The Primary Purpose Group and the Literature-Based Meeting – Myers R.

Good morning to Recovered Alcoholics. Good morning. It is a real, real honor to be able to do this, and I mean that. Let's start talking about my childhood for a minute. You're right, this microphone is great. Let me just, I'll be brief. When I called Myers and asked him, he just needed another day. That was it. It was no question. He was willing to do it. 36 years in still sponsoring still going to meetings still helping people and still showing up. What more can you say? I love this man. Byron. I need a little swinging room. When I start getting all kind of battered up, I tell you, if I had to be here much longer, I'd need me another fellowship. Some of that stuff. Donnie's my new beard sponsor. We're working on a few things now. It's going to be awesome. For some of y'all that I have not met yet, my name is Myers Raymer. I'm a very grateful recovered alcoholic. I took my last drink on January 15th, 88. It's funny when you do this for a little while and you start meeting people all over they'll walk in and I'll go with a gun to my head I couldn't remember your name but I'll never forget what you look like I just remember it's real special to be here I kind of got into a weird place over the years I've had so many experiences in AA where you didn't really know you were in an AA meeting. You'd be sitting there and everybody would be talking about their dev squirrel or this or this, and you don't really get the bigger picture, and so when I get asked to talk at a primary purpose group, any kind of a literature-based meeting where people are studying the tech, I'm all in. I just, it's an absolute game changer for a whole lot of us that struggled in these rooms. It's a weird deal. I've got one sobriety date, January 15th, 88th. But I gotta tell you that most of those early years, almost seven years in this program like that, were the most miserable time of my life. People always expect me to say, well, when I was a drunk and a dopey, that's when I Was the Most Miserable. And I'm going, you know, mine's about seven years in the program, and I'm coming apart because I can't seem to figure out how to deal with this internal condition. And so I'm restless every morning, discontent 24-7. It just gets to be sort of a weird deal. I'll get into a little piece of story. I won't bore you with much of it, but we'll talk about it in a second. Let me, when I stand here, I think about Cliff Bishop. Cliff Bishop was the old guy that started Primary Purpose in Dallas and wrote the study guide. It was sort of an epic time. I want to give you like a three-minute synopsis of what was going on in this. We were, Joey Charlie, Joel McWaney of Joey Charlie had written a study guide that was used in his little treatment center in Little Rock, Arkansas. it was about this big by this big and it only went up to chapter seven working with others and then stopped because they couldn't use it the people weren't there in treatment long enough to use that and so clifford every time clifford was sponsored by joe and every time uh joe mcquain would come to to uh to dallas they would invite me over and we'd visit some stuff but i got to know joe pretty well and uh clifford is always asking him why can't you write the rest of the the big book. Just do the rest of the study guide, and then we can just use that in our meeting. And Joe would go, nope, nope, dope. I mean, it got so contentious after three or four months of it. I think Joe McQuadey would go talk to Mr. Hand. No, I don't know how to make this any plainer. I'm not going to write any more of it, but why don't you do it? And Chris looks at me and goes, well, you reckon we could do it, Myers? And I said, oh, dude, I don' t have time to scratch my butt. i don't know i can't do it i can' t do it but i will do this if you can get it written uh we'll print and bind it because i'm a boat binder by trade so he said that that's a deal we'll we'll do that and so he started writing and then he started bringing pieces in and we started you know just going through it on a group level which was fairly interesting for a while you think some of those meetings can be chaotic uh you ought to try doing it with like brand new with we don't really know for sure what we're doing or this kind of stuff but he was keeping notes on the comments that we made he was taking notes on this stuff and we took us two years to put it together and get it kind of codified then we wrote it got it all done and um and it was like magic uh the difference between what we had been doing and what we were doing now. Heather and I were laughing earlier like that. I'm telling you, it's funny how many men and women I've seen walking out of book studies and they look like they've been bitch slapped in there. They're just kind of reeling going what just happened in there? Don't ever notice that if you hang around AA long enough you come in, you stay sober for a year and now all of a sudden you're an icon. i've been sober a year about two years you got your own chair you just play this kind of game like this and so somebody said who's who's i mean look guys i'm almost i'm two weeks shy of seven years sober and i don't know who the co-founders of alcoholics anonymous are we don't ever touch a big book in the group i sobered up here ever but well we put coffee cups on them but we didn't ever read them we didn't ever really know like what the deal was and and but i've got a special place to sit i have my little my little homeboys come on sit with me this kind of stuff i wasn't sponsoring them but we were we were pals weird weird but it's like let me tell you how strange it is though to be sober year after year after gear and you'll be okay okay okay not so okay uh-uh we ain't gonna we're gonna make it like that i mean you just kind of lose momentum And then, you know, because I wasn't sponsoring anybody and I wasn t helping anybody do anything, I was just one of these guys. We went from seven meetings a week in that original home group to 32 meetings a weeks. And they were all discussion meetings. I knew everything about your cat, the pet s name. I know everything about it. You know what our prayer was every day? God, please send a stripper so we can hear some stripper stories i mean that's how shallow and weird the whole thing was like and every once in a while just wanted to walk in and we'd be just like tell me some more little stories because we're just getting how many of y'all ever remember going to to to uh like discussion meetings where you would listen the same story over and over and over. And it's like, initially it's kind of fun and then it's not so fun and then scouts on her, I'm not making this up. I remember sitting in a meeting, there was a guy in that group named Horse Jim. I didn't know his whole name, Horse Jim, and Horse Jim would always introduce me, he'd go my name is Jim, sobering day. That's all he'd ever say. But Jim would share these stories every once in a while and I was so tired of hearing the same story, I could recite it, I couldn't close my head but the worst part of it was i spent almost an entire meeting one night thinking to myself if i killed horse jim and i buried him out behind the meeting hall that here they talk about putting lime on bodies would a lime really eat the entire meeting i mean how much jail time would i have to really have if they found out that i killed force jim that's the stuff that's in my tell me where that's held and still there'll be people going well you're sober today in the words of my friend Mickey Bush so is the cat four half years over I'm starting to manifest some strange things in a I can't seem to the only thing that seems to scratch that itch that's internal with me is buying stuff. And so I'm buying clothes I don't wear, I'm buyin' music I don' listen to, I'm buyin', guess how many musical instruments I have? I've got three guitars, two banjos, and guess how may songs I can play? None! I can't play one damn song! It's just like, I buy an airplane, and then I need another airplane, and then a little bit later I bought another airplane. now so who needs three airplanes i got motorcycles i got stuff i got stuff on top of stuff i get they used to call me myers wrangler the tool whore somebody was laughing one time i said myers how many hacksaws do you have and i said i don't know i think 10. who needs 10 hacksaws i mean that's insanity some of y'all get that some of you all love you all i'm trying to trying to figure out a way to make this internal condition okay and i'm getting uh this anxiety attacks are starting to happen i left my truck parked in the middle of the freeway above dallas twice uh because i was trapped in traffic and i was panicky and i just got out walked down the shoulder of the road with my truck in the middle of the world i mean that's how scared i was and then they they give me a bunch of anxiety beds which is kind of interesting and fun and the depression is and now dealing with these suicidal ideologies that i don't know where they're coming from every day i get up and go is today the day i'm going to kill myself and my wife god love her i mean she's just the kindest gentlest lady and she's looking at me going what are we going to do by that time we have another baby girl we'd end up having another one too so i've got three little girls and and and they're terrified of me it's like how many of y'all have ever left a meeting thinking you were a spiritual giant and before you got home you were wrapped around the axle about something and telling yourself the story over and over and over again like this and you walk in the house and you're just an animal well that's sort of me most nights when i'm coming home and and they don't know what to do my wife has now asked me kindly if i would sleep in the other end of the house and i said yes i didn't know anything else to say so i'm in a little bed at one end of the house when she's down there and my daughters have disappeared in the house i don't ever see them when i walk in you can hear their little feet running down the hallway downstairs and they're gone and they just because i don't know who's coming home is it going to be a nice guy or is it gonna be a pos uh and then it's just one of those deals the the the suicidal stuff got so serious that i called chris one night my twin brother sobered up a couple of months before i did and he flew to the hill country where i live now and uh i called him and i said i'm in some real trouble he said you've been in trouble for years And I said, he was sponsored by Mark Houston, so you can kind of tell where that whole thing was going. And he just said, you're going to have to get hooked up. And he said, did you ever call Cliff Bishop? And I says, no. And he says, damn. And I say, Cliff, I don't have the number anymore. And he say, I'll send it to you. And so he called me back in a minute and gave me the number, and I went and saw Clifford. Now, I'm not going to get off into a bunch of this story, but I want you to understand And Clifford was a million and a half years old when I met him. He was old as dirt, and he was just real direct. He wasn't like, I had me a lot of homies in AA land. I had a lot buddies and stuff. But Clifford Was the first guy that would just look at me and kind of go like, dude. And he would ask me these questions. We were laughing at it a minute ago. He asked me who the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous are, and I don't know. He's asking me these hard questions. I think he's trying to embarrass me. All he's trying to do is get me to admit that I don't know. If I could have just said, dude, I'm screwed here. I don' t know what to do. But I couldn't do it. I was so full of myself, I just kept pushing back. Anyway, eventually he said, would you give us three months? Just come study with us for three months and we're going to concentrate on the big book. And I was thinking, I remember walking out of there that day and there was a piece of me that was elated that somebody had wanted to stick with me and help me. And there was another piece that was going three months of studying the basic text. I'd rather cut pieces of me off with a dull knife. No, I can't do this. But the reality of this stuff, though, is that I did. And within two or three weeks, I started connecting dots and realizing that there was so much more. how many of y'all have ever been in that situation or you know people that have been in a situation where they sold themselves short in aa we sort of buy into the a light routine where if i could just go to some meetings check it off the list i'm going to be okay and that kind of stuff when you one of the very first eye-opening things i started studying the text was is that there's nowhere in the big book that says that if you go to enough meetings you'll stay sober. It didn't say that. We just stay sober one day at a time. The book never says that. The book says we live life one day at a Time. I mean, we stay sober for good and for all, but we live like one day at atime. I mean this is, these are game changers when you have a head full of payday light over here doing this. Let me ask you a question. How many of y'all have ever talk to somebody who said well maybe you felt this way too i don't know that a is the same everywhere you go people used to always say that because i traveled some and with work and stuff and they would go oh i bet it's so cool you get to go here or here here i think aa is so cool and i'm going sometimes it is and they go what do you mean sometimes and i 'm going guys a is not the same everywhere you'd go listen there are geographical areas where you can go to you can't even recognize anything i mean i've been sitting in meetings where i've been going and i'm looking at the door there's a little circle triangle on the door i'm going in the right room but everything is so weird what they're talking about how they're conducting themselves and this sort of thing and you just kind of it's traveling open my eyes and change my optic on the bigger picture of what our what our program looks like and each one of us gets to make that decision if a lights okay walk on just just don't teach it because there's so much misinformation out there like people say well I don't I don' understand okay so do me a solid okay the next time you're in a meeting I don't care where it is the next one here at any AA meeting sometimes you're the meeting, close your eyes. Just close your eyes completely and just sit there for a second and listen to what people are saying. You'll never hear anybody say anything mean. You'll Never Hear. And the rooms are full of the kindest, gentlest people in the universe as a general rule. I love the people in these rooms. But guys, you'll be in situations where you'll hear things and you'll go Bob. Because the problem is the confusion Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young did a song when they were this is 50 something years ago said confusion has its cost and it does y'all it does pay attention to it sometime when you see picture yourself sitting in the meeting brand new and listening the way you're hearing like that and so Donnie shares that his sponsors got him working the steps and they're going to work a step maybe every month or two they'll work another step and within a year or a year and a half, he'll have the steps behind him. And then somebody else down the road like Heather, she said, well, my sponsor later when she shared it, she goes, my sponsors got me working the work and we're doing the whole thing in about 35 or 40 days. Now, I'm the new guy sitting in the room. I'm just sitting here brand new like this going like, how am I going to do this stuff? And I've heard two absolutely conflicting pieces of information. And then you've got the rest of the room going, you know there's no right way or wrong way to do this oh contraire because i'm tired of burying i mean it's amazing what i'm not trying to spank anybody but i'm just saying sometimes we settle for things that we shouldn't be settling for sometimes we need to realize and understand that that unless you have something to set the baseline then what you're going to set a baseline with is opinions and ideas and you may be in a strong group where the opinions and ideas are cool. What if you were in just a non-stop discussion hell and you never did it like what I did? You'll end up drifting out there far enough to where life is unbearable and you cannot stand what it's like. That's the stuff that scares me more than anything. I just worry so much that people are not hearing what they need to hear because we've kind of lost our momentum and rest it into an oral representation of what's in the book instead of a written representation of what's involved. How many of y'all have ever heard of a cat named Don Fritz? Sometimes when y'are done looking at weasel porn or something like that, sometimes when you get to a place where you've got no extra time like that go Google Don Frits into Colorado and listen to some of his old talks. Ross Melanson, my buddy, has got a bunch of amazing talks that Don did. But in an early talk that Don had done, he said something that kind of blew me away. He said, I'm really concerned these days because we seem to be talking more and more about sobriety and less and less about recovery. Two huge deals, y'all. You can be sober and not recover. You could be sober and crazier than a crap house rat. You could be nuts like that. And this is the reason why it's so important that we sort of, you know, pay attention to this stuff. Chris was, he started these book studies in the Denver, Colorado area and he started another one and another one and another on and he's started over the years dozens of them that morphed into all kinds of stuff like that, just... How about a cat named Alan McGinnis? How many of y'all have ever heard Alan McGinnis was around 60 or 70 years ago and he wrote he did a talk that they turned into a transcript which became a pamphlet called A Member's Eye View of AA y'all ever heard of it like that? there's a little piece, just one paragraph I just want to read like that I think what's important on this is I'm going to read it and you'll see what I'm talking about but I want you to connect up with that this thing was written 60 years ago it's when he was writing this stuff and we just it just kind of right over the top of our heads we weren't listening to what he was saying now this is alan talking there's a widely held belief in aa that if a newcomer will simply continue to attend meetings something will finally rub off on you and the implication of course is that the something which rubs off will be the so-called miracle of aa now there is no doubt in my mind many people in aa accept this statement quite literally i've observed them over the years. They faithfully attend meetings, faithfully waiting for something to rub off. The funny part about it is that something that is rubbing off of them is death. They sit there week after month after year while mental, spiritual and physical rigor mortis slowly sets in. That's my story. That's why I'm here. When I read Alan's stuff on this thing, I almost wept because I realized this guy understood 60 years ago The crap that I was going through, nobody meant me any harm. I had to just simply and finally accept the fact that I was too lazy and too selfish and self-centered to actually take a piece of text and read it and understand what it is that I'm supposed to do. Because once I started looking at this, I began to realize that there's a world of recovery that I am not even dealing with. My prayer and meditation life sucks. I am carrying the message to no one. I sponsor no one, and I wonder why I feel so brittle in AA. And I think some of you guys can relate to that stuff. So let's talk for a second about what works. We were having breakfast with Joe McClaney one morning like this, And he said, Myers, let me ask you a question. He said, do you think you can overcome self by exerting more self? And I went, absolutely. Although he told me really well. I said, absolutely, and I remember him looking at Clifford, and he went like this, kind of looked at the tabletop, and Clifford looks back at me going, come on, you're embarrassing me. And I go, I don't know. And I said, so you're talking about the big book and all that. And I say, but that's pretty complicated, isn't it? And he goes, it's not. He said, well, you're making it more complicated than it is. And I says, well can you make it simpler for me? And he said, oh, I would love to. And he says, this is about time with God and time with Gods kids. And I'm waiting for him to say what's important. And? No, no, no. No, that's it. That's what I'm talking about like that. What does your prayer life look like? How much time are you spending with your creator? It's a great question, you see. And listen, I'm epic at prayer as long as there's a blowtorch right up against my butt. Seriously, I don't know. I'm all in. Come on. Come on, home wash, right there. But what if I'm okay? You know, what if she said, do you want to come back down to the big bed? Yes! i'm okay like that and working with god's kids really i mean that's optional right that whole 12 steps that's option right and he said go look at it again and tell me what you think is optional it is it's not uh look somebody especially you guys that are already studying the text of uh how many times because the book is full of reoccurring themes how many time in the big book is to say work and self-sacrifice for others. Now, I don't want to fill in anything for Bill Wilson, but I don' t think just showing up at a meeting to talk to your homies is work and self-surprise. But you'll hear people say that all the time, but I go to four meetings a week. I don''t think that's what they were talking about. Oh, I think it's what they Were talking about That's not what Bill Wilson was talking about. Do you know how I know that? Because if he were lucky, there was one meeting with him. So he wasn't talking about that. That's not what they were talking about This idea of work and self-sacrifice meant I had to move and get out and go do something for somebody else that made me feel uncomfortable And let me tell you We all remember the coolest things in our life. We met the epic gal or the epic guy or we got the great degree or the great job or we had the fine little kids I mean, we all remember those things like that. But I'm telling you, the moment that you wake up and realize that your ability to help other people is a game changer for everything else that goes on in your life, you'll go, holy cow, who knew? One of the other things that got me was a conversation with Joe McClady one time where he said, one of these days and I don't know when this is going to be now mind you, I've been a part of that group for two years. I'm right at ten years in the program. I still never sponsored anybody and I'm still kind of playing these games with stuff. I know the book pretty well but I'm Still Playing These Games and he said Myers, one of those days you're going to wake up and you're gonna be amazed at what you see and I said like what? And he said like maybe your job is to feed not be fed and i remember when he said it i went it didn't mean anything and then about 15 minutes later i was sitting here and i was going that's some pretty heavy stuff stop and think about this how many times do we have people come to meetings we sit we find our homes homeboys girls we're visiting we're talking we're gossiping we're playing games and this kind of stuff and we're ignoring everybody else that's in the room everybody we don't meetings getting ready to start okay it's a social thing for us and i'm not knocking the social stuff i'm just saying at some point you've got to realize that you're there to feed which means every man that i sponsor like i just tell them approach me at home approach me at work call me 24 7 but don't come up to be expected private time before a meeting because i'm too busy trying to help people and you need to be doing the same thing too and i've had at least a dozen men fire me because of that statement. I need you to be available when I'm... I won't tell you what I told them. Go understand that it is indeed a game changer, this idea that we're there for a reason, that we were there to feed. They tricked me one night and asked me to go to the Salvation Army and Clifford was funny about it because I asked him, I said, Clifford, I'm struggling here because I don't seem to be making any progress. And he said, you know why? You're not doing anything. I mean, and I said... I'm here at the meetings and stuff. He said, I know, but you're not working with anybody. And he says, I tell you what, go to the Salvation Army tomorrow night. I said. I know I'm going to drive you over there. I do that every Tuesday. He said. No, no, no. I'll drive myself tomorrow night and you just go over there and do the meeting and we'll see you. And I said okay, that's fine. I get over there, Parkland Hospital, I mean, Salvation Army is right over by Parkland Hospital, right on Harry Hines, and it's hot as, I mean, they built Harry Himes with shit they got out of hell. They just pulled hot stuff out and made a roll down. I've never seen any place as hot and as full of street people, and it's just kind of, they fancied it up these days, but when I was up there, it was just, but I remember pulling up, and And Clifford's not there, and Don's not there. There were three or four people that went with us on a regular basis, and they weren't there. So I'm standing at the gate, it's locked, standing in line to get in, and I'm going, I can't do this. I gotta go. And then I go, wait a minute, stop, think about this, think it through dude. If you leave, we'll lose the gig. And we'd had that gig at Salvation Army for 10 or 11 years. And I went alright, so I know where they are in the book I'll just go and do it. So I went in get it. We had a fine time and afterwards, I'm telling you it's the craziest thing. After the meeting we do the Lord's Prayer got 170 men in that room and we do Lord's prayer and then drop hands and this guy goes hey Mr. Myers, he always called me Mr. Meyers. Mr. Meyer can you come back tomorrow night? And I went y'all ever had emotions that seemed to bang against each other there's a piece of me that was going holy cow that dude asked me to come back i mean i was elated by that and then all of a sudden i was thinking if i'd have walked a little faster i could have built this stuff for generations i would be the guy going yeah i can't get beaten out to selling I mean, y'all see what I'm saying? I just like, why would I? And I got to tell you, driving home that night, I kept thinking, what am I going to do tomorrow night? Am I goingto do something special? Blah, blah, blah. And like, I get up in the morning, I'm thinking about it. I go to work, I'm thinkin' about it, my wife, who's my business partner, she's lookin' at me goin', dude, what is goin' on? I said, I'll go back over to Salvation Army tonight. And she said, great, what time? I said 8 o'clock. And she says, it's 11 a.m. So, all right, I'm just sorting some stuff out. I'm good. And I made it to 2 o'clock and I said, adios, I gotta go get dressed. Got my notes, got my book, got dressed, been undressed, then dressed again. I'm trying to get ready to go. And so I get down there, walk in, and I just... You can't make this stuff up. I mean, if you can't see God's hand in some of the things that happen to us like that, I mean, it's just sort of like, so I walk around the corner and all of a sudden this great big guy is walking towards me. And the other guys were walking with him too, but all of the sudden they stop, this big gymnasium, and they stop and he keeps coming. And so I'm reverting back to, wait a minute, this doesn't look good. He's walking too fast. It doesn't looks good. I'm thinking he's going to crush me or something like that. And he gets right up on me and I look up at him like this and I just turn my head sideways and he slipped his arm down around me like this and picked me up off the ground. Like, he's holding me like a baby. This guy's arms here were as thick as my legs are here next to my skinny little butt. They just... I mean, he could... I'm pushing like this and he's just kind of holding me and I remember going... If he wanted to hurt me, he would have crushed me more. And I remember just sort of dropping my hands down like this and I just put my head over on his chest like that. Let me tell you something completely creepy, okay? To this day, I can still feel that guy's flannel shirt on my face and I can't remember what he smelled like. It's the weirdest thing. It was like it was a snapshot on your phone and there it is and you got it like that That's exactly the way I felt and this guy looked down at me like that and he said, you know what? We've been looking for you coming all day long And I looked up at him and I went, Hoss, I've been looking forward to seeing y'all too. And he sat me down on the ground and I'm telling you right now, I had a transformation that was like nothing. Y'all remember seeing some old videos of Jimmy Swagger? He's always holding a bottle like this and he's always swaggering like that. That's exactly the way I look. And it was just like, golly. But we laughed and we laughed and we laughed some more and we got through the work and then at the end of it like this, we do the Lord's Prayer and I drop hands and this guy said, hey, Mr. Myers, can you sponsor me? And another guy went, me too, me too. And I ended up with four guys that night. I'm 10 years sober in the rooms and I've never sponsored anybody and now I've got four guys all of them could kill me tomorrow asking me to sponsor them and I just went, brand new cell phone i just got called clipper and said uh maybe in some trouble i gotta i gotta deal with this everything shifted with this stuff i can remember going home and seeing my wife that night and we were talking like this and about stuff and she said hey um wow i don't know what y'all did over at the salvation army but whatever it is i'm telling you that it's amazing. You haven't stopped smiling since you got home, and I look over, and one of my daughters is leaning against me in her head like this far from me, and it hadn't been like that in forever, because I'm just a petulant punk, and things change that fast. So, that starts us on this big thing of where we're going to go next, what are we going to do next, how are we gonna help some folks like this, and begin to realize that everything that those guys talked about was true. I've got 50 things I need to... For some of y'all that have been sober for a while, let me make it simple. How many of y'll have ever been sober, everything's groovy, and then all of a sudden you're not? All of a suddenly you're feeling a little bit brittle, kind of dry, kind of like this. I mean, I'm the poster boy of drifting. And so I used to, somebody said one time we were talking to him about it and he said, Byron, do you want to look into how to figure that one out? And I said, I'll do that. Let me tell you a couple of ways that I've come up with and see where you are. And I think, and it's worked with hundreds and hundreds of men that I worked with over the years, I think it's worth considering. When you don't, when you've got just a little time, go back and read like tonight, do it. go back and read from the ABCs to the third step version. So, we have two and a half pages where Bill Wilson completely stops talking about alcoholism completely. He's not talking about it at all. He didn't even mention it. What he's talking about, he introduces us to this weird idea that selfishness and self-centeredness could be the root of my problem. That all gets thrown in there. But right before that, he introduces us to his idea of the stage character. So let me ask you, How many of y'all have known people who were special times 10 in an AA meeting, and then later you found out that they were cheating on their wives or cheating on an employer or doing crazy stuff like this kind of stuff? That's the stage character that he's talking about. The actor that wants to run the whole show. Sonny, you straightened up. I'm speaking specifically and directly at you. So read it and see if you can identify with the stage characters. See if you can see, Bill Wilson was talking about something in there about character and authenticity. I think the $64,000 question with men and women who sober up is do we give a rat's fuzzy rear about our character, about our authenticity? Are we okay with the idea of, you know, I'll lie if it's helpful, if she'll go out with me. I mean, whatever the motivation is, I'll do that kind of stuff. But those are signs of inauthenticity. Guys, I'd go leave a meeting, pat myself on the back for that share in there. Oh, I am Mr. Spiritual. That's my new rap name. I'm going to do that like that. And then the next day, I'll be at the airport riding motorcycles, flying with my homeboys, cussing, cheating, lying, gossiping. I'm just ugly shit. Did you hear what that meant? Ugly. That's the stage character that Bill Wilson was warning us about and trying to get us to see. And you can drift right back into it. It's something that has to do a lot with your prayer life, what that life looks like, with your work in self-sacrifice for others, what that looks like. Let me tell you maybe the best way I know to see if you're drifting sideways. Go back and read any group of promises in the big book. Any little group of fifth step promises, nine step ten step whatever any little group of promises read some of those and and and see i've got a little i'm going to skip down here i'm on page 75 halfway down the page in these little fifth step processes we can look the world in the eye we can be alone at perfect peace and ease our fears fall from us we begin to feel the nearness of our creator we may have had certain spiritual beliefs but now we began to have a spiritual experience the feeling that the drink problems disappeared they'll often come strongly we feel we're on the broad highway walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe wow hand-in-hand with the Spirit of the Universe so so don't stick with me a second either Bill Wilson was full of crap and he wrote that he wrote these just to sell books they didn't really mean anything they were just rhetorical that's a possibility but what if he didn't mean that what if they meant that they could manifest and for some of you that i've known for some periods of time i've watched that manifest i see it in the way you walk i see the way to talk the way you behave um this is magic stuff read some promises and if they manifested super if they haven't super at least you know where you are it's the confusion that drives everybody crazy and it drives you and eventually get you killed or drunk like this is the reason it's so important like that we just need to know where you really are um i did a talk someplace and somebody came up afterwards and said i got one more to add to that list i said what and he said ask your wife and i went i wish i hadn't asked you and but a little bit later uh when i got home i said hey vonda let me ask you a question and i explained to her what i was doing like this and she said do we have to have this conversation but a couple days later she kind of said hey you ready to have the conversation I went yeah I guess so and we had a conversation but but I'm telling you to have people around you don't know we're talking about this earlier bad people around here that love you enough to tell you the truth to that that kind of we have rooms full of people that will love you enough to co-sign whatever you do and that's not what we're after I need somebody that's willing to go do you you're killing me but I'm concerned about what you just said we need to have friends that are that close to us so we know kind of kind of where we are on this thing a couple more real quick things, and I'll wrap it up. Time may not be your friend. How many times have we heard old-timers say, you know, this is not a race? I don't know. Read the text and line it up because the text doesn't seem to acknowledge that we have an unlimited amount of time. My own personal experience in these rooms is that we got no time at all, Harvey. We need to get going. When you go back and read early literature in AA, early literature about first 100 and they're they're the people that they touch they were all busy quick in those first days of convalescence remember that part like that this is big stuff i've got newspaper articles of guys three weeks over that are already sponsoring guys and i'm 10 years sober and i haven't sponsored anybody but i've had a room full of people co-signing my bs going it's okay son it's you're fine you're okay you're sober today aren't you i understand where they're coming from and i appreciate their kindness but the reality of this stuff is at some point time the drinking and the dope stuff becomes the minimal part the little part the bigger part is is my mental condition my own character and stuff this is why this stuff gets so important you show me people that are immersed in helping other people and i'll show you uh men and women who are infinitely different from a lot of other people you'll see it all the time like that and we get to make the decision are we going to move towards that or are we gonna move towards the other just middle of the road stuff we get to decide but I got to tell you as a guy who has lived the nightmare of that other stuff I will never ever go back there I will I will let me tell you real quick story is so quick quick in Dallas there's a real fancy group that asked me to come do an anniversary talk for and they were real fancy I've never been over there they're way fancier than me so I just I've ever been over it and so it was raining cats and dogs when I got over there parking in the parking lot I can't see and then oh there's some people sitting out front they got a little butthut in the front of this place with a big glass wall there like this and so i get out i walk out i'm dressed just like this maybe just like this i get up walk over there like yes and i jump up on the porch and there's like eight or nine people out there and it's real quiet and i'm going wow wow man that rain hey is this a such-and-such group and this guy goes yep and i went okay cool i'm gonna stand there kind of looking around like this and i finally go this is this is not fun and so i go i'm gonna go on inside and so i reach back and i can't find the door to get in and i'm going guys i can find it find the doors is there another door on the other side of the building for to get in like that and this guy was standing sitting right there smoking a butt like this he points over his shoulder just like this and I go oh and there it was there's a handle about this big and that very big glass door i saw it opened it up went inside sat by myself for 20 minutes inside that room and nobody said a word to me like this got done with that finding of one of the guys from my home group the primary purpose dallas came in set with me and pretty soon there was a couple other people who came in and said and then we i did my talk so i'm not going to rag on these guys i'm just saying and it's an uncomfortable deal. I felt, that's the night I invented the term spank-a-thon. I was feeling kind of frisky that night. So three weeks later, three weeks later at Saginaw Group in Fort Worth, I'm gonna tell you who they were, okay? And I pull into the parking lot, they've got a butt hut out behind the building that's pretty big like a pergola type thing there's about 15 or 20 people parked they're sitting out there smoking and so when i pulled up in the parking lot i get out and i'm messing with my tie and my rear in my side window and all of a sudden this arm grabs my side and i look around and all 15 people have come out from that perla and they're grabbing me and they were putting their arms around me and then walking me into the deal and then they walked me inside and introduced me to everybody that was inside the building and it was a laugh-a-thon i'm telling you i laughed so hard that afternoon i thought i was going to throw up on them i mean it was like it was insane how different that was like this and we had we had the time of our life um i turned mine off so the way you don't see my ringtone but lana gave it to me it's lizzo where the hell my phone and i left it on at an h&i thing the other day and he goes where the heck my phone The only reason I bring it up, the only reason I tell you this story, y'all, is because what if your daughter was in AA for the very first time? What if your son was going to AA for the first time, somebody that you really love is going in there like that? What is it that they see? I took Christopher to a talk that he did. He hates driving at night since we got old. He's blind in one eye and so he just doesn't want to do it and so i said i'll drive you over there like that and i set out in a bloodhut with people smoking like that for 20 minutes i sat out there with those people and not one person ever came over and said hey i haven't met you yet who let me just tell you if you're struggling with working with people i get it if you are struggling with anything like i get but what you need to understand is is that if you can be kind to somebody in aa they'll never ever forget that they may not stay sober they may not i don't know what their future is like this but i'm telling you they will never ever forgive somebody to show them kindness and i think this is the reason why we miss the boat a lot of times because we get so busy doing other stuff that we forget sometimes i've seen it primary purpose dallas my buddy back there knows exactly that parking lot is enormous and you get hundreds of cars in there on a tuesday night like that and i've watched countless people get out of your car or truck in dallas and and walk straight to the meeting get about halfway across the parking lot and stop take a deep breath and turn around and walk back to the car okay it's just too much it's too much walking into a meeting that big and i get that like this and i'll be running my skinny ass out there and catch him and say come on let's do this whatever you can do to keep them there and hold them with that stuff This is huge. When you're in a meeting and you don't know a lot of people, walk around and look and see who's reading big books. If you see somebody reading a big book before the meeting, say something to them. Nobody goes to a meeting to read a big one. Nobody. They're reading a good book because they're uncomfortable. They're not hooked up with anybody like that. My favorite deal to do is walk up and go there. That's a pretty good book. That's some cool book you've got there. what's your favorite part oh I don't know like I just I just got it I've just been sober a couple weeks no kid let me show you what my favorite part is and I turn over to page 44 if when you honestly then I'm gonna invite him to come sit with me because the meeting is going to get really big I'm going to invite them to sit over there and I'm their new best friend, and I can help them understand how the meeting works, what's going on with this thing. And then they sit over there. I say, go ahead and move your stuff over there, I'll be there in a minute. I'm looking around the room, oh, there's another I walk over, that's a pretty cool book. The same thing. I've scripted it for years and years, I've never changed any of it like that, but I'm telling you right now it is amazing. Thursday wraps around, we got another meeting, I walk in guess who my new homies are? All the people that I met Tuesday night like they're waving at me across the parking lot myers myers hey look like come on let's sit down we can be useless in a meeting or we can affect change that will change everything about how people live and it's entirely up to us if things are going goofy in your life go call somebody go help somebody if things are going good go help somebody i don't care what the scenario is go help somebody it doesn't 36 years into the gig it still doesn't make any sense to me intellectually wait a minute my life sucks everything's falling apart and you want me to go to the 24-hour club and talk to a bunch of people and smell like a bad chicken fried steak seriously that's what you want to do clipper used to tell me that all the time every time i left i was different every time i left i was transformed and i would get my truck i put on this whole marvin day and i drive back to work and i would look at the day from a completely different perspective does it make sense no but try see what happens do me a favor a solid some of these guys know how to get a hold of it real easy if there's anything i can do down range to help um i got tons of of stuff that i can send you uh cool things to read uh my buddy hale wrote an epic uh collection of spiritual stuff it's like 40 pages hell but some of the realest stuff you ever saw in your whole life and and uh what can hook you up um and it'll give you a little time to to spend uh there's a guy in our group he calls god big homie and every time every time he says it i always laugh and he was we were talking one night and he said he said you know i was talking to my sponsor today and he said something that really got me going and it made me laugh. He said, if God was your girlfriend, would she be happy with how much time you're spending with her? And it made my laugh and then I went, wait a minute. Yeah, maybe I ought to think about it from that perspective like that. If you want to build a relationship with anybody, you've got to spend some time with them. And so if God's gotten second, third degree way back in the corner, like sometimes I'll talk to him, get a do-over. Just hit the reset button like that In the morning when you get up, find someplace wide. Leave the damn phone laying where it is. Don't pick it up. Don't, don't pick if up because you'll be signed for it. All it takes is one goofy, oh my gosh, don's pick it up and just spend a little time with God and see how quickly you'll get back into that discipline of the 11 steps to how important it is, but I need to officially stop right there.