Qualifying for Step One – 12 Steps 12 Traditions Weekend Workshop – Part 2 of 5 – Billy N.

Thank you so much, Joel. Welcome back, everyone. With no further ado, I give you Chris R. to speak on step one. Chris, the floor is yours for about the next 40 minutes. there you go thank you so much my name again is chris r and i am from ingram texas grateful recovered alcoholic and uh delighted to be here i uh looking back over when billy was talking and flipping back over the pages which i want to do checking everybody out and i ain't i'm not kidding god there's some folks in this gathering that i've known forever and it's so good to see you guys. I, uh, I, um, I don't know. I was looking on there. I do it. I couldn't figure out a way to put my email on that little chat. So there may not be a way, but maybe Carrie and they can post it next, uh tomorrow. And, uh so in case, so we can stay in touch with some of you that you want to, if you have any questions that, that, uh I don t get answered or whatever, but, uh i sure appreciate being asked to do this. One of my favorite topics, uh we book in this thing. I ve got a couple of favorite steps in there, but first step stuff is the thing that kind of started my journey for me, kind of set me on the path. As I was talking about earlier, you know, I was sitting in lots of meetings, guys, with the nicest people on earth, but I still didn't, I call myself an alcoholic, but i didn't really believe i was an alcoholic because i've never robbed a liquor store or gone to prison or done any of this other crazy stuff and exactly what Bill was talking abou,t the qualifying piece. The truth of the matter is, guys and And I'm just going to say it, not trying to be controversial. Alcoholics Anonymous is full of people that are not alcoholics. You know, every time you turn around, I mean, it's just and everybody is a little bit different. So I just just yeah, my heart goes out to the little knucklehead that absolutely wants to get sober is the real McCoy and can't get sober doing what so many people are asking him to do. We're not going to bicker back and forth, guys, because I promise you, I'm not going to do that. I don't want to spend all of our time doing it, but said something earlier. I don' t want anybody to get the takeaway from anything I'm saying that I'm knocking meetings. I'm a meeting-making fool, folks. I love meetings, especially now with the Zooms. I appreciate it. What I object to is 90 and 90. What I objection to is a bumper sticker that sets people up for failure. There's a lot of people, folks, that I talk to on a regular basis that want to come in, but they can't. They got kids. They got jobs. they just, they can't go to a meeting every day. And all I can say is guys go to as many meetings as you can go to, because that's where we're going to find our peeps. That's where мы're going to go find our deals. I just, anything that makes us look cultish, I don't want anything to do with it. I'm just done with it, you know, but I couldn't stay sober and I'm going to a bunch of meetings. Okay. So I'm just saying finally in 87, those old guys got around me and they opened a big book and they started qualifying me. Now, I'm going to talk about the symptoms and I've watched it even with one eye. I can see my little clock right here. So I'm not going to go over. I'm paying attention, guys. But one of the things that we all have to look at, you know, we've got 467 people in this room right now and I can't tell by looking at any of you where you are in the progression of your illness. Alcoholism is a progressive illness and I'm known some old geezers at 70 years old that drank successfully for 40 of those 50 of those years And it was only towards the end of their life that things came undone. And one of the worst alcoholics I ever knew was a 19-year-old kid, a young man, 19 years old. He had drunk twice, blacked out both times and got arrested. It was just, this kid was not even fair at all. This kid got no social drinking at all, he just, he came out of the shoot just as a nasty drunk. And I can't tell by looking around this room, we've got some nice old people in here, we got some good-looking young people. And I don't know, guys. I just the you know, I'm a student of recovery. I read everything I can get my hands on revolve around that guy. We know alcoholism is genetic. We also know it is absolutely progressive. So if your illness has progressed pretty far, folks, you're going to be able to see these symptoms pretty clearly. If your illness hadn't progressed very far, you may have to look a little bit to see if you've got these symptoms. But I got to tell you, folks. If you'd have known the questions to ask me, you could have diagnosed me at 18 years old with alcoholism. But the people, when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous in my early 20s, nobody was, excuse me, not mid-20s, nobody up there was talking about the symptoms. What we were talking about is, again, the drama. And I just couldn't relate to doing some of the crazy stuff that you losers do. So anyway, I just, yeah. bill wilson on page 17 talks about a common problem and a common solution guys and that's exactly what it is guys there's a whole bunch of us we don't have a lot in common with some of us you know what i'm saying because we're all different people right up into the point we start talking about the symptoms of alcoholism and they are identical it drives me crazy because everybody out there wants to start connecting the dots why i'm an alcoholic guys you're an alcoholic because you were born this way and your external external circumstances has exacerbated this problem and made it worse i'm not gonna ever take a shot at anybody's drama i can appreciate that for 100 but guys even people that were hurt very very much in their life um when they see that alcoholism uh alcohol is causing a problem they quit and that's one of the things that bill wilson talks about i mentioned real quick there's an old geezer in town that always talks about there's no every time he shares he said there's just there's not one step more important than the other. All right, I understand that. In the 100 pages, laughing with Billy earlier, in 100 pages, give or take a few pages, however you want to cut it, guys, okay, the steps are outlined in the first 100 pages. The rest are in some great chapters after, but the 100 Pages, 60 of those pages, Give or Take a Page, are the first step. The next 11 steps are covered in the next 40 pages, So I know that we think it's all okay. I think Bill Wilson was pretty clear. He really wanted us to understand. And exactly what Billy was saying, unless we qualify the newcomer, our job is to give that newcomer a case of alcoholism. And don't assume because again, I'm in the treatment business been there for a million years. Don't assume that the treatment centers are teaching that. Don't listen just because they come out of treatment, but they understand what this is about that a lot of them don't. It's just that simple. It's our responsibility. Bill Wilson, some of y'all have heard me read it a lot. I got little stickers for our club. It's a little excerpt from a letter in 1942 that Bill Wilson wrote, and it's in As Bill Sees It if you want to check it out. I think it says, Our chief responsibility to the newcomer is an adequate presentation of the program. No kidding. If he does nothing or argues, we do nothing but maintain our own sobriety. If he starts to move ahead, even a little with an open mind, we then break our necks to help in every way we can. Our chief responsibility to the newcomer is an adequate presentation of the program. Yes, adequate presentation Of the program folks I said it earlier trying to not to be sarcastic is not keep coming back adequate presentation The program is to sit down and qualify that little newcomer little guy comes in he's all fried pie and he just he's all he's a mess and he asked me to sponsor him my responsibility is sit with him just like those old geezers did me in 1987 and qualify me because if you if you're convinced you one of us nothing can chase you out of Alcoholics Anonymous you'll stay if you got this Bill Wilson talks in on page 33 and I'm not going to take time to turn to it because I'm going to run out of time but on page 33 he talks about this lurking notion the lurking motion that you may be different than other people has to be smashed one of my favorite pages in the book though and i will is bottom page 20 i've got it when i cherry pick a newcomer we talk about it but it talks about different kinds of drinkers it says moderate drinkers have little trouble in giving up entirely they have good reason for it they can take it or leave it alone then we have a certain type of hard drinker hard drinkers he may have had the habit badly enough to gradually impair himself physically and mentally, may cause him to die a few years before his time. If a sufficient strong reason comes along, ill health, falling in love, change of environment, warning from a doctor, if any of this becomes operative, this man or woman can stop or moderate, although he may find it difficult trouble, so he may even need medical attention. Yeah? Next paragraph, one of my faves. But what about the real alcoholic? May start off as a moderate drinker, may or may not become a continuous as a hard drinker, but at some stage of their drinking career, they begin to lose all control of their consumption once they start. Yeah. Listen, guys, that's Bill Wilson's verbiage right there. Real alcoholic. If you want to set an AA group on its end, any of y'all, next time you go back to your home groups, introduce yourself as a real alcoholic and watch the storm come through the doors. It's like, oh, you think you're special. In Alcoholics Anonymous today? Yes. I think I'm come on guys i'm a real alcoholic that gummit but i didn't know that until these guys took time out of their dinner to sit down with me in a book and opened it and showed me what it was to be who we are and i'll show you right here i got this little board i don't know if y'all can see it or not just kind of keeps me on track but um i was laughing with carrie i'm not smart enough to share screens. I'm just, I apologize. I'm lucky to be able to wave. Hey guys. Oh, anyway, we do the best we can do. One of the things I want you to look at when we're talking about this first step stuff folks is to look AT your truth based on your experience. A lot of times we have a tendency when we'RE talking to a group of like little newcomers, what we're going to do is we want to end up trying to scare them into recovery. But again, of course that doesn't work. Look at the, look at the symptoms and see if you can identify with the symptoms because it's, it's pretty black and white. You, it'S not, you can't, I had a lady call talking about her son the other day. She said, I think he's a little bit alcoholic. It's like you, it's like being pregnant folks. You can't be a little big. You either is or you in as far as I know, you know, it says that says, if you've got the symptoms, it doesn't matter if you're 17, 14, and Billy's it doesn'T matter or 80 doesn'T make any difference. The symptoms are identical. And that's what we need to look at. Three places in the big book where it talks about how it works, guys, in that first paragraph, ask us to be honest. If you have the ability to be modest, you can get this deal, guys. So I'm asking you, it's not cash register honesty Bill Wilson's talking about. The honesty he's talking About, I believe, is this inward honesty. Can you look at this and identify it? Does this ring true for you? Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. It's a duck, pure and simple, and it's one of the things that I think we could do better sometimes in our fellowship is make sure that every little newcomer comes in, whether they've been in a treatment center or not, qualify them and help them find their truth, because I got to tell you guys, it'll set you free. I was on seven prescription medications, guys, when I tried to commit suicide in 1987. All doctor prescribed medications. I'm not out there doctor shopping like some of you fools i'm i'm gonna have legit psychiatric disorders you know you know what guys what it proved to be with me was untreated alcoholism there's a lot more going on here than just whether you're drinking or not and that's where i'm just going to hit the high spots and basically what we're trying to figure out do you is alcoholism a disease or is it a behavioral problem i mean the american medical association finally in 1961 got up dead center and said stop calling it an illness just said this is a disease and they knew that why when the basic research that dr silkworth did in the early days of alcoholics anonymous this idea his his just anecdotal observations that everybody whether they were coming from european royalty or they were they were you know drinking in central park they they were showing the same symptoms everybody calls it a disease everybody talks yes that's fine but then everybody still wants to connect the dots for why we drink. My mom, until the day she died, tried to still try to connect the dots why Myers and I became alcoholics. And my two sisters didn't. She wanted to blame the divorce. She wouldn't blame me get hit in the eye with a rock when I was a kid. And oh, my gosh, you know, all of that affected me. It did not cause my alcoholism. Just I'll throw that out there, guys. Basically, the book, there's a lot of folks out there that want to talk about a two-part illness up in the front of the book bill wilson talks about a two-party illness dr silkworth they refer to the physical craving and the mental obsession that's the main thing we're going to talk about but he spends a dozen pages half a dozen stages talking specifically about the spiritual malady that's what the circle triangle when he we finally got the circle triangle and uh he talked about body mind and spirit same same stuff recovery unity service you know they connect the dots with the whole scenario. Physical craving, guys. Dr. Silkworth, medical director at Towns Hospital for years, 16 years or so, but he's the guy that first started pioneering this and seeing the truth about this physical craving. Once we put alcohol in our system, again, what Billy said is so true. Lord, how many people start reading Bill's story and they don't read the doctor's opinion? But that's where we're going to get the lion's share from the doctor opinion up to page 23 we talk about the about the physical craving i got this little index i'll hold it real close and y'all can take a picture of it how's that no i'm just kidding i'll i'll get it to you one way or another i'll give it to from the 20th by page 23 to 43 the next 20 pages bill wilson talks about the mental obsession and then several pages in there again the bedevilments on page 52, and on page 64, it talks about when the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out physically and mentally. He wants us to see this, but these are the qualifying pages that he uses. If we had more time, we could read some of the stories. It's pretty fascinating stuff. This physical piece, guys, is about the craving. Craving only takes place when it's in your body, guys. Some of the other fellowships, they want an interchange of the words. Guys, if you're sitting around and you're sober, you know, a few months and you were thinking about taking a drink, you are not physically craving alcohol. It's out of your system. You are obsessing. That's why Bill Wilson says the main problem centers in his mind rather than his body. No kidding. Detox centers do a great job taking care of the physical piece. All we got to do is get the stuff out of our system and there's no more craving. First part we got do. That what they talked about in the book. We think detox is important to get the substance out of our system. Once that's done, though, guys, we still got to battle with the mental obsession piece because we don't have a pill for that. Well, enter Alcoholics Anonymous, which has been a gift, I got to tell you. Basically, we're looking at what's our truth, again, based on our experience. When I put alcohol in my system, can I guarantee every time how much I'm going to put in my system? I'll say this and move on to the next piece. Guys, a billion times out there drinking early on, guys, I could drink two beers after work and go to bed and leave a partial six pack in the refrigerator. As the illness continues to progress, it becomes less likely that I can do that. I'll buy a six pack, I'll drink it, and then five minutes before the store closes, I'm running back across the street so I can get another, because I'm not finished yet. Guys, on certain days, the craving can be satisfied with smaller quantities of alcohol. I say this because a lot of the young people that listen to this get to a place where they believe that every time you drink, you've got to black out to qualify to be one of us. That's not what the book is saying. It never says that. It says at certain times, we don't have the power to control how much we put in our system. And sometimes we can. Does that make sense, guys? I was an executive chef guys long time i was high in my career for long periods of time i couldn't do that if i was blacking out every time i drank yeah in the progression and i don't know how long it's going to take for that thing to progress to get to uh that spot that mental obsession piece again from 23 to 43 is uh is is the piece that changed my life that night those guys cherry picked it and they showed me some pages that they wanted me to look at and i'm going to ask you to turn to one page real quick on page 24 if you've got your books the fact is now up to page 23 they've been talking about what happens when i put the stuff in my system now top of page 24 it says the fact that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure have lost the power of choice in drink it's all alcoholics bills is trying to be very diplomatic here our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent we are unable at certain times to bring into our conscious with sufficient for us the memory and suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. Well, of course I've got to defend. I mean, I got a choice whether I'm going to drink, don't I? No, you don't. In the next pages, there's five stories in here, guys. Four of them are true stories based on true people, and the history buffs in here, I can get you the names, but the fictitious story is the jaywalker, although I'm sitting in a room with dang near 500 jaywalkers, but it's ficticious, guys, but the other stories were based on true stories, and guys, I gotta tell you, it's pretty good if you'll read the stories. You'll see that each one of these stories is written about a high-bottom drunk. Bill Wilson doesn't talk about people living in cardboard boxes on the street. He's talking about business men and women out there uh high bottom that have not lost everything who had every reason to stop and were unable to jim the car salesman one of my favorite stories i mean he does aside from the fact that he that he's an adult that still drinks milk oh my god just just no wonder he's a alcoholic i don't know i can't hey just hate it yeah but what did he do suddenly the thought crosses his mind that he could put an ounce of whiskey in the milk only come on guys we'd fall in for stupider stuff than that you know i've done some yeah i was gonna quit drinking beer and i was just gonna drink natural wine problem is i had a key to a wine warehouse it did not work very well for me it ended poorly to say the least my all-time favorite story is fred the businessman yeah one of the best lines in the book guys y'all can get it uh god one of my all-time favorites he talks about um it was the end of a perfect day not a cloud on the horizon now remember that story how many of us have done that yeah you go to listen guys you go into treatment and they want to talk about well what caused you to drink well the girl broke up with me or i lost the job or all this kind of stuff guys but what are you going to do it's like it'slike if you look at this the obsession is what the choice this. When that obsession comes back, the next paragraph, he gets squashed. The thought crosses his mind. He can have a couple of cocktails and he has, and he ends up getting drunk. How many times have I done that? But everybody still, I'm not taking a shot at anybody, but so many people out there that don't understand this mental obsession continue to want to connect the dots of why we do that. What caused you to relapse? Let me guess. You didn't finish working the steps and be of service to other people. Is that it? That's not what they want to hear. They want to share it with some girl. It was some guy. It was something that happened. Yeah, it just listen guys. We're sitting in treatment right now. You know, we're getting them coming in the door. Well, I relapsed because Trump lost. Wow, that's not true. It's not true. You didn't work the steps guys. You didn't do what we're supposed to do and then the miracle takes place. Anyway, The mental obsession, guys, is pretty phenomenal. It's still one of the hardest things for people to get their little mind around. Everybody I talk to out there, I get to speak in, you know, sheriff's associations, doctors, impaired lawyer groups, lots of organizations. I get a chance because I've been around a while to do these talks. They all understand the physical. Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Phil, they all understand this physical piece. It's just, yeah, well, you little alcoholics, once you start to drink, you can't quit. Yeah. So why can't you not put the first one in your system? Why does your head continue to tell you rationalize and justify? And Bill Wilson clears it up. He just said, it's plain insanity. stop trying to paint a picture that this is some kind of behavioral problem folks this is that this is an illness you will alone by yourself in your own head rationalize and justify why it's okay for you to put it in your system we're getting a lot of people come back into treatment right now who had double digit sobriety who refused to get on zooms because you can't bond Of course you can, but they won't do it for whatever reason and have relapsed. Because we can't pull ourselves away from this human connection. Same stuff. They walk back in. Well, I just chose to drink. It just freaks me out how many people in Alcoholics Anonymous still believe. Guys, I have lost the power of choice and drink. I still have thousands of choices. My little skinny butt got up this morning early, early. And I do my little prayer and meditation sitting right here at this desk every morning. And I've been doing it for a long time. And that's what we do. And I just got on break, went over there, and I called a little sponsee of mine because he was upset earlier. And I'm checking on him. I get to – I do all the things I need to do. I'm going to stay on that spiritual path. If I decide not to because I'm too cool, I don't need to be too busy, I'm not going to do that. I don' t need to go to bed to do that. Too busy. All bets are off, guys. At a certain point, and because the illness doesn't stop progressing when you quit drinking, you'll be in hot water before you know it so Bill Wilson means it about the daily reprieve I'm with that let's stay active and then we can stay sober this other little piece guys I gotta mention I'm and it's a piece that some folks just flat don't want to talk about it's that third piece that we're talking about the spiritual malady great article there's an article written by little guy up in new jersey and uh it's it's called the missing piece you know the spiritual malady and bill wilson writes about it he wrote a bunch of other subsequent articles about it and yet nobody really wants to get in there and spend much time talking about it the malady what happens guys is you get detoxed whatever get the stuff out of your system if you don't start working the program, what's going to end up happening is my MO is about two weeks. About two weeks out, this internal discomfort starts to kick my butt. Doctor up in the front, we start talking about irritable, restless and discontent. Yeah, okay. But I'm saying you don't have to be irritable restless and content to relapse. Sometimes it's like Fred at the end of a perfect day, not a cloud horizon and the obsession comes back. So stop. You're teaching it. Don't teach it in a cycle where you have to get irritable before you relapse because you can relapse when things are really good. It's just my thought, but guys, if you don't do the work, what's going to happen is the internal condition starts to come back and starts to kick our butt, and the unmanageability that Bill Wilson's talking about in the big book, you know, that first step, y'all follow me, they talk about unmanagability. It'S not talking about my external world. What Bill Wilson is talking about in that first step is unmanageability internal just for just for grins i won't do i could do this for an hour but just for how many of y'all uh drank when ever you had lots of money raise your hand raise your hands how many you drank when you had no money when you Had a really nice girlfriend satan's sister yeah we could do this all day y'all follow merle haggard listen yeah yeah rock and roll daylight night time good job crap job don't i did this in europe one time we did it for about 40 minutes and it was just as hilarious as everybody guys i don't need a reason to drink i just i do it because internally that's why bill wilson says we drink for the effect produced by the chemical the effect is a sense of ease and comfort. You ask any of us in here, we all drank a little bit different. Some of us, I got to tell you, it's all for the same reason. I get comfortable in my skin when I drink. If I could drink the way I could Drink when I was a kid, and it could hit that target every time and get happy, I'd still be drinking. The problem is, I quoted it earlier, you get to a place where it won't work anymore. You get to place where you can't get get to that comfortable spot. Now you're just drinking to stay alive. It's a terrible, terrible way to die. Bill Wilson talks about unmanageability, guys. If y'all look in your little book, thank God for little books. Look on page 52 real quick. Sorry. We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems the same readiness to change our point of view. Let me ask you these questions real quick, guys, we were having trouble in personal relationships. Guys, when you're not drinking, ask yourself this question. Were you having trouble in personal relationships? Including the one with yourself, folks. I'm going to say this. A lot of you guys are a little social. Yeah. If I treated any one of y'all in here the way you treat yourself, they'd arrest my little butt because I got to tell you, a bunch of us in this gathering are our own worst enemies. Bill Wilson got it pegged right here. We couldn't control our emotional natures how many y'all can relate two weeks after i lay the booze down i'm driving around the roads and flipping people off and mad at the world and yeah yeah snapping at my wife yeah we were prey to misery and depression number one symptom of untreated alcoholism is depression folks 90 of the people out there in recovery right so many of them are on antidepressants most of of them don't need those. A lot of them don't. The problem is untreated alcoholism. My experience is I got to work the steps and I was able to move on. Not everybody, but I didn't have clinical depression. I had untreated alcoholism, we had the feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy. But doesn't that describe you? I mean some of y'all maybe you've never tried to quit drinking before, maybe you don't know, but i'm going to tell you folks that's me two weeks three weeks out buddy i'm a wreck i started out okay everybody's patting me on the back you're doing so good why is it that people can't stay sober they get so uncomfortable in their skin they can't stand it the hardest thing to get family members to understand almost impossible to get our own our own you know fellowship to understand my problem is not alcohol my problem is alcoholism you take alcohol away from an alcoholic he's going to get worse not better I got nearly 500 people in here and I guarantee you most of you don't believe that but if you look at your truth based on your experience if you Look at the guys you're sponsoring You get them detoxed, you get them away. They're going to a bunch of meetings and then they gradually come undone. All those bedevilments that Bill Wilson's talking about on page 52 start coming back. It's the spiritual malady, that spiritual disconnectness. That's why Bill Wilson understood we have to do some things to get reconnected to that power. If I can't get to a place where I can be happy, and sober, I won't stay sober. There's a guy here in town, he's always talking about it. Nobody said anything about being happy in AA. You didn't read the same book I did. My book says we absolutely insist on happy, joyous, and free. It just talks about it over and over. Not drinking one day at a time, if that's all you're doing, it's tough. walking on eggshells the rest of your life around triggers nothing in here talks about that nothing just drives me crazy triggers a horse he's dead got got nothing to do with this oh yeah one of the things real quick i gotta mention And my old sponsor, Mark Houston, was my sponsor for like 17 years. Wonderful guy. And we lost him too early, I've got to tell you. But when I first met him, he just got out of a – he was sober for a long time. He got sober in Colorado with Don and came to Texas. And he ended up nine years dry in a nut hut in Houston, in St. Isabel. he didn't drink but he went he was he was miserable nuts and uh got back out started working the steps up to his butt and just you know re-engaged in the fellowship and he never looked back i don't know how many thousands of people he helped over the years of his his sobriety wonderful guy i've seen that a billion times folks one of the things and this is not in the big book but bill wilson and some of his other stuff talked about i just got to mention This cross addiction thing is about as real as can be. Most of the little alcoholics out there that we watch and they get sober, if they leave and they're not doing this stuff, I got this, you know, I'm going to stay sober because I love my kids. And yeah, yeah. And then they get out there and get miserable and they know they can't drink because they promised everybody or maybe child protective services have been called. They're going to lose their kids if they drink again. So they go find prescription medication. I cannot tell you how many people out there were losing, uh, alcoholics losing through prescription medications they're going to rationalize and justify and put something in your system that changes the way they feel that cross addiction stuff how many how many people have i sponsored over the years that ended up in sex addicts anonymous never had a problem out there drinking now all of a sudden they're sober a few years not doing the deal and they end up going on some other other addictions food addiction shopping gambling boy there's going to be some stuff super bowl sunday y'all there's gonna be some busted up people in trouble around the game they never had a problem before because alcohol was fixing the problem and now they don't have alcohol they're gonna looking for something else guys the only thing that i know that fixes it is is the spiritual experience and the people that don't understand i mean and how do you know what you don't know if you've never tried it you're gonna you're going to want argue this i would never do that yeah top of page 44 is where it sums up the the questions around the first step guys, and if you're working with a little newcomer, again, this is taking us 40 minutes to cover this. You can cherry pick it. It may take you a little longer, but the question on the top of we agnostics, that's why I use this little index because it's confusing. They don't divide the index up step by the step, so it gets a little confusing. The actual summation of the questions around first step are in chapter, the we agnostic's chapter in the first paragraph, So, you know, if you don't know what you're looking, you could get a little lost in there. In the preceding chapters, you've learned something about alcoholism. We found we've made clear the distinction. We hope we've make clear the distinctions between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. Bill Wilson continues to use the two words control and choice. That's what they're looking for. Again, I don't know if y'all can see this little guy right here. Then I'm going to move you back over here. This little guy, this is issue man. I've talked with him for years. This is the little guy. There's an issue woman too. Oh my God. Yeah, she's a lot better looking than issue man, but y'ALL see all the little Xs on the outside? Y'ALL are free to use this anytime, but the little xs on the outside again are what everybody wants to point a finger at is why we're drinking. There's not a family member out there that is not trying to connect those dots. And I'm just saying, guys, this little dark spot inside, that's where alcoholism is. That's what guys inside job you have to treat this. You get well and everything on the outside is going to change. I guarantee you. And we'll talk more about that tomorrow in the second and third step stuff, guys. But there's so many folks out there that continue to want to paint a picture that this is a behavioral deal. and it's not. We're not a bunch of misbehaving poots, and I want to say this before I let you go too. Any picture that paints us as a bunch OF misfits needs to be changed. I know that there's some really crazy people in Alcoholics Anonymous. There's some really Crazy People at the Elks Lodge tonight too. There are crazy people all over the world. I don't think we have any more in AA than we do anyplace else. You're free to disagree, folks. But I just, it frustrates me sometimes when everybody wants to paint a picture that we're all goofy. We're just not. The thing that separates us, I'll say this, there's a great little book out there and it talked about it. We're not different than other people. We'RE DIFFERENT THAN OTHER DRINKERS. did you get it great line great line because it's the truth folks when we get down to brass tacks guys if you'll start looking at these symptoms sometimes you can see them real real glaringly but the question is you got to ask when the little newcomer you're qualifying somebody buddy did you ever drink more than you intended uh-huh let me ask you a different way Did you ever get sick drinking? Puke your little toenail. Yeah, I did. Did you every do it more than once? Yeah. You're almost there. You're a charter member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Normal people don't do that. I watched my little sister get sick one time, guys, one time. She says, I'm never going to do that again. Guys, I want to tell you, to this day, We'll go out and she'll have a glass of wine or something. She's, Lisa, you want another drink? No, thank you. I'm just, I'm starting to feel it. You know, she just, back in the day, the Christmas one, we, my twin brother and I've been trying to get my two sisters drunk for 33 years. It just, it ain't happening. They just, they don't like it. It doesn't affect them the same way. Given sufficient reason, ill health, falling in love, changing environment. Given sufficient reasons, can you stop and stay stopped? What does your experience show you? i could i couldn't my deal wasn't my family my deal was if it ever starts to affect my career i'll stop and it started affecting my career and i didn't stop i can stop for short periods of time and then my head will tell me it's okay and i'll take off again i'll put something in my system trigger that craving and i'm off to the races and guys i gotta tell you let you go those old timers sat me down and explained this to me, and I went home that night. I mean, cried. It was scary because I knew for the first time that I was a real alcoholic. I had a fatal illness, but I knew my marching orders now. I knew that I had 100% guaranteed solution. They told me you could recover from alcoholism. I new what I needed to do to get well, and it happened really, really fast for me, folks, and some of the stuff we're going to talk about tomorrow, so I sure appreciate y'all letting me share thank y'all thank you very much chris thank you so much up next please allow me to present billy n on tradition one for the next 40 thank you for unmuting i'm billy i'm an alcoholic good to be back here thanks chris um so a couple things i want to say before i go diving into tradition one again for people who may be new or have no experience with the traditions i just want to talk about some literature um because sometimes and i have a 12 and 12 in front of me this book and i'm going to refer to it a little bit but there's so much other great literature that talks about our traditions so i have an alcoholics anonymous comes of age in front of me. I'm going to refer to that in a little bit. I do not have a language of the heart where I'm sitting, but Language of the Heart is a book published by The Grapevine and has all Bill's greatest writings in there. That's a super important book. It even has the first what we call the original 12 tradition essays one by one um in there i have a big book in front of me you can go to workshops that are titled and the subject is the traditions inside the big book the big books the big big book was published in april of 1939 the traditions didn't appear till 1946 so 17 years ahead of that there are things in the first section of the big book that are all about our traditions and i just want to point out some flyers for those of you uh flyers pamphlets seems like we live in a world of flyers during zoom the traditions illustrated is a great great little pamphlet this is the front of it it i could argue on any given day it's better than the 12 and 12 while we call it the illustrated some of the narrative in there is some of best writing about our traditions problems other than alcohol which i'll be going to this bad boy tomorrow for sure both the long one and the abridged one the small blue one but those are important tradition pamphlets and perhaps my favorite which is the a.a group the a group if it was up to me would be a free one would be put into every big book that's sold there's such imperative information in there about being an aa member and belonging to an aa group and how the groups operate um so with that um i just want to go to the 12 and 12 for a second if any of you have it in front of you but you don't have to but i want to go to the first line and and i will read the long form of tradition one each member of alcoholics anonymous is but a small part of a great whole aa must continue to live or most of us will surely die hence our common welfare comes first but individual welfare follows close afterwards and then if you go to the first page of tradition one which in the 12 and 12 i have in front of me is page 129 it might be off for a couple depending on the version you have but it says in the first line the unity of alcoholics anonymous is the most cherished quality our society has and if you look up cherished in the dictionary it'll say to protect and care that's what that line is saying protecting and caring alcoholics anonymous and then one of my favorite lines is the second paragraph does this mean some will anxiously ask that in aa the individual doesn't count for much is he to be dominated by his group and swallowed up in it we may certainly answer this question with a loud no we believe there isn't a fellowship on earth which lavishes more devoted care upon its individual members surely there is none which more jealously guards the individual's right to think, talk, and act as he wishes. In other words, we're not a cult. Chris talked about it. We are not a cult. We give great individual freedom and liberty to every member. We do not tell you whether you, how long your hair should be. We don't tell you how you should dress. We don' t tell you basically anything if you're willing to live by the spiritual principles you get to be an individual now on the next page on 130 there's a line that says the aa member has to conform to principles of recovery, his life actually depends upon obedience to spiritual principles. What does comply mean in the dictionary? Not in Billy's head. I like to make up my own definitions. Big problem my entire life. The 12 and 12 is much like the service manual, like the big book. It's important sometimes to use the dictionary definitions conform means to comply with rules of laws now in aa we don't have rules of laws we have traditions and steps and concepts so that's what conform means to embrace those 36 spiritual principles now in the last paragraph on that page It says, so at the outset, how best to live and work together as groups became the prime question. I often say, and now I can actually do it because I have them in front of me. If I have a big book to my left and a 12 and 12 to my right, We could go to a page in the big book, depending upon the edition and printing you have. And there would be an asterisk and a footnote that would tell you how many people are in AA today in the United States and Canada. Let's just say two million round number. That way we don't have to argue about what edition each of us is working at. That's great news. We have two million people in Alcoholics Anonymous. But then, I could open up the 12 and 12. And I could take you to a page that says this. Since defective relations with other human beings have nearly always been the immediate cause of our woes, including our alcoholism, no field of investigation could yield more satisfying and valuable rewards than this one so what about if those two were in the same book we got two million people who don't get along with other people that's basically what we have two million of them whose biggest problem is relations with other human beings. It is pretty hard to have a society or an organization and kind of try to keep it together when every member's problem is defective relations with others. With other human being. Which is exactly why we have the traditions. Now, Carrie said earlier, I'm just going to repeat it because I believe it. The steps are our message. We do not have another message. That's our message The traditions protect our message And the concepts help us perpetuate our message That's what service is all about, perpetuating our message But what are we protecting? What exactly are we protecting why is our unity so important we're like one of the i mean i'm sure you have this experience only in aa can an alcoholic's life be saved by aa and then once their life is saved they want to change a that only happens in a Okay. You were dying, almost dead. The 12 steps saved your life. And now you want to change our message. But how important is what we are protecting? So before I go on a little bit, I want to just tell a quick little story some of you know it but there's a lot of people here and I'm going to guess a lot don't because once you get into AA and once you stay sober a little while and maybe once you go through the big book you kind of take AA for granted much like we all did let's just call it March 15th of last year that March 16th will be the same AA doors will be open the bad coffee will be served the uncomfortable chairs will be there but we know that changed but even without COVID how for granted do we take Alcoholics Anonymous because Because there's very few people left around who were still alive when there was no AA. For the vast majority of the world's population and the population of Alcoholics Anonymous, we've only known a world with AA. Even when I didn't like AA, I knew about it. Even when i hated AA, i knew about it but we take it for granted and sometimes we just don't realize what we're protecting so i just want to share this little story with you if you don't know it that in 1998 time magazine decided it was going to publish a new book because the year 2000 was coming and while the rest of the world was worried about this thing called y2k and all the computers would crash um time magazine wanted to publish this new book and to publishthis new book they gathered together a committee and that committee was made up of the 20 most 20 of the most prominent historians alive in the world And when they got that committee together, they gave them one assignment, just one simple assignment. Start on January the 1st of 1900 and end on today, which at the time was 98. And identify for us the 80 most important days of the 20th century. we need to know what the 80 most important days are if you go to google or ebay whatever tonight your spare time this week you can google the 80 days that changed the world by time magazine you can probably find a way to get a copy If you go about 15 pages into that book You will land on June 10th, 1935 And a picture of Bill and Bob in a coffee pot And you will read a short story that says On this day, a broken stockbroker from New York Met a broken surgeon from Akron And from that meeting led to the birth of Alcoholics Anonymous, an organization that has saved millions of alcoholics' lives and their solution so powerful that they have shared it with other organizations for people who have other problems. If you go a couple of pages before that or after that, you can see what June 10th, 1935 is being compared to. It's being compared the wall coming down. It's been compared to women being given the right to vote. it's being compared to jackie robinson being the first black man to play major league baseball it's been compared to martin luther king jr's i had a dream speech so when we think about what we're protecting that's what we are protecting that there was a time when aa didn't exist we forget about that all the time myself included I'm not judging anyone else I'm the first one to be driving home from work and I want to golf more and I wanna ride my motorcycle more and I wannna go to more Metallica concerts but the real question is do I treat Alcoholics Anonymous like it's birth was one of the 80 most important days of the 20th century? And do I embrace the traditions in a way that protects and guarantees that AA will always be here? Because it's written all throughout our literature. Our worst enemies are not from outside. We are our own worst enemies. and you have to ask yourself that question do i treat aa like it's one of the 80 most important days in the 20th century um you know i loved what chris said because aa is not for habitual drunk drivers i'm one i'm a habitual drunk driver AA is not for young angry Irish kids who get into a lot of bar fights I was a young angry Irish kid who got into a little lot of Bar Fights it's not what AA is for AA is for real alcoholics I'm not a heavy drinker you know And I love what Chris said because, you know, one time I got myself in a little jam at an ask it basket to always my demise that someone asked me to say something spur of the moment and I just let it rip. And, uh, you know, I believe in singleness of purpose and you'll hear my views on the fifth tradition. but that day what came out of the basket was do you think drug addicts are going to destroy Alcoholics Anonymous and my answer that day is the same as it is today no but heavy drinkers might heavy drinker have a better shot of doing it because the most dangerous thing in Alcoholics Anonymous that exists is a real alcoholic sponsored by somebody that's not a real alcoholic. A real alcoholic sponsored by a heavy drinker. So when we talk about what we're protecting, we're protecting the very thing that gives us life today. Now inside the traditions and it's referred to inside the pamphlet of Traditions Illustrated sometimes you could say there really is only one tradition that our only tradition is unity the other 11 are a way to keep and preserve it That's what traditions 2 to 12 are. They are simply 11 ways to protect and keep our unity, which at the end of the day is most important. A lot of unity has to do with respect and sacrifice. and probably sacrifice will be a common theme as I go through all 12 traditions because to those much is given much is expected that's what I've been taught and believe and now I embrace that and when you're given a new life how do you really put into words what's expected. It's not that your life was a little crappy and you came to AA. It's not that you had a couple of bumps in the road and you came to AAA. It's not that work is all over you and you came to AA. Fact of the matter is, is that you're a real alcoholic. You suffer from alcoholism. And the question is, how important is it for us? You know, there was an old motel commercial that tagline was leave the light on. That's what AA Unity is all about, our number one job is to leave the light on. That I have a sacred agreement with my personal higher power that the AA that greeted me is here for the person that comes in tomorrow. That I have to do my job making sure AA is left alone and is just as powerful so that for the next alcoholic who's dying who comes in the door, AA is here for them. When we talk about perpetuating our message sometimes people i love when chris talked about the outside organizations he talks to and you know i've talked to some of those organizations too and even in my regular professional life people that know i'm an aa or whatever um they confuse aa they think like we're a social services agency or we're some kind of religious organization or we are some kind of do-gooders do-gooder squad but we actually have a very selfish reason for keeping our unity and perpetuating our message it's that our life depends on it we could argue do you need meetings, do you not we could, who cares because there's something in the big book we can't argue with the line that says this works when everything else doesn't we're not a do-gooder organization we're nicht ein soziales services organization. We need new people because our lives depend on it. I'm sure there's plenty of people that could go years with contented recovery without going to a meeting. That's not my business. But what would they do if they were in one of those situations where everything else did fail? they need that one thing the book talks about that never fails. Strenuous work with another alcoholic. That's why our unity is so, so important. And that's why sacrifice is weaved throughout all the traditions. I could go one by one regarding unity and sacrifice. there's no group of people in the world more than alcoholics who love other people's money more than we do. I mean, let's face it. But for us as an organization, for our unity, we have to sacrifice that because it's not good for us. We can look at Tradition 6 and build hospitals and build whatever. it's not good for our unity we have to sacrifice our ego the enemy of the traditions is no different than the enemy written in the big book the alcoholic ego the alcoholic ego is our number one enemy it's the one that tells people you know one of the things i tell people is you can't pick and choose which tradition you're going to embrace it's all 12 or none I mean it's not a cafeteria I always love comparing the traditions to the big book you know I'm sure some of you, Chris talked about crazy things we hear in meetings oh welcome to AA, it's like a cafeteria just take what you want and don't take whatyou don't want that's not how AA works You don't get to do that with the big book and the 12 steps and the message of recovery. You don'T get to decide what you want. We only have one way. Same goes with the traditions. You DON'T getto pick, well, I like 1, 3, 5, and 6, but I'm not too happy with 8 and 12. It's just not like that. Throughout all 12 traditions are weaved this kind of underlying fabric of sacrifice. That sacrifice is required for AA membership. Now, you know, when we talk about tradition one, what's the greatest thing about AA? You can't get kicked out. I'm still trying to find another non, you now, not other 12-step organizations, but just another organization that you cannot be kicked out of it just doesn't exist we're the only ones but people confuse that with getting kicked out a group or a meeting you see your behavior can be so bad that you can stand out in the parking lot with your AA membership card and your privilege is still good but not allowed in that meeting. And that's simply because the group is more important than the individual. You see, your right to misbehave or act unsafe towards other people or whatever else you might be doing. Maybe you're not following the rules of the landlord. A meeting I went to in New York City a long time ago was held in a basement of a church that was a preschool. And, you know, it's a city. Things get stolen. So some of the members, they brought their bicycles downstairs. into the church basement and the church let us know no bicycles in the basement see aa doesn't have rules but our landlords they usually have a lot of rules and of course wouldn't you know one person decided that the rule doesn't apply to them which I am very familiar with. My whole life is filled with that. No swimming after dark, except for Billy, right? That's every sign or notice I've ever seen has an invisible asterisk that only I can see. No parking here, except for billy. no right on red except for billy every single rule i run into i have my own exception for that i'm convinced makes perfect sense but this member was convinced that you know he was bringing his bike and the group had to tell him to leave now they didn't take away his aa membership card they just simply told them we can't jeopardize our relationship with our landlord there's 45 people who come here for a meeting of alcoholics anonymous and more importantly there's one or two people every week who might be coming to their first second or third meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and their life depends upon meeting one of us and if you're going to interfere with us carrying the message, well then you can't be a member of our group. It's a very hard thing I think sometimes for people to get their hands around that yes we give you a lot of individual freedom but Alcoholics Anonymous and your AA group come first and that's why I don't say a lot of things that I used to say I don' t put down other meetings I let them be as they are other groups the unity of AA is more important And plus, an important lesson I learned with the traditions is really only two kinds of AA business. My business and none of my business. I can really boil everything down to that. But that's why the unity of my group is so important. And I'm going to get to it in the later traditions. my group is where I have the biggest say for AA unity it's where I give most of my financial support to my home group it's also where I vote because I only vote in one place but those all come back to tradition one because my group is more important than me um and and i think for those of us um you know i'll go back to things often quoted that are not in the big book it's a selfish program we could put that right up in the top 10 uh meanwhile the book that chris is talking about tells us that selfishness is one of my biggest problems. When it comes to unity, that's the opposite of being selfish. Selfish is when I put myself first. Selflish was when the whole world has to revolve around me. Unity is when i'm able to take some tools and take a step back and say you know what a is more important than me you know what my group it's more important than me so you're going to see me weave as we talk about the later traditions unity and sacrifice is part of all of them and and so very important you know there's so many other organizations that existed you know the oxford group the washingtonians the um uh women's christian temperance union the wctu so many organizations but aa has not been here that long compared to how old the world is it's basically brand new compared to however long the world is, how old the world is. Now I don't care whether you believe, I don'T CARE WHAT YOUR RELIGION IS, I DON'T CAR E WHAT YOUR VIEW OF THE BIBLE IS, ALL I KNOW IS THAT THE BIBLEL WAS WRITTEN A LONG TIME AGO. WHAT IT SAYS IN THERE IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS FROM AN AA POINT OF VIEWS. HOWEVER, IT'S VERY INTERESTING THAT A BOOK WRITTVEN THAT LONG AGO DOCUMENTS PEOPLE WITH MY problem. Documents people with bloodshot eyes, documents people who drink too much from the grapes, from the vines. AA is brand new compared to the history of the world. You know, basically there's two or three generations in front of us in AA. My dad was born a year before AA was started my grandfather died alcoholically a couple of years after AA started so when we think about our unity and what we're protecting we're protecting something for all the people who are just like us who are real alcoholic and where nothing else works for people like me so that's it look forward to seeing you tomorrow new horizons group thank you very much for having us here tonight really appreciate it thank you thank you very much billy this concludes our first evening of the weekend we'll be meeting back here at 9 a.m pacific time tomorrow morning to start getting the steps and traditions another huge thank you to both Chris and Billy. Just a reminder, we do have an ask it basket this weekend to submit any and all questions you have for either speaker about the steps and traditions. Just send your question in the chat to co-host Jerry or text your question to 541-788-7276. At the end of this workshop, the speakers will be answering the questions submitted throughout the weekend. And to close us out for the evening one last time, I give you Michael P. Hi, my name is Michael and I am a recovered alcoholic. To close this meeting this evening, please join me in a moment of silence followed by the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serENITY to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things i can, and wisdom to know the difference. Amen. Guys, just so everybody can, you know, I'm not going to do the whole receiving line thing, but so everybody kan say a quick thank you to the guys. I don't want to hold them hostage all night, but go for it. Thanks, Billy. Thank you, Billy, thank you so much. Thank you guys. This was absolutely amazing. It was amazing. Thank you. Thanks, Billy. Love you, Chris. Thank you, Billy, for everybody. Thank you. David says hi from New Jersey, too. Thanks, Gary. Thank you all. Tomorrow. Thank you to Chris and Billy. Thank you Billy, thank you Chris. Thank you so much. Thank you D.P. Thank you Amber. Thanks. Good carry. Thank you, Carrie. Thank you. Carrie. Thank you very much.