Sent for a Loaf of Bread on Saturday and Returning on Wednesday: That’s the Way I Roll 🤣 — Myers R. and Larry S.

Howdy, y'all. My name is Myers R., and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm... I've got to tell you, as many times as I've done this, I've never, ever, ever done a talk on a Friday afternoon. And it's just... it feels kind of... it feels kind of strange. It's also kind of cool that you guys are here. I just kind of... I said, well, there'll be three people show up for that, and I'm wrong again. This is something... I always hate following somebody that can tell a good joke. It just drives me insane, because as many times... If any of you guys ever stood in front of a mirror and tried to tell a joke to see how it would come off, I mean, it's just pathetic, absolutely. It's a special gene, and I'm glad you're here. I guarantee it. And because you're so good, I'll stay completely clear of that arena. For darn sure. We've got 45 minutes or 50 minutes to talk about Step 1 stuff. And when we talked about doing this six months or eight months ago, there's not enough time to get into a bunch of stuff, and we don't really intend to right now. What was interesting is that, in my... In my experience, it's amazing how often we seem to mess up Step 1 stuff and mess up Step 12 stuff. It's either we don't understand Step 1, and we don't even do Step 12, and we end up with this weird... And the thing about it is, these are the two steps that'll take you out of the game. These are the two that'll just destroy you if you don't... This is why I think that, in a lot of ways, we end up with men 5, 10, 15 years into this deal still ambivalent about their disease. They're still not real clear about what's going on. There was an old Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young lyric from the 60s that said... And the only thing of the whole song I can remember, because I was loaded, was, confusion has its costs. And guys, there's a part of me, there's a part of my head that wants to intellectualize this stuff and say, I have no confusion at all about Step 1 stuff. None. Let me give you an illustration. Two or three years ago, I was in Kent, England, just south of London. Most gorgeous place I've ever been in my whole life. If you like farmland. I mean, unreal stuff. And we're doing a workshop for 80 men in this old convent. And we were talking about Step 1 stuff and we were talking about just general sponsorship questions and this kind of thing like this. And I said from the podium in this room, I said, how many of you guys are clear on how to take somebody through the work? And everybody in the room, some raised their hand. There wasn't a single dissenting vote. And I said, okay. And then all of a sudden, it occurred to me, I said, let's see if we can get a little more specific. If I passed around a piece of paper and a pencil, I said, hey, we got some index cards over there. And he said, yep, we do. And I said, I tell you what, give everybody index card and give everybody a pencil. What I want you to do is, I want you to, in the next session, I want you to write down the first three things you would do for a brand new guy that was just coming into Alcoholics Anonymous that just showed up at a meeting. What's the first three things you would do for this guy? And buddy, you should have seen what was written on those cards. Now, I'm telling you, most of the cards were turned back in blank. And there were two or three of them that had some convoluted weirdness on there. And some of them, you just kind of go like, huh? It's like aliens wrote that stuff. There was no consistency anywhere. Now listen, I'm not even suggesting that we be robots about this stuff, that everybody's methods of doing this thing should be exactly the same thing. But don't you think that when the book gave us, when they gave us the text and they wrote it down and they tell us what this is in the foreword of the first edition, don't you think that we should be at least consistent in how we present the work and that we're presenting the same thing? It used to be that anywhere you would go, there'd be a circling triangle on the door and wherever you went, you knew that God was going to be there and you knew that the steps were going to be there and you knew that recovery was just right there. All you had to do was just follow directions. And if you came up in a situation like that, God bless you, I'm glad you're here. I mean, unfortunately, there were a lot of us that came up through that and that didn't happen. We came into AA where nobody talked about the steps much and in my neck of the woods, which is the epicenter of Middle Road AA, it's as horrible AA as you'll ever experience on God's green earth. There's a lot of times you go to 15 or 16 meetings, you won't ever even mention alcohol. We don't even talk about it because we're too busy talking about other stuff, more important stuff, like your shopping and your... Anyway, we'll talk about this stuff a little bit tomorrow night. But the reason that we're doing this and we're looking specifically at this step one step is to try to see if we can gently maneuver us around so that we're all looking at this particular step the same way. And tomorrow afternoon, we'll do the same thing with step 12 and see if we can't... This isn't trying to step on anybody. This is just trying to see and you go, I'm there. I'm on track. Or, that's funny, that's not how I was taught. That's not what I've been doing and this sort of thing. But I think if we were all on the same page, page 27, they talk about a common solution. And I think if we were back to a place where in all of our meetings in Alcoholics Anonymous we were talking about a common solution that we would have a lot more people with a little more... There just wouldn't be so much confusion. There wouldn't be so much anxiousness, you see. And so we'll talk about that a little bit. One more real quick illustration. Remember in Fred's story in the beginning of the book, there was a... They talked to Fred and there's a line in there that said, at the top of page 40, it says, and we told him what we knew about alcoholism. They didn't say they shared their story. They said they shared what they knew about alcoholism. And so this is where we kind of get to a place where we've got to start asking ourselves these questions as sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Do I understand what alcoholism looks like? Do I understand what recovery looks like? Can I explain this to... Because, guys, I'm telling you, I found out the hard way, the real hard way, that if you don't understand it, you can't teach it. You understand what I'm saying? If you don't understand what alcoholism is, then you can't effectively teach it. If you can't teach it, how do you share it? I'll tell you what you'll do. You'll do exactly what I did for years and years and years. I would pull you towards me with one hand and I would push you away with the other hand because really deep inside, I don't really want to work with you because I'm afraid I don't know what I'm doing. And there should not... There should not be that ambivalence here, guys. There shouldn't be that anxiousness inside us that makes us question our ability to give a guy the steps. We get that, I think. I think there was an old parlor game that we used to play that was... I don't remember what the name of it was. Telegraph or telephone or something like this. And I'd whisper in Larry's ear and Larry would whisper it. And what's his name's ear? I already forgot his name. I'm sorry. And by the time we get back here in the middle of the road back here, it's already started changing and convoluting and this kind of stuff. You poor guys over here, y'all are just screwed. There ain't no way you're going to get the story that started out over here. But that's the problem with an oral tradition. If we get into a situation where we depend completely on an oral tradition to transmit Alcoholics Anonymous and the directions in our text, what we end up with is a... I don't know if it may be real healthy here, but I'm telling you, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, you can't imagine, guys, you can't... We don't have time to talk about it, but you can't imagine how convoluted some of these meetings are and how just people will tell me what they've been learning and I'll be going, huh? Are you guys nuts? I mean, this is the craziest stuff that I've ever heard. And the reason is is because they're relying completely on this oral stuff. Now listen, I'm not implying, I know some of you guys are already going, well, I've heard a lot of good things. Don't go there. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that everything you hear orally is bad. It's just that it... This is why I'm such a big fan of book studies and literature-based studies where we can use the text to guide us through this maze, where we can use the text to set and form firm ideas from which to build our program. You guys get that, I think. I mean, it's just... That's the reason why you've got to get a guy that's carrying a big book to a meeting and he knows the book. These are the guys that are, as a general rule, much, much more efficient at carrying guys through the work than the guy that just wants to sit back and say, well, you know, you'll know when it's time to do the steps. Huh? I mean, that's big in our area. No, you won't. You'll get sick and you'll be drunk just like that. I know. I've seen it too often. And so what we're trying to identify here, and Larry's going to finish this stuff up here, is what we're trying to identify, if you go back and you look in the book and you begin with a doctor's opinion that talks and identifies a physical allergy and you go back and you look at everything from the doctor's opinion, on over to We Agnostics, chapter four, almost everything in there, between there, is about the mental obsession. The two components that are unique to alcoholism and don't occur with anybody else. And so when you begin to isolate it like that, then identifying and helping a brand new guy come in becomes real, real simple. I'm trying to get him to understand. Listen, let's get one thing real straight. You can be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous if you say you are. We all agree with that, right? But just because you say you're an alcoholic doesn't necessarily mean you're an alcoholic. You understand? You're going to have to come to grips with that at some point. You're going to have to learn what alcoholism looks like and then you'll make your decision and there it is. But how many of us sit in meetings with people who were sent to Alcoholics Anonymous by a well-meaning judge that said, you're a drunk, you go to AA. And he comes in here saying, well, I must be an alcoholic. And nobody takes the time to qualify him. Nobody takes the time to kind of just get to know him a little bit and find out what the deal is. That's why Fred, that's what Fred did in this story. We told him what we knew of alcoholism and they identified the alcoholism and then Fred goes, and then this guy goes, that ain't me. And what's he do? He goes and gets drunk and then he comes back in and they tell him again what we knew about alcoholism. And this time he goes, you know what? Some of the things that you said began to ring true. That's where we want him. Now he can sit there and go, you know, I think I drink just like you guys. I think I must be an alcoholic. You see? And now we got a guy that's bona fide, that has identified who he is and what he is and there will be no ambivalence. He knows he has a chronic disease that will take him out of the game if he's not careful and that's what we want. That's what we want. Because let me tell you something, if you know you have a chronic disease, you're going to be motivated to stay. You're going to be motivated to learn. You're going to be motivated to get off your dead butt and go help somebody else. And that's what this thing's all about. I say that lovingly, okay? Everybody kind of seized up all of a sudden, like get a rope. We're going to kill this guy. But Larry, before I get in trouble, come finish this one, will you? These R. guys, I tell you what, they get themselves in a lather, don't they? My name's Larry Scott and I am an alcoholic. And I'm free today. My home group is We Are Not a Glum Lot. We meet on Thursday nights in Atlanta, Georgia. We're a Joe and Charlie style book study. I absolutely love the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm pretty fond of the fellowship. Which is you. The passion that must be brought to the table that Myers opened this up with is a must. It's not a suggestion. Our meeting is this big every Thursday night. There's 250 people every Thursday night. Mainly women. I don't know where they come from. I said it last night. I'm looking out there and the room's full. It's standing room only. And I'm thinking, I don't know where they come from. Where are y'all coming from? It's not a discussion meeting, y'all. We carry the message out of the book. Well, I know where they're coming from. The wind-up joints, the jitter joints are dropping them off. They discovered it's a great place to drop off their clients. Cool. But on the heels of what my friend Myers just said, all these people aren't alcoholics. We get these little drug addicts in there and they're real defiant. You recognize this behavior? And we start chatting. You didn't drink, did you? No. Cocaine? Then you see the posture relax. I said, let me ask you a couple of things. Did you just do cocaine? Well, I had a guy the other day. I said, how did you end up in a spin dry? He said, I smoke pot. I said, brother, you're in a treatment center, a halfway house that costs $50,000. People don't end up here for smoking pot. At the end of it, the day starts out with a few beers and then he's at the dope man's house. So we as recovered people must, absolutely must, qualify the people that are walking in the doors. They're coming in by the droves every day. Alcoholism is more advanced and more prevalent in our society today than ever, than ever. Grab some coffee. If you're not an alcoholic, we like hard drinkers. It's okay. But if you're a real alcoholic of the variety that I am, listen up. And I automatically want to go right into the 12th step that we're going to do tomorrow. I got to be here. I got to come and do this work. And I got to meet you. And hopefully the things that are shared this weekend from up here and out in the hallways, will become contagious. We start every Thursday night with a thing called the alcoholic puzzle. I'd love to tell you where it came from. I don't remember. I've been traveling doing book studies for 17 years. And it dawned on me as Myers and I were talking just before the session, it would really be nice to have a visual aid. I do a PowerPoint on the road or I have a slide over it with an overhead and I draw and all that. And all that business. So I'm going to employ your imagination. And what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the three parts of an alcoholic puzzle. We found it to be very helpful in our Thursday night meeting. And what I'm going to ask you to do is imagine, we've all seen the Mercedes Benz ornament on the hood, right? Big circle with the peace sign in the middle. The first part of that is going to be the left side. We're going to call that the obsession of the mind. I'm real big on working with the mind. I'm real big on working with the mind. I'm real big on working with the mind. That's the way I was brought up through Alcoholics Anonymous. I've got a sponsor that carries a 1939 dictionary. And he makes me look up the words. So if you look up the word obsession in the book, it will tell you that it's a thought that overrides all other thoughts. In my life, I've got a couple of motorcycles at home. I've got a couple of really cute dogs that just think I hung the moon. I've got a little business that buys me dog food. I've got a pretty decent car. I live in a little modest home in a little pond. I've got a decent life. I've got a host of friends that are just amazing. They love me no matter what. But what happens, this obsession, it overrides all of that. It overrides you and God and AA and the bikes and the dogs. All of that becomes second nature. I start thinking about drinking. My old sponsor, told me that the argument starts up here. And once the argument starts, I can't win it. I've never won it. The argument starts whether or not I'm going to drink again. And I'm driving down the road and there's that sign over there with the icicles hanging off of it. It says, coldest beer in the county. I'm done. I pull in. I grab the liquor. I pour it down my neck. What happens at that very moment, it sets into motion the second component of this disease. Not problem. Disease. And that component is called the allergy of the body. That is the component that sets me apart from other types of drinkers. Example. Social drinker. I always think of the Dunwoody housewife. She's lying by the pool in the sun drinking a glass of Pinot Grigio, whatever the hell that is. And it tips over and she goes, oops, I need to go to treatment. No, you just need to go pour another glass of wine. That's a problem drinker. That's a social drinker. Then you've got a problem drinker. This is the guy or gal that's hanging out on Sunday night after the football game, has a few over the line, and they're late for work the next day or they get home late and the significant other says, where have you been? Causes them a little trouble. Problem drinker. Then you've got a hard drinker. This guy looks a lot like me. But the difference in this hard drinker and Larry Scott is that given a sufficient reason, this guy, this guy can just not drink and drive. He can just not drink and go to work. He can just... That's not my story. Because you see, I drink no matter what. I remember back in the day, at the end of my run, she would say, go to the store and get a loaf of bread. We're having eggs and ham. And I get in the car to go get a loaf of bread. It's 10 o'clock on Saturday morning. I pour a pint jar of red liquor. Well, I come back home on Wednesday and it's like, where's the bread? That's the way I roll. Because once I start, I can't stop. An allergy is an allergic reaction to something. There are people in the room today that have an allergic reaction to, say, gluten, penicillin, shellfish. God bless you if you've got an allergic reaction to shellfish. I'd kill myself. Other people have got an allergic reaction to strawberries. Different things. And you have an allergic reaction. You break out in a rash. A lot of people's windpipe closes up. So on any given Wednesday, they're not going to be able to drink. They're going to be driving down the street thinking, you know, I really like raw oysters. And I think I'm just going to go grab a dozen. This time it's going to be different. They don't do that. It's not my story. Because, see, I cannot bring into my mind the suffering and the pain of yesterday, a week ago or a month ago. Because when I drink, the same thing happens over and over and over and over again. And thank God I found you. This hard drinker guy, he's driving down the road one day. A cop pulls him over. He fails the field sobriety test. He goes to county. Wife bails him out. Goes before the judge and the judge says, Mr. Smith, if I catch you in my courtroom again for driving an automobile while inebriated, you're going to county for 90 days. This guy just doesn't drink and drive. I'm driving down the road. I get pulled over. She come bails me out. I'm before the same judge. He says, Mr. Scott, if I see you back in my courtroom again for driving while inebriated, you're going to county for 90. I start wondering what it's going to be like in jail because I'm going. I mean, that's just the way I roll. You know? So, obsession of the mind. This is the problem. Allergy of the body. The solution is in this second, second division of this puzzle. And the solution is found in a spiritual nature. It's the only thing that man has found as a solution to combat alcoholism since man started crushing grapes. Where do you find the spiritual component? Bottom of the puzzle. A practical program of action. Outlined in the first 164 pages of the book. It's the only thing we found. And you find that when I was taking, when I was looking through the book 20 years ago, whenever it was, the guy said, you see these things on the wall, these 1 to 12? I said, yeah. He says, those are a summary of what's in here. I said, what do you mean? He says, well, these are getting sober off the wall. I said, what? He says, these are off the wall remedy. The real solution's in here because, see, I'm a knucklehead. I sit out here and I look at those 12 things and I go, okay, yeah, one, yeah, yeah. I'm pretty sure there's a God. My godmama told me there was three. Are you kidding? You know, I've been running this thing pretty good and then my sponsor says, really, tell me about that. I mean, my wife's in the ditch. And then I look at the steps and I'm picking and choosing what works for me. But once I sat down and somebody took me through the work out of here, the first 164 pages, it was solid. There were no yes or no's. I mean, I hooked up with everything in here because I'm a real alcoholic. And the really cool thing is, you know, Dr. Bob, he's hanging out at the Oxford groups and he knows he's got a problem and he thinks he's got a secret going on. And what it is is everybody in Akron knows that he's an alcoholic. He's going to the Oxford groups to keep Ann shut up. But he's getting drunk every night after those meetings. Ebby comes over to Bill and he tells him, he says, I've had a spiritual awakening. And he says, if you can have that, you can hang on to it if you'll go out and carry this message out to others. Here's the key. Bill had just come from Towns Hospital where Dr. Silkworth told him, he says, I've got a theory. He says, what's your theory, doctor? He says, I have a theory that people like you, when they start thinking about drinking, they can't quit. Bill says, yep, that's me. He says, and the other theory is, Bill, that's when people, when people like you start drinking, they can't stop. He says, you got me pegged. So when Ebby shows up and tells Bill these other two components, his first prospect that he really applied this work on was Dr. Smith. Dr. Smith knew the solution, but he didn't know what he was trying to fix. Hopefully this puzzle has helped you a little bit. The problem starts here. That's what this first 164 pages is. It's about the mental, the mental obsession. I got guys that will call me up and they've decided to go out and do a little research. And I got one pat answer. Call me tomorrow. I can't talk to you if you're drinking. The book doesn't address that. It addresses this. This is my core problem right here. When I start thinking about drinking, I can't stop. You got anything else, brother? One more quick thing. Come on. That, I want, we have like 15 minutes and what I want to do is, the next time, the next time you're sitting in a meeting, just regular rank-and-file type meeting like this, when you've got some guys around you, ask them why they're there. Ask them what makes them an alcoholic. It's an interesting way to start a conversation and it's an interesting thing to see. Let me tell you what's going to happen. If you bring it up as a topic in a meeting, what you'll end up hearing right off the bat is how I got here. And it's an interesting thing. You say, what I'm trying to find out is why you think you're an alcoholic. Oh, well, I got this DWI or I hit my wife or I'm behaving badly at work or whatever. You guys get this stuff. I mean, we've heard this over and over and over again. People say, well, isn't that what's important? And it is. I mean, I'm not making light of anybody's drama, guys. I mean, tomorrow night you'll hear some drama. I mean, it's pathetic, but it's drama. But it's, this is the kind of thing that we hear all the time. And I guess what frustrates me is that nobody checks it. Nobody checks up and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, slick. Don't do that. I mean, this is drama that was related to your alcoholism, but what we're trying to figure out is if you understand what alcoholism looks like, why you're actually here, what separates you from the other guys, you see, over and over and over again. And we hear people talking about the drama that got them here as if that's the only thing that's important. People say, well, all we've got is our story. Listen, guys, if that's what you're telling people, stop telling them that. Please. You have much more. If all you have is your story, then come see me. Let me, we'll reposition you. We'll focus you back through the work again so that you can begin to see and understand what this thing, because you have a lot to offer that's not just your story. I'm not saying that there's not a perfect, perfect place to share your story. There is. Everybody needs a story because it comes in handy. When we're sitting here qualifying somebody, I've just met Larry and he's drunk and he's laying on this bar and he's talking about wanting to sober up. We're going to swap a few war stories and see if we can identify, identify with each other and then he realizes that I'm not somebody trying to preach at him. I'm not trying to do something stupid. He understands that I know his game. Your story is super important. But guys, what happens if the following night Larry shows up in the AA meeting? He's there. He's there in the room. We have him. Now it's time to set the hook. Now it's time to see if we can't get him to understand why we do what we do and what recovery is all about. And that's, that's, that's the reason if, look at, I've got my stuff. You don't even have to look at it. I'm going to read it forward to the first edition. It was in there. There it is. We have alcoholics anonymous for more than 100 men and women who have recovered. There's that ugly recovered word from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. We hope for them these pages will prove so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary. You see what I'm saying? I mean, they don't waste any time starting us off telling us exactly what this stuff was supposed to be. We recovered by the steps that we took, not the meetings that we made. We, we recovered by the steps we took and, and we, that's the reason why this step one stuff becomes so clear. If we have men and women who think that they're here because of their drama, there, there, there's this threadbare idea that if we, if we come in here, you ever hear anything or do you ever say, I did, I said this for years, if you forgot your last drink you probably haven't had it. I used to say it all the time. And yet, the book tells me on page 24 that I'll forget. If fear is the only thing that's keeping you in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I promise you you're destined to drink again because your head, this mental component, will eventually sell you the idea that it's okay. You ever, you ever live that? Or you ever know people that live that? It's just like, and it's a, it's insidious. It's just the weirdest deal. One day I'm defiant, one day I'm, there's no way you couldn't pour booze down me. And then, somewhere along the line my head starts selling me this idea that it's okay. That I probably just made too rough a going of this thing. It was probably just a rough patch in my life and I probably could handle it. And all it takes is just a little bit of that and the mental obsession that Larry was talking about, it will sell me that idea again and pretty soon I'm off to the races. And it's an amazing thing, guys. How many of you guys and gals would, would tell yourself that you just simply changed your mind? I mean, this is the mental obsession at its ugliest. We have a disease that's killing us and we're, am I, my head sells me the idea that, well, one day I just decided that I could, I could drink again. You see, that I made the decision. I got news for you, slick. You didn't decide that. Your head decided that completely independent because normal people, you're smart. You know better than that, right? You, you are smart. Too smart to be falling for that kind of threadbare idea and yet we see it happening over and over and over again. And that's the reason why I'm, I'm so convinced that when men and women relapse, everybody says, well, they didn't do a good inventory or they didn't do amends. And there may be a grain of truth in all of that, guys. I'm not saying that. But I can tell you from my experience in 23 years of doing this that for men and women who relapse, 99% of the time it simply goes back to step one, truth that they don't understand. Because let me tell you something. I'll tell you what, let me do this. How about this? Let's, for just the sake of example, let's say that, that John found out today that he had cancer and he goes and sees the doctor and the doctor and the doctor says, man, you got it. We got to deal with it. And John would be going, what, tell me now. What do I do? And he said, listen, it's Friday. How about, let's say this is Monday. Why don't you be at the clinic at eight o'clock and we'll start running the tests. Now guys, let me ask you this. Where do you think John would be at 7 a.m. Monday morning? Sitting in the parking lot of that clinic going, open, open, please, open. He's desperate. We gave him, we gave him as bad a news as a man could get and yet in our fellowship, guys, we have a disease that's ever been as deadly as cancer is and we let people drift and float and we let them decide for themselves whether or not they're going to work the work and we let them decide for themselves whether they're a real alcoholic. We let them decide for themselves every piece of the game and that's the question, guys, that we need to be sitting there scratching our head in the middle of the night and asking ourselves why we do that. Why we do that. Why do we let people flounder here? Why can't we as quickly as we can scoop them up, get them grounded, get them understanding what alcoholism is, get them to know and understand the chronic nature of our disease. It gets always worse, never better so that they'll be motivated to come with us and do the work. You show me a guy that doesn't want to do the work that makes excuses. How many of you guys have sponsored men and women and found out that you were working twice as hard as they were? Let the taping record show everybody. I mean, because that's what happens. A lot of times we're doing all the pulling and they're just kind of standing there. Guys, quit pulling. Okay? Just between me and you, just quit pulling. Just let them see what it's like to drift sideways some and perhaps you're not going to keep them here, guys. I used to, I got in a contentious argument with a lady one night, didn't intend to, it's never my intention to argue, but she said, I don't agree with anything you said. I said, okay. And then she said, love will always be enough. We can love these men and women into AA. And I went, I had steam coming out both ears. I don't know why it struck me just that particular night why it struck me so goofy that what she said, but guys, let me tell you something. If love was enough, your mom and daddy would have got you sober. Scout's honor. Truth. I'm not saying that love doesn't play a big part of this thing. I mean, what would AA be without love? What would AA be without some high fives and some big old hugs and some stuff? Come on. Love got us here and kept us here and it just, it's key. But this idea that we can just nurture a drunk and make him stay and make him get well, you're fighting an uphill battle, guys, because the only thing, nowhere in our literature does it say, take your new man and love him. I mean, I see a lot of that going on, but I mean, it's not, it's not, we don't want to go there. We'll go there tomorrow night. But you guys, you guys get this and understand this. So, so in, in finishing this thing up, what I, what I, what I would, if I could get everybody in here, if I could get everybody to simply be willing, and it takes a little courage to do this, guys, if I could get everybody to just simply take and reinvestigate what they think they know about alcoholism, just take everything you know and just set it on the floor. Just set everything, the good stuff, the bad stuff, the in-between stuff, the made-up stuff, just take everything and set it down. And just take a day or two, a week or two, a month to reinvestigate what you know and understand about our disease. What you know and understand about alcoholism. Because guys, I tell you, it's, a lot of what you've heard is good stuff and a lot of what you've picked up in meetings and stuff is good stuff. It's not like we all have heads full of mush. We, there's great stuff there. But there is also a lot of ideas and opinions that came along with the ride that simply, that simply don't bear out experience-wise. You see what I'm saying? Let me give you a perfect one and then we'll stop. Meeting makers make it. Some do. But I can tell you right now, a lot don't. And so, the idea that just being in the meeting is enough to keep you sober? Again, Bill would have written it like that if that wasn't so important. It would have said, step 12, go to meetings. And it didn't. It didn't. It didn't. I'm not saying, I know half of you guys will be on your cell phone out there in the lobby in a minute and go, you know what that skinny guy said? He said we're not supposed to go to, I didn't say that. I didn't say that. But it would be great if we could reevaluate this stuff and start picking up and start reforming what this program looks like. I think what we would find is we'd end up with an army not of zealots, but of people, men and women, grounded in the text and would form a new baseline of what's doctrine and what's not. And then we'd all be teaching basically the same kind of stuff. And then, I think we'd have more people staying. Remember, we've never had trouble getting people to come to AA, but we've always had a problem getting them to stay here. And a lot of that happens to be just geographical. It just happens to be where you are. If AA's strong where you are, if they stay, if your AA's weak, we don't have anybody staying in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Nobody stays. It's a bloodbath out there because we're too busy doing other things. Anyway, it'd be a great weekend for that kind of reflection and thanks for letting us come and do this. I appreciate it.