Sponsorship Terrifies Everyone Because We Added Everything the Book Never Asked – Myers R.

About This Speaker Tape

Myers R. from Dallas speaks to the Fellowship of the Spirit in Dublin as part two of a sponsorship weekend. He introduces himself with a January 15, 1988 sobriety date and the Primary Purpose Group of Dallas, opens with warm riffs about his co-presenters Peter Marinelli and Steve West, and frames the weekend as an honest look at whether each member is doing what AA actually asks, or doing someone else's watered-down version of it.

The heart of the talk is his own seven-year slog in a Dallas discussion-meeting group where problems were aired but the Book and the steps were rarely opened. He describes being seven years dry, going to six meetings a week, and still being suicidal, writing hot checks all over Denton County, and unable to keep his hands off other women. His twin brother Chris got sober first and watched him unravel; eventually Chris hooked him up with a crusty old sponsor named Cliff Bishop, who handed him a Big Book at the door and walked him through the work in two weeks.

He argues bluntly that alcoholism is a physical and mental disease that can't be talked away in discussion meetings, cites Dallas intergroup numbers — nearly 9,000 desire chips given out in six months but only 723 nine-month chips — and attacks the oral-tradition drift that has left most alcoholics afraid to sponsor because they were never shown how. He reads the common-solution passage from page 17 of the Big Book as the cure: carry the same book-based work to the next drunk so a room full of people share one experience rather than a thousand opinions.

He closes on the payoff — watching a sponsee sit knee-to-knee with his own sponsee, Big Books on their laps — as the moment a sober man finally understands he is a cog in something handed down seventy years ago, not a lone walking-wounded member spreading garbage in meetings. He tells the Irish crowd to bring their books at 9 a.m. and promises to simplify sponsorship so they leave excited about it instead of scared of it.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Welcome back to part two; introduces himself as Myers R., Primary Purpose Group of Dallas, sobriety date January 15, 1988
• 2:30 Thanks Daniel, Iris and Paul; riffs on Peter Marinelli's two suitcases and being mistaken for Sopranos actors in Iceland
• 6:00 Frames the weekend — hard self-questions in bed at night: am I a phony, am I doing what I think or what AA actually asks?
• 10:00 Twin brother Chris gets sober first; Myers watches his life change and follows him into his first AA meeting
• 14:00 Describes his Dallas discussion group — 'who's got the problem' meetings, Joe's same story for the 10,000th time, Shelly's divorce
• 19:00 Cancer-group parallel with Daniel: we have a physical and mental disease and yet thousands of groups just talk about it
• 23:00 Dallas intergroup desire-chip stats — 9,000 desire chips vs 723 nine-month chips, roughly 15% stay
• 27:00 At seven years sober, suicidal and writing hot checks in Denton County; confesses the life he'd built inside AA
• 33:00 Reads page 17 — the common solution — and explains how sponsoring book-to-book multiplies a shared experience
• 42:00 Meets Cliff Bishop; hands him a Big Book at the door; two weeks later Myers has had a spiritual experience and is off to the races