Step 1 — Powerlessness – Chris R. – FOTS Toronto – 2020

okay all right just some of you the way you get your phone we can see the hair in your nose i'm just saying my name is chris r i'm very grateful recovered uh alcoholic and uh guys i thank you so much ally and and mickey and wayne thanks for that nice uh nice introduction you i mean nice the nicest i appreciate it so much and uh and we're glad to be here for heaven's sakes we've got a bunch to cover so we'll kind of get in there and get jumping um i want to mention something i know some of y'all uh because i recognize you heck from last night i know some of y'all were there last night and and uh you got to hear what i'm but i just the ones that just happened to pop in this morning i want to make sure that we all get on the same page i uh uh i know myers feels the same way uh guys we we love alcoholics anonymous and uh it's the best game in town and uh haven't worked in the treatment biz for forever i mean i gotta tell you it's the only game in town that's going to help knuckleheads like us get well and uh and i firmly believe that but um i think the closer we align what we're talking about with the with what's in the big book um the better it's going to be and uh i'm i'm not above sharing opinions from this podium and and uh just guys you're okay you're free to disagree i'm going to share my experience and my experience may be different than your experience and that's just okay please don't don't be cranky if you're in there in this little gathering right now and you're sitting next to your sponsor and i'm telling you to go fast through the steps and he's telling you to go slow through the steps um uh um he's then he's right okay i'm just i'm not going to say it guys i just but but myers will sponsor you i'll send you his email how's that i did incidentally while we're going i did send uh i sat on the chat this morning i put my email back on there again in case any of you i woke up this morning to about 80 emails from people that were looking for handouts and and i got them it just may take me a few days it's it's kind of hard to type with one eye yeah i know y'all don't believe that but it's the truth i'm just saying next time you're typing close one eye and see what happens all right but it's it's uh we've got some little handouts we'd be more than glad to share with you guys so i'm just saying send them to you um i'm a dropbox king so anyway um i got sober finally in 1987 folks after uh after years and years and years of sitting in alcoholics anonymous i was at six or seven years sitting in aa uh wonderful people nice folks and uh nobody's talking big book stuff and i know for a fact guys up and where i was getting sober there were big book groups there were thumpers everywhere i just didn't know where they were uh i have to submit this question because we're going to do the steps today we're going to kind of go through them at a pretty good clip how we would work a little newcomer through the work i need to ask this question going in the door when did it when did it get to a point that we believe that the newcomer would know the questions to ask it i mean some of y'all like me and finally in 87 after that suicide attempt i walked back in a room and these old guys kind of took me under their wing men and women in that group and they opened a big book and they and they taught me you know they didn't wait for me to ask the question before they showed me what they were doing and what this was about and i think it's one of the problems that we have out there in recovery land is that we've got a whole bunch of people sitting around watching the newcomer coming in and and because they're in a meeting they think we've been successful it's not necessarily the truth one of the articles i'll send you uh we were talking about it last night uh oh grapevine article that bill wilson wrote called the dilemma of no faith uh killer article grapevine can send it to you or i can send it to either one it's it's uh this is back in the day when grapevine had a bunch of bill wilson's old stuff one little quote in there it says though 300 this was in 1961 guys this was 10 years before bill passed passed away though 300 000 have recovered in the last 25 years maybe a half million more have walked into our midst and then out again we can't well contend ourselves with the view that all of these recovery failures were the entirely the fault of the newcomers themselves perhaps a great many didn't receive the kind and amount of sponsorship they so sorely needed we didn't communicate when a when might have done so so we aas failed them probably one of my favorite readings from bill wilson i mean this guy was say what you want about the guy there was a sense of humility their understanding that we are making some mistakes in this fellowship you know we we just our success rates in 1955 when the book went into its second edition you know it's we were 75 success rate we don't have anything close to that today and it's a great book and it's a great book and it's a great book and it's because exactly what bill wilson's saying we got a lot of people pushing the meetings and not pushing the steps so we're going to be talking about the steps like i said again you're free to disagree you may be one of those bill wilson talks about a moderate drinker a hard drinker maybe you know maybe you're one of those that you don't need the steps you don't need the spiritual experience you just need the fellowship you're welcome i'm i'm just that's fine folk this is uh i'm talking to the to the to the real alcoholics in the bunch that are trying to stay in their rooms absolutely miserable and those are the ones i want to love on and and see if i can help because it doesn't have to be like that this not drinking one day at a time stuff is is not what bill wilson's saying he says we have a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition it's what he's trying to say and and if you're unhappy folks i got to tell you you're not going to stay so long so just try to we'll kind of weave in there along that that little route bill wilson tells us in that chief responsibility quote that we have one responsibility to the newcomer and that's an adequate presentation of the program i don't think anybody up there in all those years was trying to hurt me but it was only until i got to that group in 87 when those old guys took it to heart and they and they stopped me that first night in and they qualified me that word freaks people out you know it's like see guys i had a lady email me one time she says i'm an alcoholic if i say i'm an alcoholic i said no you're a member of alcoholics anonymous if you say you're a member of alcoholics anonymous fact but in order to be an alcoholic you have to have certain symptoms it's a it's a disease folks by 1961 there the american medical association finally got off dead center they stopped calling it an illness and they started calling it a disease if you look in the in the medical books alcoholism is listed as a disease it is not a procedural problem it is an absolute diagnosable illness you look around the room guys you get so good look at this we got what 400 and almost 450 people in here right now we got some good i was going through the sheets earlier on the pages we got some fine looking people in there we we got some butt ugly people in there let's see we got come on men women black white gay straight we got a cross-section of humanity there yeah i mean even people i mean come on guys the thing that ties us all together is not our heritage not our not where we live our culture our color whatever the thing that ties us together is the disease of alcoholism bill wilson says it on page up there and there's a solution on page 17 that i think it says we have a common problem and a common solution that's one of the problems i see with aaa over the years is we've done everything we can to separate our fellowship you know he's like you know we got another brochure to separate us and it's like the truth of the matter is guys we're all bozos on this bus that 18 year year old kid that's drinking himself to death he needs he needs the same solution as that 80 year old guy who's who's dying in his living room we we this is the same solution folks so a lot of people tried to help me with their stupid stories and trying to scare me into recovery these old guys at the end of the meeting uh finally got with me and and uh and they they they kind of they qualified me they said chris let's find out why you're why you can't stop drinking and they opened the big book guys i've been you know spending lots of money trying to get well and all of a sudden these two old geezers with big books with duct tape around the back you know we're gonna we're gonna help me and i've you know i like how is this gonna happen a bunch of bums and um and they changed my life because they opened it and they showed me what it was to be an alcoholic i was talking to a guy in town one time and he said you know chris there's there's no there's no one step more important than the other they're all equally important okay and they are really they are really important the steps are outlined in the first hundred pages if y'all if y'all email me i've got this little end you probably can't see it i got this little index here i'll show you and i can i can send you but uh uh to show you where the steps are in the book the steps are outlined in the first hundred pages of the big book the first 60 of those pages doctor's opinion yeah up up to page 43 the first 60 of those pages talks about the first step that means the next 11 steps are outlined in the next 40 pages the next 40 pages so i i think bill wilson was pretty clear that this first step step is pretty damn important once you see your truth oh mark used to say my old sponsor used to say what's your truth based on your experience i watch a lot of people in treatment guys a lot of people in treatment you know they they you know how many of you believe you're alcoholic and they look around the room and the guy next to him raises their hand and they put their hand up you know they're just along in the room and that's not that's not what i'm asking anybody to do this morning i'm going to ask some questions in this 45 minutes i got with you i'm going to ask some questions folks and i'm going to tell you it's going to make some of you uncomfortable because some of you neatly put this aside i know i'm an alcoholic i know i'm an alcoholic well then but but you're miserable because you're not working the steps but you don't think you need to work the steps because you don't really think you're an alcoholic that bill wilson talks on page 33 about a lurking notion y'all remember that passage in the book where it talks about a lurking notion with that lurking notion that your case is somehow different i'm paraphrasing has to be smashed you either are an alcoholic or you're not it's black and white now myers was talking about it last night too the progression of this illness will guarantee that some of you will be able to see these symptoms really easily and some of you guys won't be able to see these symptoms as easy i've worked with old geezers that drank successfully quote unquote socially for 40 years and then towards the end of the year i've been able to see these symptoms as easily into their life wheels started coming off and they got in trouble yeah and i've sponsored a kid one time that had two drunk driving charges he blacked out both times he drove he was 18 19 years old and uh in stage alcoholic is a blackout guys in stage alcoholism at 18 19 years old it's different different people guys genetically it's it's different it's different myers and i caught the same bullet and our family got two sisters that never had a problem with it so y'all just you kind of pay attention to it but even at seven years old if you had known the questions to ask you could have diagnosed me with alcoholism but nobody knew the questions to ask and for years in aa all we wanted to do was identify with the stupid stories in the back sorry i just you're listening to the drama but what happens if you haven't had a drunk driving charge or killed somebody or went to prison i mean we we killed gazillions of people every year because we push them away with the scary stories let's do exactly what bill wilson asked us to do and we're going to do exactly what bill wilson asked us to do in the front of the page in the front of the book and look at the symptoms okay from the doctor's opinion up to page 23 we talk about the physical phenomena called craving dr silkworth uh helped bill wilson figure out dr silkworth was a chief neurologist at town's hospital for what 16 years and i mean he began to see similarities between everybody that was coming to that hospital whether you were english royalty or you were a little bum on park trying to get well the symptoms were identical it wasn't causal everybody out there wants to we got treatment centers for kids we got treatment centers for older people we got treatment centers for rich people we got treatment centers for what because the solution is going to be the same and every time we try to make it a special thing it it ends up going badly for us don't get me started anyway the physical phenomena called cravings that can be cured and we're forced to think about how do we properly handle that feeling of not being healthy or having to take care of ourself it's it's it's not right for us so the ones that we need to be trying to get through these are the ones that we need to get through and it's right for us to get through and how we're doing it is a it's really important that you understand that the first thing that we've got to look at when we're thinking about cravings is that we're taking a look at what's important to us what's important to us is that we're taking a look at what is what's important to us can't make you force you to believe you're an alcoholic. See, it doesn't make any difference if your parents think you do or the lawyer thinks you are or whatever. The only person that matters is you. To your innermost self, do you believe you're dying of a fatal progressive illness called alcoholism? Do you believe this will kill you? Everybody, Myers used to watch me. Everybody's waiting for me to, you know, to hit a bottom. William James, the great author that Bill Wilson loved so much, one of his favorite quotes, and I'll paraphrase it, but he talks about your bottom is at the point where you can no longer tolerate the misery. And it's going to be different for everybody. For some, it'll be killing somebody in a car wreck. Maybe that's going to be your bottom. For you, it may be one hangover too many. I'm just done. I'm not going to do that. We've got to stop comparing bottoms and stories and stuff, guys, and just look at the symptoms that we're talking about. So I'll get into this real quick. Physical phenomena called craving will suggest to us that we are wired a little bit different genetically. When I put alcohol in my system, I react to it differently than normal drinkers. One of the symptoms of craving kicks in, and I'm off to the races. Some of the other fellowships use the word interchangeably. Craving is a term that only happens to us once we ingest alcohol. A lot of people out there want to talk, I'm craving, man. I'm craving. You're not. You're obsessing. It's your mind that's trying to drag you down the toilet. Physical craving is when you eat that pot of stew that some idiot wasted a good beer on by pouring it in the stew, and you ate it, and it triggered that craving. And now all of a sudden, you're thinking about taking a drink. The physical craving is triggered. My mom used to buy us these little cordials at Christmastime when we were little kids. They were little cherry-flavored, little, I don't know, some kind of liquor. I don't know what it is. But I asked mom when I got sober, I said, y'all, don't give us those at Christmastime anymore. We can't eat those things. There's alcohol in them. And she said, oh, you'd have to eat a bushel basket of those to get drunk. She had a tough time understanding. No, I would eat one. That small amount of alcohol, depending on how far the illness has progressed, would trigger the craving, and I'd be off to the stupid races. Guys, all of my relapses didn't start with a case of beer. My relapses started with one drink. And the craving would kick in, and then eight hours later, I would go to the store and buy a 12-pack. It was never my intention to do that. So I mentioned one thing that a lot of people don't seem to get, because they read the craving part in the front of the book, and they get the idea that every time I drink, I turn into a zombie and black out. Guys, at certain times, again, depending on how far the illness has progressed, at certain times, the craving can be satisfied with small quantities of alcohol. And that's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about alcohol. Just real quick, guys, how many of you guys have ever had it gone and had a couple of drinks, maybe had a couple of beers in front of TV, and then just went to bed? Any of y'all ever do it? Raise your hand. All right, see, I enter the end. See, some of you are shaking your head. Welcome to end-stage alcoholism. Yeah, and some of you guys, the illness hadn't progressed before, and we can do that. We don't want to paint a picture that every time you drink, you turn into a zombie. If you keep drinking, you will. You know, it'll get nasty, and I can't, I wish I could tell. I wish I could look at, look at Wayne and say, okay, Wayne, you've got 10 more years before that happens. And then you could just drink socially, for heaven's sake. I can't do that. My little glide plane, I'm dry, and I drop straight off the cliff. So the craving can be satisfied, guys, be treated, excuse me, by a thing called detox. All we got to do is get the chemical out of your system, and then there's no longer any craving. Detox centers crank out a thousand, they'll, 100,000 people come to detoxes this week in the United States, and every one of them will leave completely detoxed. And a lot of them will not stay sober, because they don't continue doing what we're talking about. Yeah, first piece, Bill Wilson said, Dr. Bob talked about it. We got to get the, we got to get the physical piece taken care of. Bill Wilson had gone to treatment. He was, it was on his fourth time in treatment. He was on his fourth time in treatment. He was on his fourth time in treatment. He was on his first time all the other three times. On his fourth time, when Abby and them got intervened on him, he finally stayed through the whole process and got physically detoxed. Pretty, pretty cool. So Bill Dodson, that we were talking about yesterday, having a birthday, he could be into treatment eight times. Just detoxing. But he didn't do the other stuff necessary to help the mental obsession. So we can get it. We know how to detox, folks. We can get it out of your system. That's just something that we, we can absolutely do. The mental piece is tricky. Most everyone understands the physical piece. Doctors, lawyers, I've done lectures with sheriff's associations. They all get the physical. Once you alcoholics start making, you can't stop. Okay. All right. But why can't we not start? Why can't we not put the first one in our system? Everybody believes again, surprisingly, how many people in practice of badness become bad? So people are having to slow down where they should be. And then you're having to stop where you need it to stop. So like, for example, if I feel really bad and you want to stop, then I'm just going to do this. We're not going to heal that right out of the glass. Okay. If if I feel really bad and concealer is outside the That is not what easy does it means, guys, please. That's with your families. Let me be the first to tell you, easy does it with your families. I'm with that, guys. It never says easy does it with the steps, guys. He says, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Get it? Get. This mental piece is what gets us, folks, that insanity. From 23 to 43, on that little index I can send you, 23 to 43 are my favorite pages in the book. Now, there's 20 pages in there. There's five stories. All of these stories are what we would call high-bottom drunks. Y'all know the difference between a high-bottom and a low-bottom drunk? Some of y'all look like low-bottom drunks. All right, I'm just saying. Some of you look like high-bottom drunks. High-bottom drunks are people that haven't lost it all. I wasn't a low-bottom drunk. I had a job, thanks to my twin brother, in a little apartment. I wasn't living on the street. You know? I still had some stuff around me, you know? And these stories are fascinating. Now, again, y'all can read the stories in the back of the book until your hair falls out. They're okay. It's all right. But they're going to confuse you. If all you're doing is reading the stories, then you'll be doing a little checklist with a pen. Nope, that's not me. Nope, that's not me. Bill Wilson designs these stories in the front of the book, on those 23 to 43, those 20 pages. Those are all based on true stories, with the exception of the G.I.B. book. J. Walker. Okay? There was no J. Walker. We're actually about 500 of us in this room are J. Walkers. But the story was fictitious, folks. But the rest of those stories were based on true folks. And I won't have time to get in there and read them. But if y'all get the opportunity, special focus on Jim's story and Fred's story. If I got time, I'll talk about Fred. But what he does in these stories is, before he gives this scenario... What happened on the day they relapsed? And he paints this picture of nothing major going on in their life. No triggers. Do I want to discuss this or not? Yes, I do. I know I work in the business, but I think early on, we teach it. I think it's important, folks. But Bill Wilson understood that you don't have to have a trigger. If we could figure out what makes me drink. Then what we have is a behavioral problem, not an illness. Y'all get it? After they drink, they clear it up some more. And Bill Wilson continues to go over and over the same scenario that there was nothing to cause this person to relapse. How many of you guys drank when... I mean, we could do this all day long, but how many of y'all drank when everything was really good in your life? Raise your hands. At least show me you're alive. Some of y'all look dead. Wait. Wake up. God dang it. How many of you drank when everything was crappy in your life? When you had lots of money? No money. Yeah. Listen to Led Zeppelin. Patsy Cline. Daylight. Nighttime. We could do this all day long. Y'all understand it? Why is it that we insist when we go to treatment to talk about this? There is nothing external that's causing. Any of y'all to drink. Some of y'all get mad because you want to continue to blame. Look, I'm going to, I'm going to show you something. Can y'all see my, I'm going to show you if I can get in there. I'm going to stop my. Y'all see issue man there. That's me. All right. Yeah. All these little X's on the outside. I'm going to tell you, this is the stuff that everybody wants to blame for our drinking. It's the internal stuff. That's causing me to drink where that little dark spot is. I love issue, man. There's an issue woman too. I'll send them to you. Guys, we got to stop looking at the external. You know, if you're in a bad marriage, that'll exacerbate the problems. It'll make your drinking worse. That's no question about it. But the good news I can tell you is the same as those old guys told me. Nothing external has got to change for you to be okay. You can get sober no matter what. I mean that good news. What happens if that's, if that crazy. Person you're in a relationship with, or that lousy job or the thing that happened when you were a kid, what happens if none of that, I mean, you can't change some of that. The good news is guys, if you'll do this work, you will change. And then your attitude towards all of that is going to change. It's pretty cool guys. I mean, I don't know how you could not get excited about that. It's just, it's, uh, it's the absolute coolest. Bill Wilson. If you look on page 24. If there's a secret handshake and alcoholics anonymous, it's on this page right here, page 24, a lot of times when I'm at a conference or I'm at work and somebody wants me to put my name in their book, you know, sign their little, I got a little rubber stamp. We stamp that little circle triangle. Some of y'all in the, in the audience here, we've got that little circle triangle. We stamped them in the, in your book, but I'll always sort of ticiously slip over and look on page 24. If you don't have this italicize paragraph marked in your book, I am. I am. I'm probably going to say something because it obviously didn't mean that much to you, but this is the paragraph that saved my life. This is the paragraph that finally explained to me where other counselors couldn't, where doctors couldn't, where treatment couldn't. This explained to me why I couldn't stay sober. The fact is that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness. With sufficient force, the memory and suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago, we are without defense against the first drink. The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crown their mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and rarely supplanted with the old Fredbear idea that this time we're going to handle ourselves like other people. There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove. Can y'all relate? Remember last night I was telling you that story. I promised my first wife I was going to quit drinking. And a week and a half later. I had a beer with a chef. I never gave it a second thought. I'm patting myself on the back because I didn't get drunk. It's what drives me crazy when people in Alcoholics Anonymous tell the newcomer, play the tape all the way through. Guys, the book is to stop doing it. The guy is telling you, you will not be able to think your way through it. I've lost the power of choice and drink. Look at your truth based on your experience, folks. Were there times that you thought about it and stopped yourself? Absolutely. Were there times that you didn't give it a second thought? You didn't even think about it. Bill Wilson writes over and over about it in his story up in the front. All of a sudden, he's got three beers in him. He's pounding on the bar. How did this happen? He never, there was no premeditation about taking the drink. I always tell this story and I certainly won't say any names, but there was a nice lady in the place I worked in treatment and we were talking about this choice thing. And she comes up after the meeting and she's mad and she opens her big book. And she's got some. Polaroid pictures. I probably aged myself in some of you little young guys in there. Y'all don't even know what Polaroids are. Do you? Oh my God. Ask some, ask an old geezer. They'll tell you. They were pretty cool. You could get little automatic pictures. Anyway, this lady had taken some little Polaroid pictures of her little kids, little rack kids, and they were cute as could be. And she was up there and she's shaking mass. You don't understand. I'm going to stay sober for my kids. I'm going to pay. I'm going to stick these, these pictures on my refrigerator. And every time I go in that kitchen, I'm going to see those faces. And I'm going to. I'm going to remember, and I'm not going to drink. I love my kids. I know you do. Good luck with that. The rest of the story, two weeks later, she leaves treatment immediately starts drinking child protective services, comes and gets those kids that she loves so much. Even better news is guys. She went straight back to alcoholics anonymous and did the work and got sober and she got her kids back and all's well with the world. If you can stop because of your. Kids, then go do it. If you can stop because of your job or your health, because you're on a liver transplant list or because you've ruined enough, do it. Have a nice life. Sorry, guys. I'm not trying to get cranky with anybody. I'm saying if you can do that, then you're the moderate drinker, the hard drinker, but you're not the real alcoholic that bill Wilson's talking about on page 20 and 21, please. Given. Sufficient reason. Can you quit? What does your experience show? Yeah, no, I can't. That you, you, that you have the mental obsession. It's pretty cool. Physical craving guys is like being allergic to a food at that particular point in time. If you're allergic to peanuts, then you don't eat peanuts. How do you find out you get sick from eating the peanuts and you didn't, you stay away from them. Same with alcohol. If you know, you can't control it at certain times you drink and it gets out of your control. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you know, you can't control, you end up drinking too much, then quit drinking, like you, there you go. Oh, you can't. That's because it's a combination of the physical piece and the mental piece. That's what causes that's, that's why we die. That's alcoholism. So there's a, there's a lot of confusion about that. Some places. And, uh, we're, uh, Myers and I, and there's a bunch of y'all in here. We're called like three part guys. Okay. So, and there's some two partners in there because Bill Wilson up in the front of the book talks about, we have a two part. Yeah. We're talking about mental illness, physical craving and mental obsession, and that's the thing that separates us from everybody else in the world, which y'all agree, guys, normal people don't have the phenomenal craving and normal people, once they realize that they can't drink normally, they stop that it just, the combination of the two, that's what separates us, but Bill Wilson spent some considerable time in the big book talking specifically about the spiritual malady on page 62. Okay. It says, yeah, it talks about the selfish and self-centeredness that it gets, it kind of gets crazy. It says when the spiritual malady on page 64, excuse me, when the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. So we're a three part deal. When Bill Wilson came up, look, I got a prop. How cool is this? This is a circle triangle. You see this? Somebody gave me this. It was great. Little metal at the bottom of this is recovery, unity, and service. And it's, if you stay in all three parts. Bill Wilson, the physical piece, the mental piece, and the spiritual piece. And that's why we want to put that circle triangle back in your books. If you can get it, it's a, it'll kind of help us stay on track by you're in all three parts. You will never relapse in my experience, but Bill Wilson paints a pretty clear picture. Folks, there's these things called the bedevilments on page 52. He talks about, ask yourself the question guys, when I'm not drinking. Well, let me just say this real quick. Stick your finger on page 52. When Bill Wilson in the first step talks about unmanageability, he's not talking about my external world. Y'all go into any AA meeting tonight after this, after this long day, y'all are going to be wore out after the day. If y'all stay for the whole thing. But next time you go to an AA meeting, ask somebody to, ask somebody to, and bring a topic. Say, let's talk about unmanageability. And every, I guarantee you, everybody in the room will start talking about their external world. The finances. The, the Corona virus, the, all the external stuff that's going on. They'll start talking about that Bill Wilson, and that's, that's appropriate, but that's not what Bill Wilson's talking about. Bill Wilson talks about the unmanageability in internally. That's the thing that ties us all together. How many of you guys have been sober for a period of time and then realize that you weren't feeling the love, you know, you, you, you weren't feeling better inside. I mean, I'm, I'm a two week wonder guys, I can lay the booze down. I can stop drinking. I've done it for years for short periods of time, about two weeks in, well, look at this, we were having trouble in, uh, personal relationships. How many of you guys are having trouble with personal relationships? Yeah. When you're not drinking. Okay. I mean, just when this stuff comes back. Yeah. How about the one with yourself? I'm going to throw this out there, guys. If I treated you the way some of you are treating yourself, they would arrest my skinny little butt. Some of you guys are, you're not, not, you're not. You're your own worst enemy, all that self-hate talk, all that crap that got you out, trouble in personal relationships. We couldn't control our emotional natures. One minute you're okay. The next minute you're so depressed, you know, you're angry, flipping people off on the highway. What, what's that about Mr. Spiritual? We were prey to misery and depression. Number one symptom of untreated alcoholism folks is depression. Unfortunately, we got. Doctors that will give antidepressants at the drop of a hat. I'm not saying they shouldn't. I'm just saying to say, if you're treating, you're, you're suffering from untreated alcoholism, you can take all the medications you want. It's you're still going to struggle with it. God treats that depression, that type of depression, my experience, we had a feeling of uselessness. Can y'all relate how many people we've known off gone out off themselves because they just felt completely useless. That's called untreated alcoholism. We were full of fear. Yeah, we were unhappy. This is what makes me crazy. Sometimes guys ask this question to people that have been sober a long period of time. We lose a lot of our members and alcoholics, anonymous folks, old sobriety that just leave and go, go off themselves, just leave and just go miserable because they think that the only thing this is about is not drinking one stupid day at a time. Well, okay. After a period of time, maybe you could stay sober guys. I'm not offering you. I guarantee you, Myers and I, when we're talking the steps, none of us in this gathering right here offering anybody a way to stay dry one day at a time and not be happy. It's that quote that Don Prince said last night, Myers was talking about. We somehow got, we started focusing on sobriety rather than recovery. I don't want to be just not drinking today, hanging on with dear life. That's not sobriety folks. That's hell on earth. And that's not anywhere what Bill Wilson offered us in the big book. Yeah. The unmanageability guys, that's the internal stuff that we're talking about. Real quick. The unmanageability can be treated by other things. I mentioned I was, was when I, when I clicked on early, I always like to get on early because then that's when the best fellowship is. You're talking to everybody. There was folks from Ireland on there in Europe. And I was just fine. All little knuckleheads. Some of them. I know. And, and, uh, but a lot of us were talking about, we were talking about food and we were tight, all that, but you've got to be careful because a lot of us will, will lay the booze down. Here's alcohol. Not really. This is just pretenses. Okay. It's a prop. I lay the alcohol down and what happens if I'm not working the steps, I'm going to end up picking up something else. That'll treat that internal discomfort. Food's a big one. I watch a lot of my brothers and sisters stop drinking and pick up a fork. Cause I got to tell you, if you're irritable, restless, and discontent, nothing will treat it. I mean, yeah, there's these fried pies. They're made in Pennsylvania. I think they're in Philadelphia. Okay. They're called tasty cake. All right. They're cherry, tasty cake, 800 calories for one fried pie. All right. I guarantee you, Jesus is eating one right now. They're that good. I'm just saying, but I'm a competitive cyclist guys. I can't, I don't, I can't eat that stuff. If I eat it, I'm in trouble, right? I mean, it affects my cycling. I can't do it. If you want to know if I'm in a fit, spiritual condition, ask me if I'm eating a fried pie, because if I am something's wrong. Yeah. Scratch off tickets. Guy in treatment. One time he said, yeah, that's just like cardboard crack. I had to laugh. Yeah, no. Yeah. Yeah. I've known people in AA that did more damage with scratch off tickets than they did with all their drinking, sex addiction, gambling. I mean, we'll lay one thing down and we'll pick up another. We're still trying to treat that internal discomfort. There's one thing that'll treat it guys. And that's that thing that Bill Wilson calls. What's it called? A spiritual experience. You have a spiritual experience. And that doesn't mean guys that we're not periodically throughout our days, throughout our lives. We're going to have off days and we're just feeling goofy or a little down. I'm not talking about that. Welcome to life. You know, it's just going to happen. I'm talking about this grinding sense of impending doom that so many of us experience in sobriety. And I just, I'm going to say work the steps. If you've been around the fellowship for a bunch of years, guys, and you haven't worked the steps, get you a new big book and sit down with somebody, maybe a bunch of little guys you're sponsoring and sit down and go back through the work. Go back quickly through this work and, and, and, and have a new experience. A new experience with, with the steps. And, uh, I guarantee you your experience, it breaks my heart to watch people that are having tried to stay sober from a spiritual experience. They had 30 years ago. Just my old sponsor used to say, I smell more. Yeah, I do too. Yeah. I want to have a current experience guys. This afternoon, when we're talking about working with others, I'm going to absolutely be talking about that because I'm going to continue to grow. I don't want to be the same person. I was 30. Years ago or two years ago, I want to be better. I want to be a better person, a better member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that happens as a result of continued work with the steps. So I'll shut up about that. I got to, uh, I want to show you flip back in your little book because I can't not do it. I started to skip it because that was one thing I wanted to talk about. Look on page 39. If you got your books, y'all keep them handy because I know Myers will be referring to them too. And you may want to look over it. Fred's a partner in a well-known accounting firm. This guy was a real guy. His name was Harry brick. He lived in New Jersey. And, uh, Fred's a partner in a well-known accounting form as just a few paragraphs. His income is good. He's got a fine home, happily married, a father, kids promising college age. He's so attractive, a personality that he makes friends with everyone ever. There was a successful businessman. It's Fred. All appearances. He's well-balanced. Y'all see what he did? He's talking about a high class guy here. Yeah. He did bill Wilson. Didn't say Fred sweeps floors and an accounting firm. His income sucks. He lives in a cardboard box. He hates his kids. He didn't, he didn't say any of that. Yeah. Everybody wants to talk. Yeah. That, that story is in the back of the book. Stay in the front of the book. God dang it. Anyway, Fred's Fred's not going to believe he goes to the treatment center detox. Uh, Fred's not going to believe he's an alcoholic. He thinks because of his high character and standing, and because he can usually handle his other, other problems that he's got, uh, he has every right to be so confident. It's only going to be a manager of, uh, uh, keeping on guard in this frame of mind. I went about my business, bought on page 40 and all went well for a time. I had no trouble refusing drinks and begin to wonder if I had been making a big deal out of nothing. Paraphrase. One day I went to Washington to present some accounting evidence to a government bureau. I'd been out of town before during this particularly dry spell. No. Uh, so there was nothing new about that. Physically, I felt fine. Neither did I have any pressing problems or worries. My business came off. Well, I was pleased to knew my partners would be too. Here it is that somebody asked me, what's your favorite line in the book? This is it. This is it. It was the end of a perfect day. Not a cloud on the horizon. I went to the hotel and leisurely dress for dinner. As I crossed the threshold of the dining room, the thought came to mind that it would be nice to have a couple of cocktails with dinner. That was all nothing more. I ordered the cocktail with my meal. That didn't bother me. So I ordered another. He gets squashed. Yeah, how many of us have done that? Bill Wilson. He says to play. He took away all the triggers. This guy had an end of a perfect day. Not a cloud on the horizon. I had a counselor one time. He said, we'll see things got too good for Fred. Oh, I see. So you don't want things to go bad and you don't want things to go good. So you just want to be nice and boring glum in the middle. Oh, I see. No, that's absolute rubbish. That's absolutely ridiculous. But this these stories explained to me guys. They gave me some clear guidance because I could identify with Jim the car salesman and Fred. I could I could identify with these guys. It wasn't anything external that was causing me to drink. It was this internal discomfort in that mental obsession. That was kicking my butt guys after these guys sat down and qualified qualified me that night the next morning. We did a third step prayer. Afternoon. We started working on a four-step. They gave me a little notebook and made it just really clear guys for the first time. I understood what was wrong with me when I sit down with a little with a little newcomer in there. Little guy comes up and asked me to sponsor him after a meeting. I'm going to sit with him that night. If something if something's really really crazy, you know, I may put him off till tomorrow. But usually I just try to sit with him because it's not going to take long and I open the big book up and I cherry-pick through there. Not in. I try to explain the physical Phenomenon craving. If you get this little index, you can show him where the pages are and he can read it. I know some of you sit down with sponsees and read the book guys. If you can read quickly, I suppose go ahead and do that. It's just we got to get these guys if we make one mistake and alcohol. It's anonymous. That's it. We've started going too slow through this work or not at all. It's a race when that obsession comes back guys. I am not going to call my sponsor. I'm not going to go get my Gorski relapse prevention workbook grid out. I'm going to I'm going to go get a beer. I'm going to go drink. Sorry for the sarcasm. Please. Yeah, the urgency is to get us connected spiritually so that the obsession goes away and I can do that if I can show them in the book physical craving and then that mental obsession. Once that mental obsession is gone, then they're on some rock-solid ground. So it's just real simple. This is this is how I know we explain this to them and then I sit down and explain it like this big. On page 44. If you look in your on the pages, Bill Wilson makes it real clear. In the preceding chapters. You've learned something about alcoholism. We hope we've made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. If you can Mark the word if because Bill Wilson is asking us to ask the questions when you honestly want to you find you cannot quit entirely. Power choice. Mental obsession. Or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take you're probably alcoholic Bill Wilson's always trying to be diplomatic. You are an alcoholic. So I asked the little guy buddy when you and I can do this little drug addicts to underneath most of those little drug addicts out there that we want to keep away with a with a with a with, you know, two fists, you know, this is a get out of here. But underneath most of those little dope fiends is a garden variety alcoholic because most of those drug addicts end up relapsing on alcohol and they do it over and over and over again. Well, it's alcoholism. It's it's terrible. I don't need most of the alcoholics that I work with end up relapsing on prescription medications facts because they think their case is different. And because some doctor says they can take a benzo they do so it's another conversation guys, but we really got to be careful. Anything that can trigger that Phenomenon craving can send me back into the toilet. I don't want to take anything that can change the way I feel at risk of that Phenomenon called craving. I asked him point black guys. I say when you put alcohol in your body. Can you control how much you put in every time? I give everybody credit. You can have one bonus puke, you know, follow your first high school keg party. Everybody's going to get sick one time. Did you ever get sick more than once? Yes. Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous guys. Normal people don't do that. You know, we think it's normal. Well, you know, so every once in a while, I know we don't do it. Did you ever drink more than you intended? Yes. All right. Second piece. To qualify given sufficient reason. It's affecting your health relationships. What your job your employment, whatever. Can you stop and stay stopped? I can sometimes I didn't ask that. Can you stop? No. Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. Not once did I ask. Did you have a drunk driving charge? Did you blackout? Did you rob a liquor store? Any of the drama stuff? I asked him the two words control and choice. It's just real quick guys, and there's a percentage of us about 15% of us in this country in the United States about 15% of us about the same number of people that are diabetic in this country are wired genetically alcoholics fact. And you just ask them you qualify them once they find this out guys, they feel like some of y'all are feeling right now a little tension in their gut. Oh my God, I'm enough. I am an alcoholic see and that tension that'll propel them and that means that night. Usually I do a third step prayer with them. That whole process take an hour qualify them sit down explain the third step prayer and go Myers is going to talk about it in the next hour about the second and third step guys. It just needs to happen pretty quick. My guys that they're not through the work within about 30 days 45 days. They're still working on their men's guys that may take years for some of these knuckleheads to get some of the. Debt paid off we guys were through the work about about 30 40 days at the at the most usually a couple of weeks. And they're out there looking for some little knucklehead to help and it seems to work a lot of these little guys are staying sober. I can see the faces on all you guys in the gallery. Some of y'all are looking like deer in a headlight that seems awful fast. I know I know Bill Wilson's in Towns Hospital on his ninth day of detox writing a men's letters from the hospital. Okay. I know we didn't have 12 steps. It was a shorter version, but he had already done a third step. He had already done a four step fifth step with Abby. He was he's he's kicking butt. Let's do the same thing that the old-timers did guys. And I think we'll start seeing a lot more people staying sober. Y'all good. All right guys. I appreciate y'all being here. Can't wait to hear buyers. He can clean up my mess. Thanks guys.