Step 4 and the 30 Different Ways to Do It – Bob D.

With that, please join me in welcoming our speaker, Bob, from this specific group in Las Vegas. Good morning. My name is Bob Darrell and I am alcoholic. Delighted to be here. I want to talk about something today that may, if you're new, part of it may sound a little negative. I am in love with Alcoholics Anonymous. And I don't know how you could be in AA for a few years and not fall in love with AA, what it does in our lives. And then what happens is we connect ourselves to people in AA that we come to care about very much, and we get to watch what it does in their lives. And if you're lucky to be sober a few years and sponsor some people and you get to watch them get their kids back and you get to watch a homeless guy buy his first house and you get to watch probably even more important depressed miserable people when they're sober the lights come on and they start to be happy and they laugh a lot they get free if you care about anyone other than yourself and you get to watch that happen to somebody you care about, it's hard not to love Alcoholics Anonymous. And consequently, those of us that love Alcoholic Anonymous seem to incur with that a responsibility and a responsibility to pay back to AA and to work within AA to help AA to be AA so that it'll be there for the generations yet to come. And when I was brand new, everything I just said would have just... I would have sat there and went, yeah, yeah. Let's get to the good part about me. And that's not unusual. You know, most of us... When it says in the book that selfishness, self-centeredness is the root of our troubles, they're not kidding. So most of Us come here, and if you're like me, you know, you're in AA for a little while before you even realize there's anybody else here. I mean, you know it's just, because it's all about you I mean it's not just me people are like chattering on, you are waiting for your opportunity to share I think when I was new I thought my name was does anybody want to share but what happens if you do service and you are involved here is you start to care about other people and really care about other people. And you start to care about your group, and you startto care aboutyour district and your area, and youstart to careabout AA as a whole. And for the first... I'm going to see how I can say this. In the forward of the second edition, it makes a statement in here that the first time I read it, I was a little perplexed because that didn't make sense to me in the light of my experience in the fellowship. And what it says here, it says of alcoholics, and this was written in 1955, of alcoholcs who came to AA and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way. Wow. Do you know any groups like that? 25% of the remaining 50% got sobered after some relapse. And among the remainder, those who stayed on with AA showed improvement. In other words, what they're saying is 75% of the people who came to AA and tried found permanent lifelong sobriety. 75%, wow. I don't know a group like, there's not a group like that that exists today. And I started thinking that that was a bunch of crap. They must have just, that's like some, that must be some kind of sales pitch. It doesn't really, you know how like treatment centers say, people come here and never drink again. Well, not while they're in there maybe, but I mean laughter You know, but so I started, for about 10 years back in the 80s, I would ask everyone I ever met in AA that was sober in 1955 or before, or even in later 50s, do you think that those statistics were accurate? And universally, everybody said, you know, I think they were back then. And Alcoholics Anonymous has changed. The fellowship of AlcoholicsAnonymous has changed But the good news is that if you look at the qualifying statement here, it says of alcoholics who came to AA and really tried. Now, what do they mean by really tried? I think of the people who come here and buy the whole package and really live this way of life, I think we have a better than 75% success rate in that group within the fellowship. The problem is that that's a very small group within The Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, at the very beginning of chapter five, it talks about who recovers and who doesn't. And it says those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. And what has happened over the years is that the definition of completely give yourself to this Simple Program, the meaning of really tried has kind of changed within the fellowship. It's never changed within this book, but it is changed within the fellowship. I know because I came to AA and I thought that if you would ask me what's going to any lengths mean I would have said to try not to drink and go to meetings. To talk about your feelings. To drink the coffee instead of alcohol. You know, things like that. I never understood that there was there was more to this than that and consequently I didn't stay sober and what what is how this is the first time since I've been sober since 1978 that I have been concerned and in some level afraid for what's happening to the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am not concerned about what's happening to the program. The program is strong as it's ever been, for those of us that pick up that ball and run with it. This is the first time in our history where our numbers are not increasing. As a matter of fact, they're decreasing. It's the first time in our history where the public opinion of Alcoholic Anonymous is It's bleak. It's bad. It's hard to go a month without getting something in the press about us that's not good. There was just a group in Washington, D.C., a group I've been to. As a matter of fact, a group that I'm going to be speaking at in August who just got some bad press and it's crap. It's not, what they did is they took a couple, they had a couple resentful people that had left the group and they built a case against this group and they went public, broke their anonymity. It was hideous what had happened. And I'm sure that there might even be, in some of their accusations, there's probably a kernel of truth in some of it. I mean, you can go to any group in the United States and find a couple members that are not perfect. I mean, I know that doesn't happen up here but you can go to every group in the country and find a 13 stepper you can find somebody that's probably out of line about something but that's not Alcoholics Anonymous that's an individual here and an individual there we got a bad hit over that last year we gota bad hit over a guy who went to without sponsorship direction went to make amends to someone and ended up going to prison. He sits in prison right now. And that made Alcoholics Anonymous look bad. Do you know that 30 years ago or more, in the first 30 or 40 years of AA's existence, historically you can find lots of very prominent people in this country in the fields of religion, clergy, psychiatry, medicine, judicial system, politics, who would tout us and talk about how wonderful Alcoholics Anonymous is. Do you know that no one of that stature in society has come forth as a non-alcoholic to tout us since the 1980s? The last two people were Henry Kissinger and Billy Graham. I shared that with a friend of mine, and he says, well, maybe that's why. Well, we're not going there. But just that's the last two people. And there was a time, you go back in our history, where hundreds of people were stepping up and talking about how wonderful Alcoholics Anonymous was. I mean, for God's sakes, in the early 50s, we were given the Lasker Award, which is the top of the food chain of honor from the medical profession we there was a time uh years ago in our history where if you if an alcoholic showed up in a courtroom and a member of alcoholics anonymous stood up before a judge and said to the judge your honor i'm from alcoholics synonymous i'm sponsoring this guy he's coming to aa and he's doing he's really trying this thing the judges sat up and listened to that And that had credibility. And often the judges would just say, if you got him, good to go. We're going to stay his commitment. We're gonna set that aside, just see how, see if he works with you. Do you know what happens today? Often when that same scenario occurs, the judge rolls his eyes and says, you were in AA last year, weren't you? You're back in my courtroom again. We've lost a lot of credibility. there's a thing that's happened uh i was lucky to have gotten sober in a in a decade where all the where we the we had just overcome the great oops of the 70s and early 80s and what the great ups of in the medical profession is some of you some of the older people will remember this it sounds hideous by today's standards but it's real this is true stuff there was a time in this country there was a decade where if you had alcoholism and you were newly sober and you were a little nervous i know most people up here probably don't get nervous when they get sober but in vegas that's a big symptom of getting sober is you're a little nervous maybe a little depressed a little anxious they had a drug that was made specifically for us, basically. As a matter of fact, I listened to the story of one of the guys involved in creating this drug who ended up in AA years later after he created it kind of for himself. And they would give you this drug, and here's what they'd tell you. And you can look at the, go to, find an old PDR from the early 70s that this drug is non-addictive and it's just right for you. and the drug was valiant a whole generation later the whole medical community went oops um and so by by 19 by the early 1980s uh they backed off of that if you go back and you and you look at you can i just was funny i just looked at i had got a dvd of the old chalk talk from the 70s father martin it was like one of the things that was like state of the art for alcoholism treatment back then and he in there he talks a lot about that about no medic nothing you don't give we don't gives us anything uh and then a generation later all of a sudden they're throwing stuff at us again right they're throwing stuff with us and i don't know maybe i think probably there's probably maybe one out of every 20 newcomers that gets put on medication needs it but we're getting a lot of people in here that we can't reach them my friend Sharon says it best she says it's like there's a a teflon coating over their spirit that the sponsor just can't seem to get through you can't it that the the most important thing that happens to turn a guy's life like mine around is that another alcoholic will get through to me and i mean in a place not intellectually in a space where i really live and the place that it talks about in chapter three where it says we learned we had to fully concede to our innermost self that's where another guy gets through to be is that place in here that's beyond the chatter in your head that place where people connect with you and it's hard to I've tried to work with a lot of these guys it's harder to connect with them there's something between me and them that I can't seem to my spirit can't get through and it says it's a sad deal we Hollywood has taken a different do you remember the first major depiction of Alcoholics Anonymous in TV was Hill Street Blues. One of the characters, and the leading character, the star of the show was depicted as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He was a good guy, and there was humility about him and about his... There was an anonymity and a humility about his character, even though they leaked it. They leaked it in a little bit. They let you know he was a recovering alcoholic, he was an A, but they didn't make a big deal of it. It was very well done. today often in tv shows and in movies when they depict scenes from alcoholics anonymous it's goofy it's like it's a bunch of people in a room like spouting quotes from a hallmark card in a recovery bookstore you know it's it's platitudes it's crazy it's people sharing about their feelings it's like a treatment centered version of alcoholics anonymous that makes us look kind of silly because that's there's more here than that but they don't they've changed their view of us somehow and yet within the fellowship of alcoholic synonymous that has that is going through these this withering there's a program that's stronger than it's ever been and what i've noticed around the country and i don't know if this is good or bad is that alcoholics anonymous is polarizing into camps and you have the one side of the equation is the camps that don't like any structure. They don't like traditions. They think they're outdated. They think the big book's outdated. I mean, it was written in the 1930s, for God's sakes. They don'T like sponsorship. They DON'T like the traditions. They DON't really like the steps. They're kind of open. They want to be open to everything. All the new stuff here. I was at a meeting that I visited. Sometimes when I travel, I go to meetings just and I don't know what I'm going to get. When you travel and you just go to a meeting out of the thing, you don't know what you're going to get, and I went into a meeting in Santa Fe a couple years ago, and there was a woman there that was sober over 20 years. Now, you'd think somebody sober over20 years would not say what she was going to say, but here's what she said. She said some people were talking about amends, and she said, yeah, I had a list of people I owed money to and stuff, and She said, I held crystals over the list to see which ones I had to pay. Now, I'm sitting there. I'm like, I was laughing because at first I thought she was kidding, right? I thought he was being so like goofing on something. And then I realized I'm the only one laughing. It's like there's people nodding their head like, yeah, crystals, that's good. Oh, frightening, frightening to me, frightening. So, one of the reasons I'm delighted to come to a group like this, just as I am delighted to comes to groups like this all over the world, and they are all over world now, is that this is the future of Alcoholics Anonymous, I believe, rests in the hands of groups like these. and in groups like this the relapse rate is smaller than it is in the in the groups where everything goes because there is only one program of recovery in alcoholics anonymous it says these are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of discovery and it's groups such as this that maintain the ethic of Alcoholics Anonymous. An ethic, and people balk at this, an ethic of respect for AA. Because if you don't respect the thing that's saving your life, you're not going to serve it. You can't, you don'T serve something that you don' t respect. And if you DON'T serve Alcoholics Anonymous, you're NOT really a part of Alcoholic Anonymous when throughout all of our literature it keeps hammering the primary purpose primary that means above everything is to help another alcoholic and uh there's i've been in meetings of alcoholics anonymous around the country where there's no respect matter of fact they they treat the members of aa treat aa like it's it's something to goof on you know when they read how it works and they get to balk everybody there's about 30 people room go bop, bop. As if this is like the Rocky Horror Picture Show or something, right? As if it's like audience participation, which is fun if you're in that, doing that. Oh, it's fun. You get people to laugh. It's great. But the message that they're putting out, if you were to step back objectively, if you Were a psychiatrist coming into a group like that. It would be so, or if you're a newcomer who knows nothing about AA, it's easy to get the idea that this is, even the people here think it's silly, right? Even the people hier think it silly. And it's funny because one of the principles in Alcoholics Anonymous in the fourth tradition in the 12 by 12 is the principle of rule 62, which is we don't take ourselves too seriously. That's actually the license plate on my car, rule 62. And we don' t take ourselves very seriously. I goof on myself continually. But I'll tell you something. I take AA very seriously and some of these people got it backwards. They take themselves and their relationships and finances and emotions very seriously, but they don't take this very seriously. They got it reversed. They got It reversed. And consequently, they reap the results of that. I hope I instill in the people I sponsor a desire not to take yourself very seriously but to take AA very seriously because it is the only instrument really in the history of this planet that has created the success and the freedom from this terminal illness, there's nothing that's ever been like AA in the history of the world. Back in the mid 1840s, there was a brief period of half dozen years, a little bit more but not much more. They never made a decade of an organization called the Washingtonians that came about And Washingtonians were a phenomenon, man. I'm telling you, just a couple of drunks trying to help other drunks. And within just a few years, they spread up to the low estimates are 100,000 members. Just in a couple years. You know, in AA, in a few months, we barely had over 100. Over 100, 000. There's high estimates that say maybe close to a half million. And that's without telephones. That's amazing to me that they were able to do that. And then what happened to the Washingtonians? When Bill started researching the Washingtonian, it was really what he discovered, it was the same thing that was happening in AA back in the early 40s. And I suspect it's the same thing that's happening in AAA today as we've disregarded the traditions as a fellowship. Do you know that there's a sentiment that even has leaked into the upper levels of service in AA about this singleness of purpose isn't really as important as it used to be. This principle of anonymity, you know that was good in its time when we had to protect ourselves from people knowing that we're alcoholic but the stigma of alcoholism is over now. We should come public especially the more famous members to let everybody know that were legit. There's a relaxation of focus on the traditions in Alcoholics Anonymous, and that's exactly one of the major things that destroyed the Washingtonians. Back in the 1800s, they didn't have the word issues, but basically what the Washingtonian did is that they didn' t have a singleness of purpose. They lost it, and they started dealing with other issues, the war in Mexico, the abolition of slavery, the temperance movement. They started dealing with members in the Washingtonians that had other problems, infidelity problems, problems of sex addiction and whoring around, and problems of gambling, problems of addiction to medications such as laudanum, which today would be like heroin. Opium. They started getting into all these other issues and basically what they did is they didn't have a primary purpose anymore. Their primary purpose became them and their wants and their feelings were the things, the causes that they think were important, the issues. And consequently, the Washingtonians never made it very far. Another thing that destroyed them is that created to their dissolving and their lack of unity is that they broke up into camps. And there were some very charismatic leaders in the Washingtonians. And a lot of them, it was funny that each of these charismatic leaders had a following. And what would happen in the Washingtonians is that this camp over here that was helping drunks also thought that maybe they should also do abolition of slavery. This camp over there, this camp that was doing abolition over here, that was help and drunks, also thought that maybe they should also help people that were law nomadics. And so they had these little camps that were forming in the Washingtonians, and And there became a lot of bickering between the camps. It's almost like, not so much the leaders as much as the followers, like a sibling rivalry or sort of, or almost like the kind of thing that one high school will have towards another. You know, like you bad rap, ah, those people over there. You know that kind of deal? And what happened is it just really tore the Washingtonians apart because they couldn't agree on all those other things. and do you know what's happening today in Alcoholics Anonymous is that we have a fellowship not the program, the program doesn't deal with issues but we have an fellowship that does I've been in meetings where I've sat through a whole meeting and haven't heard anything about alcoholism, the 12 steps to recovery nothing in the whole meeting except that they read chapter 5 at the beginning of the meeting otherwise I wouldn't even know it was AA because they spent the whole meeting talking about some guy's relationship problem. And there's newcomers in that meeting that their eyes have glazed over because they don't know what the guy's talking, you know, they're dying. There's no primary purpose in a meeting like that. The primary purpose is become us again. and and isn't it funny that we would allow that to happen in the light of our own experience because look how many years individually we've made ourselves our primary purpose and like how does that work right it's not like that was working well i mean i don't know a group of people on the planet that have ever put more focus more spent more money more obsessive energy on ourselves and making ourselves better and me feel better and me more secure and me most comfortable and the end result is I'm trying to take my own life. And yet, somehow we come into alcoholics almost after a period of time I think, well maybe that'll work again. Maybe I'll make me the center again. Let's see, let's try that again. And it didn't work then and it doesn't work now. One of the things that's happened And in Alcoholics Anonymous, two things that have happened that I think has changed the face of our fellowship. In Bill's frustration in the late 40s, mid-to-late 40s to get the tenants to ensure AA's future set in place and that's really what is today become known as the long form of the traditions. Bill, out of frustration, agreed to an abbreviated version that he collaborated with a bunch of people. I remember hearing Circe talk about the story of Bill showing him this, the abbreviated version and asking, well what do you think of these? And Bill conceded to them because he couldn't get the groups he'd been frustrated in getting them to accept the long form. He couldn't even get them to read them. And if you've ever, my home group reads the long form once a month. And the problem with the long form of the traditions, it's long. I mean, it is long. You know, and you sit and watch the newcomers roll their eyes like when is this going to be over? Because it is time away from the important stuff. Me. Right? Me. So Bill Bill encountered a lot of that, and he, through frustration, agreed to this condensed version. And when he did it, I think somehow the face of the fellowship, not the program, the program has never changed, but the face of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous started to change because they changed the membership requirement. The membership requirement originally written in the long form of the third tradition says that membership should include all who suffer from alcoholism. And I think that is the essence of what AA is about. Alcoholics Anonymous is designed to treat a type of alcoholic that it talks about in this book. The type that when you stop drinking you're restless, irritable and discontent. The type que always goes back to drinking without the treatment in these steps that always goes back not because you're a bad guy you just don't have the power to hang in there for a sustained period of time you might do a couple years but eventually the emotions of and the desolation of untreated alcoholism always drive us back and so they changed the membership route to all that it required is a desire to stop drinking And now our doors have been made wide open, and I don't know if this is good or bad. I'm just making an observation that we have a lot of people in AA that get a DUI or that maybe their wife or husband was an alcoholic, and they come with them, and they think, well, you know, I probably shouldn't drink either. And they become members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And when they stop drinking, they don't suffer from alcoholism. They have absolutely no need for our way of life. They're good people. Some of them are very kind people. Some of then do great service in AA becoming delegate or area officer, or they're great with committee work. But they're absolutely ineffectual talking to and carrying out our primary purpose because they can't connect with another alcoholic because they do not have within them the thing that allows them to connect. In our book, it says an alcoholic properly armed with information about himself can be of use to another alcoholic where no one else can. See, every real alcoholic within them is the painful reality of their alcoholism. And because of that, I can get right inside another alcoholic and know exactly what your head's doing to you i know what's going on right in here you know why because you're me you are me and because of that i can be immensely effective to to someone like that but the problem drinker who when they stop drinking really has no more problems they can't connect with that you know what problems problem drinkers will say things to real alcoholics, as it has been said to me by problem drinkers in AA in the 70s, things like, well just don't drink no matter what. Yeah, I know. One guy said after a relapse, he said, well you just obviously wanted to drink more than you wanted to be sober. Well that wasn't true. I really wanted to being sober. I just couldn't take it after several months anymore. And see he's as baffled. He doesn't understand why I relapse. Why don't you just not drink? There's people in AA that are baffLED by people who relapse because they are able so easily to make a decision not to drink, and all they need to do is come to AA occasionally for a reminder that they probably shouldn't drink and they're good to go. But I suffer from alcoholism. And Alcoholics Anonymous saved my life, it's given me the only life I've ever had but not through the attendance of meetings through buying the whole package or as it says in chapter 5 completely giving myself to this simple program the whole deal there is a in the beginning of there is a solution it talks about where our unity comes from and I think this is part of the problem it says here the feeling of having shared in a common pearl peril is one element in the power of powerful cement which binds us and that's true the fact that you know that that feeling when you're a newcomer and you realize, oh, these people are sick like I am. Well, that's really great. And you feel like you're part of, but the shine of that always wears off. And it goes on to talk about that because it says that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined. And that's true. The fact that you found a fellowship of similar sufferers doesn't really sustain you in the long term because if that would sustain you the guys you drank wine with under the bridge would have sustained you because they you could have a fellowship with them right it says the tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution we have a way out and i'll tell you what i think i think it's more than a way out of the bottle. I think it's a way out of here. A way to be relieved of the bondage of self. We have a way Out on which we can absolutely agree and upon which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action. This is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism. A way in which we can absolutely agree and join in, brotherly in harmonious action. That is not a unifying force in Alcoholics Anonymous anymore. Do you know how many versions of the fourth step there are in the fellowship of AA today? It seems like every decades, A new untreated Al-Anon alcoholism counselor creates another version, another step guide. Or people in AA that want to feather, self-grandize themselves with workbooks explaining what Bill really meant. You know, until a lot of times you can go to meetings. I've had this experience of going out of town to a meeting and just in the subject step four And by the end of the meeting, I've heard 30 different ways to do step four. We have a very detailed thing in here, very detailed. There was a time in Alcoholics Anonymous before the treatmentization of the fellowship where if you went into a meeting and somebody mentioned step four, everybody knew what you're talking about. Everybody knew exactly the nuts and bolts, the whole, oh yeah, you did how did you do what this was our course and and what did you find when you when you ask yourself you were whether you're selfish and isn't it amazing how we all every resentment something was threatened there was fear we have a there's a common experience I don't think that's true anymore and one of the things that another one of the things had changed in Alcoholics Anonymous is that we stopped bringing people into AA the way we used to bring people into AAA. If you read history of Alcoholics Anonymous in the early days, and you also read the chapter Working With Others, the first couple pages of Working With others up until page 90, actually 89, 90, 91, and 92, talk about an interview, an interviewing process. An interviewing process that if the new guy doesn't pass the muster, he's not coming to AA. We don't really want him. We're not against him. He's just not ready. And it's fine. And we don't want to bring a person here that's not ready because this is for people that are on the same page. And in page 92, this is after the interviewing process, it says if you are satisfied that he's a real alcoholic, begin to dwell on the hopelessness of the future. And then after you do that, and you really get that he's got step one and step two, and he's ready to move on. Then on page 94, it says now outline the program of action explaining how you made a self appraisal. What it's really saying is you're going to start taking him through the steps. And this is, you're gonna take, he's gonna have gone through some of the steps before he even gets to AA. And what has happened in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I was one of these guys for a number of years. I was a relapser here for seven years and I had various lengths of sobriety and I would stay abstinent on the attending of meetings for a while. And that works really good right up until the point you drink, but it does work for a while and I would like a lot of people today in AA just go to the fellowship sometimes under the illusion that Alcoholics Anonymous is going to solve my problems. So if you're like that and you don't want to have a sponsor and you Don't Want to Work These Steps, you really need to go to a lot of discussion meetings where you can share a lot, right? And so what happens is you bring your problems to those meetings because you don' t have a sponsors. So you bring them to the meetings. They say, Anybody have a problem? And you throw your problem out on the table trying to get advice that matches what you already know anyway, what you уже want to do anyway, right? Because ego-driven people can't listen to hear anything new. They can only listen to how they're already right anyway. So if you've ever tried to get advise from an AA meeting, it's like trying to take a drink of water out of a fire hose. I mean, it's just everybody in the meeting will start sharing at you. I mean, try it sometimes. Just make up a problem, like a relationship problem. Throw it out on the table of a meeting. Watch what happens. You take the whole meeting hostage. The whole meeting now is about you, which is there's kind of a warm, fuzzy feeling about that when you can get a whole room of people thinking about you as much as you do. I mean there's a nice thing, oh yeah, warm, fussy feeling. But what happens is they start throwing advice at you And most of it does not agree with what you're going to do anyway, so you're like this. And what inevitably happens is two-thirds of the way through the meeting, the guy who put it out on the table will bolt out of the meeting and leave the meeting spinning on their problems. And who got helped out of that? Now there might be some people in the meeting that got a little bit relieved of the bondage yourself thinking about this guy with the problems, but the guy with the problem didn't get any help. Matter of fact, if it's a bad enough problem, it separates you. I've watched people come into meetings of alcohol exonymous and under an illusion that they must purge. They think that AA is some kind of purging process. So what they will do is that they will throw out onto the table the worst, most disgusting, shameful thing about them. You know, like, I got my, I humped my neighbor's French poodle or some kind of crazy thing like that that they're very ashamed of. And then what they think that they are going to feel more a part of. And what happens is now all of a sudden they don't get the warm glow and now they don' t go back to that group anymore. Right? They don' T go back to that room. They don't go back to that new group because now the thing inside them that judges themselves, they're convinced that those people are doing it too. That's why you... What has that person done? He just undermined the whole process of step four and five of sponsorship in their own life. And not because they're bad people. It's no one has ever indoctrinated them into Alcoholics Anonymous. They come here with a preconceived notion of what AA is that they've gleaned from just attending a few meetings or from treatment. and we no longer have the people that are interviewing them and bringing them into this thing. So what's happened in today's Alcoholics Anonymous, we had this several million people fellowship and within that fellowship there's another fellowship. The book calls it the fellowship of the spirit And in the fellowship of the Spirit, unlike the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, in the Fellowship of AA, the meetings, all you have to do is have a desire not to drink to be a part of that. But in the fellowship of the spirit, there's some very specific requirements, and let me read them to you. Our book is meant to be suggestive only. we realize we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. So that's obvious of a guy who's bought the primary purpose. The answers will come if your own house is in order, but obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with him is right. And this whole 12-step process is about clearing away the stuff between me and God, and me and you. See to it that your relationship with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us. Membership requirements. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past give freely of what you find and join us if you do all those things it says we shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit there's a different within the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous there's the fellowship of the Spirit I travel all over the world and I go to places like Copenhagen and Stockholm and England and Scotland and Ireland and South America and there's a huge fellowship of AA, but there's people there that have bought this whole package and they stand out like lights in their AA community because they are part of the fellowship of the spirit. I can go to most cities in the world today and I know I have a go-to guy that I can call up and you know it's within, I won't even be there two days, he's got me on a 12-step call somewhere he's got me going into a hospital or something because that's what these are people who have bought this purpose they they get they get the absolute certainty of failure through self-serving and they work these steps to clear enough of themselves out of the way so they can serve a power and an ethic and a purpose greater than themselves and this is the fellowship of the spirit and it is as strong as it has ever been and it exists in the midst afloat in the mist of a sea of alcoholism within the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous why don't we take a five minute break okay we're going to open up for questions and answers Raise your hand if you have a question. I'm Jennifer, an alcoholic, and my home group is West Portland, so it's very easy to stay focused on a primary purpose. I have some other groups that I attend outside of this group. How is it my responsibility and how do I be effective at carrying the message I've been given here out there into the other groups who are very fragmented and defocused without putting people off? You know what I mean? Yeah. I've struggled with that myself. There was a group in Las Vegas. It was kind of unfortunate. A lot of newcomers went there, so myself and a couple of the guys I sponsored, we would go there at the noon meeting about twice a week fishing for new guys. We did that for about a year and a half, and we did it in the face of a lot of animosity. There were some people there that were sober you know not a long time but for that group their old timers were 10 years and they would share at us and and my sponsor finally told me to stop going there he said and he said when he said it i thought he's right he said you're becoming a rallying point around where they defend their position and i wasn't helping them i was entrenching them more in their adamant dislike of the traditions and the steps and sponsorship. I wasn't really, there's a principle in the universe that for every action there's an opposite and equal reaction. And I was creating that dynamic with some of those people. And I think sometimes the best we can do is just to be an example. One of the philosophies that I like a lot is that in AA, I stand for some things, but I don't stand against anything. And when you stand for somethings, the hardest thing to do is not to end up looking like you're standing against the opposite, the different point of view. And that's the, I don' t know how you walk that line because that's a hard line to walk sometimes, not to stand against their position. I don't know. But a person, there's an old adage, a person convinced against their will is of the same opinion still. So I don' t know. I wish there was an easy answer. I think we should get a couple big guys like Chris to go and hold him down and maybe anally implant big books into him or something. Until they come around. the devil made me say that I'll tell you that's not on tape is it oh my god don't give a copy of that to my sponsor anybody else hey Jeff what if anything do you do about people that are seemingly divisive in their behavior there's usually one or two and you know they, you know, sometimes they can be very frustrating and extremely divisive towards a meeting and obviously give people a very bad negative impression about alcoholics and alcoholism. I meant to talk about this earlier and I didn't. I think one of the most disunifying forces in AA is it's gossip. It's the way that we will bad-rap people or things in AA. And you know what's really, I'll tell you what's scary to me. In all these different camps in AA, there's a lot of camps that are really on the same page about a lot of things and yet there's like they talk badly about each other. Like there's big group in Los Angeles that helps a lot of people. And there's some other groups around the country that are on the, really on the same stage with those people and yet they talk bad about each other and you know that's the thing that scares me about that is if people who buy the primary purpose who believe in the traditions the big book and the steps if there's no unity among them then the real crazy people in a win that's what scares me uh and it's all that that dynamic in the human ego to bad rap and put down anything that we feel distant from. In my home group now, there's some forces going on of a couple individuals that just can't stop talking bad about people. They just can't it. not bad people. I understand it. It's something that God, I suppose, has to remove this defect in me. And I think it's in all of us when I don't feel very good about myself. I have this desperate need to bring other people down. But that is such a disunifying force in Alcoholics Anonymous. Dr. Bob was one of the things he warned us about his last talk, the erring member in the tongue this this ability that we have to behind someone's back and a lot of a lot of us don't even realize we're doing it but just like you know so-and-so yeah they don't really work a very good program you know that kind of you know those little judgments as little judgments you know or we fight with remember we is what is it thing about you you remember one thing they did out of line 10 years ago you have to bring that yeah I remember that you know what they did 10 years you know right whoo that's a bad deal and that is i and i i found that inside of me and if it's inside ofme it'sinside everybody i suppose and it's i think it's one of the most negative i'll tell you what i've been trying to do and i i fail at it i can't i don't know that i can i i can barely do a day occasionally get a whole day of not saying anything negative about anybody that's not right in the room with me. That's a hard thing to do. Try that for 24 hours, not to say anything that's not loving about anybody that's not in the group. That's not in my room. It lends to less conversation, a lot more meditation, I think. Go ahead. Hi, Deborah. Thank you, Bob. I was wondering the open meetings that I'm going to, I'm noticing that I was at a meeting and all kinds of people that were not alcoholic or an alcoholic ANDA and then they'd go on to their ANDA and one of these meetings I was cheering and somebody's going off and I was looking at the secretary and they're like, oh well this is an open meeting. and I see that a lot. I mean, sometimes meetings it'll be like hit or miss and they say, oh well, in our group conscience we've decided on this and they're in the meeting directory as Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and they are letting everybody share and honestly, I mean I've had to find words like show them something or explain and say, you know, I think you're maybe a little confused about what an open meeting is anybody can come but only alcoholics share and they just don't get it. I don't find I have that fight when I listen to you and I'm like, I just can't fight anymore. I just cannot fight the groups. I really can't and I just don' t go to them. But I just wanted to put that out there. Boy, I understand what you're saying. I feel that way too. I don' T have the energy. It's like all I can do is just to sure up the AA that I'm in and just sure it up as much as I can and contribute to it as much As I can. And I can't change. I've tried. I can. And, you know, to those of us that know the traditions, that's an obvious breach of the traditions because, you know, groups have autonomy except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. And when you start breaching and compromising our singleness of purpose, that reflects badly. you're putting out a sign that's really saying this is AA when it's really not. That's why a group should not call itself an AA group if it's a bunch of AA members that study the Bible or the Koran or the Tao. You can't call that an AA Group. You can call it, that's why you can't say this is an Alcoholics Anonymous Group for alcoholics who also are gamblers or alcoholics who eat too much chocolate cake, because that's not Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you've ever gone to meetings like that, it only serves the people that also have the additional problem. It doesn't serve the common. You know, it talks today about our common welfare. You're really taking the 20% in the meeting that don't relate to that and excluding them. And what happens if you're a real alcoholic and you go to a meeting continually where they talk about things that are other than alcoholism and you're like me, what happens is after a while you don't even feel like going back to that meeting. So singleness of purpose, it's not to exclude anyone from AA, it'S to keep the real alcoholics in because eventually we won't go. Go to a meeting where they talk about eating chocolate cake or gambling every day for a while. See how long you go to that meeting. Eventually, it's information and it's intellectually stimulating, but there's no heart connection there. There's no identification. You had a hand up? I even planted a couple pieces of big books last year to a couple treatment centers that had been bought out by a corporation that totally separates themselves from radio. We used to have meetings there, now we don't. And they didn't have a clue what they were. So there's hundreds if not thousands of people going through these treatment programs, pretty much being taught anti-AA to be sober. And it's big and it's growing and it happens a lot. I was offered a job at one of the treatment centers, and they told me specifically it's not anything to do with AA. And some rather famous people go through there and come out and make it whatever, have their lives like that. It was kind of strange to me that, I mean it just shocked me when I dropped off a case of books and most of the place that really needed but didn't know what they were and how to use them or where to put them and years ago, years before I was sober, I provided them. It bothers me how we get to those people that are getting out of those treatment centers. Yeah, you know, unfortunately, that's a problem that's probably going to get worse. There was a federal ruling not too long ago that ruled, it's hideous, that ruled Alcoholics Anonymous is a religion. And consequently there are now prisons, there are no treatment centers that have government funds that won't allow Alcoholics Anonymous in there. It's a misinterpretation of the Constitution. The Constitution doesn't guarantee us freedom from religion. It's freedom of religion, and as if every person in the United States needs to be defended against anything that might look like a religion, it is not a religion. But since that ruling, it gives a whole aspect of our society a point of contention with us which is hideous. Well, I don't remember the exact date it came down. A federal judge – I had a guy speak at my home group who was a judge, Jack C., he's from Hagerstown, Maryland. He's a really good guy, and he was talking about it and some of the ramifications that have come down. I've heard – Tom I. and I have talked a lot about this. There's a lot of ramifications about this federal ruling that are starting to ripple down. There's an awful lot of people who work in the treatment center that are also AA members or that still have a lot respect to AA, so they're holding the line against this. But there's kind of a gnawing movement that's trying to push towards making it so there's no AA. We would once again be underground like we were back in the late 30s and 40s. Which, you know something? I don't know if that's good or bad. I don' t know. Sometimes I have a tendency to take it personal like a threat because AA is my life. But who knows? Maybe in the big picture, maybe that's not so bad. I don''t know. You know, one of the things we did is we gave up this thing that talks about working with others. We've given that up. We've turned it over to treatment centers. We don't do that much anymore. Anybody in this room ever detox someone in their home that had convulsions? Yeah, one guy. Myself too. You know, that used to be the way of life in AA. Now you get a guy. I remember sitting in meetings and it was nothing to have a guy fall on the floor in the middle of the meeting and go into a seizure. I mean, they wouldn't even stop the meeting. I mean some guy would just reach over and stick a wallet in the guy's mouth and keep on talking. I mean because it was no big deal. That's what happens. Alcoholics quit drinking and have seizures. Not a big deal, you'll live. And today if somebody went to a seizure in a meeting, oh they'd stop the meeting, there'd be ambulances there, people wringing their hands oh my god and this guy shouldn't even be in AA. He's really sick. Right! That's the mentality. Oh, he shouldn't have even come. He shouldn't ever be in AAA. Well, yes, he should. That's an alcoholic. You just haven't seen one before. Yeah? Jim. Hey, Jim. You touched a little bit on people on medications, And something's really been bothering me a lot lately, especially with guys that I sponsor. I just recently had a couple of sponsees that had one more time than I did and another guy about five years, and they came to me and they said, I'm just not getting it here in AA, and I don't feel connected. That was the common theme. And talking to them, I found out that they were on antidepressants. And more and more, I find that to be true. Anti-anxiety, anti-psychotics, lots of people on medications. And even bringing it up or talking about it in the meeting, seemingly the common consensus is you're not a doctor. Their doctor has prescribed it. It's got to be okay. and I've come to the point where when a guy asked me if I'll sponsor him one of the first things I ask him is are you on medication because I don't feel like I can help I just I'm asking through your help in this whole issue because it's something that I didn't feel I could even talk about I feel like I'm being judgmental, and I know I have generated a certain amount of bad feelings when I talk about medications because so many people are on them. I just don't know how to deal with that whole issue of being on doctor-prescribed medications for your head. If you look at the Tenth Tradition and also the pamphlet, The Alcoholic Member and Medications, it the stance that Alcoholics Anonymous recommends is that we don't have an opinion about this and I've really tried to stick to that but I do have honest experience with it and I can share my experience as long as I keep it in the realm of my actual experience and stay away from any opinions about you or what you should do because I don't know I don't know what you should do, but I have experience not only with myself but with guys I've tried to sponsor, and my experience is identical to yours. I have never had any success with anybody that's on medication. The best I've ever been able to do or ever witnessed is that they can stay undrunk for a number of years, sometimes 10, 15 years. But I don'T know anybody that'S ever gone much more. And the people that make 10 years are very rare. There's a book out, and I highly recommend this book. People who are very defended about this medication stance don't want to read this book because it will undo a lot of your thinking, especially if you don't wanna be wrong about your thinking. And the book was written by a guy who is pretty much undisputedly the leading authority on this thing in the world. There's a psychiatrist named Dr. Peter Bregan, who is the founder of the National Institute for Ethics in Psychiatry. He's Harvard Medical Chair for Psychiatery, medical school chair. He's several times past president of the national psychiatric institute, and he wrote a book called The Antidepressant Fact Book. And if you read that book, everything you've seen in Alcoholics Anonymous with people and medication will make sense. He talks about the whole what it does to the brain chemistry. He talks abut the things, the falsities that the pharmaceutical companies have sold to the medical profession that in research now they're proving this is not right. We've been sold a bill of goods here. Reading parts of it he talks about he's been the leading witness in many wrongful death suits against pharmaceutical companies. And through discovery, the courts have made them open up their records to him. And he went in and found information that when you read it, it's like reading the stuff about the tobacco industry, all the secret stuff they held out. It's like readin' it. And one of the things he said in there, just two years ago, I think, the FDA put a black box warning on, made 10 pharmaceutical companies put a black box warning on 10 SSRIs, and the black box warning was that this can increase your thoughts of suicide. Not decrease, increase. The taking of this medication increases the frequency of suicide or can. And the reason that they've done that is Bragan talks about what SSRI's do, and when you start to read how they work in the brain, you start to get why why guys like my friend tim who after many many years on antidepressants and 31 and a half years of sobriety put a pistol in his head because the medication stops working and now his doctors throw in all kinds of meds at him trying to get him back to being not in the abyss and it's he doesn't know what to give him and because the the when they the backwash of serotonin in the brain by diminishing the uptake inhibitors that expel the serotonin. What happens eventually is that the centers in the brain that produce the seratonin start to atrophy like a muscle that's not used, and sometimes that takes years and years and years, but we all know that. Every medication does that. We've known that forever. I mean, Dr. Paul, who's in the third edition, Dr. Addict Alcohol, used to talk about that. Whatever medication does for you diminishes your ability to achieve that result naturally in the long term. That's true of everything. It's trueof laxatives. You think you may not even really have that big of a problem going to the bathroom. Take laxitives every day for a year and then stop taking them. See what kind of problem you get. You'll think somebody put a cork in you in the back. How far should we go with this policy if it relapses and you get any kind of change? I mean, I chased this guy down, got him back in the campaign, got in trouble for a few days. That's not even going to be worth and still involve a campaign. I think I've become a little more effective helping other drunks by foot by trying I don't always do a real good job that's trying to follow the directions in working with others. Page 96, it says, do not be discouraged if your prospect does not respond at once. Search out another alcoholic and try again. You're sure to find someone desperate enough to accept with eagerness what you offer. We find it a waste of time to keep chasing a man who cannot or will not work with you. If you leave such a person alone, he may soon become convinced that he cannot recover by himself. To spend too much time on any one situation is to deny some other alcoholic an opportunity to be living live and be happy i i will i've had guys that i just buried a guy brad who uh i first started sponsoring brad in 1979 and brad had had eight years and five years and the last several years he had a hard time get in 30 days because the disease progresses and uh he'd he would get sober again and he'd say i'm really sorry this time i'll do everything you you want me to do and i'll if would you help me and i will say yes but unfortunately i don't know bill wilson never knew if a guy was a cannot or will not but brad was only good he was a hundred yard dasher he could come off a run and be very sincere about AA for a couple weeks and then he'd be back into chasing girls again and doing for him and back into self again. And he could not maintain his level of enthusiasm or commitment to alcoholics. And I'm saying he'd relapse again. He did that and did that. And the last time he did it, he went out to a doctor and talked some doctor into a huge prescription of narcotics and and he killed himself. He'll come all at one time on purpose and killed himself, but if he wouldn't have killed himself and he would ask me one more time and he said I'm willing to do whatever you say, I would have said okay, and as long as your actions will reflect that and I think I don't, I very seldom ever fire a sponsee. They kind of fire themselves. AA is self-cleaning. i mean john john barleycorn just comes through with a big sack and just grabs snatches some of us out of here periodically the ones that don't want to do it i mean it's the ones that are out of line it's it's really is self-cleaning chris what what would in your opinion uh what would you say the one point or one issue that is the major erosion of some groups about colleagues anonymous or maybe a better way to say it would be what would be the one point or issue that we could take back to our home groups and uh and start there to to start to shore up our groups or to continue to shore our groups oh i don't know that's a big question i would if i had to narrow it down to one thing i would say a lack of a primary purpose and a singleness of purpose um if if a group if a group has a primary purpose to help the new people to help the alcoholic who still suffers To live that means that you must push self-interest out of the way. And the minute you push self interest out of the way and you move self out of center, the spirit of that group just as the spirit of the individual when I do that personally, my spirit gets stronger and healthier and freer. It is only self that weighs me down and it's only self weighs a group down. There's some great groups in Las Vegas that I hardly ever go to anymore because they're just too self-grandizing. There's a lot of guys that go there, they meet for lunch and it's a businessmen's kind of meeting and it'S great guys and they're wonderful people, but they don't do any 12-step work and they don'T try to help anybody. It's a great camaraderie, but there's no primary purpose. The primary purpose is kind of themselves. the club doesn't feel like the spirit of a to me it's a lot of fun it doesn't feel like a to meet I think of primary purpose and singleness I'm gonna tell you one thing about seeing what here's one of the reasons you know this issue about with drugs and alcohol in this interviewing process is so important Bill Wilson in the pamphlet problems other than alcohol warns us old-timers to not do something and I did this and I've done it on a couple occasions that I really regret it but you can't I can't undo the past and what he says is that we should not try to make non-alcoholics into alcoholics and I have done that I had a guy years ago at the detox he he came up and told me how much he liked what i shared and how wonderful it was and my ego just started to puff up a little bit you know and he told me he wanted me to sponsor him and i knew automatically he was brilliant you know it had good taste and um and i started talking to him and the guy doesn't have a problem with alcohol he's a coke addict so i said to i said yeah but did did you ever drink he said not really he says i don't like it i but if you did drink you probably would have a problem right? He said, well, I don't know. I may probably, possibly, I don't Know. I said, Well, yeah, I think you're an alcoholic. Well, that was a bad deal to do. Now this guy stayed sober in the fellowship sponsored a couple guys did service for several years, and then realized that he wasn't alcoholic. And he was right. And for almost 10 years, he has drank successfully. I was at his wedding years ago and he was given a bottle of Dom Perignon, very expensive champagne, at his wedding. Him and his bride drank a little bit less than half of it and let the rest of it go flat. No, this guy's not an alcoholic. But as long as he doesn't do cocaine, he's fine. But what happened to the people he sponsored? that got to see their sponsor drink successfully. That's why singleness of purpose is so important. You can have a drug problem. Dr. Bob, for God's sakes, did more drugs more often than he did alcohol. But he had alcoholism. And you can have, you can be a drug addict, and you can get a lot of other problems than alcohol, but you've got to have alcoholism to be a part of Alcoholics Anonymous. it's essential we have too many people in the fellowship that are here and staying that don't have alcoholism and I don't want to be a guy I regret if nothing else I don' t want to be that guy that tries to make non-alcoholics into alcoholics now I can't keep them from imagining they're alcoholic if they're not but I don'T want to be a part of that and I want to be an example of what it is to be an alcoholic anybody else last one one more the question is do you think we need to do anything different in light of the changing the fellowship is changing people are being introduced to this program before they really are for lost cases and I think that people are through the court system being introduced into the system Medicaid before they're ready to go back. Is there anything we need to do to change the approach? You know, I... Outside of getting a gang of ex-bikers to go visit them in the middle of the night, I don't think... You know I think it really starts with me and sometimes all I can do is It's okay to think about the whole fellowship as a whole, but if I can be the best example I can be of Alcoholics Anonymous, and maybe it's being the best sample God is helping me to be. Maybe I can affect two or three or five or six or eight or ten people around me. But if a lot of people were doing that, I think we could be shoveling shit against the tide here and i think maybe that's all we're going to do here is is that i know i'll tell you what what i am secure and very comfortable in the in the absolute certainty that if the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous were to dissolve tomorrow and you know that how you know how quickly the the washingtonians dissolved it was like all of a sudden you're planning to go to the next convention and by the time the convention comes there is no more AA that's how quick it was it was just and all those people would have believed that the Washingtonians were going to last forever but I am I believe in the I'm absolutely certain if AA stopped existing and there was no more AA meetings tomorrow I could take this book and I could go into a city anywhere in this country and I would go down to the parts of of that city that I used to live, and I would find guys just like me. And God would show me through the process of these steps how to create the fellowship I crave. And maybe we'd continue to call it AA, or I don't know what we'd call it. I don' t know. But I am very secure in the knowledge that God, this book, and another drunk, and I'm going to stay sober. I know that. That it? Okay. Thank you.