Myers R. at the Intensive Big Book Mtg – 2008

howdy y'all my name is Myers Raymer and I'm an alcoholic it's so good to be here I thought it was gonna be warm kind of a surprise I thought I thought Florida was always warm I want to thank Scotty and Bill and Sean I did get to spend the whole day with Sean and what a treat dance was a little too much but I mean I mean, it was just like... Other than that, though, it's pretty good. I'll tell you. I talked to Chris earlier last year this very time by the evil twin. Chris was up here doing this and some of you guys were here and heard him and came back and this is always a good thing. Somebody came up after a talk one time and said, I thought you were the kinder version and heard Him and I went, well, some nights I am and some nights Iím not. you just got one of those nights I don't know it's the first talk of 2010 and it's always kind of an exciting deal it's an amazing thing how weird I feel in December when I do my last talk of that year and I usually have two or three weeks where I don' t do anything AA related anyway in terms of travel type stuff and I didn' t have another talk until sometime in February and I thought I was clear in January and I was just going to sit on my tail and do nothing and then Scotty called and I hate it When a grown man cries on the other end of the line, it's just like... I don't care if it's a girl or a guy. I'm saying yes. The way it is. And so I wasn't going to miss a chance, really and truly. The reality of this thing, guys, though, is that I'm staying yes. If somebody wants to study the big book, I'm there. And I'd do anything to get a big book in people's hands and then to reacquaint them with the idea of how cool it is to know what's in that book. And so worldwide, we'll talk about this some tonight. There's this, from my perspective, it's the most exciting time to be in AA right now, where we are right now. I know some of us look at it and we kind of, sometimes we get discouraged about things that happen in AA, and I understand that, and I get my nose in it on a regular basis. But the cool part about it is that worldwide we're seeing hundreds and hundreds and hundred of big book studies setting up in areas that had no big book study at all. And it's an amazing thing to watch the growth and the solidarity around these cats that are learning what the big book is all about. What directions mean. We tend to look at the big books as something that's subjective. We did the same thing with the other big book, the big, big book. We tended to do the same things with that too. Well, it means what I think it means. No, it doesn't. And it is like the bigbook. It is like people say, well, it mean what I thinks it means And I'm going, well, you know, I understand the thought process behind it because I felt the same way for a long time. But when I got that out of my head and started looking at it as a textbook guaranteed to give me a set of directions that would take me to a place I'd never been before, then all of a sudden it took on a new feel, a new deal, kind of cool. For you guys that I haven't met, and some of you I have, for those that I hasn't met I want you to understand going in that I love Alcoholics Anonymous more than anything. I do. I'd rather be in a room full of drunks than any place on God's green earth. And I have seen this program from a couple of different perspectives. And I'll talk about that from two different angles and we'll look at it and I think you'll see that one angle seems to work out better than the other one did. I'm a third generation drunk. My grandfather was a drunk. My dad was a drug. and my identical twin, the evil twin Chris. You know him. He is. And Chris was my knife-wielding maniac brother who I always looked at. He's the guy that I always look at and I went, if I ever drink like that SOB, I'll stop. We all have one of those guys, right? There's a guy or a girl in our life that we always look to and the guy falling off the bar stool, what an idiot. If I ever drank like him, I'll start. Well, anyway. So Chris is my guy and I'm him. I mean, we're just like joined at the hip. And Chris opened up in January 15th of 87, November the 12th of87, and in January 16th of 88, just two months later, I would watch his life change in two short months and I would say that's for me if I can do it. See, Chris spent years getting here and I didn't have any problem at all. I fell in love with AA the moment I walked into that smoke-filled room and a bunch of them little guys grabbed hold of me and it was like the coolest thing I'd ever experienced. I mean, God, I was the coolest. And just being in a room where people... And you guys remember that. Is there any of you that don't remember what it was like to walk into a room where people didn't judge you, didn't shake their heads, didn't... What a cool place to be able to just sit and know that I'm in a group and a room full of folks that know and understand exactly what it's like to be a drunken loser like me. It's just like... Yeah, it was just a mess. So here's the gig. For two or three years, I stayed and was doing a bunch of meetings and was having a great time. I'm a meeting makers make it kind of guy. I go into a bunch OF meetings. I'm doing a BUNCH OF STUFF. I'm A LITTLE SOBER BOWLING, A LITTER SOBER DOMINOES, A LIL' DANCING, A LILL' ... I mean, I'm DOING ALL THE STUFF There is one small item missing out of this whole love affair with AA and it's called a PROGRAM. and it just wasn't fair. I just did a lot of sober bowling and a lot to, you know... I'm proof positive that you can stay here a long time doing just that. There's nothing wrong with it, guys. I'm not making fun of any of it. The problem is that if you're like me, it might become tedious. It might lose its cachet. And it did for me. After a while, it got really painful. But see, what I didn't understand, it would take me years to understand that what was happening was is that all of the stuff that I was doing was fun and it was keeping me clear of the booze but it wasn't treating the internal condition which was my alcoholism. It wasn't doing that. And there's the rub. And so, how many of you guys have more than one AA group that you went to? You remember the first group you sobered up in and you remember the allegiance that you felt to those men and women that were in that group? I mean, listen, Listen, they could have been doing blood sacrifices in the back room and I wouldn't have cared. I didn't care. Somebody bring in a dead cat? We're going to have a real good time tonight. Fine, I'm ready. I don't care! These are the guys where I sobered up and I'm going to stay there until the bitter end. Here was the rub. It may not be a rub with you, but it was a rub with me. Here was where the problem lit was that this huge group 21 meetings a week and none of them are big book studies and everybody's just there visiting. We just talk a lot. Guys like the girls, girls like the guys. We all like being away from home. It's just kind of a crazy deal like that. But as I'm getting sicker, the weird part about this stuff is guys, here I am five years sober and I'm starting to write hot checks again. What's that about? Every woman in the room is more exciting than the woman that I have at home. Why is that? You understand what I'm saying, guys? I mean, it's just like I can't seem to get any... You ever leave an AA meeting feeling like a spiritual giant and by the time you get home and you step over the dog and the book bags are laying there and there's a dirty dish laying in the kitchen sink and all of a sudden you're just like the Marquis de Sade. I'm looking for something to swing at. I want blood. That's the only thing that's going to make this better. You see? I'm five years sober. sober, and I'm a nut job. I'm a fruitcake, and people come up and say, well that wasn't my experience at all. Super! Next week you can come up here and tell your story. But that was my deal. There's always somebody that wants to jam me up about that deal. We have a woman's meeting on Saturday morning, and it's the most spiritual thing. I'm not attacking your woman's meeting on Sunday morning. I'm delighted that it works for you. I'm delighted that you're happy there. Painful, I can't tell you, I'm ecstatic that you are happy. I am just saying in my experience, see guys, I used to think that I was the only guy that felt the way that I felt, that had gone through the same thing that I had. And in my travels, what I found is there are thousands and thousands of men just like me and thousands and dozens of women not like me. They have breasts. We are different. I am talking about two different things here, okay? But thousands and thousands of people who are dying sitting in our AA meetings because they've taken a program of Alcoholics Anonymous and set it off to one side and replaced it with something called the Fellowship of Alcoholic Anonymous, which is the coolest thing in the world. There's not a darn thing wrong with it. Listen, we'd all leave if there wasn't great fellowship here. None of us would stay. And so here we are faced with this situation. I'm going to this meeting, and I'm now going to six meetings a week, and I just can't seem to get it. I can't seemed to connect it up. I have a sponsor finally. We're not working the steps. We're just talking a lot. And we're doing a lot of meetings, and we're talking about a lot stuff. We're talking your weed eater, and you're talking a little bit about weed. We're also talking about your shopping issues, and we are talking about everything under the sun. And I'm not getting better. I'm getting worse. And I can understand what the problem is. So, finally, I almost drank. I'm now seven years sober and I almost drank and it scared me real bad and I don't know what to do. I tried to reach out in a meeting one night and I was going to make this big swan song thing. Any of you guys before you went out ever do this? I was gonna make this swan swan thing. I was go to this meeting and I told everybody in there why I had to leave. That I love you guys, but I can't make it. I have to go out. It sounded like a great idea at the time. So I wait until the end of this meeting and I'm getting ready to do this thing And I say, I need to share something real quick at the end of this meeting. And this guy named Jim, he's sitting back in the back. He goes, okay, real quick, Myers, we've got to go. I need some time to get revved up for this, right? But what's happening is... So anyway, I finally just told him the truth. I just said, guys, I'm not going to make it. This was my last AA meeting. And this Jim guy, he interrupts me. He just says, Myers stop. Hey, I've got the solution for you, brother. Let me just tell you what to do. And I said, tell me what it is. What it is that I'm supposed to do? And he says, what I want you to do is, why don't you just commit to coming to some more meetings? And I remember, I just kind of looked at him and I went, Jim, thanks. I appreciate that, brother. And I remembered, I walked outside, I got real quiet, and I walked inside and I crawled into this old Toyota Land Cruiser of mine and it's hot, hot, Hot in Texas. And I closed the door up and I just laid my head down on that steering wheel and I cried and I cryed and I crying. I wept like a kid. I just, you guys have to understand me here. I didn't want to drink. I don't want be a drunk. I don' t want to die drunk. I don''t want to be a loser. I want to bee a winner. I want be what everybody else wanted me to be. And I don ''t know how going to more meetings is going to fix it because I can''t. I'm going to six meetings a week already. How many meetings does it take? What does it takes to get this thing? I felt like you ever go to a Sunday school class when you didn't want to be in Sunday school and you're looking around the room with these little sunbeams for Jesus and you are just going I just don't get it I want to go outside and smoke something or kill something or do something but didn't you want desperately to be like them to be happy to be ok to be connected to not be spiritually apart from everything didn't he want that yeah most of us do dude. So, I call Chris. Chris saved my life once when he brought me into AA the first time and here I am seven years after my last drink and my last outside issue and he, I called him and I tell him the situation. He said, you know, I've been telling you for four years to go find another AA group. I'm like, Chris, it's harder to do than you think. By now, Chris has moved down to the hill country. He's got something called a big book sponsor. sponsor. I don't know what the heck that is. Don't really give a rat's patootie. I don't care. He's just happy and I don' t know why. And so he says, I'm going to be in Dallas in a couple of days and I want to hook you up. I understand there's an old guy there that might be able to help you if you're willing to do what they do. And I said, buddy, I'm willing to anything. I mean, I' m just like nuts. My wife is just like, she don't even go there. She's living on the other end of the house. We're in the same house but but she's on the other end of the house. And it's like she can't figure it out. I mean, I'm baffling. I'm seven years sober and she can'T live with me because I'm a fruitcake. So Chris comes into town and I've got to tell you this part because you won't believe it. Chris comes in the town a couple of days later and he says, okay, I've Got the Hookup. This old guy's name is Cliff Bishop. You've gotto go meet him. He's a million years old. He knows everything. thing. I think he taught Bill Wilson all this stuff. That's how old he is. I said, well, Chris, here it is.I'm real busy right now. I got a lot of things going on. Perhaps one day soon I'll go see this guy. And there's like dead air on the other end of the phone. Dead air. And finally he says, what did you just a couple of days ago that called me and told me that you were going to kill yourself if you didn't find a solution to this deal? Didn't you tell me that that was a constant thought. All those years drinking and doing that other outside crap, and I never one time thought about killing myself, and here I am seven years sober, and it's the only thing that seems to come in my mind. It's the Only Thing That Seems To Connect The Dot And Make It Work. I'll just kill myself. I said, yeah, I know, it sounds pretty stupid, me putting this off. And he said, yeah, it does. And He hangs up. So I go see this old guy and I've told this story before, I won't bore you with it, just part of it, but I I want you to understand that already, he's 25 miles into Dallas. I live north of Dallas. I've got to pass five AA groups to get to the group that he goes to. And in the distance between where I live and where he is, my arrogance has already rekindled itself. My ego is already in full tilt. I'm already making a hundred excuses why this old fart doesn't have anything I want. I don't even know the guy. But I'm always going to ask him because I'm all ready convinced that my life is better than what he has to offer. Is anybody else out there crazy like that? I mean, my head is just like... In retrospect, I look at this and I go, am I insane? Yeah, you could be. It could be! So I go meet this guy. I knock on the door. He opens it. And he's standing there. He's a little old guy and he's looking at me and he looks at my hand and he says, where's your big book? And I went, excuse me? And he said, I want him to love me into AA. hey, I want the hugs. I want to, you know, where's your big book? I said, I don't know. I hadn't seen it in some time. It works great to set your coffee cup on. That's the only thing I know about that dang book. So he said, okay, here's my book and he gave me his book and he said don't ever come back over here without it. Yes, sir. And then before I can say another word He's turned around and he's walked in. The door's open. He's walked down this hallway back into his den, and I'm standing on the front porch. And I'm thinking, where's the love, dude? I mean, I want hugs. I want some understanding. I want Some compassion. I want SOME good stuff. And all I'm getting is some crusty old guy with an attitude right off the bat. and he says so I had a choice to make I figured I could outrun him he couldn't catch me he didn't know where I live I could be out of there just like that and then there was this moment of going you ever meet somebody like this that you may not even like them at all but you sense that they have something that you want it's like I'm looking at in him I'm look at my out there next to my truck lies life as I know it which is not pleasant at all which eventually will result in death I know that and inside that den is an old guy that may have a solution. It's worth it. I'll go take a chance. And so I go in there and in 45 minutes sitting on this guy's couch with his little yip-yap dog going brr-brr-brap-brop he takes me through the book. 45 minutes, guys. 45 minutes he takes us through He takes me through enough of the book to let me know that I don't know anything. Eventually he starts asking me questions and he starts asking they're pretty simple questions but I don' t have an answer for them that suits him. And I can tell he's getting frustrated and I'm getting frustrated because he's saying... My answers are like this. Well, you know, there are all kinds of answers in AA. No, there's not. I ask you a simple question. What is the answer to this question? I don't know. And after about the fifth or sixth time of saying I don' t know, he said, You know, you don't really know much about this book, do you? Clifford, I've been sober for seven years. He said, That's not what I asked you. He said you ain't been sober two days. He said, you've been dry for seven years and you're paying the price for it now. The pain and the suffering that you feel, the restless, irritable, and discontent that you have, Yes, sir. Yes, Sir. And there it started. And for a couple of weeks, all I said was yes, sir and no, sir, I didn't, I mean, all I did was just sit there. He took me to these big book studies that they have, they have no discussion, I'm saying, I keep saying, well, when do we get to share? He says, never. There's nothing that you have to share. And what I didn't realize was he wasn't just singling me out for the 15 years that I've been in that group. We don't do any sharing. It's big book study. Big book study all the time. That's it. That's all we do. And I asked him one time, I said, I don't understand why we do this. He says, because you need to know how to help somebody and right now all you know howto do is share opinion. I know, but some of that's pretty good opinion. And he said, some ofthat opinion will kill people. and we had a long argument about that and finally I would learn eventually to just quit arguing with him because he was right on page 17 I want to read something real quick you guys have read this a hundred times in a book what I want to try to do is get us in one simple place here real quick there's something called an oral tradition in Alcoholics Anonymous one guy sharing something with another guy and that becomes part of the deal. And it's funny that in theory, the oral tradition should be flawless. It should work great. But if you ever played those little games when we were kids that telegraph or whatever it is, or telephone where I'd start whispering to her and she'd whisper to Bill and Bill would whisper. And by the time it gets down here, it's completely different. By the time you poor guys in the back, y'all are just screwed. There's no way you're going to get a clear message because we're changing it with everything. thing every every person we're adding our twist to what was originally handed to us and so what we end up with is a fellowship my my my idea of Alcoholics Anonymous was built on a doctrine that was based on a bunch of people's ideas and opinions now let's get something real clear guys and I want to make sure nobody misunderstands this were any of these people evil that did this were any other mean did they were they out to get me today we're going to screw Mars up we're we're going to tell him some bad stuff. No! These were the kindest, gentlest people I've ever met in my life to this day. The kindest bunch of people I have ever met. The problem was that collectively as a group we had done one thing that was devastating. We took the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous and we set it aside in favor of a bunch of well-meaning opinion, some of it great, but some of It not so great. And what happened was is that we began to form a doctrine doctrine based on a bunch of ideas that got really, really funny at times. You see? So you have to understand guys for a brand new guy in there, pretend Scottie's a brand new guy and he comes walking in and he's sitting in a meeting and there's a lady sitting in the back and she says well you know how I did this when I got here I just practiced yoga and it works so good for me. And then you have some guy over here he's talking about doing something else and somebody over here is talking aboutdoing something else. And pretty soon Scottie sitting there They're scratching his head going, what's truth? Where is reality here? Could yoga have kept that lady sober? Of course. Of course! I'm not making light of any of that stuff. I've practiced yoga for years myself. Listen, I'm like, please, don't email me about this, okay? But we forget because we lose sight of the fact of why we're there. We lose sight of the fait that Scotty only wants to know one thing. Can I get up in the morning and not drink? Can I? That's what I need to know. And we need to be able to tell him that. Listen, listen, I'll read this. The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined. I wish he'd left that little part out. I like the common peril part. The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we've discovered a common solution. Huh. So look, let's look at this thing like this. The common solution would be what the basic text gave us. If we turn back over to the foreword of the first edition, we have alcoholics and non-alcoholics from more than 100 men and women who have recovered, there's that ugly word everybody hates, from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. Huh? Huh? This is pretty heady stuff. These guys are telling us that they wrote this stuff down, they wrote the directions down so that we wouldn't have to share a bunch of opinions and ideas. Did I say anywhere in there that we took the love out? I didn't say it. Did I Say That We Took The Fellowship Out? I didn' t say it! The reason I'm so adamant about it is because somebody will come up here and jam me up after this talk and say that's exactly what I said. Well, this is about love and service. It is. I just want everybody to get clear on what it is the message that we're trying to carry to the brand new guy because when we stick to what the text told us to carry guys get well when we sticks to the opinions and ideas guys turn out like fruitcakes like me we flounder some make it, yes but hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands die it's crazy it's just crazy let me ask you a question you guys are real fortunate because in this particular area, because I know a lot of you and I talk to a lot of you on a regular basis, there's some really good strong AA here in this area. In some areas like where I've come from, it's horrible. It's just, I can't begin to tell you how bad AA is in some places where I go. We have areas in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where they won't let you take a big book into a meeting. You can't even take the big book in there. They have places where they're charging money to hear fifth steps. Charging money to hear fifth steps. Just crazy stuff. I know, but in our worlds they get small around AA and sometimes we don't know what all is going out there. They have places where... I'm going to tell you a real fast story. I promise you. It's real fast, but you've got to hear this because it puts into perspective this stuff that we're talking about. I know most of you guys come from warm and fuzzy good AA meetings where people are talking solution, okay? I'll hand you that. I know that already. Within a distance that I can drive from Dallas, this is how I have to put this. I can't tell you where it is because they'll come kill me. But within a drive, I was asked to come do this talk one night at a meeting and it's way, way, away. It's a couple hours away from Dallas. And so I get over there early because I always get places real early because I'm a chicken that I'll be late. And so I get over there like 45 minutes before this talk starts. There's nobody there, there's like two people there. When I get there, we walk in, I can smell coffee, I get some coffee, but nobody says anything to me. And I go, okay. And so, I sit down. I'm dressed just like this. And I sit out. And this is a place that's right on a big lake and it's like, a lot of people are dressed like in fishing stuff. I ought to stick out like a sore thumb. so time progresses we get close to the meeting time there's probably 10 or 15 people in the room now and this lady walks in with this great big doll she's got this doll underneath her arm and she walks over and she sits in now guys I'm telling you there's nobody saying anything in this meeting nobody's talking everybody's just looking straight ahead nobody has said one word to me yet so this lady walked in and she sat down with this big doll and it's real quiet in the hall and I'm just thinking this is the weirdest thing could it get any weirder and then this girl picks this doll up and starts walking this doll around this table going clink clink plastic legs hitting the tabletop like this and I'm thinking it got weirter alright ten minutes later it's right about time of meeting it's supposed to start about ten minutes later this other girl walks in a younger version of this other lady and she's got a doll now guys I'm telling you by this now my hair is standing up on the back of my neck This is the creepiest thing I've ever seen in my whole life. It's like aliens have gotten into these people. And they're walking these dolls down there on the end of this table. They're across from each other, and they're making these dolls talk to each other in this room. I'm telling you guys, Scouts Honor, the only thing you can hear in that room is my heart beating really, really loud and these girls down there going, talking with these dolls back and forth. I'm freaking out, guys. I'm just like, I'm about to pee on myself. I'm freaking out so bad. And I'm looking. Eight o'clock rolls around. They're still down there doing this horse crap. 8.15, they're still down there dealing with this stuff. Nobody is saying a word. Finally, this guy gets up, walks up front and says, well, we were supposed to have a speaker tonight. And I kind of went, I'm Myers from Dallas. And he goes, oh, okay. And he just sits down. No introduction, no... Thanks for driving two freaking hours to come to this nut job of a group we've got going on. Okay. I know, some of you are scratching your head saying, why in the heck is he telling us that story? I'm telling you that story because sometimes we sit in our AA groups and we think that everything is warm and fuzzy and that everybody is getting the solution. We think that everybody's getting the message that they're supposed to get. and the reality is they are not. They are not What happens if Scotty had walked in brand new drunk off the lake looking for an AA meeting? What happens if that had been his first meeting and he's sitting there listening to these guys do this kind of stuff? Do you think for one second that he would come back? I mean, Scotty's going to go these are the biggest bunch of fruitcakes I ever met in my whole life and he'd be out of there and I don't blame him a bit. I would too. I would two. Listen, years ago somebody said I said, well, you know where there's a circling triangle on the door, God's there and everything is in God's hands. And I'm going, you Know what? I think that that's certainly a possibility, but the problem is that some groups have gotten so toxic, so sick. In Iceland, they call them dark tunnel meetings. Does that ring a bell? Can you conjure up a concept of what a dark tunnel meeting would look like? Yeah, I can. I've been in them. I've seen them. And I bet some of you have too. all I'm asking is when we come into this deal wouldn't it be cool the coolest if every one of us could simply and collectively lay down on the floor everything that we think we know about this fellowship everything we think we know about AA I don't care if you're two days sober or 20 years sober or 200 years sober I don' t care lay it down and then pick it up again just reinvestigate it just revisit it is this doctrine is this big book Is this the message we're trying to carry? Or is this one of our improvements guaranteed to make it? Let me ask you this question. What would be an old idea that causes problems? This will get some of you, I'm sorry. 90 meetings in 90 days. It's an old ideal that came from an outside source. It didn't start in AA. Which leads new people to think and understand that if they just go to enough meetings, they can stay sober. Meeting makers make it. Listen, let me tell you something. I'm standing up here as a card-carrying member of a club where meeting makers didn't make it. We have a lot of guys dying in AA just going to meetings. Guys, let me tell you something. Going in... I may have an out-of-body experience. I need to simmer down. Okay, I'm sorry. All right. If Bill Wilson had felt that the meeting was so important, he would have said, Step 13, go to meetings! He didn't say it. And it's not in the literature Scripture, it never said that going to meetings is the solution to your problem. A spiritual awakening was the solution of your problem." That's what it said. Turn to page 44. I know every one of you got a big book. For those sinners that don't, I'm going to read it for you, okay? Bill and those guys are going to make this real clear. Real clear. Real clear! We want to know whether you're an alcoholic or not. If when you honestly want to, they're going to say, In the preceding chapters, that's the first 51 pages that we've already read, we've learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. Remember, a lot of us here aren't alcoholics, okay? We're trying to get to a bottom of who is and who isn't. If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or when drinking you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. Have you lost the power of choice and control? These are the two questions that they're asking us. It had nothing to do with the DWI. It had nothing to do with the jail time. It had Nothing to do With the busted relationship. Your alcoholism Had nothing to Do with that stuff. I know it pains Some of you to hear it, Because you tell the story Over and over and over again In the discussion meetings. We tell these war stories Over and Over and Over and I understand why we do that, guys, And I'm not making light Of the stories. I'm just saying The problem we get into Is that those stories are meant For a particular purpose. It's called a 12-step call. In a brand new guy sitting in a meeting, we're supposed to identify with this guy. We're supposedto talk about our past. They're going to get them to talk about their past. We're goingto see what the lowdown is. But this idea that every time I have a chance to share in ameeting, I'm just going to tell my war story, people say, well, our stories is all we have. No, it's not. Quit thinking that. You have a direction right here out of the text that tells you exactly how to help somebody get from point A, busted up drunk, to recovered alcoholic over here. It's right there. You have your own experience as you walk through that work, the work that you did. You have all of these... This idea that we're going to sit and talk... In Australia, 98% of all the meetings in Australia are what they call ID meetings. They're just drunks talking about how they got there. Their war stories, what got them there? They think, well, because we have to identify with each other. They're there! Scotty's in the room! We don't need him to identify right now. People say, well yes we do. We want him to feel comfortable before we start this work. No, we don't. Let me tell you something. You know what Scotty's doing in the time that we're letting him get comfortable? You know What he's doing? He's coming up with every idea he can come up with to push off of his fellowship because he doesn't want to be here. He's listening to you talk about the jail stuff. And he said, I've never been to jail. He's listened to you Talk about the blackout stuff. You young guys that haven't blacked out yet. He goes, I never had a blackout. I must not belong. Tell me in this literature where it says you have to go to jail, have blackouts, bust up your wife, lose your job, wreck your car, do any of it. It never said that! And that's the message that we're carrying to a brand new generation of alcoholics coming in here. What we're teaching them by the lame, non-stop discussion meeting is this. If you manage well, you can stay sober. That's what we're teachin' them. Every day that they sit in a discussion meeting and we tell them about our debacle going to Lowe's to return the weed eater that we didn't really want to buy in the first place. That's why we're teachings them. I'm sorry. I was going to be so nice tonight. It's a new year. I'm going to mean all year because of this. No, there is a time and a place for everything, guys. There's a time and a way. Let me ask you a quick question. We'll do something a little less stressful. Imagine in your head that you're in an AA meeting. Okay? It's a great AA meeting. Now, night before last we had this big old group conscience meeting and we all got together and we decided that perhaps we're talking about too much weird stuff in the meeting and that perhaps we're going to get on track and we're gonna talk about... We've decided in this group conscience meaning that the chairperson that we're gonna elect to chair for a little bit is gonna actually come with a topic. I know that shocks some of you. It was a novel idea for me to even think about it. But he's gonna come prepared to actually chair the meeting which is a great deal. And so we do that. and this is what we're doing. So this is our first meeting in a brand new year. We've had our little meetings like this and everybody's all excited. Scotty's our brand new chair guy for the meeting. Scotty, you just got screwed. I'm sorry buddy. You're just right there. I just got to pick on you. Everybody in tape history is going to be thinking Scotty is a loser. Let the taping audience know he's an absolute AA Amazon and I'm proud to know him. So in this meeting we've got a couple of brand new guys that are there in the room we've already identified them we already know who's there everybody's all excited we're going to talk about step one stuff we're gonna try to help these guys know what's going on Scotty does a little five minute share to kind of get us get it greased up and headed in the right direction he hits it out of the ballpark it's the coolest thing in the world you've been in meetings like this guys I'm telling you right now every one of you have been in a meeting just like this everybody starts sliding forward in their chair everybody's excited about being there there. Bill's going to share next. Bill gets it like this, does a little five minute blurb, three minute deal and he hits it out of the ballpark. The brand new guys are excited. They're getting kind of, you know, like, oh my God, we're pulling these new guys with a vision of how cool this thing called recovery can be. Everybody's excited. The old time guys are exciting. They're going to get in with a deal. They are the next guy to share this old coot back in the back that never says much of anything. He jumps in there and And he shares something, knocks it out of the ballpark. It's all about step one stuff. Step one truth. Understanding our deal, our truth about this thing. Everybody in the room is vibrating. Nobody's leaning back. You've been in that meeting. You felt what I'm talking about. And then there's this guy in the back of the room. Old Tom. And Tom goes, Well listen, my name's Tom. I'm an alcoholic. Yeah, Tom, we know. and he goes I know that the topic is step one but I really have something I need to share tonight now Tom's had a divorce divorce happened six or seven months ago he's still in a lot of pain we've heard this story about 15 times already we know he's in a Lot of Pain we love Tom please I'm begging you don't go there that I'm saying anything bad against Tom Tom's suffering all God's kids suffer we've been there I'm not making light of what he's going through But watch what happens to the meeting. In your mind's eye, watch what happened. Tom says, I need to share something. And then he starts talking about this woman that he divorced. And it's just rehashed stuff. We've heard it. And you watch everybody in the room slide back in their seat. Some of them put their head down on the table. Two or three people get up, go get coffee. And for you young Turks in the ring, everybody looks down and starts texting. And everybody else is hoping that their pocket vibrates because they want the text. They want some diversion. But here's the deal, guys. Listen, I'm not making light of Tom's dilemma. I know some of you guys are getting grindy just thinking about it. Well, Tom needs a place to share. Tom needs to be a part of this. He needs a space to share! I think that the fellowship created a perfect place for that. It's called a sponsor. Go see that sponsor. Talk to him about that stuff and deal with it. So I have just one little quick thing here. The question that I beg to ask and begs to be asked is this, where is it in our fellowship worldwide that it gets to where Tom's right to share something off-topic get more important than Scotty and his new friend their right to hear the truth about a program of recovery recovery that will change their life forever. Where? When? Why? Love and tolerance is our code. Oh, so we're going to let Scotty and his new friend die because they don't have the message because we're gonna be kind and let Tom share something he's already shared a thousand times. I'm so sorry. I'd love to sponsor Tom for a second. I say, Tom, scoop up a pen. Scoop up a pencil. Let's find out why this woman left you. Let us look in the text. Serious. I am going to love Tom enough to tell him the truth. You are a selfish old fart and she left you because of that. Let is look at this. Anyway, some of y'all don't like me very much right Now, I know, let me clear some of this up real quick, okay? Worldwide, it was our fondest hope for years and years and years that when Europe picked up the 12 steps, when Asia picked up to 12 steps when other places got the program, that they would pick up the best that we had to offer. You know what they picked up? The nonstop discussion meeting. That's it. They didn't pick up to steps, they didn't pickup. there are isolated places where there are still guys practicing the program but I guarantee you 10 years ago when I made my first trip to the greater London metropolitan area there wasn't a big book study anywhere in the area none none they had a literature meeting or two that were classified as big book studies but all they were were launching points for discussion oh yeah I see what Bill means about that but you know for me and then they just start off on a discussion deal and that's kind of the way that thing went and you'd see these guys just dying on the vine. Nobody was staying sober. There was no long-term sobriety. It was really painful to see. So we go over there and start talking to these guys about setting up big book studies, setting up literature-based meetings, really literature- based meetings. We're not sharing what our experience is. What we're sharing is what the first 100 intended for us to get about the 12 steps about how to work the work. And what happened was is that thousands and thousands of people started staying sober Dozens of big book study started opening up all over the London metropolitan area and it started growing into other parts like this. Ireland, Scotland. But it was the coolest thing you've ever seen in your whole life, guys. All because people had the cojones to say, listen, we have thousands of discussion meetings. Why don't we have a couple of big book studies so we can give you guys something to talk about in the discussion meetings? So when you're sharing... Well, it's true, but that's how it happens. That's how big book cities change the nature of AA in certain areas. is. That's how it happens. Because, listen, I don't think that people intentionally just share crap in AA meetings because they want to share crap. I think that they just don't know and understand enough. You know how I know this? It's because my deal these days, most of the men that I sponsor are older guys. They're in their 60s and 70s, a lot of these guys. Late 50s. And a lotof these cats have been around for a long, long time. And it's interesting when you talk to them and you ask them this question, you say, hey, let Let me ask you a question. At one point, I had five little guys gathered up in a little meeting after the meeting one night and we were talking. Collectively, these guys had over 100 years of sobriety. And I asked them, collectively, how many men have y'all sponsored? And they'd sponsored five men. One guy had sponsored two, one guy hadn't sponsored any, and the other two had sponsored one guy each. 27 years of subriety, 27 yearsof being in the rooms and the guy had never sponsored anybody, ever. So the question is, are these guys just stomping their foot it and saying, I won't do that crap. No! What happens is, it's the same thing that happens to all of us. We start selling ourselves the idea that we're too far into sobriety to ask a simple question. How do you get somebody through the work? I don't understand this stuff. I don' t get it. It's the greatest single thing that I hear in AA today is older guys coming up and saying bud, between me and you, I don''t get this crap. Listen, let Let me put this in a different way. If right now I said, collectively men and women in this room, do you know how to sponsor somebody? Would you know if this man over here was sitting in a room, he was brand new in a group, and he came in and he asked for help, would you know how to carry him through the work in a timely fashion? I'm not talking about spreading it out over a year. I'm talking about getting him through the work quick. Would you know how to do that? I promise you guys because I've done this, 99% of this room would shake their head yes and say yep, we got it, no problem. If I said, okay, let me pass out a couple of little index cards and you write down the first three things you would do to get this guy through the work in a timely fashion. We'll start over here. And I just start passing the cards out. Let me tell you something. You'd end up with more blank cards because I've done this. You'd wind up with a room full of empty cards because when it comes down to the real... In Texas they'd say nut-cutting. Oh, we kind of hate that, but you get the point. when it comes down to the real stuff where the rubber meets the road, we become ambivalent about how to carry somebody through the work because we're not sure ourself. Because we've all been taught so many different ways. My sponsor had me read the big book. My sponsor didn't do any of that. My sponsor did this. My sponsor said that. My sponsor says this. And these are the things that we hear in the meetings. It's no wonder our new guys are so confused, so conflicted as to what the truth is. They don't know what the proof is because nobody's telling them. the solution is the easiest thing in the world. The solution is to get your ego and your arrogance out of the way like I had to do at seven years sober and learn it. Do what you should have done the first week you were in the fellowship. Quit chasing the girls and get in the book. That's what we should have been doing, all of us. Me too. Let me tell you something. Seven years into this deal, seven years into the book, seven years after I got over over to primary purpose group this study group i walked in and every time there was an opportunity if they slowed down a little bit i would jump in to share something mind you at this stage of the game i still don't know what's in the book i'm just learning it brand new and i'm going somebody says something and it's couched like it may be a question you know how somebody has this little lilt to their voice that everything sounds like it's a question when they pose it we had a little a gal that chaired a lot of those meetings in those days that was just like that and every Every time she did, I'd think she's asking the question. I'd go, oh, pick me. I know the answer to this. And then I'd share some pithy discussion meeting fodder that I picked up in a meeting someplace and it was all meant well. My motives were perfect. It was just goofy stuff. One night Clifford gets up. We're in a big room like this. Big long tables. And Clifford starts walking towards me after I shared something particularly pithey. And as he's walking towards me, I'm going, He's going to come over here and tell me how much you like what I had to say. He just had that look. He walked right past me, and when he walked past me he threw a note down the table in front of me and it hit me in the chest hard enough I went, Ugh! Like that. He threw it at me. And it hit the table, fell on the floor and I picked it up and as I came up I looked at what it said and it says, Why don't you shut up until you know what's in that big book? Just like that. And I could have killed him. I'm telling you, I could've killed him if I was so mad. Who is that man to talk to me that way? And I remember getting up and I walked toward the door and there was a guy named Philip Fowle in that meeting that night. I bust his anonymity every chance I get. I love the guy. And Philip walked to the door and stopped me. And he said, don't, don't leave. Could it be? Please, Myers, Could it be that He's telling you the truth? Oh, man. The truth is a bitter pill to swallow sometimes, guys. It is. Sometimes the dead last thing I really, really, Really, Really want is the truth. We play games with it all the time and we talk about wanting the truth, but the reality is sometimes it's hard to see the truth and I remember saying, okay, I'll say and I crossed my arms and I sat over in a chair by the front door and I patted like a little kid and I didn't come back in the meeting the rest of the night. I just sat over there by the door. And I'll never forget, Philip took like three steps away from me and he turned around and he looked back at me and he said, oh, and by the way, most of us have gotten that note before. He just walked off. You see? This is a crusty old guy in the room that loved me enough to tell me the truth about my own pig-headed arrogance that said that because I had been sober for a little while, I knew and understood the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. that's all crazy stuff one more quick story and then we're out of here guys and it really will be quick get involved in 12 step work and it's the coolest thing in the world and after I get done I've been involved I finally started sponsoring some guys and then some more guys and some more and if you ever want to know how to work guys through the work quick go to a place where you're getting covered up with guys to sponsor because when you got 10 or 11 guys waiting for 5th steps you'll learn how to do quick 5th step You'll learn how to cut to the chase. They're trying to tell you all about the cops in Garland. Do a timeout, Slick. I don't need to know crap. It's not the cop in Garlands' fifth step. I don'T need to KNOW any of that stuff. What I need to Know is your deal, your selfish crap. That's what we're after. And you're going to cut it to the case and all of a sudden it'll get... For five years, I listened to three fifth steps a week for five years. And believe me, you'll find ways to get quick because there's guys dying out there. That's the reason I'm always so anxious for you guys to step up. One guy? Somebody said, you can't sponsor more than one guy. Give me a break. Come on. You need to be sponsoring 30 guys. You can do it. Could you sponsor 30 guys all at one time? No. I mean, you could start them at one times, but over a period of time, sure you could. You bet. Do it all the time. I've got guys that I've sponsored for years that do it allthe time. I've go a guy right now that sponsors 48 men and he's the most effective sponsor I've ever seen in my whole life. He's got a great analytical mind and he'll cut to your BS so fast that it's scary I don't even like to talk to him because he's cutting my BS let me tell you this quick story this puts it in perspective of what we're talking about I'm sponsoring this guy named Terry some of you guys have told this story too before but Terry's a Terry's the little street guy that lived down in the hood down in Oak Cliff and he's living on the street and he is he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's By his ankles, he's asleep. They're pulling him out of the truck and his face is the first thing that hits the ground. He's laying down. And it busts his nose, breaks his nose breaks his jaw and busts all of his teeth out. He is a mess. He's got flaming red hair. He's been living on the street for I don't know, six or seven months. And let me tell you if you've ever been to Houston in the summer the insects down, especially down in the hood right there on the Trinity River it's as ugly a place as you can ever see in your whole life they have skeeters as big as coke cans and they'll eat you alive well wait a minute I'm in Florida you guys know exactly what I'm talking about it's those kind of critters and he was just consumed by the elements he was burnt beet red so he ends up in a meeting I'm down there carrying a meeting on Wednesday night and Friday night and so on a Wednesday night he's sitting right over here where she is and it's like he's so offensive that I can't stand to look at Him. I'm doing this. I do all my talk like this. You guys are just screwed. It's like you don't even exist because I can'T even look like this, and after we get done, everybody breaks hands with the Lord's Prayer. I'm trying to engage any of you guys over here that want to talk because I don't want to look. I know He's here, isn't He? He's standing right here, and I turn, and there's Terry standing right there, and he goes, Will you sponsor me? I couldn't understand him. Somebody translated because his teeth are all busted out, and he says, Can you sponsor us? and I'm thinking, have you ever been in that situation where you're going, thank you Jesus and oh damn! at the same time? That's where I am. That's what I'm saying. That's why I am everything in me does not want to sponsor this guy. He is the most unlovely person I've ever seen in my whole life. I don't know what to do with him. I didn't even... Anyway, I said okay and I start talking to him a little bit. He's easy to engage. He's willing to do anything. He's taking instruction. construction. I said, maybe this won't be so bad. So for like three months, Terry takes a bus from the hood all the way up to where we are in North Dallas. I mean, it's like a two-hour bus trip to get from where he lives up there to where мы are to do the meeting, and most nights I try to take him home when I can. Some nights I can't. Some night he has to take that bus all the way back. He didn't get back in there until like one o'clock in the morning, and the last two miles is he has to walk by foot through the worst part of Dallas. And he's there every meeting. He never misses a meeting. And we're doing the work and everything is going cool like this. We do his fifth step and it's like one of these kind of things where we're ten minutes into it and he's going, Oh, I get this. Wait a minute. I'm a willing participant in every piece of this drama, right? Right. I'm doing this out of selfishness, right?" Right. Look at this. And he starts just taking... I'm just sitting there listening to him like this and all he's going to... This is the same thing. This is what I want. This is where I want to be. I just was trying to get what I wanted. Blah, blah, blah. Blah. Blah! Blah!. We're getting... 20 minutes later we're done with his fifth step. I got to tell you this is the goofy part of this thing. It's been rainy in Houston for two days. We're in this park called Keith's Park over by kind of where he lives and I pick him up. It's a real easy place out in the middle middle of this park and we're sitting. He's looking west and I'm looking east right at him and we are doing this fifth step. As he gets done with this, he looks at me and he says, I get it. I get It. I am not a victim here, am I? I said, Terry, I think you got it. And about that time he starts weeping and I just say, okay, we will just let him weep a minute. And he just sits there like this and he looks up and just as he looks out the sun comes out right on the horizon. and it's still cloudy above us but there's a break right at the horizon and the sun's shining right over my shoulder right into this guy's face and I'm telling you right now guys if I live to be a thousand years old what I looked into was the face of an angel I looked in to the most lovely man I've ever seen in my whole life I know there'll be somebody after I was in Denmark some doctor guy said we probably ought to look at your homosexual tendency deals like this I'm just going maybe we should but that had nothing to do with what I described. The sun's shining in this guy's face and I'm seeing the greenest, most perfect eyes I've ever seen in my whole life and that flame red hair and he's sitting there, tears running down his face and he is smiling with that big old ugly grin looking at me like this and I am just sitting there like melting. I just fell in love with the guy. I thought, geez, this is the coolest thing. A couple of months later, he was a truck driver and a couple of weeks later later, he called me and he said, hey, I got my CDC or whatever that commercial driver's license thing is. He said, I've got it. I'm ready to go back on the road. And I was fairly devastated. And Terry had been washing windows and he'd been doing all this stuff to kind of make ends meet and he had been doing a great job. But I was really glad that he was there, a part of our group. So he leaves and he says he's going to be okay. I don't hear from Terry for like three weeks and I'm just freaked out like a big dog. Ten o'clock at at night, I get a call. Listen guys, I get up at 430 in the morning. A call at 10 o'clock at night is a big deal for me. You better be dying. You better be at least bleeding to call me late at night. And he knows that we've talked about this stuff. So he calls me and he says, he said, Hey, it's Terry. I said, Terry, where are you? Are you okay? He said, yeah. He said I got this problem. And I went, Oh, here it comes man. And because I have a load, this is a Friday night. He says, I have a load that I'm supposed to pick up and I was supposed to haul back, but they're not ready with it and they won't be ready till Monday. So I'm stuck here all weekend. And And I says, what's the problem? And he says, there's no AA meeting here. And I said, it's going to be okay. Have you met anybody that even talks like they want to talk drunk stuff? And he goes, oh yeah, in this cafe there's a waitress that I was talking to. She said they've been trying to get an AA meeting started here for a long time and they just couldn't ever get anybody that was willing to do it. And I say, no kidding. And then there's applause. And then he says hey, is there any chance I could start that AA meeting? Now this guy is six months sober. I said, absolutely. You got some books? He said, well, I got mine. And I said well, we'll get you some more books. I said let's tell me where you are I'll send them to you and see if you can get this thing started. And he does. Now, it wasn't five weeks later I hadn't heard from Terry again. And he calls me and he says I said Terry, where are you buddy? And he said Well, I'm up in Maine and we're snowed in up here and I'm going to be here for several days. And I say I said, okay. And we're making some small talk and he said, hey, you know, they don't have an AA meeting up here either. I said well Terry, you better get busy brother. And that was it. That was it I know some of you are scratching your head going I don't understand why he's telling me this story I'm telling you this story because we have a fellowship full of men and women who want to sit on fences and take cheap shots at people who are in the trenches doing all the work You ever see these guys Guys, you ever see anybody dig in a ditch that works for a big municipality or something like this? There's always five or six guys with clipboards standing up on the fence looking down. And there's two little Mexican boys down at the bottom of the ditch digging every damn inch of that stuff. You see what I'm saying? This is the exact example of what I am talking about in AA. We have a world of people who want to sit on fences and take cheap shots at the guys that are doing all the work. And we don't have enough people crawling down in the ditches doing the work because guys, the part that's the funniest for me because I've seen it from both perspectives the part That's the Funniest is that the fun is in the trench that's where the coolest stuff is and any one of you guys that ever carried a meeting into a wind-up joint a treatment center a jail any place else and seen some little busted up knucklehead come alive because you were willing to give up part of your lame old loser evening and just carry a message of hope you see come on guys and we make a thousand excuses why we can't do it. I haven't been sober long enough. I haven this. I haven that. I've got kids. I've Got jobs. I've GOT... Quit. Quit. Quit. You've been duly spanked. Quit making excuses why you can't get out there and help somebody. Bill Wilson thought it was so important that he wrote an entire chapter, chapter 7, Working With Others, on how to help somebody recover from this nastiest, nastiest of diseases. And you can do it. You're qualified like nobody. You're classified. Listen, in the morning when I get home, there'll be some kids there. I've got kids in from college. They'll be there to hug on me. My wife will be there to hug my neck. My old dog will be here. A bunch of little old drunks that know I'm back in town and they'll all be around and it'll be Grand Central Station at Raymer Vogue Boundary like it always is. And there are those that would look at my life and they would say, Myers, we think your life is pathetic. And you know what? I could care less. I don't give a rat's butt what you think. I'm telling you right now, I should have died. I should Have been locked up. But because I did the simple work that this old coot made me do and He held my feet to the fire and He made me get off my lazy butt and get out there and help somebody. And because I did, everything in my life shifted. Everything transformed because I was willing to just simply submit to a program that was freely handed to me. Freely. I can't tell you how much I love you. I can'T tell you how honored I am to be here in a room where most of you guys are already doing what I'm talking about. It's the coolest thing in the whole wide world. If you're still sitting on a fence, if you're making excuses why you can't get involved, just do it. Just get involved. You'll look back on it later and you'll go, holy cow, I almost missed it. We all almost missed this. It's The Coolest, Coolest Game in Town. Thanks so much.