Why the Big Book Says Selfishness Is the Root – Myers R.

Hey, guys. I hope y'all can hear me okay. I still have those crazy little earbud things in there like that. It feels weird. It's like you're not used to having them in there. It's kind of crazy. A couple of quick things. There were a bunch of people I didn't see last night on here. My name is Myers. I'm a very grateful recovered alcoholic. alcoholic. And Chris's identical twin brother, although he got a little better looking than me over the years, but that's the reason I kept this big beard like that. If your face was as ugly as mine, you'd cover up as much of it as you could too. Chris sobered up two months before me. And so he was, although I'm four minutes older than Chris, he'll play that two-month sobriety deal. he'll play that card often. You'll be as smart as me, Myers, when you get to be that extra few months of sober. Because we want to be as transparent as we can, crew and Chris was telling the story about the cherry fried pie. The reason Chris doesn't eat those fried pies is because it makes him look goofy in those stupid bike pants. Listen, whoever invented bike pants for people who are on bicycles, Bicycles. I it's the holy reason why I don't want to ride a bicycle because I don'T WANT TO PUT ON THOSE STUPID CLOTHES LIKE THAT I JUST I LOOK SO STUPид IN THAT STUFF AND I But Chris pulls it off somehow. I DON'T KNOW. ANOTHER THING I WANTED TO DO REAL QUICK BEFORE WE GET OFF INTO THE MEAT OF THIS THING IS THAT LAST NIGHT THERE WERE SOME PEOPLE THAT WERE TALKING ABOUT how shocked they were that we looked the way that we looked and so what I wanted to do is, I don't know if y'all can see this, I'm going to put this picture up like that right there. I couldn't get Sarah, I mean Lisa out of the middle of it but that's Chris and I in 1956 or 57. The better looking one is Chris but you can see that we didn't change much. I tell you, I still got my little stuffed toy that i sleep with every night and i don't know we didn't change much um you know of all the stuff that we get to do uh we i talked a little bit about it last night i i just this idea of of trying to do what i can to uh hopefully as gently as i can uh get folks to look at the bigger picture of what it is that Alcoholics Anonymous was all about. I lived in a dream world for a long time and was not clear, just a brief deal like what Chris was talking about. I just want to make sure – I sobered up in 1988, in January of 1988, and then I lived lived a roller coaster where I got better and better and better. And then I kind of leveled off and then I got worse and worse and worse until the worst experiences that I've had in my adult life were not in the middle of my addictions. They were not In the middle of all that, they were at almost seven years sober, when I got powder dry, never worked the steps, didn't even know what a spiritual experience was, and was trying to hang on every day and stay sober. And it was a painful place. I'll tell you, folks, I thought for a long time I was the only guy that had ever felt that way. The reality of it was is that as I got busy doing some of this stuff, I kept meeting more and more and over the years, I've met thousands and thousands of people who felt and went through the same nightmare that I did. The confusion confusion is rampant. There's just so many nice people out there spouting little aphorisms and various other kind of things, and I love them to death. I'd hug them until I broke them in two. I love him, but golly, I just wish that we could kind of slowly but surely. Somebody said one time, they said, Myers, it sounds to me when you talk that you're trying to raise up this little army me of big book numbers. And I always laugh because I understand where you're coming from, but it's really not my deal. There's nothing goofier than some guy standing there waving a big book at you. It's that we don't need zealots, but we do need people with some zeal. We do need some people that are excited about the idea that we have been given a book full of directions and and promises, and prayers, a way of life that we never dreamed that we could live. Truly, it's special, and that's what we need more of. I get the great honor of talking about steps two and three real quick, and I love that, and four, and five, and six, and seven in a minute. We're going to kind of slide in with this stuff. And I just, there's lots and lots and lots of confusion around this and lots of misinformation. And we're going to talk a little bit about that and see if we can get some of that stuff cleared up. I want to tell you a quick story that kind of helped me see. I can't remember when this was. It was probably 15 or 18 years ago. I did a little workshop in Kent, in Kent, England. It's a little men's retreat at this Catholic monastery. And it was fascinating. Just like I love me some UK. It was just fascinating. And I'm talking to these guys. I'm going to be there Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And i'm talking with these guys a lot. And it's funny. Have you ever noticed that when you say something to somebody from a podium, If you're standing there talking and you ask a question, collectively everybody nods yes like this. Well, then what I would find is that at break time we'd be sitting there drinking tea, which was unusual as hell for me, drinking tea. And we would be going – I'd be asking some questions specifically, and all I'd get is these blank stares back. it's like there was a disconnect uh between um what people were willing to talk about and i kind of thought it's interesting and so during one of the comp one ofthe the talks i said something about steps and um tried to get some clarity around that part of it around what we would do first what we würde second what wewould do third you know this kind of stuff um because i think it needs to be simplified like that. I think it makes it easier for us to follow some directions if we're clear, and so I asked from the podium. I asked that, and I'm watching 80 men in that room. All of them go. I said, so let me ask you a question. If you had a brand new guy that you were getting ready to do the work with, and he's sitting in front of you, would you be clear where to start and what to do and 80 men looked at me and went like this like yes and i went okay cool we had a break drank some tea i asked a couple of questions and what i'm getting back is is just they're not they're not understanding what i m talking about and say well maybe i didn't make it clear but i'm going to find out so when we come back to the to the uh workshop i had a bunch of little index cards a bunch a little stubby yellow pencils and i passed them out in that room And I said, OK, guys, do me a favor. Just so we can we have a place to start here. Right on this card, the first three things that you would do if you were sponsoring a brand new guy, what would you what would you do based on what the book says and based on what our experiences have been? What would you do? And I stood there and I'm fascinated by what I saw as I look across this room. There was a couple of guys that looked down and one guy picked up a pencil and started writing and another couple of guys kind of looked around and wrote a little something and then everybody set their pencils down. Most of the people in the room, most of those men never picked up a pencil. They just kind of look back at me and I went, interesting, interesting. And so that's where I started my conversation and it helped me to understand that I don't think this is a guy thing. I think this was a girl thing. I think there's a lot of people I think that none of us want to admit admit that we don't really understand. And over the years, I've seen a thousand examples of this where people will not admit, mostly through sponsorship, when guys will come in and say, hey, would you help me? And I'll say, okay, let me get a feel for where you are, and I'll ask him some questions. And what I get is a lot of blank stares, and he doesn't want to to admit. I remember having a conversation with a guy one night and he just, he's been in the room 17 years and he was dating one of the girls that went to our home group. And he was from another group. So I said, well, come on, you can sit with us in our little, we had a little meeting before the meeting with a bunch of men that I sponsored. And I said you just come sit with us. And after a couple of weeks of that, he finally walked up and he said when everybody leaves, I'm I'm going to tell you something. And I said, what? What? OK. And so everybody laughed and he's standing there and he got his arms folded and he is looking at me. And I think he's getting ready to tell me something that, you know, I have sex with collie dogs. Something I think is going to say something weird like this. And he looks at me and he says, Myers, I don't understand a word that you're saying. And I say. Is it a comprehension problem or no, no, no, no. I understand what you're saying. I just, I don't know this stuff. And I went, I get it. It's a great place to start. I love that kind of transparency, that kind of honesty. From that point, we could make great progress. And I'll say as an aside, this guy ended up breaking up with that girl and ended up staying and he became one of the most prolific 12-step guys I've ever ever met. He was ferocious in the way that he presented the work and his ability to get out there and find drunks to work with. It was amazing. But it had to start with him being honest with what was going on. In case you guys are doing any head scratching and wondering what those three things are, I'll do that and then we'll get into step two stuff. The very first First thing I always do with men that approach me and men that I approach at wind-up joints and places that we go carry the message, I'm going to qualify you. The stuff that Chris was talking about, I mean, if you want to see smoke coming out of people's ears, mentioning it, can we talk about qualifying the drunk? And there'll be people that think, you say qualify, and they hear exclusion. It's like we're trying to run people off. We're not. I spent seven years uncertain of whether or not I was bona fide. Listen, if you don't really understand on a gut level that you're a drunk, if you haven't fully conceded to your innermost self that you are an alcoholic, there will be no motivation to move forward. Y'all ever stop and think about how many times we have people that are coming in and the only reason they're in AA is because they're trouble. They have a blowtorch firmly up their rear end. they're just, they're getting killed by external situations. But as soon as she comes back or the job smooths out or the probation goes away, the health issue clears up, it doesn't matter, fill in the blank like that. And all of a sudden they go from highly motivated to not so motivated to completely uninterested in doing anything that we do. And I think statistically we have have a lot of people that come into our rooms that are like that, because they were never qualified. The stuff that Chris talked about, especially that stuff over on page 44, is certainly codifying and it would help us. How cool would it be if we could take everybody that's coming in? I couldn't even count, not even, I couldn'T even begin to count how many men I've caught walking across the parking lot at the group that I, my home group in in Dallas and it's, there's hundreds of cars out there. It's an enormous meeting on Tuesday night and, um, and I'll see them looking at the ground all scared and frustrated. You can just, you can, you can read them like a book. Uh, and i'll say awesome. And i'll have my tailgate down on my truck. I park it in the same place all the time. And I said, let's, why don't we talk for a second? And they'll sit up there like this. And in a couple of minutes, literally in a few minutes, a couple minutes, I can qualify them. I can help them see what's going on. I um i can find out the second thing in this list so first i'm going to qualify them and the second thing i'm gonna do is um um find out where their head is around god uh i want to i want to find out uh that um and the the third little piece because sometimes i'll forget to talk about it the third Little Piece is um i'm Going To Ask Them If They're Willing To Go To Any Length um y'all y' all remember over at the beginning of how it works uh there is a little piece there that starts out rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path tens of thousands of aa meetings a day read this in the front of the meeting it's their opening in the meeting like that halfway through it there's a line down there if you've decided that you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it then you're ready to take certain steps. Guys, there's two questions there. If you've decided that you want what we have, how do you know unless somebody tells you? I want to pull you with that vision. That was the stuff Chris was talking about like this. And then are you willing to go to any length? I think it's fair for a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous to tell you what any length looks like, you see. But if you say yes to both of those, then you're ready to take cert steps. steps um and and i just i think that because one of the questions that i always get is people go i just don't know when it's time to start somebody through the steps that's a great question i understand the question um but but this is where where it answers like that let me take it to an extreme how many meetings would you have to go to to be able able to answer those two questions maybe none maybe sitting out on the tailgate of my pickup we could answer those questions and then it's ready to start this stuff um i did i'm totally okay with letting guys get comfortable in a meeting i'm perfectly okay with that guys i just there's this idea that we can let people sit and sit the stuff that chris was talking about we make a huge mistake assuming that the new guy um i mean it's like buying a brand new maserati and pulling it up in front of the meeting and then looking for the craziest sickest kid in the room to and just say hey you want to take my maseratis for a spin assuming that this kid knows how to drive a car that's got weird instruments in it and all kinds of weird stuff in it like that and and uh you're sitting so low you have to it looks like you're you're looking at the ceiling. I mean, come on. But we do that all the time. We let the new guy dictate when we're going to do the steps, how we're gonna do the Steps, all this. He doesn't know. And that's our job to accept that responsibility. And, and, and we can, we can do that. After we qualify, and мы know that we're dealing with somebody that's bona fide like this, We got us a little drunk or a little dope bean from hell, and we're going to try to gather these cats up and we'll try to help them see what needs to be seen. It's funny, Bill spins starting with Silkworth talking about the physical component of this stuff, and then we get outside of Dr. Silkworth's story and we get into Bill's story and then more about alcoholism and there is a solution, and we have 20-some-odd pages there before we get in to Weagnostics that talk about the mental part and the physical and the spiritual part of this thing it's it's like this kind of um um this mental obsession part would need to be addressed and so the cool part about this stuff is is that we can we can once we start with this stuff um motivation is huge i'm just a big fan of of motivating i don't want to let somebody's history be the only motivation because if you're talking to people you'll you'll be surprised at how many people People are motivated because their wife wants to come. I've sponsored hundreds of guys over the years. The only reason they're in AA is because their wives said they have to go to AA or they're going to have to do something else. That's great, but what happens when she says, I love you again? Everything is groovy. You come back and then where's the motivation to do what we do? The surest way to help somebody understand is to help them understand how hopeless this situation is that we're in a disease that gets worse, never better. that that genetically you're getting ready to crash uh on the shore of a really really uncomfortable place to be and you'll probably die or get locked up that's fair motivation um and i can do that i can talk about that straight out of the uh straight out of the tech the reason i always want to find out in that second little point on that thing the reason I always want To find out where a guy is around God ahead of time like if I can And it's one of the very first questions I ask. I'm not trying to – I don't lead with, hey, are you a Christian? It's not what I'm trying to do. What I'm tying to do is go, hey – I'm kind of get ahead around where he is. Does he have God sideways in his craw or is he an atheist? It's helpful to know. Is he a satanic worshiper? I've sponsored a couple of them, and it's a little interesting. It's kind of crazy. I want to know going in kind of what the lowdown is, and the book is real clear on this. We won't spend a bunch of time talking about it. Look at the way it lays out like that. Bill Wilson hits it pretty hard, a couple pages in there where Bill has some religious contempt, some spiritual contempt to things like this, and he talks about this. Then he has this amazing transformation at the hand of his introduction to God through Eddie, and things get pretty special for him, and that's that. But what Bill realized really quickly in his working with others was that there were a lot of men that felt like that. There were a whole lot of folks that came down the road that were having having the same kind of problem. We seem to be world famous at judging a forest based on one tree. So I have a bad experience and I say, screw that kind of stuff. I hate organized religion based on One Experience like that. And so what Bill did in his infinite wisdom, I thought it was just absolute genius, was that he hits it really hard and there is a solution, chapter two and chapter 3, more about alcoholism. They paint this picture that's going to make things a bit bleak if you can identify with that stuff. And then if you're okay with the idea of moving towards your creator, we'll go. If you're not, then we're going to circle around and spend some time in agnostics. And we're gonna talk about this. Bill spends 14 pages saying basically the same thing over and over and overhead. He runs at it, he backs up, and he runs at het again, and then he he backs up. But he's trying to get us to break down some of that contempt, which is important. Let me make a couple of real things clear before we move on. The book gives us the go-ahead to pick our own conception of God. I'm totally digging on that. I love the idea that our beginning could be, especially if you're struggling with some of this stuff. And I was talking to a gal a little bit ago in the chat about this stuff, if you are uncertain, go flip over to page 25 in There is a Solution and read this little piece. It will start off in italics, there is a solution, and then it goes down. and it paints this picture. In the middle of that page, there's one little paragraph that I marked a billion years ago and it's always funny. The great fact is just this and nothing less that we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our creator has indeed has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves. Go back and look at the steps sometime. Just go back and read through them like this and you'll notice how amazing it is. They give us this first step piece on this kind of stuff and then they talk about being powerlessness in the first step and then on the second step when we get in here like this, they came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity Guys, listen. Regardless of how you feel about religion, let's set that aside for a second, okay? It has nothing to do with what we're talking about. It has to do with you are powerless in step one and you have to find a power. And then the rest of the steps are set up so that we can find that power regardless of where you start. are. We don't care. Guys, listen. I had a guy that showed up in treatment one time when I was working part-time for a treatment place down south. This guy showed up and I remember picking a book up out of his luggage. I didn't usually do that, but somebody asked me to help check this guy in. When I picked this book up, it felt really weird. I remember looking at him and I said, what's this? He said, it's a satanic Bible. I remembered dropping it back in his suitcase like this and and I just it was the creepiest thing that guy lasted three weeks and then he left and and i I'm here just testifying I was glad that he left he was a bigger troublemaker as I have ever seen and he was walking talking chaos he was just simply off the chain crazy all the time and I thought oh my gosh gosh, I left and came back on my next trip down there. I used to work down there for 10 days at a time. And so when I came back the next month, this guy was standing in the courtyard and I went, oh, God, why, why? And I mean, I'm literally just going like, what did I do wrong? I know this is about me being punished for whatever. And he goes, hey, Mr. Ramer. And he kind of held his hand up and I went, now that's odd. So I met him in big book and we had a little conversation and we talked a little bit and we got ready to do the Lord's prayer at the end of the meeting. We circled up and we've got all these guys there and I look down and I look over to my left and this guy's holding my hand. He had never ever stayed for that. As soon as our lectures were over, he would split. He never stayed for the end of it like this. And he stays. He said the Lord's prayer with me. And I went, now, this is just so weird that it's not even funny like this, and so it just began to get better and better and better. And I eventually asked him what happened, and he said there were some things that happened to me when I went home that convinced me that I needed to be willing to look at some stuff, and that's what I did. A couple days later, he came running into my office, and And he held up this little cross and he said, look what my mom just sent me. And I started laughing. I said, no kidding. How cool is that? And he said this is the coolest thing that I've ever been given. And I thought, wow, from satanic worshiper to this little guy. Well, to tie these ends up, he got out rock star. He's doing so good. And about two years later, he sent me a picture and he says, what do you think about this? and I said, well, I can't tell from the picture. So I handed the phone to London. She showed me how to vigorize it. And so I made the picture bigger and I went, dude, it looks like you're standing in front of a swimming pool or something. And he said, it's a baptismal pool. And I went oh my gosh, it was just like, and I laughed and I thought it was really funny. Guys, listen, to go from there to there is my point of the conversation. My job is not to decide where you end up my job is to help you understand that where you start is not where you're going to end up um you're gonna find yourself in a situation where you'll start out um one place and you'll end up someplace else i had a guy also in treatment who uh was 100 against anything spiritual would not embrace it at all and about a week before he got ready to leave i said you do realize that you're to make very little progress anywhere in this program unless you get past this contempt camp. And he said, I know. And we had this conversation the next morning. He said, I got it. And I said, what do you mean you got? And he said, II think I know what God's God's like. And I said what any I'm all ears and he said Thor and I said yours your sore and he goes no Thor and I said you mean like the guy with the big hammer and he Said yeah, I think that and I said well you gotta start someplace. You gotta start some place if If that's if that's it, then rock on. It better be a big hammer. And and he laughed. And so he finishes out aces. He does real good leaves. I saw him about three weeks, three months later. He ended up working in the industry and I saw Him and I asked him about it. And I said, hey, so how are you and Thor doing? And he said, it's badass, Myers. It's the coolest thing in the whole wide world like that. I absolutely love spending time with him every day. And I went, no kid. And he says, hey check this out. and he pulled his shirt back and i went i can't what is it and he said oh hell and he took his shirt off and he had a tattoo of thor on his back with this big arm that came around his shoulder like this with this Big Hammer out there laying across his chest and i thought holy cow that's pretty that's pretty cool and he goes yeah yeah pretty cool fast forward a year or so and i saw saw him at a at a conference thing and I said dude you're okay and he said yep doing great man helping some folks it's been a good life and I say well that's cool how's Thor and he says well you know Thor's okay and I went uh-oh what's going on he said no it's not that he said I just I just think that there's more than Thor and I'm like that's the that's my point is that where you start out and Bill was was way clear about this where you start out is not where you'll end in. The contempt and the barriers are all on your side, not on God's side. So just kick the door open a little bit, look in and see what you see. And then get on out there and find out what you'll be. It's one of the coolest things in the whole wide world. But it's the key that unlocks the rest of the program. Imagine how weird it would have been if step two was at the end of the program we would be screwed i mean it's just like because because the book is getting ready to ask us a bunch of stuff and they're going to ask us to do a bunch of stuff that makes us feel really uncomfortable and without having the hand of a creator in the middle of that um then we'll be in trouble one last little thing if you if you're sharing the idea that a door can be or lighten up go go a light bulb can be uh got but just maybe rethink that. I'm not going to say stop saying it, but just kind of rethink that last I checked guys and I'm not a real big guy, but last I check there's not a, there's no light bulb anywhere that I can't crush in a second. It's just not very big. I like, I like a, a guide that's a little more, um, a little bit more impressive, but there you go. Um, flip back over to page 60. Uh, um, there, there let's talk about this third step thing here. We've got about 25, 20 minutes here. And I want to – I don't know if – maybe it's just me, but I think this particular part of the book is the most brilliant, the most insightful, the most – it took courage to write it. It took courageto present it. It took – but it was a game changer for me. It was just an absolute game changer where we start with ABCs right after the steps we get the abcs uh that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives and it goes through the rest of this and then being convinced that we are at step three which is we decided to turn our will in our life over to the care of god as we understood him thor just what do we mean by that and just what we do uh this sets us up for uh this this cool decision which is what they're asking us to make this this school decision what i find fascinating is that Bill was running two things parallel. There were two things that were going on. One, they were talking about we were getting ready to make a decision in this third step and they were going to tell us kind of what that decision was. But there was also this underlying story about the stage character that introduced me to a person that I didn't want to look at. It was real uncomfortable. uncomfortable this was the this was the piece of the book that made me squirm the most because I didn't want to I didn'T want to see it they at the bottom of page 60 they talk about let's see the first requirement is to be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success on that basis we're almost always in collision with something or somebody even though our motives are good and then they talk about the actor who wants to run the whole show and by this time at the the top of page 61, I'm already kind of scratching my old scraggly beard and I'm going, hmm, what the heck is he talking about? Wait a minute. We just spent 60 pages talking about addiction, talking about the disease of alcoholism. And now all of a sudden Bill Wilson doesn't mention it. He's not talking about it at all. It's like it was written somewhere else by somebody else. It was just completely... And then at the end of it, they say, let's stick it right here. it didn't make any sense like that and i i would come to appreciate where he was coming from um a little farther down what usually happens the show doesn't come off very well we've got that still the play doesn't suit him now admitting that he may be somewhat at fault he is sure that other people are more to blame he becomes angry indignant self-pitying what is his basic trouble is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind now guys i'm by this point i'm already pushing back really hard I'm pushing back pretty hard because I'm getting ready to he's gonna kick me in the teeth with it and then on the next page but we're already I'm going wait a minute my problem is not selfishness my problem I'm okay dude my problem his boobs that's it and I get rid of the booze that I'm gonna be okay I think they don't let up our ego or actor is self-centered egocentric as people like to call nowadays blah blah blah it goes goes on over to page 62, and then there it is. He just kicks you right in the teeth with it. Selfishness, self-centeredness, that we think is the root of our troubles. No, it's not, Bill. Canadian whiskey is my problem. Canadian whiskey and later some methamphetamine. That's the root OF my problems like that. And then he's out. They don't think so. And then it goes on down. He paints this thing so our troubles, we think, are of own making. And they get down. I'm not going to read all this, but I want you to understand this. You ever notice how little drunks and dope fiends can be amazingly effective at deflection and at rationalization? I can rationalize anything. My car is parked sideways in the the driveway i can rationalize that uh i can i mean it doesn't you pick it and think of the stupid things that you've said and done and you'll you'll notice this kind of stuff um and and bill is kind of hitting us with all of this stuff to look at like this and then he gives us the solution down at the bottom of page 62 this is the how and why of it we had to have god's help we had to quit playing god it didn't work next we decided that hereafter in this drama of life god was going to be our director he is the principal we are his agents and it goes on down um most good ideas are simple this is the concept this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch in which we pass through freedom wow wow um when we sincerely took such a position all sorts of remarkable things happen and then we end up with these little little promises at the top of this step. And guys, these promises are like nothing in the world that I've ever seen. So before I finish this, let me circle back around a little bit because I want to ask you guys a couple of questions. If you're two weeks sober, you may not be able to relate to what I'm talking about. But if you're two years sober or 20 years sober or 40 years sober, you may totally get this deal. Over on page 60, Bill Wilson started talking about a stage character and it's always a fascinating piece for me because the last thing I want to do and where I seem to be the most ferocious at making excuses refuses around is denying that I could be a stage character. And somebody asked me a billion years ago, it seems like now, somebody asked Meyers, let me ask you a question. Are you the same guy to your family that you are to your AA people? And I went, of course, because my pride wouldn't let me answer it any other way. And then I backed up a little bit like that. I remember driving home from a meeting one night and i remember thinking myers you are a spiritual giant dude you nailed it in there that tonight you really did a great job like that and i'm literally patting myself on the back like some idiot and i get home and i walked in the front door and i step over a bunch of book bags that were laying in the in the entryway and i'M angry and kicking them out of the way and i walk in the kitchen and there's some dirty dishes in the sink and I'M angry And I'm going, Londa's worked the same hours that I have and the same day that I worked it like this, trying to herd these little kids. I have three daughters and I'm angry. And I began to think about this and I went, wait a minute, this is crazy like that. A minute ago, I was telling myself that I'm a spiritual giant. And now my wife is standing across the room with her arms folded, looking at me, shaking her head going, you're acting like a three-year-old. and i want to defend my actions i wanted to defend it like that there's a piece of me an underlying thread that goes as long as i'm not drunk or at a dope house i'm okay i'm looking at the big picture of what's going on at all guys these these these pages here when bill is setting us up to take that third step prayer these these stages are talking about about whether or not we are authentic or not, whether we give a rat's fuzzy rear about our character or not. And some of you do and some of don't, I understand. Some of you don't because you just haven't seen it yet. You just haven' realized that. But how many of y'all have known people who were drunk and then they sobered up and then the worst part of their life was after they got sober and they ended up getting divorced and losing jobs and all this other kind of stuff? Sober, sober. and we always want to make it sound like every everything stemmed around the fact that my addiction was what it was and the reality of this stuff is guys is sometimes we just don't grow up uh sometimes we Just don't there was a there was A guy um but the first guy that ever sponsored um Chris was also a member of that first group that I was a member Of in North Texas and um I want to connect this up and that way you'll understand where I'm coming from. He, he disappeared. He was always there every meeting. He was a meeting makers make it guy just like me. And he was always at the meeting and all of a sudden he didn't show up for two or three days and we were concerned and we used to talk about it a little bit, but then he comes walking across the parking lot one day after we hadn't seen him for three days. And I said, dude, where are you been? And he said, ah, I had some testing done. I said you're sick. And he says, no, no, they're psychological testing. And I said, well, what happened? And he said, oh, we'll talk about it in the meeting that we're going to make it a topic tonight. And then I went, okay. So we didn't talk about, you know, the life's changing steps. We talked about his trip to the psych doctor. Typical. So anyway, we go in there and somebody started the conversation. And so he went on this deal and he talks about, they still do these psych tests for most people that are in treatment centers. They'll go, there are hundreds and hundreds and thousands of questions. And you you answer them. And so I said, So what did they find out? And he said, Well, it's interesting on the day that I left the doctor's office when I was getting ready to do they were going to do the evaluation. And I said so what did you find out and the doc said, Golly, Don, it is fairly fascinating. You're a perfectly well adjusted adolescent. And, and Don's like 48 years old at the time. And and and I was it when he told me the story based on where I was because I was acting in the same way. I didn't even really get it. Everybody laughed a little bit and, and I laughed with them, but it would be much later down the road. I would go, wow, this is absolutely the truth. How many of you have found out that you're a, you're, you'RE one guy at one place and a different guy someplace else? Um, I fly airplanes and used to ride a bunch of motorcycles and I would agree. I'd go when I, when I'm a spiritual giant in AA, but when I'M riding motorcycles or flying airplanes with these guys. I'm a foul-mouthed idiot. I'll say crazy stuff and do crazy things like this, and it's just like how many of you are one guy, one place, and a completely different guy if you go to church or with your wife or with Your kids or whatever the deal is like that? Guys, we were not created to be all these different personas, and It's a lot of work. You talk about, some people say, I don't understand why I'm so tired. Oh, I do. Besides the physical aspect of the disease, besides that part of it like that, how hard do you think it is to balance a million personas every day? It's like, you're just playing these games back and forth. You don't even know who you really are authentically. and and i think the bigger question sometimes is do you even care do you even care who you what you are from a character standpoint do you really care uh and some some guys do and some guys some guys don't i just like i i guys i don't want to go through life like the stage character but what what this did was it rubbed my nose in the fact that maybe who i who i wanted to um uh portray myself as um ask yourself this question do you ever find yourself saying something just to get along even when you knew that the right decision was something else pay attention next time you're in a group conscious meeting or a business meeting with your aa group like this and people are voting do you look around the room before you vote pay attention i mean guys because i what what I would do is I'd go, oh, Allie's hands up. So mine's going up. You see, even if I completely disagree with what Allie was getting ready to vote on like that, I want to be what everybody wants me to be and expects me to Be. And so I'll do that. That's called classic garden variety inauthenticity. And it will kick your butt. You'll end up being this big old bonafide hypocrite. And that's not where you want to Be if you're walking a spiritual path. And that'S the reason why this stuff was so amazing. The last little piece on here, the little promises before the prayer in the middle of that page is that as we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, it just goes on. And then it ends with this classic, we were reborn. Guys, I've never known a drunk or a dope fiend yet that didn't at some point in time want to be reborn. That I'd just be different than who I am. If you sober up and find out that you don't like who you are. After we're going to do inventory in a couple of minutes, you may really find that you Don't Like Who You Are. We have a solution. We stand at the turning point and that's all some powerful stuff. Ask yourself these questions as you read through these promises that are scattered through the book. There's dozens and dozens of them. Ask yourself, are these promises true? Have they manifested in my life? If they have, rock on. If they haven't, why? Do I believe that they can't be attained or do I not care or whatever? Most of us, we all won't walk the same path, but most of us will look at the promises and eventually we'll go, I'm not experiencing these. And the next logical question is why? And the next logical answer is, maybe I need to look at the steps again. Maybe I needto look at what's holding me, what's blocking me from the sunlight of the Spirit. Because all of these promises are available to all of us if we do the things that we're supposed to do, if we take this work seriously. And that's why I love the idea that we can start over anytime. You're 20 years sober. You've drifted sideways. sideways, your restless, irritable, and discontent seems to define your life more than serenity. Start over. Start over, grab somebody, and let's just get on back through the work like that, and you can see what's going on. There's no time thing on that. We can start over anytime we want to. In the middle of that prayer, am I the only one that was shocked that a prayer so profound found would not mention booze and it doesn't in the middle of that prayer uh there's a line relieve me of the bondage itself see bill wilson has kicked the addiction completely out of the picture they're not dealing with this they're dealing with this new selfishness and self-centeredness that we think is the root of our problem like that and and and continuing that he's bill is saying if you're going to get sober If you're going to get whole and complete, if you're going to deepen that relationship with God then you need to get self out of the way because as long as your hand is on the tiller you're gonna be in trouble. I had coffee one night with Joe McQueenie, Joe McHugh of Joe and Charlie. Joe was Cliff Bishop's sponsor who sponsored me for 23 years until he passed away and uh so i was with joe several different times and uh when he would come to dallas and he'd stay with cliff and then we'd always get together and visit and i don't know if any of you guys ever actually saw joe mcquainy in person of joe and charlie like that but he was an enormous guy he was really i remember shaking hands with him and it was like shaking hands with somebody that had a baseball glove on his enormous hands like that my hand would would just disappear in his hand like this. And we would sit there and one day he said, Myers, let me ask you a question. He said, do you think that you can overcome self with more self? And I went damn straight. And he said why do you thing that? And I said because I got book after book after book, self-help books that tell me that, that if I just exert enough self, I'll be able to overcome self. And he says, Myers, and I remember him looking at Clifford and he kind of rolled his eyes and he said, you're going to have your work cut out on this one like this. And they all laughed. I didn't think it was funny. But the reality was is that he was true. He leaned across the table, pushed his coffee cup out of the way, and he said, Myers, let me tell you something. The happiest you will ever be in your life is when your will and God's will are aligned. And the only way that's going to happen is for you to get your your hand off the tiller and let God do this. Because as long as you're trying to run the show, you will stay constantly frustrated because it will never work the way you want it to. And I remember sitting there looking at him like this and I believed everything that guy said. He was just absolutely one of those kind of mesmerizing sort of dudes like that. Relieve me of the bondage itself. Stop and think about how many times you've got up in the morning, sat on the edge of your bed and then went, huh? And a thought came in your head. By the time you went to the bathroom or went and got some breakfast or whatever the deal was, you haven't even been up 30 minutes and your head's already rattling around about what you need to do today and who said what and did they really mean that? It's crazy. Bythe time you get on the road, you're flipping people off. You're driving like an idiot. And by the time you get to work, you already got yourself worked into this frenzy. You just walk off the elevator, you walk into an office and you're looking around going, go ahead. You got a problem with me? Start right now. I mean, you're ready to just tear into somebody. Anybody ever lived life like that or is that just me? It could be a painful place to be. But if it's driven by itself, day after day after day, week after week, it's going to look just like that. And if you dig that, rock on. It's your nightmare live it but i gotta say guys if you're like me 90 of the coolness of our program is once i see it i have the ability to deal with it the solution is there they're going to give that to me the problem with drunks and and folks in our fellowship like that is that oftentimes if we don't see something we don't realize the problem is there i've got an ego that wants to paint this this picture that I'm a super guy, that I've just a sweetheart. That's just it. And the reality is without the steps, without this inventory that we're getting ready to talk about, without this work of being alerted to the fact that I possibly could be this stage character, I will never move towards a change. Six and seven that are coming up that we'll talk about. Six and six are useless if you don't see first that the problem exists. Then we say this prayer. which I still love it. They say we can say any other prayer. I still Love This Prayer because it's just the bad-ass thing, and then they move us on into Inventory, which we're going to talk about in 15 or 20 minutes. We'll get back into that kind of stuff. I better stop there so you guys can go scratch and stretch a little bit. Thank y'all.