Steps 1 and 2 – 2nd Annual Stay Sober for Keeps Workshop – Part 3 of 5 – 2012 – John K.

I get to go first, that way Myers can come up here and tie up all the loose ends and stuff, all the crap that I forget. All right, I'm John Kelly, I am a grateful recovered alcoholic, and my sobriety date is September the 4th, 99, and I am very, very grateful about that, and so is my mama. So we do a little, you know, we're going to cover a whole lot of ground today, it always It warms my heart to see people that sacrifice a Friday night and a Saturday night and a Sunday to come here knuckleheads like me talk. You know, I mean, that's pretty impressive because I know we all have lives and families and kids and jobs and stuff that we like to do on Saturday. Just screw around and we're here. So hopefully we won't disappoint. I am like a participation guy. So do I have like is there anybody here with like more than five desire chips over the years? y'all can be honest no one don't look around just raise your hand anybody with more than 10 more than 15 or 20 there's my knuckleheads I love it I love it I'm not making fun because I am that guy too and I told you last night in my story when I was about dead and detox and homeward bound and these guys came and talked they blew my mind I didn't get sober that time but they said stuff that I never ever heard Maybe I heard it in 11 years in AA land, but I never heard it presented this way. And so we're just going to kind of kick it off. I'm going to do a lot of step one stuff, but just to get my mouth going right, I'm just goingto kind of start where I always do. And in the title page of the book, it says Alcoholics Anonymous is the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism. All right? Not recovering. I'm still in recovery. I'm always recovering. I mean, that's like a sniveling, whining person. I worked 12 steps. I had a spiritual experience. I have recovered from the deadliest illness known to mankind, alcoholism, an illness that kills people that don't even have alcoholism. Right? This is their story, their experience. It's not ideas and opinions. It is experience. And this is what this book is about. And if you flip the page over past the table of contents to the preface. again you flip me a book i go to page one and start reading right i am a reader i like to read but i typically don't spend a lot of time there's a lotof information before we get to build story that's vital and in the in the preface in the second paragraph it says that this book has become the basic text for our society so right off the bat the authors are telling us they're qualifying this book and they're telling us that this is a textbook right a textbook is totally different from a novel. I may read the latest John Grisham novel and get blown away and give it to Myers, and I'm like, dude, you've got to read this. This is awesome. I will probably never read that novel again, no matter how great it is. A textbook is different. A textbook is something we study. We refer to it. It's like in little first grade in math class, a little teacher passed out math books. Unless you were the frigging genius of the class, you didn't go to the end of the book and start working long divisions. right? Each chapter in the mathematics book builds upon the previous chapter. First we've got to learn the numbers and then we're going to do simple addition, one plus one. Then we're gonna move on to the next chapter and do some subtraction, then multiplication, and then division, right? Each chapter builds upon the previous chapter. Each chapter gives us a problem, it gives us solution, and it tells us how to get from problem to solution. They're calling this book a textbook. Why is this book a textbook. Why didn't we flip the page? It tells me why. Forward to the first edition. We of Alcoholics Anonymous are more than 100 men and women who have recovered, I like that word, recovered, all right, from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. Well, what the heck is a hopeless state-of-mind and body? Well, how about this? I can't get through the day without drinking and it's killing me. In order for me to live, I got to drink and it is killing me. The most powerful desire for me is to stay away from booze of absolutely no avail because I drink no matter what. I can't live with the booze. I cannot live without the booze, right? Seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics precisely precisely how we have recovered is the purpose of this book precise right you dig that precise instructions what does precise mean exact right precise there's no gray area the book tells me how to take the steps when to take The Steps with whom to takeThe Steps it gives me prayers and promises consequences all along the way if I read through the pages of thisbook and I get inspired and I want to get what they got I got to do what they do right precise instructions I'll give you a little story about precise so we can tie up. Let's just pretend that it's my lovely bride's birthday coming up, right? And I want to do something special, right. And I got my friend Angie here and Angie is a baker and she likes baking cakes. She wins prizes at the state fair all the time, right, and I plead with Angie to give me one of her prize winning recipes so I can make a cake for Melanie, right and after some hemming and sahans she gives me their best recipe she's got. And I go down to the central market and I buy the best ingredients that are on that recipe list because I want to make a good impression on my lovely bride, right? And I get home and I get all those ingredients out and I start to mix them up, following the directions. And there's a knock on my door. And it's a little old lady from down the street. And she comes in and she inquires what I'm doing. AndI tell her Melanie's birthday is coming up and I'm making her the cake of all cakes. And as I'm mixing it all up, she's looking over my shoulder and she says, baby, you're doing that all wrong. And I said, well, I'm following the recipe here. She goes, baby. I've been baking cakes longer than you've been alive and you need to use a little less cocoa and you needs to do this and you needed to do a little of that and not a little of that. And i'm thinking, well God, she's older and you know what? She may know what she's doing, right? And I do what she says and I can keep making the cake and I'm getting ready to put in the oven and she stops me. I'm like, what are you doing? I got to bake the cake. She goes, baby, you're going to burn that cake up. And I said, well, that's what the recipe says. Cook it at 350. Baby, I've been cooking cakes longer than you've been alive. And that's well, what do you suggest I do? She goes, you need to back off that heat. You need to cook that cake at 90 degrees for 90 days. Now let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. Is my cake going to turn out like that prize winning cake? No. Why? Because I didn't follow instructions, right? They're going to give me instructions in this book. For them we hope these pages will prove so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary. AA puts out a lot of books. I got them all. I've got a lot additional books. There's some great books on alcoholism out there. I encourage you to read them. The only place on God's green earth where There are instructions on how to take the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is in this book and in this book only. I know we got another little book, a little thinner, easier to carry around written by a man who is 15 years, 16 years sober on what the steps meant at that point in his life. That's like me getting a showing up September the 4th, 1999 and Cliff telling me, this is how it is. great i'm coming out of the gutter how do i get from there to there that's why i need this book and if you don't like what i just said go read page 17 of the 12 and 12 and i'll tell you the exact same thing we hope these this account of our expense will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person we got a lot of ignorance and misunderstanding out there they think it's my willpower they think if i just loved them more i could quit drinking they think if I could just pull myself up by the bootstraps, right? So we've got a chapter called, we've got a section called Doctor's Opinion that we're going to go over in a couple minutes. We've got chapter to the wives, to the employers, right, the family afterward want to let those cats out there know what is killing me, right. And it says and besides we're sure that our way of living has its advantages for all. The short, the small picture is I got sober and guess what? I can be part of my family again. I can hold a job again. I get to pay my taxes again. I get the mow the lawn, right? I get to maybe in my circle help some new guys. The big, big picture is look at all the people that are now sober. Look at the state of Texas doesn't have to pay for me to go to Parkland Hospital and drain resources. The state of Kansas doesn't have to play for me to go home. The state doesn't pay for us to pay for me to go to jail. The state of Texas doesn't have to pay for me to go to home we're bound. Right? It has its advantages for all. All right? And that's the forward to the first edition. I ain't going to spend too much time on the forward-to-the-second edition because it was written in 1955, and it tells in very broad strokes how AA started out very, very slowly. Bill met Dr. Bob. They finally got around to alcoholic number three, and they grew slowly. Right? Some key articles were written. You had the meeting with the Rockefellers, the Saturday Evening Post, Fulton Mausler's thing. And after that Saturday Evening Post article, AA blew up exponentially, year after year, wild growth. And the home office of AA is in New York City and when they were writing forward to the second edition, they wanted to find out some general facts about their membership around the country. So they questioned what's the name of your group? It's not like some scientific empirical evidence, but they asked them, well, when did you start your group, how many people did you to start with. How many have you gotten now? There were groups back then that kept darn good records. The controversial part of the program is right here, Roman numeral 20, XX for those who are Roman numerally impaired. Inner group in Dallas hates when we do this and they've hated it for years and years and years. Five lines down, this is what they generally found to be true in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1955. Of alcoholics who came to AA and really tried, there's that key word, really tried. 50% got sober at once and remained that way. That's pretty good. 50%. Half. 50 out of 100. 500 out of 1,000. Pretty good, right? Don't you think? Just to let you know, there is not a treatment center on this planet that sniffs 50%. Okay? So something they were doing back in the day, they were dealing pretty good, they got half. Right? 25% sobered up after some relapses. So you had knuckleheads back in the early days, right? They got to AA, they may have got a sponsor, they got a little fired up, but for whatever reason, it's like Jim, the car salesman, they failed to enlarge their spiritual life, right. They went back out and did some more drinking. Says 25% of them went back and said, hey, Jason, what is it that you do again? Because I'm dying here, right, they got busy. Says out of the remainder of those, two out of three returned as time passed. And like Myers referenced last night, I mean, there's groups with documentation from the 30s and 40s and 50s where they were knocking out 8 out of 10, 9 out of10. Right? Fast forward to today and AA worldwide estimates that less than 5% of the people coming to Alcoholics Anonymous will achieve long-term sobriety. I got 12 years. Less than 1% ofthe people comingto AlcoholicsAnonymous worldwide get 12 years where myers is at i mean it's like infinitesimal strikes me as odd what the heck happened from 50 fast forward 50 years and now we're less than five percent i mean what's different what drugs okay they had drug towns hospital or whatever talking about it world famous for sobering up alcoholics and heroin addicts you dig they had problems They were in the Great Depression. Rotten nagging spouses are still rotten nagging spouses. Jobs still suck in the IRS, you know. Problems haven't changed. Has booze changed? Last I checked, 80 proof vodka is still 80 proof vodka. So what the heck changed? Well let me break it down how they did it back in the day because we've all been to Hey, A-Land, let me break it down how they did it back in the day and see if that matches up with your experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. And we'll use my brother Myers here as the guinea pig. And here's Myers R.. He's in Homeward Bound Detox one more time. And Myers comes from a good family. And they have tried everything to help Myers in his alcoholism. He's been to Betty Ford. He's Been to Sobriety by the Sea. He's Been Down to La Hacienda. He's Ben to the Wind Up Joint. He's been on the Dr. Phil show with his inner child doll They have tried They have Tried everything under the sun to get Myers sober and Myers has tried everything And yet he's in Homer bound detox Chewing on his tongue dying one more time Well back in the day the cats From AA we go visit Myers While he's detoxing and we sit down With Myers and we identify With him we tell him our story We find out all we can about him And we leave and we come back the next day and we sit down with Myers and we go through the same spiel again and we leave and on the third or the fourth day I go visit Myers and I sit down with him and by this time he knows a couple of things and one of those things is I drank as much or more booze than he ever dreamed of and I'm going home to my hot little wife and he's in a busted up detox and he says man I'm just like you how in the heck do you stay sober now I got him Now I get to lay out the program of action that's outlined in this book. Meyer says he's a real alcoholic and he'll do anything to get sober. And I become his sponsor and we go through this in a rapid fashion, right? And in a short amount of time, he has gone through the 12 steps, he has recovered from alcoholism, and now he is helping the new guy. Now, not once did I say they sat around a damn table talking about their day their way. Not once. That's the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. So let's find out what it means to be a real alcoholic. Because I spent a lot of years in AA land and I didn't know what it meant to be a real alcoholic. Oh, I got a disease. Oh, my disease is acting up again today. You know? So, Doctor's Opinion was written by, you know, the bulk of it is Dr. Silkworth. Dr. William Duncan Silkworth, The Little Doctor Who Loved Drunks. That's a great book. You can get it on Amazon.com. It is awesome. Dr. silkworth, like so many people, lost it all in the stock market crash, needed a gig, knew Charlie Towns. Silkworth had a little affinity for alcoholics. He got a job running Towns Hospital. He had every intention when the market turned around, when he got on his feet again, he'd go back into private practice. It never happened. He loved drunks. Towns Hospital was world famous, Central Park West, world famous for sobering up alcoholics, right? And Silkworth over his time there, I mean he worked with like 50,000 or so drunks during his time here. But he couldn't figure out why is it, why is that the guy or the gal who's drinking themselves silly, who's going to lose it all, who's gonna lose their family, their reputation their job their business perhaps their life they go to town's hospital and they get the treatment the town's lambert treatment or whatever that was the hydrotherapy and all that stuff and they counsel them on alcohol abuse and they get them eating right again and doing all that stuff. And this person scared to death doesn't want to drink again doesn't want to lose their sweetie pies. They leave the hospital and live happily ever after. And then you had a certain part, certain percentage, 10% or so who go into the hospital, who get the same lectures, the same treatment, the some warnings, the same everything. And when they leave the hosptial not only are they drinking again but they're in far worse condition than the previous time and so silkworth came up with the theory and if you look on roman numeral xxvi or in a fourth edition xxvii roman numera 28 let's find out what it means and it says we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of a allergy all right an allergy an abnormal more reaction to something I eat or drink. Right? I got a little nephew who's allergic to peanuts. We discovered that when my nephew was like three or four years old, reached into a candy dish at Christmas time, ate a handful of nuts and darn near died. Had to rush him to the emergency room, pump him full of whatever they did. Darn near died fast forward today. Little Doug is now like 30 something years old. Guess what? He don't eat peanuts. We could call him right now. Hey, Doug, I'll give you a thousand dollars to eat a handful. And he doesn't want to eat peanuts, right? He has the allergic reaction. I can eat peanuts all day long. I love them, right. How does the allergy manifest itself in an alcoholic that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. So he's saying, the doctor is saying that if I'm a real alcoholic, I have an allergy to alcohol. It sets me apart from the rest of mankind, right? My body is physiologically different than those normal drinkers. When I drink alcohol, it manifests itself in a form of a craving. The only thing that one drink has ever done for me is convince me that the next one is going to be better. I cannot control how much I drink because once I drink it, I've triggered this allergy. It's beyond my control to stop. I am powerless over that reaction, right. And I'm off to the races. Doesn't matter what my intentions are. Doesn't mater if I'm just gonna watch the basketball game with my buddies, have a couple of beers. Once I start, bad stuff happens. Wear a helmet, all right? You know, I don't like break into hives with this alley. I've broken into some stuff, but never broken out, right? That's the phenomenon of craving. That does not happen in my brother or my couple of brothers. They can take it or leave it. They take a drink, whatever. That's not me. So there's a question I've got to answer in my heart of hearts. Can I control how much I drink? Can I step over to the nearest bar, have a couple of drinks, and stop abruptly and go home? Ain't going to happen. For me, never. It does not happen. Right? The other twisted experiment is, I'm a vodka guy. Put a nice big bottle of absolute vodka in your freezer. Let it get really good and cold and go over there and pour you a nice, a nice Big Slug and don't drink anymore for the rest of the weekend. Good luck. That'll be gone before you know it. That's we think, well, God, that's bad, right? Because if that was my problem in step one, if this allergy is what's my what's my cousin's solution with the peanuts? Don't eat peanuts. Makes perfect sense. He can even walk by a pile of peanuts and he doesn't freak out, right? I got, I know people, a lot of people who's allergic to penicillin. What do y'all do with all the CVSs and Walgreens around you? Y'all like freak out when you, no, they're allergic to Penicillan. They don't take Penicilin, Right. If this allergy to alcohol was my problem, then my solution is very simple. Don't drink. How'd that work out for you? Uh-huh. Something else. Something else involved in here. And it says these allergic types can never suit safely use alcohol in any form at all. I got to read the labels. Go read NyQuil. Alcohol. Go read vanilla extract. Lots of vanilla extract will get you where you need to go. in a pinch. Listerine, it'll get you where you need to go in a pinch. There's a whole bunch of stuff. I got to read the labels. Now treatment center number one this next part is controversial sometimes in AA because treatment center number one said this next part that I'm going to read is why my life's unmanageable. Let's test that theory. This book is like Mythbusters. You dig? It'll help you out a lot because the way I was taught if it ain't in this book it ain'T AA. That's the way I was taught. It says, and once these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. And once having formed the habit, once found they can't break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and they become astonishingly difficult to solve. And there's a whole lot of people out there will tell you that's why your life has become unmanageable. I beg to differ. You drink like I do from the time you come to, to the time you pass out day in, day out. Problems pile up. They become astonishingly difficult. It's very hard to problem solve when you're blacked out. Jobs suffer. Relationships suffer. You drink like I do. That stuff happens. Those are consequences. My life is unmanageable because now that I know I cannot control my drinking and at some point in my life, various points in my life, I swore on a stack of Bibles, I will never ever pick it up again. I've made a firm resolution. In a short amount of time, I'm picking it up again. I'm going to come back to the doctor's opinion. Look at real page 24. Because here's the bad news of step one. Oh, you thought the allergy was the bad news? No, no, no. Here's the Bad News of Step One. It's in italics. My sponsor says, if it's in italics in this book, underline it because it's important. It says the fact is that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure have lost the power of choice in drink. I like that. I've already lost control. Now they're saying I got no choice in the matter. Well, let's see how this plays out. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. Sometimes my willpower is sufficient. I'll never forget getting out of Homer Bound one time and I was at It was at the grocery store one day, and somehow I made a wrong turn in the grocery store and was on the beer aisle. And I had to get back to like the cheese or something. And I made it down the gauntlet of the beer aisle, and I got what I needed to get, and I got out of the store, and I was like, staying sober is pretty easy, right? My willpower was sufficient. Here's the tricky part, the cunning baffling part. We're unable at certain times, not certain times. Sometimes occasionally. Usually the worst possible time we're unable at certain types to bring into my consciousness with sufficient force. The memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago, we're without defense against the first drink treatment centers one through five are telling me play your tape, play think the drink through. Right? That just is telling me I'm not, I don't remember all the, I mean, I have not forgotten about all the horrible things alcohol did to me. Believe me, I haven't forgot about them. What that is saying at some point left to my own devices, that will be insufficient to keep me away from booze. Fear sobers me a bit. Okay, so let's do a little test. Everybody close your eyes. I want you to think of the worst, most painful, degrading, humiliating experience that alcohol has ever done to you. Okay, Myers, we'll start with you. What was it? Just kidding. I know that one. Fists of fury. Okay, so everybody got that in your head? What were you doing a couple of days later? You too, huh? so you'd think like putting my hand on a hot i touched a hot stove when i was little guess what i don't do it no more i don'T sit there and obsess on today i'm gonna touch the piping orange hot stove and not get burned but alcohol is a whole different matter right alcohol got me to do things i never dreamed i'd do and I cannot that is that memory that is not enough to keep me away from it left to my own what they're saying here is the day that I stop drinking the clock is ticking I stop on whatever today is January 21st 2012 if this is the day I stop the clock has taken and he what he's saying was is in a short amount of time a week or a month or something like that left to mind devices I will be unable to stay away from booze. I will drink no matter what. And for me, the drink is the diet because I can't control how much I drink and that's why alcoholism is an illness because left untreated what do you do? You drink yourself to death because of it. Simple. Left untreated what does cancer do? It continues to grow and to multiply until it consumes the host and the host dies. Left untreated. That's why alcoholism is no different let's go back to the doctor's opinion frothy emotional appeal seldom suffice did your little loved ones your little sweetie pies give you some frothy emocional appeal if you come home again i'm leaving i'm thinking well sink being single doesn't stink you know i didn't like this job anyway right frothy a promotional pill seldom suffices The message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. Had a lot of great people in Dr. Bob's life in the Oxford group giving him some appeal, some frothy emotional appeal, right? Whose message had depth and wait for Dr. Bob? It was Bill Wilson. Why? Because Bill Wilson was just like Dr. Bob. Bill Wilson had been in the same hole as Dr. Bob and he knew the way out. He had a message of depth and white. cliff bishop had a message of depth and weight right that's it says they're um in nearly all cases their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves if they are to recreate their lives just look at the bottom of the page because i'm probably running out of time men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol right And that's a true statement. Why does the normal Joe out there like like a beer, a glass of wine now and then? I mean, you got Sonoma up the road a few hours. Right. Why do they like that? What? It's great. Right? You get have a long day at the office and you come home and the wife's there. This is sexist. I know we're so much more advanced, but this is the wife making dinner and the two point two kids are doing their homework. and the husband comes home, he's had a long day and he grabs the paper or his iPad or whatever. He sits down in his big chair. He's got a glass of nice red wine that they picked out of, you know, and it just relaxes them, you Know? And they feel good. It's maybe a social lubricant. It's just cool. Let's twist it around a little bit. Alcoholic men and women drink essentially because we love the effect. Do you drink for the taste only? i want that effect i told you about my effect 15 years old at tennis camp i want that effect and for many many years i got that effect i don't know if it was the first beer the third beer the fifth glass of vodka i don' t know but i want that effect remember trying to go it alone or maybe you're in a land and you're not being successful staying sober you're just newly sober and things start to turn around and you start to get a little hopeful, right? And then as the days go by, that newness starts to wear off and you realize the relationship is kind of in the tank and the job you have really stinks and your puppy is sick and it's raining in Southern California and it's just not working out, right? How'd you feel when you had a couple of drinks? Did it fix any of those problems? Nope. But I want that effect, right. But I can't stay in the effect because it says the sensation is so elusive. Because what is that effect? I mean, if we scientifically discovered that it was three glasses of vodka got me to the effect, the problem therein is I canít stop at three glasses of vodka. Why? Because of the phenomenon of craving. Once I get to the affect, the craving is tricked in and Iím off to the races. I will overshoot the mark each and every time. The sensation is elusive, I can't get it. It's like trying to catch water. It's going to slip away. The sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after time differentiate the true from the false. We've all got injuries, right? Too many times in AA land we get a new guy or gal coming in. Oh, we got a newcomer. Let's tell him how we got here. And now our AA meeting has turned into a big fishing story because this guy tells about this and I can beat that, right, And now I'm going to tell my god-awful little story, and then this guy is going to tell his. And now the little old lady who came into Alcoholics Anonymous is like thinking, I've never been to a hospital. I've Never Ate Out of a Dumpster. I've Ever Sold Myself. I've Every Done. And she leaves. Right? I got injuries. My injuries don't have to be injuries. I have been to many, many hospitals. Injuries. Treatment centers. Injures. I've wrecked a whole bunch of cars, most of them not mine. Injurities. Right? I have harmed a lot of friendships, a lot of relationships, my family. Right? I've been to jail. I've had to pay attorneys. Right? We go on and on and on about the injuries. I got one we can probably all come together with. How about dignity? You too, huh? Yeah. Alcohol got me to do some crap I never dreamed I'd do and end up with folks I never dreamed I would end up with. Hell, I'd go home with Beyonce and wake up with Bigfoot, you know? But those are some injuries. And I didn't intend, you know when i was first grade they asked me what i wanted to be when i grew up i can assure you being 35 years penniless unemployable unlovable unwholesome was not on the was not on the table i had dreams you know but alcohol took me to a whole different place says they cannot after time differentiate the true from the false the truth is as i drink I get drunk. Those things pile up in a hurry. That is the truth. I learned that the painful, tedious way of running all my plans. But that is the truth. If I leave here right now and walk down to that little liquor store I saw on the way in and start off with a pint, I assure you I will be in jails, in hospitals. I will annihilate relationships. You dig? That is The Truth. What's the false? Today it'll be different. knowing what i know now i couldn't and hearing these guys sad story i could never possibly go there therefore i won't it'll be different today today i'll control and enjoy it today i'll drink like a gentleman let's not confuse ourselves with the facts that i have zero experience drinking like a gentlemen but today i'm gonna drink likea gentleman all right that is flat out insane my brain is trying to kill me and make it look like an accident you know says to them their alcoholic life seems the only normal one the way I was living in the late 90s had become normal to me it was normal for me not to have work it was normal for mean not to friends not to good clothes it was normal for wherever I happen to be crashing it was for when I left You know, it was 50-50 at best if I were to ever arrive again. It became normal for my family to shun me. It became normaI. Like I was talking to a guy out there in the parking lot. It became normally for him to walk however many miles it was to go beg for money from the nuns. That just became normal. He says, I become restless and irritable discontent. So alcohol kicks my brains in, and maybe I go to AA. Maybe I go the church. Maybe I just say I'm never, ever doing it again. And for the short term, the goose hangs high. For the short-term, a week or a month or whatever the case may be, my times always got smaller and smaller and small as the years went by. But for the sure term, I felt better. I slept better. I worked better. I was hopeful. You see me at the grocery store. You'd ask me how I'm doing. I'll tell you I'm going great. Been sober a week. This is the best thing. My life has changed. It's different this time. you cats who sponsor like you hear that a bunch it's different this time i'm doing it for me this time at some point that little newness that little that little thing kind of goes south and it's not like people dying in my life that knocks me off track it's just mundane crap like waking up i go to bed and i'm okay and i wake up the next day and it's like i'm on the wrong side of the universe you know i realize i'm watching my favorite team play a football game or something and i realize it's halftime and i don't even know what's going on why because in my head i'm spinning and spinning and spending why do you think they laughed when i walked in the room i think my mama loves my sister more than she loves me My head restless, irritable. I'm just fidgety. I'm sketchy, you know, restless and I'm irritable one minute. Okay. And the next minute you call my name and I might bite your head off. Just a little jumpy, a little tense. And I'm discontent. Poor me. I don't have a good job now. I drank up my car. I think my mama loves my sister more than she loves me. Doesn't anybody love JK? Discontent. I could have 25 years now, but now I've only got 30 days. Discontempt. Poor me. Sober. Look at page 52. I ain't going to go there now, but read those bedevilments. Having trouble with personal relationships. Can't seem to be of real help to other people. Feel of misery and depression. That's me in my normal state. Stone cold sober. And if that's me in my normal state, what happens? Unless we can again experience a sense of ease and comfort, which comes at once by taking a few drinks. See, I get restless, irritable, discontent long enough. My brain comes up with, hey, this sucks. I'm just glad to be sober today. and i play that game long enough which is for me is not too i'm always amazed at myers's story how he made it six years in aa land i make it like six months and i'm ready to i'm looking for a tall building and a sniper rifle because this is we're going down baby right and so i drink right restless irritable discontent unless i can't get a sense of experience a sense the ease and comfort, which comes at once by taking a few drinks. Drinks they see others taking with impunity. After we have succumbed to this desire again, right? As so many do, the phenomenon of craving develops. We pass through the well-known stages of esprit, emerging remorseful with a firm resolution never ever to do it again, I promise. And this is repeated over and over and over and over. And unless this person can't experience an entire psychic change, you're screwed. I got these cats at home. They still say you do life stories. Yes. It would read that. Write that down. Plagiarize is there you go, buckaroo, because that's the way it goes. You know what I thought was bad in 1988 got infinitely worse by 1999. And if I wouldn't have got sober in 99, it would have got worse until I died from it. Welcome to step one. I got no control over the booze and the worst part is, is I cannot manage the decision to stay away from booze to save my life, to save my job, to safe my health to save that relationship I am unable to manage the decison to stay away from boos left to my own devices I'm screwed in step one. That's all I got What John was talking about and stuff, what I want you to do is try to see how much of a conflict and a contrast there is between what he's talking about and what we do in our meetings. I'm going to switch gears on you a little bit like this. We're going to talk about step one as it relates to sponsorship and come at this thing a little Bit of nuts and bolts. Now, listen, if you talk to anybody in AA land that's been in meetings for very long, the very first thing you're going to find out is that they spend a lot of time talking about the drama that got them here. You see what I'm saying? And so you can spend years and years and ears in AA talking over and over and again about the trauma. There's nothing wrong with it. We all have the drama. The problem is that it doesn't make any – it doesn'T describe what alcoholism is. And look, guys, I'm adamant about this stuff. If you don't understand your own disease, you can't teach it. And if you canít teach it, youíre useless. Okay? Yeah, I said it. The ìyouî word. Weíre here to teach this. And you have to be able to understand it. But let me tell you something, guys. I know a host of men that Iíve worked with over the years that donít have a clue what their alcoholism looks like. I say, ìWell, tell me why you think youíre an alcoholic.î And they go, ëWell, there was this DWI and then my wife left.í And Iím going, èNo, no, no. Stop. Stop!î start over. Tell me again what you think, and then they'll try it again. They try to go straight to the drama, and I keep going, no, no. Let's look back. So we'll go back and look at the doctor's opinion. 98% of everything in the doctor'S opinion talks about what? The physical allergy. Why is it that once I start drinking, I cannot stop? It addresses everything there. Everything from the doctorís opinion all the way over to page 44, we agnostics. So you got from 23 to 44 talking about what? The mental obsession. Why is it stone cold sober do I find myself going back to drink again? Guys, let me tell you something. Your wife and your family is not baffled by the fact that you drink too much. I promise you they're not. What they're baffLED is why it is stone cold sober with no booze anywhere in you, do you decide to pick up a drink again? You look like a fruit cake and you are. I mean, doesn't it even baffle you? I mean you just go like holy with all of the knowledge in front of me of what booze has done to me. You see, I mean I wrecked the cars. I lost the job. I touched things. I swore I'd never touch. I just, you understand what I'm saying? I mean it just,you can always tell the dope fiends in the room because they always get that. You just, you know what I'm saying? You just it's just it just baffles me. And so God love us, everyone. And so there it is. This is this is the reason why we spend so much time in a talking about the drama and talking about our stories. They're all important guys. But dang, dang, the new guy begins to instantly think, man, this is this ist what it's all about. I've got to get a drama story together so they can tell the drama story. Let's pretend this. We've got a brand-new guy. He walks in the door, and he sits down in the room, and we're going to sit at some point in the evening. We're going sashay up next to him. We're gonna talk to him a little bit. We're gong to find out a little about him. He's going to find a little abut us. Now all of this could be done out of the context of the meeting. It doesn't have to be done in the meeting, it could be anywhere. Okay? And so what we'll do is flip over to page 44 in your big book, And let's break this down real quick before we go scratch. People go, when I get a brand new guy, when I get it, I'm going to sit him down and over a period of time we're going to read through the whole book. Terrific. Read it. Please don't. Read it, it's terrific. But what I want to do is I would like to, if we don't accomplish anything else today, what I'd like to do ist move us to a place, just move us around so that we're looking at this thing for what it is. We're talking triage here. I got a little guy in front of me that's bleeding out on the floor. I mean, this guy may not make it. He doesn't have days, weeks, months. He does not have a lot of time. I know, but it is such a threadbare idea in AA. It just makes me want to scream. The idea that we have an unlimited amount of time once we get here to get this deal is ludicrous. Listen, guys, my experience doesn't bear that out, nor does this text bear thatout. Everything that we read and everything that we experience says something completely different. We got us a little ticking time bomb in Janine. She's sitting there right now. She's okay now.She's sober now. But how long will she stay that way? And I don't have a bunch of time. I'm going to get her on firm ground first. I'm going to get her healthy first. And then as we work through this work, we'll go back and collect up the pieces, parts of the book and the text and the rest of the stuff. It's not... In Texas, it's a huge thing to take people a year. It's a big deal. We'll work a step a month. Page 24 says, I won't remember the pain and suffering even a week or a month ago. And you guys know exactly what that's like. I mean, stop and think about it, guys. How many of you guys have ever talked to guys coming out of treatment? You see them when they go into treatment. You maybe do them on your little H&I thing and you see them and you meet them and they're just jittery and they eat a handful of spiders if you want. I mean, they'd do anything to stay sober. They're just compliant as they can be. Give them 27 days of good food and checking out great-looking women and exercising a little bit. The heat's off of them. The blowtorch backed away from their butt for 27 days. Yeah, and then you walk back in and the kid's got his hat on backwards and he's leaning back at the back wall. he sees you walk in, but he's ignoring you completely. Why? He's, he doesn't need you now. He doesn't needs you now, he's okay. His head's already sold him the idea that he's just been making a bad time of this, right? You know that works that way. He's just, I just made some bad decisions, but I'm okay now. I'm Okay. Now I get the job back and I can get the girl back. And then I can get the car back and I can just, I mean, we had all kind of, it's all from God. It's all going to be good. And we just kind of. Oh my gosh. So listen, so I got a brand new guy and he's sitting there like this and I'm going to say, listen, buddy, let me, let's talk about a couple of things. Let me read you this paragraph. And then, and then you will, you tell me what you think about what I'm just going to read in the preceding chapters. This is the first 51 pages we just read. You've learned something of alcoholism. Now we hope we've made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. That's what we're trying to find out. This is the dreaded Q word, guys. We're trying to qualify our prospect. The book says it in a dozen places. We'RE TRYING TO QUALIFY HIM. I KNOW SOME OF YOU GUYS JUST GO, OH, YOU CAN'T DO THIS. YES, YOU CAN. THE BOOK ASKS YOU TO DO THIS! WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO LET HIM FLOUNDER TRYIN' TO FIGURE THIS OUT. WE'RE SUPPOST TO HELP HIM. I CAN'T LABEL YOU ALCOHOLIC. THAT'S NOT MY JOB. BUT I CAN LEAD YOU INTO A POSITION TO WHERE YOU CAN SEE, BASED ON YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE, WHERE ARE YOU STANDING WITH THIS, RIGHT? and it's groovy. Okay, so here it is. If when you honestly want to you find you cannot quit entirely or when drinking you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. Two things choice and control. Have you lost the power of choice and control? If you guys that still are lucky enough to have wives, if you told your wife that you're going to leave work and you're going to go home and you'RE going to drink a beer with the guys and then you're going to come home, start dinner. I'm there. I's heading that direction. And then you go and you drink a beer and then another beer and six beers later, eight beers later whatever the deal is, you come home. You've lost the power of control. Once you start you cannot stop. It manifested like this. She gets pissed, throws the food in the trash can, walks out the door and you go okay look I promise, I promise I will never ever do this again. I won't do it. And then two weeks later, you're driving home from work, 7-Eleven's over there like this. You know, man, what a fine day. A beer, man. Wouldn't that be the coolest? And you walk in and you buy this beer and you drive it, you drink it on the way home. You've lost the power of choice, choice and control. And that's it. We didn't, you notice guys in this illustration, we didn't talk anything about the DWI. We doesn't talk to anything about the busted relationship. The fact that you can't hold a job, the fact that we didn't talk about any of that stuff because it's not important and we must get our fellowship back on that track. It is not important. It's important to you because you lived it, but it has nothing to do with identifying who you are. Your drama does not define you and you must be clear on that. It's importante that you know your story because you're going to want to engage this guy at some point in time. In a 12-step call, nothing's more important than a good story. You're going to have to be able to do that. But once he's in the room, once he is here, we have him. This is the reason why I get so amazingly, I want to just explode when I see how much quality time, recovery time in AA is spent just telling stories like it means anything. It doesn't. Why don't we spend our time helping these cats qualify themselves so we i'd say well you know look at what it says right underneath that if this be the case you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer wow could it be any clearer you guys that flounder around with the idea of sponsoring guys if you did nothing more nothing more than learn that paragraph and to be able to take a brand new man or a brand New Woman that comes shakily into your room and being able to read this to them and help him understand this, you would be doing our fellowship an immeasurable service. Immeasorable. Because you're just helping them see quickly. Why is it that so many of us have to wait years and years and years and painful years before we finally hear this message like this? Why is that? Why is the Bible Why is there a reason Why is this? That for some of us the worst time of our entire existence was after we got here. shame on us for allowing that stuff to happen you see it just shouldn't be that way guys so once we get this little guy qualified oh one one more thing and then we're for sure going to smoke this last little sentence which only a spiritual experience will conquer it's interesting okay i'll ask it i did i just i always say i'm not going to do this but i would do it because everybody always seems to get offended i'm trying to be offensive i'm just trying to ask you a simple question. How many meetings do you have to go to, to have a spiritual experience? None, none. You could effectively do this at Denny's seriously and get this guy right here. Um, the, the I'm not again, everybody always goes, well, he just hates meetings. No, for you to therapy is the only thing that's going to help therapy and lots of meds are the only thing for you guys like that i did but you guys understand what i'm saying i'm just saying all i'm simply trying to do is back us away from the idea that that in itself is the solution keep coming back meeting makers make it well let me tell you something guys from my own personal experience there are a lot of us that were meeting makers that died slow and very very painful deaths how many times how many how many times have we heard people who left meetings and kill themselves if meeting makers make it how come there's so much drama around that god love us all we'll get when we come back we're going to take a little 15 minute break and then uh you guys be responsible with them butts and we'll be back thanks howdy again y'all um you know um it's we always spend a bit of time um on this first step stuff because it's so it's dead gum important that we get it and that we understand kind of um i think sometimes in our fellowship we've made it we've make it uh a lot harder than it needs to be uh the book went to great lengths to make it as easy as they can but i think sometime in our own defense i gotta to tell you let me let me um i'm gonna i'm going to cover just a little shred of first step stuff that i wanted to do in the in the the last hour and then uh we're going to do a piece of two and three and then john will come up and sew up all my loose ends and um what we're trying to do is get this stuff set up for inventory stuff that we're gonna do right after lunch um we're not gonna address it right before lunch but we're actually get into some stuff and try to bat down some of those crazy ideas around inventory in the early part of the afternoon when you're in some kind of food funk and nodding off like that will get everybody. And then what we're going to do is we're gonna kind of move rather briskly through the rest of this thing so that we can spend a little quality time in 10, 11, and 12 because everything, sometimes in workshops all over the world, you have guys that spend so much time in the middle of this stuff and in the center part of this, and I'm not discounting any of it, but they get down to the end of it. And so if they get on the end, there's no time to do it. If they're there on a full weekend thing like this, I've heard guys go, well, we sort of ran out of time. But, you know, step 12, it's real important to y'all have a good weekend. We'll see you next year. It's like that. You kind of going like what? What? I mean, what we really ought to be doing is spending all of our time talking about step one stuff and step 12 stuff. and I think we would do everybody a better service if we could concentrate on that. Step 12 is kind of this lost step that so many in our fellowship will ignore for various reasons, and we're going to kind of break down some of those reasons why people would do that in a bit. I want to mention something real quick. In defense of all of us who sat in meetings sharing our story for so many years And in defense of some of the things that we've allowed happen, guys, what goes on here is that sometimes it's the format itself, the format of our meeting itself that allows some crazy stuff to go on. And so sometimes rather than being too critical with ourselves, I think sometimes we need to go back and be a little critical of how we set the meeting up in the first place that allows that freewheeling, goofy stuff to going on in the deal like that. Just a little piece of information here that might be interesting to note. So when we were talking about the number of people that came to AA, John started talking about this stuff this morning. I always thought it was really interesting that between 1935 and 1971, right before the Hughes Act was enacted, remember the Hughes Ac- for some of you guys that have been around a while, the Hughes Acc was enacted in 72. It was the last thing that Nixon did before he left office, writing into effect law that made alcoholism what it is so that treatment centers could come in and treat it as a disease. And so what you ended up with is this amazing growth. It took us 36 years to get the first half million people as members of Alcoholics Anonymous. From 35 to 71, it took us36 years to get 500,000 people. From 1971 to 76, that's the next five years, we added another 500, 000. Another half a million people came in in five years. And within those people, there was a sea of well-meaning warm kind gentle is there any other accolade i could put i mean these are cool people that came in these weren't evil knuckleheads from hell that were coming in to destroy our fellowship the problem was is that is that by the time that a lot of these guys started getting here we had already started shifting our view and our ideas about alcoholism the the the steps had been watered down the idea we began to take a program that look we had a big program over here which included the life-saving steps and we had the fellowship over here, which included sober bowling cards of whatever. I mean coffee after I mean it all the stuff over here but so what happened was is is that over the years we began To drift more and more and more over to the fellowship side of the deal at the great expense of the program side of the deal and we have sponsorship became something that was this we talked about a little bit last night got just sort of flipped over to the responsibility of the group itself rather than the sponsors themselves. We weren't being taught to be strong sponsors anymore. We were taught to be unified members of Alcoholics Anonymous and members of our home group and this kind of stuff, and there's not anything wrong with any of that. Don't get me wrong, okay? There's nothing wrong with that. The problem that over a period of time, let's say, see, a lot of it started in the 80s when I sobered up. I mean, there were a lot of things that we could have checked in the mid 80s to the late 80s that we didn't check. It just went on. People would talk about weird stuff and the meetings would get weird and we would just go, okay, I guess that's just the way it is. Again, because we're too lazy to study when there's nobody, there's not a concerted effort among the old timers to hold it on track. But I'll tell you right now, guys, you know in your own home groups, if you ever get the old timer aside and you can talk to him for a couple of minutes, What they'll tell you in all honesty is that AA in those days bears little resemblance to AA today, you see. And so it's fairly dramatic, the difference between the two. And so all I'm trying to do is I'm not saying they did it perfect then, but I'm just saying why would it be so difficult just to simply pull our meeting back around a little bit so it was a little more focused on the solution and a little less focused on just fellowship, you See? That's not too much to ask. And in groups where we see that happening, let me give you a great example that worked on this thing. In the greater metropolitan area of London, in Great Britain 10 years ago, there were no book studies anywhere out there. I'm telling you, there was none. It was an absolute crazy nightmare of nonstop discussion meetings. Our hope for years had been that when the Europeans picked up the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, that they would pick up the best that we had to offer. And what they picked up was nonstop discussion meetings. That was it. And it was wheels off. Yes, there was some success. The problem was is that there was also some really, really tragic things going on. No literature stuff got in there. So you had people staying sober in the rooms that didn't know any doctrine. They didn't Know Any Big Book, and so they couldn't pass that stuff along. And so generationally, it just got weaker and weaker and quicker until it was just crazy. Well, we started talking to these guys about starting big book studies over there. This is 10 years ago. And they started at one point in time, there were six or seven brand new book studies in the metropolitan area. Some were using study guides. Some were not using study guide. But they were all had the big book as the focus of their meeting like this. And guys, I'm telling you, I've got copies of the letters that these guys sent me during that period of time. And it, you would, I mean, you'd go from elation to just weeping because you, you just, the lives changed by simply being a little more dogmatic about what we're teaching in meetings rather than just letting people just share nonstop about their experience and treatment or whatever they happen to be sharing that day. I don't, it's all good. Sort of. You understand. And so, but let me tell you, but an interesting thing. A couple of years ago, the cult watch guys got involved with a thing. And if you have not been around very long, if you've not been on, sometimes Google UK cult watch. UK cult watching. And a crazy bunch of guys, I'm saying right here on tape, I hope they hear it. I wish they would spend nearly as much time helping drunks as they do trying to destroy what the rest of us are building. That's my statement. These guys have printed and said things over the years that were pretty unkind, and if my skin wasn't thick Texan skin, I would have said, I'm stopped. But they ran a bunch of these book studies out of business overnight. They'd go sit in their meeting, be disruptive, talk about all this other kind of stuff, and their big deal was that these guys were studying the text, and that's what rankled them. They were studying, and they didn't have a place where people could share. man i'm telling you what we need in this fellowship is a lot less sharing and a lot more talk about the text and we would we would all be healthier i promise you um um you also there's also on that website some letters that they wrote to me directly in the in the guise of death threats you should read them it's interesting i've been to last year i was in europe five times and and you should reading the letters that i get the day i leave don't come you know this kind of stuff it's ugly it's really ugly and you wouldn't think it would be that way I mean it could look at me I'm no threat to anybody never mind shoot so here's the deal this idea around this step one stuff once we get in our head and we understand what it is that we're teaching so let's take this same kind of guy this guy that we just shared this step one stuff in before or after the meeting and we've talked to him about this stuff and he's going uh-huh uh-uh like this listen we're not trying to force this guy through this stuff that don't misunderstand me here like this but if the guy is answering the questions right and he goes you know what sounds just like you and I go yeah it does you know when I when that happened to me I had to come to the conclusion that I was an alcoholic and he says yeah it sounds like me too now I've saved this guy I think I've saved this guy maybe years floundering around a scratching his head wondering if he's one of us because listen guys here it is this the pain gets us here and if left unchecked the pain will go away and then we wonder why we're here that's the reason why we have so many people coming in and going back out again why the relapse rate in this deal is so it's so goofy this is the reason why we got so many People getting hooked up in meds that didn't need to get hooked up they they They came in hurting. The pain drove them in here. They got here. They didn't do any step work. They didnít do anything. They just got into this sharing mode. Theyíre doing a thing like this. The spiritual malady starts kicking their rear end. Their ego starts reasserting itself. Selfishness and self-centeredness comes back full force, and all of a sudden theyíre so uncomfortable in their own skin, they go, ìI mean, how can this happen?î ì Iíve got to go to a doctor.î The doctorís heavy in the United States, heavy with his prescription pad, and all OF a sudden there got a bunch of meds. Listen, Iím not making light of anything, and I'm not getting into that controversy about meds. We can talk about it anytime you want to. I'm just saying, guys, there are a lot of times that we're prescribed meds when a spiritual malady could have been treated. What the meds are supposed to be treating is untreated alcoholism and we had a way to treat it. Now listen, I am a firm... Golly, don't misunderstand me here. I believe that when meds are necessary, they're necessary. Take them. I'm NOT saying don't take them And I'm not, I'm no doctor. It's not my job to diagnose that kind of stuff. I'm just saying when 50% of the beds in the United States today in treatment, in treatment beds are filled with people who've relapsed on pain meds, we got to start looking at this stuff, guys. We got to Start paying attention what's happening within our fellowship on this. It's pretty weird. So here's the deal. We got this brand new guy. He says he's an alcoholic. What's my next question? This is the number two thing that I would ask a brand new Guy if he came in, okay? The number two thing I would ask him is, tell me what you think about God. That's a pretty simple question. I mean, it could get theological, but I just want to know where this guy is. Guys, what I'm trying to find out is, do I have me an atheist? Do I have my little agnostic sitting in front of me? Do I had me a guy that had religion shoved up as you-know-what as a kid and he's real grindy around the idea of religion? I want to what I am dealing with here so we can know. Listen, at the center of everything that we do, guys, if the center of everything is God. Our program is unapologetically about God and that relationship and if that's a problem, it could be a real problem. You see what I'm saying? Now listen, guys. I've worked with all kinds of guys. I've work with men that absolutely hated God but at least it gives us a place to start. okay and this this they're they're clear on this bill wilson knew this was going to be a problem that's the reason he wrote all that whole chapter chapter four we agnostics he wrote the whole thing because he understood what a sensitive topic this was and listen if you're if your life is full of drama and chaos around booze and dope trust me trust me somewhere along the line you've probably taken god and set him aside because you couldn't figure out a way to put him in the same picture with the things that you were doing i mean most of us get there like that and and i understand that. And so what they were trying to get us to understand, let's look at something real quick. If I got my brand new guy and we're talking to this guy and he goes, uh-huh, and he gives me a little Reader's Digest condensed version of where he is theologically on this stuff, this normally takes 10 minutes in this conversation. And he's going to say something like this, I'm okay with God, blah, blah. Or I hate God's guts, blah blah. But I know where my starting point is you see people say well we we have to read all of we agnostics and then we'll get i am going well maybe not if your guy already likes god he's already hip to the idea of a higher power controlling what's going on here like this there's no reason to waste the time he's ready to do this stuff listen how many of you guys sat in meetings for years and heard people say this stuff well i'm working on step two and five months later well i'M STILL WORKING ON STEP TWO I'M JUST having trouble with. So don't do that. I mean, because the idea here, guys, is that I have to have a full formed idea of what God is before I can do step two. And it never said that if that was the parameter, if that was the prerequisite for that, there was none of us be here. You see what I'm saying? I mean none of this would get here yet. There's two theology students in here and they probably would get it. The rest of you, I mean, we just struggle with this stuff for a while. But they were really clear in the beginning of this stuff. Let's read something real quick. Let's do 45. I just want to skip across the page from that stuff that we just read. Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a power greater than ourselves. So your brand-new guy, he's clear at this particular stage of the game that he has no power to keep himself sober. Right? If you can keep yourself sober, you don't need to be here. The book's clear on this stuff. You don't needs to be hear. If you're here just because you like the fellowship, I could suggest a number of places that have excellent fellowship too. Serious. I'm delighted you're hear, but it's more than just that. I mean, the fellowship treats one thing that alcoholism has lots of, and that's loneliness. I understand why people come and just hang. I'm not judging any of that. I mean, that kind of stuff was really important when I first got here. But if you think that the fellowship will treat your alcoholism, man, man. Doctrinally, we need to break that stuff up and look at it and see kind of where we are on the thing. Obviously, but where and how we were going to find this power, well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. And then Bill frogs off into this eloquent talk about God. I don't know about you guys, but how cool is it that this guy that three years before this thing was written was a card-carrying agnostic? And then three years later he writes one of the cleanest, clearest theological pieces that you're ever going to read that conflicts with no religion, that conflicts mit nothing else. It's just pretty amazing stuff. halfway down the page on 50 go over a couple of pages on one proposition however these men and women are strikingly agreed every one of them has gained access to and believes in a power greater than themselves okay now listen and then the power has the has the in each case accomplished miraculously the miraculous the humanly impossible look at that sentence guys before we move on i want to break down this one sentence on this thing because it's interesting in sponsorship land this sentence gets to be real interesting. Every one of them has gained access to and believes in a power greater than themselves. Listen, we can believe in a power greater than ourselves and still not have access to that power. Okay? It's important to understand that. This is the reason why the steps that we take is so important. I can believe that there's a God and he can still be...I mean, come on guys. How many of you guys said in church on Sunday morning that you were never going to drink again? You walked up, somebody laid hands on you, somebody talk to you. I mean, whatever the deal is like this and by kickoff time there's a 12 pack of beer sitting right next to you, you see what I'm saying? I bet I did that a thousand times in Houston when I lived in Houston. I means it's just like crazy crazy. We can believe in God all we want to the trick here and the caveat here is that we have to figure out a way to gain access to that God. And that's what, I can't play God and draw near to God at the same time. I've got to figure out some way to get clear of all that stuff. And that's the stuff that we're going to talk about in the early part of the afternoon. How do we get clear of all the stuff it keeps blocking me from that sunlight of the Spirit? And believe me there's a ton of it. And unfortunately talking about things won't remove it. There are other things that we must do in order to get there like that. Just for the fun of it, let me point out one thing. On page 50, count them. Not now, but sometime when you're just marking your book. Power is mentioned six times. Lack of power is my dilemma. I don't have the ability to not start drinking again. At some stage in the game, untreated alcoholism is going to rear its head and I'm going to find myself in such an uncomfortable position that I have two choices, kill myself or drink. That's a horrible, horrible place to be. But that's what they keep telling me. This power that we're seeking is the power that connects up and deals with that insane idea that comes into my head that perhaps I was just making maybe a bad decision or two, that maybe I just rushed into this deal. I mean, how many times, guys, have you told your loved ones that you were never going to drink again? And listen, I'm a 48-hour wonder. For 48 hours, I can stay clear of anything. I promise you, I could have resolve. I'll clean up pretty good. I bounce back really fast. I look pretty good, well, I mean, as good as I can look. I can looks better. And then it all falls apart 48 hours down the thing. And it always starts like this. I'm not going to drink again. I'm now going to go to bed. I'm going to not get a drink again." then by like noon, I'm going, well, um, maybe, well maybe I, I can change my mind. Maybe I just rushed into this deal. You see what I'm saying? The funny part about it is guys is that we don't ever connect up that maybe our mind was changed for us and once we do that's the scary part. That's the part that always terrorizes me when I finally understood that, that I'm not making the decision to drink. Let me, let me ask you how many of you guys, you remember the story about the cats in the Bible that were signing their name in a Bible with blood. I can't remember whether it was Bill or Bob that signed his name in their family Bible that he wasn't going to do it again. Do you think that they were making this up? Or do you think that они просто играли с Анной или Лойсом об этом? Нет. Let me make it personal. How many of you guys told your family crying, sitting at your kitchen table that you were never going to drink again? yeah everywhere i go it's exactly the same thing me too me too i meant what i said and yet what did i find myself doing later drinking you see i got i got in a in a deal in houston one year when i when i was a kid and I got raped in a jail cell. And it was a goofy, it messed me up like nothing you've ever seen in your whole life. And I remember getting home and I was sitting there and about 12 hours after I got out of jail I'm sitting at the kitchen table and I've got a beer bottle sitting in front of me and my wife walks in and she goes, what? What the hell? What are you doing? And I said, well, I don't know. And she said, I mean, this is what got you in this mess in the first place. What are you doing? And I go, I just don't know. I guess you understand what I'm saying? And I'm fighting for my life trying to figure out why I would do something so stupid. I'm drunk in a drunk tank and I get raped and now I'm back doing this again 12 hours later. You see? I mean this is the craziest, but this is stuff that we have to realize guys. If you can make the decision on your own that you can stop, You're not one of us. Go read page 34. You ain't one of us and that's okay. I love you anyway, but I'm telling you right now if you find that you follow this same scenario just like me and you find yourself in a situation where you keep going back and keep going Back and keep Going back even when you tell people that you love I heard this lady say well, you know drunks always lie about that kind of stuff screw you and if you're thinking that screw you that's crap to think that because I guarantee you I know enough of know that when you told your loved ones that you weren't ever going to drink again, that you meant it. So what kind of insanity made you drink? Well, insanity that centers around lack of power. And that's the reason why this idea, this concept that we're going to let something else deal with this is both novel and effective. Sometimes I can't even hardly explain it sometimes. I mean, it's just like one of these kinds of things that I'm just going, I don't know. Logistically, I mean, logistically, I can't make it line up. Wait a minute, this guy that I just barely understand that's out there is going to save my bacon? Uh-huh. Could be a hard sell. But the pain will keep them here until the experience happens. The pain will get them here and force them to do the things that's necessary to do. We're clear on that stuff. One more real quick thing and then this second step stuff. I'm going to let John slide into step three stuff. He started talking about that stuff on page 52 earlier. He mentioned the bedevilments on this deal. Guys, there's one more point that I want to make, and I think it's important to understand. If booze is my problem, then the solution is always just stop drinking, right? If that's the problem, all I need to do is take the booze out of the picture and I'm going to get better. And for the normal, everyday, rank-and-file, heavy drinker that the book describes in two different places like this, that's okay. You get the boozed out of everything, everything gets better. You drank with people just like that who were able to do that. They got married and they said, you know what? I just don't drink anymore. No kidding. And this is the guy that fell off the same barstool as you did, caused the same kind of commotion you did. But they were ableto do that kind of stuff. Let me, as an aside, every one of us has an Uncle Joe in our past that could do this exact same thing. It's family legend. Oh, Uncle Joe, he was a real alcoholic and one day he just stopped. I would question Uncle Joe's alcoholism. I would. If you can make the decision and just stop on your own, I would questions that. The text is real clear on it if you want to read it. I'll show you where it is. so what this brings us to is a situation where i mean why is it that's that that as we as we get down range from our last drink for the real drunk or the real little dope fiend that follows this path what happens and why is that that well as we read this stuff on page 52 we find ourselves agreeing with this why is if that our life unravels the farther we are away from our last drink. And you've got to ask yourself the question. Guys, I've got to tell you, between me and you, getting drunk today doesn't, I don't even think about it. It's been so long since I thought about being drunk, it's not even something that's on the horizon for me. However, often I think about this stuff on page 52, the bedevilments in the center. We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply our human problems to the same readiness to change our point of view. We were having trouble with personal relationships. Yeah, I was. We couldn't control our emotional natures. We were prey to misery and depression. We couldn'T make a living. We had a feeling of uselessness. We were full of fear. We were unhappy. We couldn' t seem to be of real help to other people. Guys, how many of you have had those feelings in AA? Yeah. Lots of us have. I mean, this is why so many of the drama around those questions right there. I mean come on. I mean, I'm a card-carrying member of that club. I mean I'm just sober. When I got to Cliff Bishop, I was sober almost seven years or dry for almost seven years. I've talked to a couple of you in here since I've been here that are exactly the same way. We didn't drink and yet our lives are unraveling around this bedevilment situation. And if you can't address this through step two stuff, then you're going to be in trouble. I mean, you just, this is the specific reason why so many other ways to quit drinking fail. Because they address the booze issue, but the real alcoholic unravels and gets worse the farther he gets away from the booge, you see? This is why it gets so, so wheels off ugly for so many of us. One more thing, I'm done, scouts honor. Step two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Listen, if they ever rewrite the big book, and I hope that they come and say, Myers, how would you rewrite that step? Listen, If they had asked me, I'd have said, hmm, let's see. Came to believe That a power Greater than ourselves Could restore us. Let's see, could maybe take away The desire to drink. You see, I'm trying to figure out a way. I'm Trying to move everything around booze. And Bill Wilson, as quickly as he could, took us out of that idea that this was about booze and moved us over to this camp which talked about what? Sanity. Because I'm telling you right now, based on your life that I understand the life that you lived, the fact that you would go back and drink or drug again, you're insane. You're as insane as me. And your family thinks you are. Your therapist thinks you Are. Your pastor thinks you ARE. Everybody that knows you thinks that you're Insane. You're a nut job for doing what you do. And they're closer to the truth than any of us want to admit. It's pretty amazing stuff. This is the reason why when they start this talk about step two in We Agnostics, they initially introduce us to the idea of lack of power. If I had the power to deal with this insanity, I would be okay. I could deal with it. I could handle with this stuff. The problem is that the booze becomes the secondary issue and the foremost issue becomes how do we deal with a head that won't let me know, won't Let Me Recognize That I'm in Trouble. How? How? Okay, John Boy, rock on.