a whole. The example you are setting by breaking the other 11 is so dangerous to Alcoholics Anonymous and the snowball effect that it has because people will hear that and say it and say they saw you do it or your group do it. Tradition 4 has caused us... You know, when you're in an AA business meeting, I always perk up when I hear someone go right to autonomy or tradition four. Because I know right away they are about to break at least one, probably two, maybe three of the other traditions. That's just the way it goes. As soon as someone mentions that word autonomy, it never had anything to do with the other 11 traditions. and it's caused us some real big problems because a lot of times when we talk about traditions, instead of talking about the pros and cons or the merits, if you want to debate tradition three or tradition six or tradition nine, I'd love nothing more than to sit outside and debate it. It's a little strange, right? but I admit that today, but I would love to debate it. You have your list of why you're right, I have my list of how I'm right, but both of us on our lists of why we're right should never have tradition four. That is not a reason to be right when it involves discussing one of the other traditions. The only way AA has stayed together is by observing all 12 traditions. I want to talk about the myth of corrections meetings. So I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous who's an alcoholic who spent not a lot of time, but over a year in a correctional facility, sober. Member of a correctionality group, two groups actually, because I was transferred from one to the other. Now, there are some misnomers out there about meetings and correctional facilities. First of all, there's the myth that the traditions go out the window when you have a meeting in a correctional facility. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing. The other myth which ties into that myth, and I'm sure there's many people in here who've done this type of service, is that our job as outside sponsors is to go in and run the whole meeting. That could not be further from the truth. Our job is to give them an AA setting that looks as close as possible as to AA in the outside world so that when they get out, they feel comfortable going into that AA meeting. That means a resident of that correctional facility should be the chairperson. That means that when you can, you have one of them speak. Nothing wrong with bringing in a guest speaker. We do that. But this kind of trend that we need to bend and comply, Why? There's a great, in the corrections manual or kit, there is a thing called the four-step process created by a great member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because the truth is, if somebody wants you to bring an AA meeting into their facility, you should never just say yes. You should say, when can I meet with you? We'd like to come meet, and it's important to find out what do they really want because they might want something else besides AA. And the trap we fall in is that we only have one thing to provide, AA. They may want something other than AA. And that's great, and that's good, but it's not what we do. We don't have combination AA, NA meetings. We just don't do that. We don'T waive the requirements on open or closed meetings. It's just either one or the other. But somewhere along the line, because I can tell you, I have seen in writing, in an area newsletter, or in a prison group newsletter that's part of an area corrections committee where they list dual meetings? How is it possible that a general service area sponsored corrections committee who brings meetings into this facility lists the meeting as a dual AA slash something else? So that myth is really a real big myth. so in my last couple of minutes I want to talk about I'll say quickly get rid of the myth that whoever goes to the math room elect is GSR I will tell you in one minute or less what that means if you say that or do that it means you could not give a you know what about Alcoholics Anonymous or its future or the people who are still suffering if your group is electing people that are in the bathroom don't elect them don't send us them the only way Alcoholics Anonymous can stay Alcoholics Anonymous and be the true group conscience of AlcoholicsAnonymous is if groups send people who are going to do the job and want to represent that group, that's it so I'll move off of that one I'll handle one quickly and then and I'll go to the one I want to end with.