Problems Other Than Alcohol – 2025 AA Service Workshop – Part 14 of 27 – Billy N.

good evening everyone i'm billy i'm an alcoholic and welcome on your monday night my tuesday morning where i am right now so hopefully my connection is good hopefully all will work fine um i know we skipped last week so i just want to welcome everyone back um and if you are keeping track we tonight are not doing a tradition and a concept tonight we are talking about a pamphlet specifically tonight problems other than alcohol um and so a couple of things to get out of the way number one i hope everyone is uh ready to go to the international in a couple of weeks it's already june meaning it's really less than 30 days until a lot of people start traveling to vancouver so i wish everyone a safe travel there um a reminder about the questions and answers we try to stick to the topic regarding the q a if there is any questions and they're sent in via chat i know the general service conference just happened some of you probably have heard reports from your delegates already that's awesome i am not your delegate it is not my job to give you a report for the general service conference i'm also not going to give any color commentary on how the conference voted why it went that way or anything else i think best to hear it from a delegate i i also will say that if there is any question that seems to be around a common conference topic i'm going to pass on it we do try to stay away from anything that could be lobbying or anything else that could be considered trying to influence the fellowship at all like that which brings me to tonight's pamphlet which there are two of them which i'm going to explain in a second but i want to just talk briefly because this topic can be we have people in our fellowship it seems who are much like the people outside our fellowship we have extremists and um they love to take extreme positions on either side i'd say on both sides but since it's aa god knows how many sides there are doesn't why limit ourselves to two with aa members um but this topic can sometimes uh cause some really uh deep feelings hard feelings um the pamphlet i think was written to kind of try to alleviate that but sometimes people listen even anybody listening to what i have to say tonight if your intention is to get my interpretation of the pamphlet, that's useless, to be perfectly honest. I can stress to you the pamphet and what you should read so that you can form your own opinion without picking on any religion. It's like watching a religious program on TV. um some people re will watch the tv show or program but they will not read the literature of that particular religion they will just follow the interpretation of someone who's pretty good speaking about it um that is not the point of going over this pamphlet tonight the point of going Over This Pamphlet Tonight is highlighting some things that are in there so that you know they're in there and that uh you can use either one of them as a resource um i also want to stress when it says you know problems other than alcohol everyone wants to jump right away to the drug word there are a million problems other then alcohol drugs being just one of many of course, a popular one, but not the only one. If you are not familiar with this piece of literature or these pieces of literature, I'm going to actually start with the annotated one first just because I want to get something out of the way. But if you're not familiar with it i just want to let you know it's f8 some of you may not know that our literature it's it has a number and a letter applied to it or a letter in the number so f isn't frank eight f dash eight is the annotated problems other than alcohol it's the one that is small and is light blue and white now one of the things that i think people like about that piece of literature is that you know i'm sure everybody here a lot of people here know about writing a letter or an email to gso hoping to get some kind of you know verified blessed from the gospel answer that you can use in a diner or your home group to prove that you are right um Most times, people are very disappointed when they write to GSO looking for something like that. They mostly get a letter of shared experience. But there are some questions that are asked in the regular pamphlet that in the annotated version F8, Frank 8, answers are given. So I want to read a couple of them before I go to the regular Pamphlet. So just hold on one second. It says, problems other than alcohol excerpts by Bill W., co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. And then it says the following excerpts from a grapevine article by AA's co-founder Bill W. represent principles by which have been reaffirmed by members of the AA General Service conference of 1969 1970 and 1972. so when we get to the second pamphlet the real pamphle it's a great fine article that's where it comes from and it starts off by saying the problem of drug addiction in its several forms lies close to us all it stirs deep interest and sympathy many aas especially those who have suffered these particular addictions are now asking what can we do about drugs within our fellowship and without. And then it says, specifically, here is a list of questions we are often asked. Can a non-alcoholic pill or drug addict become an AA member? No, is the answer. And it stresses, can a non alcoholic pill or drugs addict become a non alcoholist? Can a drug addict be an AA? No. Can such a person be brought as a visitor to an open AA meeting for help and inspiration? Yes, the answer is given. If so, should these non-alcoholic pill or drug users be led to believe that they have become AA members? No, is the answer, the key being non- alcoholic. And then can a pill or a drug taker who also has a genuine alcoholic history become a member of AA? Yes, is the answer given. And then it says there are certain things that AA cannot do for anybody regardless of what our desires or sympathies may be. Our first duty as a fellowship is to ensure our own survival. Therefore we have to avoid distractions and multi-purpose activity. Sobriety, freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practice of the 12 steps is the sole purpose of an AA group. Groups have repeatedly tried other activities and they have always failed. It has also been learned that there is no possible way to make non-alcoholics into AA members. We have to confine our AA membership to alcoholics and we have to confined our AA groups to a single purpose. If we don't stick to these principles, we shall surely collapse and if we collapse we can help nobody now i i want to talk about a subject that gets brought up a lot before i go to the regular pamphlet and that pamph let i mean that subject i don't know where all of you attend your meetings but i do know that most of you probably attend a meetings or a groups or at least an a group one of them they all meet in lots of different places some of your groups meet in churches or temples some of Your Groups meet in clubhouses some of You Groups Meet in community type centers ambulance building firehouse uh fire department library. There's all kinds of buildings that we meet in, and the thing that they all have in common is that AA, the group or the meeting, is not the landlord. Where they meet is the landlord. That's who rents space to the AA group or meeting. Now, in many of these, because I get this call all the time and I just want to get it out of the way, I never get this phone call or email or text. Nobody ever calls me all bent out of shape and says, Billy, you won't believe it. The church put an automatic defibrillator in the hallway where our group meets. No one ever calls with that problem. Noone ever callsme to say, Billy. The clubhouse we meet in now has two automatic defibrillators nobody ever calls me and says billy the clubhouse has a first aid kit i can't believe it uh because it just seems to make sense what is wrong with a property owner or the person renting you space deciding to have a first-aid kit or a defibrillar there that seems like an outside issue whatever that landlord decides to have. Now, I don't know how many AA closets I've been into. But I think I can generally describe the typical AA closet. Now I know some of you are from really perfect structured groups. So I am not attempting to insult you in any way here. I am NOT talking about your perfect group, what your perfect kind of Tupperware Rubbermaid boxes that are perfectly sealed and labeled with exactly what's in them. I'm not talking about you. I'M talking about the group that has a couple of cardboard boxes thrown in some kind of closet with or some kind of Tupperware or rubber bin that's cracked, that is not labeled at all, that when you look inside it, it is usually a couple have laminated how it works the promises, a blue card or two, maybe a green card. And if your meeting happens to be a literature meeting, maybe 20 or so 12 and 12s, or as Bill sees it, like I have seen a million of those boxes. Okay. Now every once in a while, I think in the 30 plus years I've been in AA, I've seen a bandaid or two in there. I don't even know how they got in there, okay? I don'T know how a band aid got in that box. But all I know is this, I've never also gotten a call or a text or an email. Billy, you're not going to believe this. A Band-Aid appeared in our box like we are providing first aid now. I've Never Gotten That Call. It doesn't seem to – I can't be the only one who's ever gone into an AA box in a closet and was unpacking for a meeting and found two or three Band-aids. Now, here's the call I do get. Billy, the library we meet in now has Narcan available. Billy, the clubhouse we meet in now has Narican available. Now this comes in all shapes and sizes. There are some buildings or counties or towns that have regulations about meetings that announce that it's the law. We have an automatic defibrillator. It's located right here. Some now have things about Narcan. Now, while that is an outside issue, I don't see the difference between Narcan and automatic defibillator? It seems to have nothing to do with AA and all to do with, I guess, the horrible suggestion of helping to save someone's life. I don't know how we can be all upset about a building or a clubhouse or anything else. Now, when you take this a step further, and I've done my research on this subject, I just want to let you know, i have done my research inside the united states i don't know about canada there are an aa group or two who meet in a location that have purchased their own automatic defibrillator because they are very economically priced these days now in the ones that I have uncovered. It is usually lodge meetings of many people of a significant older age, which I am getting closer to every day. So I used to be able to talk about it like it was not my age group. And the one that I'm talking about in particular is a large seasonal gathering that only happens during a couple of months a year at a particular RV resort that gets a couple of hundred AA members from various RV resorts close by, like within a 20-mile radius, let's call it. They get over 300 people gathered. Now, it turns out that over the last couple of years, that meeting has had two cardiac incidents during the meeting or while the group meets. And because it is in this RV location, it is miles away from a hospital and not even close to any kind of first aid kit. So this group decided to buy one of these lower cost automatic defibrillators. Who am I to say that they can't buy it. Should we be in the medical business? Probably no, but they just decided to do it. Now, whether the people who come to AA or not, I often ask myself this question. If someone who's not an alcoholic snuck into an AA meeting and happened to have a heart attack, do we have some thing where we would not do cpr on somebody because they were not an aa member or an alcoholic or snuck into an aa meeting i mean i just don't believe that's who we are like you know the meeting stops it's no longer a meeting it's a life-threatening situation and people help the person who's in need i just dont my point on this is i think a lot of people are getting sent in a really bad direction by being so worried about Narcan. The fact of the matter is, a lot of people in today's society are dying of complications of opiate or fentanyl-related causes. That has nothing to do with AA. It might not even have anything to do avec any other fellowship. But if they happen to be around where an AA meeting happens, I can tell you that the clubhouse that I regularly attend meetings at where my home group meets has fentanyl available. It has Narcan available. I'm sure it has fentanol available too, for God's sakes. It's AA. Probably have a whole bunch of things available we shouldn't have available. You can probably call in a couple of bets on the Super Bowl at my Monday morning a group without leaving the group, right? It's AA. But I don't think it's worth getting all bent out of shape. Number one, the clubhouse is the club house. They have a right to do what they want to do. And so many people want to make this an AA issue. And I'm, I just am very sensitive to the world we live in today. And as we go through the other pamphlet, it's going to become very evident um about how sensitive i am the third tradition as i've said before is about it's our diversity and inclusion statement the long form says you know a membership ought to be those for those who suffer from alcoholism that's it that's not the requirement to attend an open meeting anyone can attend an open meet but only alcoholics can participate that's what it says in a group pamphlet you don't have to be an AA member or an alcoholic, to attend a closed meeting. Now that's category number one. You can be an alcoholic or you can be a person who has a desire to stop drinking and a drinking problem. That's the other category of people that can attend a close meeting, to have both the desire and the problem. So, the diversity and inclusion of the third tradition was to make sure that every alcoholic knew they were entitled to a bad cup of coffee in an uncomfortable chair. to make sure that regardless of what color you were, regardless of what ethnicity you were regardless of what religion or non-religion you were regardless of what God you believed in regardless of your gender or your sexuality that you were entitled to AA membership. That's what the third tradition is about. And so, it's so important to realize that our organization only has a qualifier. That's it. One qualification for membership ought to be all those who suffer from alcoholism. That's all. That's the end of it. we don't have any disqualifiers now it's very late where i am or early but it's not too late where most of you are if you feel like going down the proverbial google rabbit hole tonight i can give you a suggestion start looking for organizations that you can't kicked out of i'd love to hear back from you please email me i'd love to know the crazy other organizations where there's nothing that can get you kicked out we don't have any disqualifiers we just simply have a qualifier and we have a lot of people with a lot of problems that's why when it says problems other than alcohol like i've never met somebody in aa who doesn't have a lot of problems you know i have a good old friend of mine in chicago um and uh you know I used to laugh because he's older than me but he's a lawyer and And he's been a lawyer for a long, long time. And actually another friend of mine worked for him, still works for him. But anyway, Tom used to say about being a lawyer that, you know, when you walk into an AA meeting, you could have the same four people all jumping, you Know, they're all ready for you to walk in. They have their problems. and uh tom would say when everyone asked him and would tell him their problems tom would say you know what the kind of problems you have need a law firm i'm just a lawyer i'm a solo practitioner your quality of problems requires a law firm which i always thought was such a great answer but my point is if you just took a 20-person meeting and multiplied the amount of problems like if you asked each person please list your top 20 problems most people could go more than 20 like problems is common for every human being including those of us who are members of Alcoholics Anonymous who are alcoholic. It's just those other problems have nothing to do with our AA membership. Even drug addiction has nothing to deal with our AAA membership. It's one of another set of problems that we have. We have people with financial problems. We have children problems. We also have relationship problems. We have people with, you know, I mean, let's talk about the AA of today. It's 2025. The last 20 years, AA has never seen this many returning veterans from combat. Forget about World War II. forget about korea or vietnam those were tragic for sure but we're coming out of almost a 20 year deep involved in combat situation for the armed forces of the united states of america and some other armed forces canadian too And unlike the previous wars, the pamphlet for veterans and military was rewritten because the one thing that most of the veterans in World War II Korea and Vietnam had in common is one tour overseas and done. I don't know if there's anyone here who's dealt with veterans in the last 20 years who've returned, but it's not one tour and done we see people coming into AA who did three, four, five tours overseas between 2001 and let's just call it 2020. And so the other problem of PTSD, post-traumatic stress syndrome is alive and well in Alcoholics Anonymous as far as the amount of members that are suffering from it. Now we have members who suffer from it due to other circumstances. I'm just talking about the large influx of veterans, like PTSD is a common other problem that we don't deal with. We don't have a program for PTSD. But I just want to stress about how many other problems there are out there. And I want to go to the real pamphlet. um and the real pamphlet just so you know if you're looking um that is pamphelet p35 p as in peter 35 it is yellow and shows a man in a baseball hat kind of slouched over in a chair and it says problems other than alcohol by bill w co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is also the size of other pamphlets, not the small one that the blue and white one is. If you go to the opening page, it says, perhaps there is no suffering more horrible than drug addiction, especially the kind which is produced by morphine, heroin, and other narcotics. Such drugs twist the mind and the awful process of withdrawal rocks to suffer his body compared with the addict and his woes we alcoholics are pikers so i want to stress that word hikers p-i-k-e-r-s okay what it basically means is our problem isn't as bad as their problem i know that pisses some alcoholics off it they just can't handle it but i want to explain in 2025 language why that line is so important pikers oh i've been in aa sober over 30 years now i know some people who've left aa i know people who left aa and have had great lives i know shocking alarming because i know we want to believe that everyone who comes to an aa meeting is definitely an alcoholic that's simply not the case there are people who wind up going to an aaa meeting who are not alcoholic that's why in the big book when it says if you're convinced your prospect is an alcoholic it doesn't say if they show up at an aa meeting they were an alcoholic we have a whole book designed to help people discover if they're an alcoholic um i also have some people who've left aa and had tragic tragic results but here's my experience and this is my experience in the last three or four years only that time period so 2021 to 2025 i know people who have left a who have died but i don't know anyone who died the first night they went back out i'm sure it happens But I don't know anyone in my AA community who decided to pick up a drink on Tuesday and died that Tuesday from alcohol poisoning. i also happen to know many people or acquaintance with who were clean from fentanyl or opiates who went back out and they did die that day that night And I have had to learn from those who know better than me and professionals that the human body away from opiates for a couple of weeks or a couple of months if it is reintroduced if opiates is re-introduced to that same human body there's a chance that it could kill that human being that day like i've had to learn that the hard way so we're not saying alcohol is not horribly poison it is But when we say we're pikers, like the next time a real alcoholic who's not a drug addict decides to sponsor a drug addict who's NOT an alcoholic and doesn't realize the precarious position they are in their life, life and doesn't realize how dangerous it's going to be if they reintroduce that substance to their body like we really have to start like stop you know to think that we're like the Shangri-La that we are like the Ark of the Covenant that where Noah's Ark for all recovery. We simply are not. And to dispel another rumor and to encourage you to read this pamphlet is if the outside world, even the recovery community, wants to tell you that alcoholism and drug addiction are the same they can tell you that all they want that is not what any of the 12-step fellowships including aa believe or na or ca or ha heroin anonymous or crystal meth anonymous or narcotics anonymous just because you've had a spiritual experience as the result to 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous so many people have been raised for some reason to believe that it doesn't matter what somebody's step one problem is that since they have a spiritual solution found in steps 2-12 they can help anybody that is simply not the case and you know the forward to the second edition if you don't believe me please believe dr bob okay it's a lot better by the way if you happen to go to a meeting if you want to quote somebody don't quote billy n no one cares quote dr bob s people care what dr bob has had to say okay and in the forward to the second edition it talks about it says this physician meaning dr bob tried spiritual means meaning the oxford group and it failed that would be like an alcoholic who's not a drug addict who's helping a non-alcoholic drug addict instead of helping them with the oxygen group help them with steps 2 to 12 but dr bob says that in the big book tried spiritual means and they failed It was not until the broker, meaning Bill W., presented him the hopelessness of alcoholism. The identification, the me-too moment that Dr. Bob was willing to do the work. And what I love about that sentence and paragraph in the big book, in the forward to the second edition is that i've talked to other people in other fellowships and by other people i mean the kind of people the boogeyman the people that you have people tell you do not exist right like if you're my age if you happen to watch sesame street there was big bird there was enough luck of this nobody ever saw the two together apparently it was a figment of somebody's imagination but people will tell you oh there's no such thing as a non-alcoholic drug addict well i'm telling you unless i've met a lot of liars i have met a lot of people in other fellowships who have told me billy i'm not an alcoholic now that doesn't mean they drink i want to stress that As a young woman, clean in H.A., a bunch of years told me, she said, Billy, do you know people who drink make dumb decisions? I said, I've I've heard that I've, I'm aware of that, believe it or not. You don't have to be an alcoholic to even make dumb decision. When you drink and get drunk, it comes with getting drunk. so he said billy if i got drunk the dumbest decision i could make would be to use drugs to shoot up again and i could die which for me and i know this might not be common or popular in aa today with god knows all the dispensaries and all the gummies and god knows what else but i don't smoke weed okay Maybe that makes me not in in AA today. I don't smoke weed. You know why? People who smoke weed make dumb decisions. And even though I've never been addicted to weed, I have a feeling that if I was to smoke a joint, there is a chance that an ice-cold beer could really sound good to me, okay? But I have talked to some of these people in other fellowships, and they've told me that they have been where Dr. Bob is. They've attended AA meetings over and over again because AA people told them they should. And they never became convinced they were hopeless. they never had identification from alcohol stories from stories of alcoholics and as a result of not having identification they never had that me too moment and they wound up going out and using again And so it's just so important that we don't believe, you know, that we can help everyone. It's just not what any of our literature say. Now, do I believe that if they go into AA meetings, they'll be in much less danger? Maybe. you know how we say oh if you feel like drinking tell someone oh my buddy i was playing pinball in the back of a clubhouse who told another alcoholic he felt like drinking and the guy said so do i let's go like you know we're not talk therapy talk therapy so i'm not saying that the power of god in an aa meeting is not a positive influence of course i believe that i just am not careless with human lives anymore that i realize because i've talked to people who are not alcoholic but have this other problem um and you know the big book i'm guessing i'm not the only one i love this pamphlet i want everybody to read it but i can't be the only one that's like been to a big book workshop like especially your first one the one that opens your eyes wide right the one like the one that when you return home you drive everybody in aa crazy because you've become converted right like you are so on top of some pink cloud and you can't wait to tell everybody this new thing you found out about um but it's funny because one of the things that helped me the most as a result of the big book is i never realized that i made up my own definition of words like the introduction to a dictionary to look up words so that i knew what bill w intended when he wrote the big book has been an important exercise and i know i'm not the only one that has certain words the definition written in my big book maybe allergy reaction may be doomed I have that one written out restless, irritable and discontented some of us have all kinds of words written out because when we go to a big book study they tell us it's important to not have our own interpretation why don't we look up the word alcohol or drinking or alcoholism drinking is to imbibe liquid through your mouth i hate to break it to everyone but that's just what it is that's what the dictionary says um but when we hear people say well just changed this word or change this word here maybe someone here has had expert results doing that i think the safest thing you can do in honor of problems other than alcohol is in your phone have a couple of phone numbers of people and other fellowships could you imagine i don't know what the number is now i used to know what it was so i won't even guess or make it up but i used to know like the average debt of a newcomer in ga in gabalance anonymous it's a staggering figure by the way even the old one that i knew but could you imagine if ga one day became concerned that they didn't have enough members and said you know what we're gonna have a new campaign we're going to tell alcoholics to just come to GA just come to GA it's the same thing we'll take care of it we know that all of us would not like that we'd think they were putting people in harm's way but yet some of our people think they can help someone with any problem I've told the story a million times before I have a sponsee who asked to meet me at a diner. I had that meeting. He informed me that the night before, he forged his wife's signature on a second mortgage application because he was deep and he didn't owe like whatever those companies are that advertise on tv i don't know their collection procedures he owed somebody a lot of money from sports betting not on some app either and he decided to take out a home equity loan by forging his wife's signature you know i had to tell him like aa is not helping you with your gambling and I think the problem between the big book and this pamphlet, where it gets confusing, and again, I hate to talk about practical common sense when I'm going to, is there's a line in the big books that says some of our other problems go away. They do. I know alcoholics whose drug problems went away. I know alcoholics whose gambling problems went away. I know alcoholic whose sex problems went away. I know a whole hollocks whose codependency problems went away. I know, alcoholics, whose food related problems went away and I could go on and on. But for every one of them that I know. I know alcoholics that had to go to Gambler's Anonymous I know alcoholics that needed to go to Narcotics Anonymous I know alcoholics who needed to go to Codependence Anonymous I know alcoholics who needed to go to Overeaters Anonymous I know alcoholics who needed to go to Codependency Anonymous like everybody wants to put a square peg in a square it doesn't happen that way yes the book says some of our other problems will go away as a result of these spiritual exercises but it's not a guarantee for everybody and for some of these people that we're dealing with we're doing with their life and it's just a separate clinical illness disease all on its own And so I do advocate strongly. If you're the kind of person in your community, which if you're here on a Monday night to talk about a pamphlet or the traditions or concepts, I got to believe that in your little circle of AA, you're a pretty active AA member. if somebody else was not in aa needed the phone number of somebody active in aa having your phone number would be useful to somebody in your community i i know that we should have the phone numbers of people who are equal to us in other fellowships especially the main ones like ga and alan on for the family members of the alcoholics that we work with and narcotics anonymous um um someone just asked me a question where does it say about some of our other problems will go away i am traveling tonight but i will answer that question next week i have it circled in my big book at home i will make sure that i answer that first but it's okay to have phone numbers in your phone um of people and other fellowships to help your people get contact it's also okay to take somebody to a meeting of another fellowship You know, I want to just bring back up that pamphlet again for a second. Just give me one second so I can get to it. At the end, it says on the second page, our first duty as a society is to ensure our own survival therefore we have to avoid distractions and multi-purpose activity an aa group as such can never take on all personal problems of its members let alone the problems of the whole world and then it goes down and it says uh therefore i see no way of making non-alcoholic addicts into aa members experience says loudly that we can admit no exceptions even though drug users and alcoholics happen to be first cousins of sort if we persist in trying this i'm afraid it will be hard on the drug user himself as well as on aa we must accept the fact that no non-alcoholic whatever his affliction can be converted into an alcoholic a member so listen to that we must have set the fact that no non-alcoholic whatever his affliction can be converted into an alcoholic aa member and then it says suppose though we are approached by a drug addict who nevertheless has a genuine alcoholic history there was a time when such a person would have been rejected many early aas had that almost comical notion that they were pure alcoholics guzzlers only no other serious problems at all when alcoholic ex-cons and drug users first turned up there was so so much pious indignation what will people think chanted the pure alcoholics happily this foolishness has long since evaporated um one of the best aas i know is a man who had been seven years on the needle before he joined up with us. But before that, he had been a terrific alcoholic and his history proved it. Therefore, he could qualify for AA. And this he certainly did. Since then, he has helped many AAs and some non-AAs with pill and drug troubles. Of course, that is strictly his affair and in no way the business of the AA group to which he belongs. In his group, he is a member because in actual fact he is an alcoholic and then it goes on to say you know what can be done and you know one of the things i want to talk about is here's the thing that i hear all the time from people all the times that other program has no solution i hear people say that all the time it's always from people who've never been to one of those meetings but they say it all the time. But why not do what this person did in the pamphlet did? Why not in a non-AA setting like your backyard or a park or your kitchen table, why not in an AA setting share your experience with the steps with these people and let them bring that um to uh this other fellowship i also know so many recovered alcoholics who were also heroin addicts who have helped start the first ha meetings in their surrounding area there's so many things we can do to help somebody asked me a question do you encourage multiple fellowships at one time i've witnessed confusion of mixed messages na sayings or literature being regurgitated in aa meetings and new people carrying that message to other people thinking it's a profound day a message so that is an awesome question i want to thank the person for asking it if you've never read narcotics anonymous bulletin number 13 it could be one of the greatest things written about singleness of purpose ever written but by an N.A. trustee language is important in both fellowships I have newcomers who have bad drug problems go to N. A. as well like one meeting a week just because I want them to identify I don't want them dying and going out because they don't identify in a too many people dying of drug overdoses by me so if you tell me your life was brought back by narcan a couple of times and you're an alcoholic i'm going to ask you to go listen so i think for identification purposes but you are correct you have to keep the literature and the message and the language because when the language crosses over into each fellowship it can become very very confusing Very confusing. I'm an alcoholic in Alcoholics Anonymous. If I belong to another 12-step fellowship, that's my business and my business alone. However, if I do belong to another fellowship, I am not going to use that in addition to my name as I'm Billy, I'm An Alcoholic. I'm also sober in Alcoholic Anonymous sobriety freedom from alcohol but this is sponsorship this has nothing to do with literature you know I know very good members of NA who are also members of Alcoholics Anonymous they're sober in AA and clean in NA they don't use the word using in AlcoholicsAnonymous they use drinking um and the more we can keep each message aligned with its literature the better there are people many people and i think this is the one thing that covid really helped us with because for a while people wanted to tell you that You know, there was no such thing as just the alcoholic anymore. I'm just an alcoholic. I was young at one time in AA. There were other people who were alcoholics and other things. But boy, during COVID, did we get a lot of people who were drinking their faces off at home. boy did we get a lot of people who would no longer go into offices or work and you went to the same zoom meetings i went to back then you heard the stories you hear the people who are celebrating now three four five years right we have covid babies pandemic babies who are celebrating three, four, and five years now. It seems like insane, right? Like March of 2020 was just like yesterday. And now we have people with their third, fourth, or fifth year of sobriety who for their first two to six months only went to meetings online. and how many stories did we hear of people who all of a sudden they were opening up the wine bottle at eight in the morning they were working from home from their laptop they were having liquor delivered from the liquor store i mean it totally changed everybody's perspective a little bit but here's what we really have to be concerned with if you have a gambling problem i hope that when you go to ga you're going to hear experience strength and hope from someone who has not been compulsively gambling in a long time and that you hear a ga message if you're a gambler if you are a gamblist If you have an overeating problem, I hope that when you go to an OA meeting, you get the experience from someone who has recovered from that horrible, horrible situation, malady, illness, call it what you want. Why sometimes do we think that the alcoholic doesn't deserve the same thing in AA? It doesn't matter how many problems I have in my life. The one thing I have to remember is when I tell my story in an AA meeting, that somebody who is just an alcoholic can identify with it. that somebody who has the same problem as me, regardless of what other problems they have, but somebody who came to an AA meeting is going to receive experience, strength and hope around recovering from alcoholism. And that shouldn't be too much to ask for. There's the blue card, closed meeting, reading for alcoholism, sharing only. The closed meeting card talks about who should attend and sticking to our primary purpose. The open meeting is the one. And open meetings, let's face it, imagine this. Imagine you're a probation officer. A lot of people who get in trouble with gambling wind up on probation. Imagine you're a probation officer and you send one of your probationers to a Gambler's Anonymous meeting. And all they heard about was alcoholism. Imagine you were a probationer who went to an open GA meeting and you heard nothing in the meeting about gambling. Imagine you're a probation officer who sent someone to a Heroin Anonymous meeting, and all the person who talked about or the meeting talked about was drinking and alcoholism. when probation officers and judges and physicians assistants and medical students and nursing students come to our open meetings that's like our number one public information message we have to be talking about recovery from alcoholism and not saying flippant things like it's all the same. But on the other hand, let's talk about what not to do, okay? If somebody is telling their story and at the end of it, after whatever, drinking all night, happens to do a couple of lines of Coke, don't lose your mind because they mentioned it telling their story, okay? If somebody was out drinking all night and came back to their parents' basement to watch Pink Floyd, The Wall, and lit up a joint, you don't have to lose your mind that that's what they said while they were telling their AA story, OK? I mean, do we lose our mind when someone has a one-night... Imagine everybody in AA lost their mind when someone got into a fight with a bouncer. We'd have people losing their minds in AA meetings every day. How about this one? How about if everybody lost their mind when, believe it or not, somebody in AA had a one-night stand in their story, okay? All right. How bout this? How bout if everybody lost their mind because someone was depressed. Why is it okay to mention those things in our story? You know, when people say, well, Dr. Bob mentioned this in his story or Bill mentioned that, of course, it's their story and it's a small part. But the majority of telling your story in an AA meeting, should all be about your alcoholism and recovery from alcoholism. If you happen to have a couple of other things, it's not a big deal. But when you tell your story in a manner that an alcoholic could not identify with you, then you've done a disservice. and the worst disservice at all is if you've convinced yourself that because you've been through the big book and through the 12 steps that you can help anybody with any problem. That's just not true, and our book, it talks about making ourselves, availing ourselves of professional help. I can't be the only one in AA who's had to like bang his head against the wall at God knows how many years sober and say, you know what? I'm going to give this therapy thing a try. You know, like, am I the only One? No. Does that mean that I'm doing anything wrong? No, the book says to avail myself of all kinds of professional help it's just separate than aa but when we think that because we've had a spiritual experience we have some kind of unofficial professional help degree we're just practicing mental health care without a license we're not rape crisis intervention specialists we're not sexual crime or incest surviving counseling specialists you know our fourth step is great to deal with the resentment of what happened that's what our program is for resentment means to re-feel and if that's what's driving an alcoholic crazy the fourth step is incredible but if you have not dealt with the original trauma of the event you might very well need professional help and i should not convince anybody that i can give you that professional help I should not be threatened that somebody I help wants to see a therapist or a psychiatrist I should actually be happy that they're making so much forward progress in their life through the 12 steps that they are willing to do more to make their life better and I just wish we wouldn't be so extreme in all these things But on the other hand, in relation to the real alcoholic, we have to tell our stories and speak in AA meetings so they can identify. And in relation To people who are an alcoholic, we can't try to convince them that we can help all their problems. So I'm going to ask if anyone else has any other questions. All right, here's one. I live in a rural area where there is no other fellowships for problems other than alcohol when a person shows up at my group with problems other than what should i suggest to them they cannot do technology all right so i closed the meeting before i could see the name of the person who asked this question so i just want the person to know that okay i just wanna give a couple of statements about the world today. Because I've been hearing this thing about technology. Like, this is why we were so far behind in technology in the early 2000s in general service at GSO, at the grapevine. Because we kept telling people, oh, we can't forget about the poor person who can't afford the internet. Okay. So thank God it's 2025. and let's get some real information out there. Most people who deal with social services agencies in the United States of America do so on a smartphone. Just want to let you know that, just so you know. Most People Who Deal With Social Service Agencies Have An Email. And this is not me saying it. This comes from the government. now if you live in a rural area and yes there is someone who does not use technology i'm just going to give you a few suggestions number one find out where the nearest other fellowship is number two start an open meeting now not because it should be a meeting of all addictions anonymous but if what you're looking for is them to hear some experience strength and hope from somebody who recovered from alcoholism make it, you know, go to an open meeting. But open meetings are not meetings of all addictions anonymous. What I know is this. See, I grew up born in New York City, raised on Long Island with blinders on, right? Total blinders. like there's basically new york and los angeles and everybody in the middle lives on a farm and everything else right that's pretty much how arrogant i was raised to be okay um i just want to let you know that i have traveled everywhere in sobriety i have been in the middle of the largest cornfield in the middle of the country. And guess what? Number one, a lot of meth out there. So much meth in the middle of the country, it's not even funny. Guess what? It's a lot of heroin out there! Guess what, everyone's smoking weed. I just have not found a place anymore that we say is rural. There's just as many rural places where there's no AA meeting for like 10 or 20 miles on a particular night of the week. But you could help start another fellowship. If you do the work, you'll find someone who has that problem, even if you don't. And if you have to start a meeting one day a week where only one person or two people is sitting there waiting for others to join, if you build it, they will come. that is the story it just takes a lot of time and patience and while you're while they're building it you can share the solution with them and just because they're in a different fellowship doesn't mean you can't fellowship with them so there's so many things along those lines we can do without being totally drastic and draconian and thinking you know where the almighty aa and perfect and um there's so many things we can do but i just want to be very clear i served another fellowship as a non-addict member of the board what we call an a class a trustee which is non-alcoholic members of our board we have seven i served in another fellowship as a non-addict a non heroin addict member of their board and as such i met a lot of heroin addicts and i went to some of their conventions and i just want to tell you i met many many many people whose story was the same thing over and over again they were dying in the rooms of alcoholics anonymous because people told them just to come to aa and have an aaa sponsor and they came close to dying for years and finally they went to an ha meeting and they identified and they felt hopeless like dr bob did after meeting with bill and as such they were willing to do the steps i'm just telling you that's my real life experience i i tell everyone if you've never been to an open na or ha or other meeting you should go and if they ask you to introduce yourself you know just say you know your name is so-and-so and you're a non whatever observer if they ask you to share in their open meetings say out of respect for your traditions i'm not going to share i'm a non whatever observer but i can tell you what's going to happen after that meeting the people who are passionate about that fellowship are going to come up and talk to you and ask you why you're there they're going to talk to me and they're not going to ask you to talk and they'll be so glad you're there when you say hey i wanted to meet some people who have this problem because i run into them in aa and i don't know what to do those people are going to be so happy to meet you so any other questions before we sign off just want to let everyone know just a little public service announcement um the international convention is in like four weeks okay um there are going to be so many miracle stories there okay i am not a miracle story anymore i've become boring in aa i bought my plane ticket five months ago i've had my room reservation for a while right? Totally boring. I have a frequent flyer number, right? Like totally run of the mill boring, right. I'm going to tell you as somebody who is at San Diego and at Minneapolis and at Toronto and at San Antonio and at Atlanta, and somebody who's done service as a result of serving on the AWS board and the general service board and has interviewed, you know, people who showed up with no money and just random people like i met a guy in san diego from washington state whose home group passed a basket to buy him a bicycle and he rode to san diega for like a month or however long it took him like i'm so lazy i couldn't even fathom like but this guy rode to san diego okay there are going to be so many of those stories there used to be a guy in new york who worked at gso his name was john g i can't say his last name because he was an aa member john was not your usual staff member at gso let's just say that if you wanted to find john on his day off you might as well be at the horse track where we'd be making some bets okay john grew up in a tough neighborhood of staten island and let's juste say a not very legal side of the world okay but john told me in the backyard yard on the Jersey Shore when he was retired, that right after the wall came down, he went to a meeting, to a conference in an old Iron Curtain country, former communist country. When he was there, he met a guy who rode buses in that country for over 30 hours to make it to that convention. It took John eight hours to get to that convention, flying from JFK. This guy rode 30 hours because his group chipped in the money to buy him a bus ticket because they gave John a candle. They wanted John to get back to the United States so that he could get it to somebody that would bring it to Dr. Bob's grave at Founders Day because they were so grateful that they had Alcoholics Anonymous now. Like, there will be people at the International Convention like I once was, young and dumb and God knows what else who have no plans to go to the International convention right now that maybe three nights before with four crazy newcomers and god knows how much money between all of them will decide to drive there or whatever and those are the real stories of alcoholics anonymous um so i hope all of you that are going i hope you have a great time I hope if you're not going, it's still not too late to decide to go. I'm not even telling you to go because of the big flag ceremony or the big meeting in the stadium. My experience is it'll be a smaller meeting with 100 people at 3 o'clock in the morning at some marathon meeting where you will hear something that you've needed to hear for a long time. um and that's just the way it works in alcoholics anonymous so with that i am going to close with the responsibility statement next week we are back to concept and tradition so just let just warning you we'll close with the responsibility sentiment i am responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out for help i want the hand of aa always to be there and for that iamresponsible i will put my email and my WhatsApp in the chat, just in case anyone wants to ask me a question about where I got it from the literature. And I can just send it to you when I get back home at the end of the week. But I am putting my WhatsApp and my email in there now. I'll tell you I am on kind of a bucket list history trip right now with a bunch of friends in AA. So I probably won't get to it this week. That's what I'm telling you. I will probably get to it later. So thanks, everyone. Have a good night.