If Meetings Were the Answer Bill W. Would Have Written Step Thirteen — Chris R. & Myers R. – Chris R. & Myers R.

About This Speaker Tape

Chris R. and Myers R. from the Primary Purpose Group deliver this Saturday morning session at a 12-step weekend in Cannes, France in 2008. Myers opens with straight talk about the over-prescription of antidepressants — 227 million prescriptions worldwide — arguing that most people in recovery are medicating what the spiritual malady actually causes. He and Chris once bought a 32-foot sailboat drunk in Houston because that impulse to buy, eat, or relationship-hop is the same untreated internal condition.

Myers digs into why sponsorship has become so feared in AA. Five men he worked with had over 100 years of combined sobriety but had collectively sponsored only five people. He argues sponsors have piled on obligations the literature never required, turning a simple process into something paralyzing. The real problem is that most sponsors have never actually been carried through the steps themselves — they are teaching something they have not experienced.

The session walks through Steps 1-3 with a brand-new guy "Andy" as the example. Myers hammers the mental obsession — how his mind always takes him back to the Guadalupe River at 17 with a quart of beer and a girl under cypress trees. Chris picks up with a passionate defense of the Higher Power concept in AA, comparing his early spiritual struggle to two extension cords that just are not quite long enough. Both speakers drive home the window of opportunity — do the steps now with the desperation of a drowning man, because the disease keeps progressing even in sobriety and that window can close. This is a beginner-friendly tape that also challenges old-timers who have been sitting in meetings for years without doing the work on selfishness and self-centeredness.

Topics

Timestamps

• 00:01:00 Myers on antidepressants and over-medication in recovery — 227 million prescriptions
• 00:05:00 Buying a 32-foot sailboat drunk with Chris in Houston — spiritual malady drives impulsive behavior
• 00:08:00 Five men with 100+ years combined sobriety who had only sponsored five people between them
• 00:12:00 Why sponsorship terrifies people — I love you, I just don't want anything to do with you
• 00:18:00 The mental obsession — my mind takes me back to the Guadalupe River at 17 with a quart of beer
• 00:24:00 Meeting makers make it? Not one place in the literature says the solution is in a meeting
• 00:30:00 The two extension cords — wanting desperately to connect with a Higher Power but not being able to snap them together
• 00:36:00 Step 3 prayer says relieve me of the bondage of self, not bondage of booze
• 00:40:00 I pushed you around, I heavy-sighed until you gave in — seeing selfishness in inventory
• 00:46:00 Chris on the window of opportunity — do the work with the desperation of a drowning man
• 00:50:00 The disease doesn't stop progressing in sobriety — 20 years sober and relapsing