Steps 2 and 3 – Myers R. – FOTS Toronto – 2020

I still have those crazy little earbud things in there like that. It feels weird. It's like if you're not used to having them in there like that, it's kind of crazy. A couple of quick things. There were a bunch of people I didn't see last night on here. And my name is Myers. I'm a very grateful, recovered alcoholic. And I'm Chris's identical twin brother, although he got a little better looking than me over the years. But that's the reason I kept this big beard like that. If your face was as ugly as mine, you'd cover up as much of it as you could too. Chris sobered up two months before me. And so he was – although I'm four minutes older than Chris, he'll play that two-month sobriety deal – he'll play that card often. You'll be as smart as me, Myers, when you get to be that extra two months of sober. Because we want to be as transparent as we can, and we want to be as honest as we can be. And we want to be as honest as we can be. And we want to be as honest as we can be. And we want to be as honest as we can be. And we want to be as honest as we can be. The reason Chris doesn't eat those fried pies is because it makes him look goofy in those stupid bike pants. Listen, whoever invented bike pants for people who are on bicycles, it's the holy reason why I don't want to ride a bicycle, because I don't want to put on those stupid clothes like that. I look so stupid in that stuff. And Chris pulls it off somehow. I don't know. Another thing I wanted to do real quick before we get off into the meat of this thing is that last night there were some people that were talking about how shocked they were that we looked the way that we looked. And so what I wanted to do is – I don't know if y'all can see this. I'm going to put this picture up like that right there. I couldn't get Sarah – I mean, Lisa, out of the middle of that thing. But that's Chris and I in 1956 or 57. The better looking one is Chris, but you can see. Oh, Will. That we didn't change much. I tell you, I still got my little stuffed toy that I sleep with every night. I don't know. We didn't change much. You know, of all of the stuff that we get to do, I talked a little bit about it last night. This idea of trying to do what I can to hopefully as gently as I can get folks to look at the bigger picture, of what it is that Alcoholics Anonymous was all about. I lived in a dream world for a long time and it was not clear. Just a brief deal like what Chris was talking about. I just want to make sure – I sobered up in 88 in January of 1988. And then I lived a roller coaster where I got better and better and better. And then I kind of leveled off. And then I got worse and worse. Until the worst experiences that I've had in my adult life were not in the middle of my addictions. They were not in the middle of all that. They were at almost seven years sober when I got powder dry, never worked the steps, didn't even know what a spiritual experience was, and was trying to hang on every day and stay sober. And it was a painful place. I'll tell you, folks, I thought for a long time I was the only guy that had ever felt that way. The reality of it was is that as I got busy doing some of this stuff, I kept meeting more and more and more. And over the years, I've met thousands and thousands of people who felt and went through the same nightmare that I did. The confusion is rampant. There's just so many nice people out there spouting little aphorisms and various other kind of things. And I love them to death. I'd hug them until I broke them in two. I love them. But golly, I just wish that we could kind of slowly but surely. Somebody said one time, he said, Myers, it sounds to me when you talk that you're trying to raise up this little army of big book dumpers. And I always laugh because I understand where you're coming from, but it's really not my deal. There's nothing goofier than some guy standing there waving a big book at you. It's that we don't need zealots. But we do need people. We do need some people that are excited about the idea that we have been given a book full of directions and promises and prayers, a way of life that we never dreamed that we could live. Truly, it's special. And that's what we need more of. The... I get the great honor of talking. Not steps two and three real quick. And I love that. And four and five and six and seven in a minute, we're going to kind of slide in with this stuff. And I just... There's lots and lots and lots of confusion around this and lots of misinformation. And we're going to talk a little bit about that and see if we can get some of that stuff cleared up. I want to tell you a quick story that kind of helped me see. I can't remember when this was. It was probably... 15 or 18 years ago, I did a little workshop in Kent, England. It's a little men's retreat at this Catholic monastery. And it was fascinating. Just like... I love me some UK. It's just fascinating. And I'm talking to these guys. I'm going to be there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And I'm talking to these guys a lot. And it was... It's funny. Have you ever noticed that when you say something to somebody from a podium, if you're standing there talking and you ask a question, collectively, everybody nods yes like this. Well, then what I would find is that at break time, we'd be sitting there drinking tea, which was unusual as hell for me, drinking tea, and we would be going... I'd be asking some questions specifically, and all I'd get is this blank stares back. It's like there was a disconnect between... What people were willing to talk about, and I kind of thought, it's interesting. And so during one of the talks, I said something about steps and tried to get some clarity around that part of it, around what we would do first, what we would do second, what we would do third, this kind of stuff. And I think it needs to be simplified like that. I think it makes it easier for us to follow some directions if we're clear. And so I asked from the podium, I asked that. And I'm watching 80 men in that room, all of them go... I said, so let me ask you a question. If you had a brand new guy that you were getting ready to do the work with, and he's sitting in front of you, would you be clear where to start and what to do? And 80 men looked at me and went like this, like yes. And I went, okay, cool. We had a break, drank some tea. I asked a couple of questions, and what I'm getting back is just they're not understanding. What I'm talking about, I'm saying, well, maybe I didn't make it clear, but I'm going to find out. So when we come back to the workshop, I had a bunch of little index cards, a bunch of little stubby yellow pencils, and I passed them out in that room. And I said, okay, guys, do me a favor. Just so we have a place to start here. Write on this card the first three things that you would do if you were sponsoring a brand new guy. What would you do? Based on what the book says and based on what our experiences have been, what would you do? And I stood there, and I'm fascinated by what I saw. As I look across this room, there was a couple of guys that looked down, and one guy picked up a pencil and started writing, and another couple of guys kind of looked around and wrote a little something, and then everybody set their pencils down. Most of the people in the room, most of those men, never picked up a pencil. They just kind of looked back at me, and I went, interesting, interesting. And so that's where I started my conversation, and it helped me to understand that I don't think this is a guy thing. I think this is a girl thing. I think this is a human thing that none of us want to admit that we don't really understand. And over the years, I've seen a thousand examples of this where people will not admit, mostly through sponsorship, when guys will come in and say, hey, would you help me? And I'll say, okay, let me get a feel for where you are, and I'll ask them some questions. And what I get is... A lot of blank stares, and he doesn't want to admit. I remember having a conversation with a guy one night, and he'd been in the room 17 years, and he was dating one of the girls that went to our home group, and he was from another group. And so I said, well, come on, you can sit with us in our little... We had a little meeting before the meeting with a bunch of men that I sponsored, and I said, you just come sit with us. And after a couple of weeks of that, he finally walked up, and he said, when everybody leaves, I'm going to tell you something. And I said, what? Okay. And so everybody left, and he's standing there, and he's got his arms folded, and he's looking at me, and I think he's getting ready to tell me something that, you know, I have sex with collie dogs. Something. I think he's going to say something weird like this. And he looks at me, and he says, Myers, I don't understand a word that you're saying. And I said, is it a comprehension problem? Or he said, no, no, no. I understand what you're saying. I just... I don't... I don't know this stuff. And I went, I get it. It's a great place to start. I love that kind of transparency, that kind of honesty. From that point, we could make great progress. And I'll say as an aside, this guy ended up breaking up with that girl and ended up staying, and he became one of the most prolific 12-step guys I've ever met. He was ferocious in the way that he presented the work and his ability to get out there and find drunks to work with. It was amazing. But it had to start with him being honest with what was going on. In case you guys are doing any head scratching and wondering what those three things are, I'll do that, and then we'll get into step two stuff. The very first thing I always do with men that approach me and men that I approach at Wind Up Joints and places that we go carry the message, I'm going to qualify you. The stuff that Chris was talking about. I mean, if you want to see smoke coming out of people's ears, mentioning it, can we talk about qualifying the drunk? And there'll be people that think, you say qualify, and they hear exclusion. It's like we're trying to run people off. We're not. I spent seven years uncertain of whether or not I was bona fide. Listen, if you don't really understand on a gut level that you're a drunk, if you haven't fully conceded to your innermost self that you're an alcoholic. There will be no motivation to move forward. Y'all ever stop and think about how many times we have people that are coming in, and the only reason they're in AA is because they're in trouble. They have a blowtorch firmly up their rear end. They're getting killed by external situations. But as soon as she comes back, or the job smooths out, or the probation goes away, the health issue clears up. It doesn't matter. Fill in. The blank like that. And all of a sudden, they go from highly motivated to not so motivated to completely uninterested in doing anything that we do. And I think statistically, we have a lot of people that come into our rooms that are like that because they were never qualified. The stuff that Chris talked about, especially that stuff over on page 44, is certainly codifying, and it would help us. How cool would it be? If we could take everybody that's coming in, I couldn't even count, I couldn't even begin to count how many men I've caught walking across the parking lot at my home group in Dallas, and there's hundreds of cars out there. It's an enormous meeting on Tuesday night, and I'll see them looking at the ground all scared and frustrated. You can read them like a book, and I'll say, awesome, and I'll have my tailgate down on my truck. I'll park it in the same place. And I said, why don't we talk for a second? And they'll sit up there like this, and in a couple of minutes, literally in a couple of minutes, I can qualify them. I can help them see what's going on. I can help them with the dynamics of what our meetings are going to look like. I can find out the second thing in this list. So first, I'm going to qualify them. And the second thing I'm going to do is find out where their head is around God. I want to find out that. And the third little piece, because sometimes I'll forget to talk about it, the third little piece is I'm going to ask them if they're willing to go to any length. Y'all remember over at the beginning of how it works, there is a little piece there that starts out, rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Tens of thousands of AA meetings a day read this in the front of the meeting. It's their opening in the meeting like that. Halfway through it, there's a line down there. If you've decided that you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you're ready to take certain steps. Guys, there's two questions there. If you've decided that you want what we have, how do you know unless somebody tells you? I want to pull you with that vision. That was the stuff Chris was talking about like this. And then are you willing to go to any length? I think it's fair for a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous to tell you what any length looks like. You see? But if you say yes to both of those, then you're ready to take certain steps. And I think that because one of the questions that I always get is people go, I just don't know when it's time to start somebody through the steps. That's a great question. I understand the question. But this is where it answers like that. Let me take it to an extreme. How many meetings would you have to go to to be able to answer those two questions? Maybe none. Maybe sitting out on the tailgate of my pickup, we could answer those questions. And then it's ready to start the stuff. I'm totally okay with letting guys get comfortable in a meeting. I'm perfectly okay with that, guys. There's this idea that we can let people sit and sit, the stuff that Chris was talking about. We make a huge mistake assuming that the new guy... I mean, it's like buying a brand new... Maserati and pulling it up in front of the meeting and then looking for the craziest, sickest kid in the room to... And just say, hey, you want to take my Maserati for a spin? Assuming that this kid knows how to drive a car that's got weird instruments in it and all kinds of weird stuff in it like that. And you're sitting so low, it looks like you're looking at the ceiling. I mean, come on. But we do that all the time. We let the new guy dictate when we're going to do the steps, how we're going to do the steps, all this stuff. He doesn't know. And that's our job to accept that responsibility. And we can do that. After we qualify and we know that we're dealing with somebody that's bona fide like this, we got us a little drunk or a little dope being from hell, and we're going to try to gather these cats up and we're going to try to help them see what needs to be seen. It's funny. Bill Spins, starting with Silkworth, talking about the physical component of this stuff. And then we get outside of Dr. Silkworth's story, and we get into Bill's story, and then more about alcoholism and there is a solution. And we have 20-some-odd pages there before we get into Weagnostics that talk about the mental part and the spiritual part of this thing. It's like this kind of mental obsession part would need to be addressed. And so the cool part about this stuff is that once we start with this stuff, motivation is huge. I'm just a big fan of motivating. I don't want to let somebody's history be the only motivation. Because if you're talking to people, you'll be surprised at how many people are motivated because their wife wants to come. I've sponsored hundreds of guys over the years. The only reason they're in AA is because their wife said they have to go to AA or they're going to have to go do something else. That's great. But what happens when she says, I love you again. Everything is groovy. You come back. And then where's the motivation? Motivation to do what we do. The surest way to help somebody understand is to help them understand how hopeless this situation is, that we're in a disease that gets worse, never better, that genetically you're getting ready to crash on the shore of a really, really uncomfortable place to be and you'll probably die or get locked up. That's fair motivation and I can do that. I can talk about that straight out of the text. The reason I always want to find out in that second little point on that thing. The reason I always want to find out where a guy is around God ahead of time. Like if I can, it's one of the very first questions I ask. I'm not trying to. I don't lead with, hey, are you a Christian? I don't, it's not that what I'm trying to do. What I'm trying to do is go, hey, I'm trying to get a head around where he is. Is he, does he have God sideways in his crawl or is he an atheist? Is he? I think it's helpful to know. Is he, is he a satanic worshiper? I've sponsored a couple of them and it's a little interesting. Interesting. It's kind of crazy. They, I want to know going in kind of what the lowdown is and the book is real clear on this. Well, we won't spend a bunch of time talking about it. Look at, look at the, at the way it lays out like that. Bill Wilson hits it pretty hard. A couple of times. There's a couple of pages in there where Bill has some religious contempt, some spiritual contempt to things like this. And he talks about this. Then he has this amazing transformation at the hand of, of his, his introduction to God through, through Eddie. And things get pretty special for him. And, and that's that. But what Bill realized really quickly in his working with others was that there were a lot of men that felt like that. There were a lot of folks that came down the road that were having the same kind of problem. We, we seem to be world famous at judging a forest based on one tree. So I have a bad experience and I say, screw that kind of stuff. I hate organized religion based on one experience like that. And so what Bill did in his infinite wisdom, I thought it was just absolute genius was that we, he hits it really hard. And there is a solution chapter two and chapter three more about alcoholism. They paint this picture. That's going to make things. A bit bleak. If you can identify with that stuff. And then if you're okay with the idea of moving towards your creator, we'll, we'll go. If you're not, and we're going to circle around and spend some time and week Gnostics, and we're going to talk about this. Bill spends 14 pages saying basically the same thing over and over and over again. He runs at it. He backs up and he runs at it again. And then he backs up, but he's trying to get us to break down some of that contempt. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is important. Let me make a couple of real things, quick clear before we move on the. The book gives us the go-ahead to pick our own Conception of God. I'm totally digging on that. I love the idea that we can that our beginning could be especially if you're struggling with some of this stuff. And I was talking to a little gal a little bit ago in the chat. If you're uncertain, go flip over to page 25 in There is a Solution and read this little piece. It'll start off in italics, There is a Solution, and then it goes down and it paints this picture. In the middle of that page, there's one little paragraph that I marked a billion years ago, and it's always funny. The great fact is just this and nothing less, that we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows, and toward God's universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has indeed entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves. Go back and look at the steps sometimes. Just go back and read through them like this, and you'll notice how amazing it is. They give us this first step piece on this kind of stuff, and then they talk about being powerlessness in the first step. And then on the second step, when we get in here like this, it came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Listen, regardless of how you feel about religion, let's set that aside for a second, okay? It has nothing to do with what we're talking about. It has to do with you are powerless in step one, and you have to find a power. And then the rest of the steps are set up so that we can find that power, regardless of where you start. We don't care. Guys, listen. I had a guy that showed up in treatment one time when I was working part-time for a treatment place down south. And this guy showed up, and I remember picking a book up out of his luggage. I didn't usually do that, but somebody asked me to help check this guy in. Okay. And when I picked this book up, it felt really weird. And I remember looking at him, and I said, what's this? And he said, it's a satanic Bible. And I remember dropping it back in his suitcase like this. And I just – it was the creepiest thing. That guy lasted three weeks, and then he left. And I'm here just testifying. I was glad that he left. He was as big a troublemaker as I have ever seen, and he was walking, talking chaos. He was just – He was just simply off the chain crazy all the time. And I thought, oh, my gosh. I left and came back on my next trip down there. I used to work down there for 10 days at a time. And so when I came back the next month, this guy was standing in the courtyard, and I went, oh, God, why, why, why? And, I mean, I'm literally just going like, what did I do wrong? I know this is about me being punished for what I – And he goes, Hey, Mr. R.. And he kind of held his hand up, and I went, now, that's odd. So I met him in Big Book, and we had a little conversation, and we talked a little bit, and we got ready to do the Lord's Prayer at the end of the meeting. We circled up, and we've got all these guys there. And I look down, and I look over to my left, and this guy's holding my hand. He had never, ever stayed for that. As soon as our lectures were over. He would split. He never stayed for the end of it like this. And he stayed. He said the Lord's Prayer with me, and I went, now, this is just so weird that it's not even funny like this. And so it just began to get better and better and better. And I eventually asked him what happened, and he said there were some things that happened to me when I went home that convinced me that I needed to be willing to look at some stuff, and that's what I did. A couple of days later, he came running into my office, and he held up this little cross, and he said, look what my mom just sent me. And I started laughing. I said, no kidding. How cool is that? And he said, this is the coolest thing that I've ever been given. And I thought, wow. From satanic worshiper to this little guy. Well, to tie these ends up, he got out, rock star. He's doing so good. And about two years later, he sent me a picture, and he said, what do you think about this? And I said, well, I can't tell from the picture. So I handed the phone to Londa, and she showed me. I had to vigorize it. And so I made the picture bigger, and I went, dude, it looks like you're standing in front of a swimming pool or something. And he said, it's a baptismal pool. And I went, oh, my gosh. It's just like, and I laughed, and I thought it was really funny. Guys, listen, to go from there to there is my point of the conversation. My job is not to decide where you end up. My job is to help you understand that where you start is not where you're going to end up. You're going to find yourself in a situation. Where you'll start out one place, and you'll end up someplace else. I had a guy also in treatment who was 100% against anything spiritual, would not embrace it at all. And about a week before he got ready to leave, I said, you do realize that you're going to make very little progress anywhere in this program unless you get past this contempt. And he said, I know. And we had this conversation. The next morning, he said, I got it. And I said, what do you mean you got? And he said, I think I know what God's doing. What God's like. And I said, what? And I'm all ears. And he said, Thor. And I said, you're sore? And he goes, no, Thor. And I said, you mean like the guy with the big hammer? And he said, yeah, I think that. And I said, you got to start someplace. You got to start someplace. If that's it, then rock on. It better be a big hammer. And he laughed. And so he finishes out, aces. He did real good. Leaves. I saw him about three months later. He ended up working in the industry. And I saw him. And I asked him about it. And I said, hey, so how are you and Thor doing? And he said, it's badass, Myers. It's the coolest thing in the whole wide world like that. I absolutely love spending time with him every day. And I went, no kidding. And he said, hey, check this out. And he pulled his shirt back. And I went, I can't. What is it? And he said, oh, hell. And he took his shirt off. And he had a tattoo of Thor on his back with this big arm that came around his shoulder like this, with this big hammer out there laying across his chest. And I thought, holy cow, that's pretty cool. And he goes, yeah, yeah, pretty cool. Fast forward a year or so, and I saw him at a conference thing. And I said, dude, you okay? And he said, yeah, doing great, man. Helping some folks. It's been a good life. And I said, well, that's cool. How's Thor? And he said, well, you know, Thor's okay. And I went, uh-oh, what's going on? He said, no, it's not that. He said, I just. I just think that there's more than Thor. And I went, that's my point, is that where you start out, and Bill was way clear about this, where you start out is not where you'll end. The contempt and the barriers are all on your side, not on God's side. So just kick the door open a little bit. Look in and see what you see. And then get on out there and find out what you'll be. It's wonderful. It's one of the coolest things in the whole wide world. But it's the key that unlocks the rest of the program. Imagine how weird it would have been if step two was at the end of the program. We'd be screwed. I mean, it's just like. Because the book is getting ready to ask us a bunch of stuff, and they're going to ask us to do a bunch of stuff that makes us feel really uncomfortable. And without having the hand of a creator in the middle of that, then we'll be in trouble. One last. Little thing. If you're sharing the idea that a door can be or a light bulb can be, just maybe rethink that. I'm not going to say stop saying it, but just kind of rethink that. Last I checked, guys, and I'm not a real big guy, but last I checked, there's not a light bulb anywhere that I can't crush in a second. It's just not very big. I like a guy that's a little more impressive. But there you go. Flip back over to page 60. Let's talk about this third step thing here. We've got about 25, 20 minutes here. And I want to. I don't know if maybe it's just me, but I think this particular part of the book is the most brilliant, the most insightful, the most. It took courage to write it. It took courage to present it. It took. But it was a game changer for me. It was just an absolute game changer. Or we start with ABCs right after the steps. We get the ABCs that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. And it goes through the rest of this. And then being convinced that we were at step three, which is we decided to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understood him. Or just what do we mean by that? And just what do we do? This sets us up for this cool decision, which is what they're asking us to make. This cool decision. What I find fascinating is that Bill was running two things parallel. There were two things that were going on. One, they were talking about we were getting ready to make a decision in this third step. And they were going to tell us kind of what that decision was. But there was also this underlying story about the stage character that introduced me to a person that I didn't want to look at. It was real uncomfortable. This was the piece of the book that made me squirm the most because I didn't want to see it. At the bottom of page 60, they talk about, let's see. The first requirement is to be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis, we're almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. And then they talk about the actor who wants to run the whole show. And by this time, at the top of the page, we're going to be able to run the whole show. At the bottom of page 61, I'm already kind of scratching my old scraggly beard. And I'm going, hmm, what the heck is he talking about? Wait a minute. We just spent 60 pages talking about addiction, talking about the disease of alcoholism. And now all of a sudden, Bill Wilson doesn't mention it. He's not talking about it at all. It's like it was written somewhere else by somebody else. It was just completely. And then at the end of it, they say, let's stick it right here. It didn't make any sense. And I would come to appreciate where he was coming from. A little farther down, what usually happens, the show doesn't come off very well. We've got that. Still, the play doesn't suit him. Admitting that he may be somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker, even when trying to be kind? Now, guys, by this point, I'm already pushing back really hard. I'm pushing back pretty hard because I'm getting ready. He's going to kick me in the teeth with it on the next page. But already, I'm going, wait a minute. My problem is not selfishness. My problem, I'm an okay dude. My problem is booze. That's it. And I get rid of the booze, and I'm going to be okay. But they don't let up. Our actor is self-centered, egocentric, as people like to call it nowadays, blah, blah, blah. It goes on over to page 62, and then there it is. He just kicks you right in the teeth with it. Selfishness, self-centeredness. Selfishness, self-centeredness. Selfishness, self-centeredness. Selfishness, self-centeredness. Selfishness, self-centeredness. Selfishness, self-centeredness. That's what we think is the root of our troubles. No, it's not, Bill. Canadian whiskey is my problem. Canadian whiskey and later some methamphetamine. That's the root of my problems like that. And then he's out. They don't think so. And then it goes on down. He paints this thing so our troubles, we think, are of own making. And they get down. I'm not going to read all this, but I want you to understand. this this you ever notice how little drunks and dope fiends can be amazingly effective at deflection and at rationalization i can rationalize anything um my car is parked sideways in the driveway i can rationalize that uh i can i mean it doesn't you pick it uh and think of the stupid things that you've said and done and you'll you'll notice this kind of stuff um and and bill is kind of hitting us with all of this stuff to look at like this and then he gives us the solution down at the bottom of page 62 this is the how and why of it we had to have god's help we had to quit playing god it didn't work next we decided that hereafter this drama of life god was going to be our director he is the principal we are his agents and he goes on down um um most good ideas are said and done and done and done and done and done and done and done and done and done and done simple this is the concept this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch in which we pass through freedom wow wow um when we sincerely took such a position all sorts of remarkable things happen and then we end up with these little promises at the top of this step and guys these promises are like um like like nothing in the in the world that i've ever seen so before i finish this let me circle back around a little bit because i want to ask you a question guys a couple of questions and i i just i i if you're two weeks sober you may not be able to relate to what i'm talking about but if you're two years sober or 20 years sober or 40 years sober you may totally get this this deal the in over on page 60 bill wilson start talking about a stage character and it's always a fascinating piece for me uh because the the last thing i want to do and where i seem to be the most ferocious at making excuses around is is denying that i could be a stage character and somebody asked me a billion years ago it seems like now somebody asked me they said myers let me ask you a question are you the same guy to your family that you are to your aa people and i went of course because my pride wouldn't let me hand ask it ask it answer it any other way and then i backed up a little bit like that i remember driving home from a meeting one night and i remember thinking myers you are a spiritual giant dude you nailed it in there that tonight you really did a great job like that and i'm literally patting myself on the back like some idiot and i get home and i walked in the front door and i step over a bunch of book bags that were laying in the in the entryway and i'm angry and kicking them out of the way and i walk in the kitchen and there's some dirty dishes in the sink and i'm angry and i'm like oh my god i'm going to london's work the same hours that i have in the same day that i worked it like this trying to herd these little kids i have three daughters and and um and i'm angry and and i began to think about this and i went wait a minute this is crazy like that a minute ago i was telling myself that i'm a spiritual giant and now my wife is standing across the room with her arms folded looking at me shaking her head going you're acting like a three-year-old and i want to defend i wanted to defend it like that there's a piece of me an underlying thread that goes as long as i'm not drunk or at a dope house i'm okay i'm not looking at the big picture of what's going on at all guys these these these pages here when bill is setting us up to take that third step prayer these these pages are talking about whether or not we are authentic or not whether we give a rat's fuzzy rear about our character or not and some of you do and some of you don't i understand some of you don't because you just haven't seen it yet you just haven't realized that um but how many of y'all have known people who um were drunk and then they sobered up and then the worst part of their life was after they got sober and they ended up getting divorced losing jobs and all this other kind of stuff sober sober and we always want to make it sound like every everything stemmed around the fact that my addiction was what it was and the reality of this stuff is guys is sometimes we just don't grow up uh sometimes we just don't there was a there was a guy um the first guy that ever sponsored um chris was also a member of that first group that i was a member of uh in north texas and um i want to connect this up and that way you'll understand where i'm coming from he uh uh he disappeared he was always there every meeting he was a meeting makers make it guy just like me and he was always at the meeting and all of a sudden he didn't show up for two or three and we were concerned and we used to talk about it a little bit but then he comes walking across the parking lot one day after we hadn't seen him for three days and i said dude where you been and he said ah i had some testing done i said you're sick and he said no they're psychological testing and i said well what happened and he said oh we'll talk about it in the meeting that we're going to make it the topic tonight and i went oh okay so we didn't talk about you know the life's changing steps we talked about his trip to the psych doctor um typical so anyway we go in there and and somebody started the conversation and so he went on this deal and and he talks about they still do these psych tests for most people that are in treatment centers they'll go they're hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of questions and you answer them and so i said so what did they find out and he said well it's interesting on the day that i left the the doctor's office when i was getting ready to do they were going to do the the evaluation and i said so what did you find out and the doc said golly don it's fairly fascinating you're a well-adjusted adolescent and and don's like 48 years old at the time and and and i was when he told me the story based on where i was because i was acting the same way i didn't even really get it everybody laughed a little bit and and i laughed with them but it would be much later down the road i would go wow this is absolutely the truth how many of you have found out that you're a you're you're one guy at one place and a different guy someplace else um i fly airplanes and you used to ride a bunch of motorcycles and i would i'd go when i when i'm a spiritual giant but when i'm riding motorcycles or flying airplanes with these guys i'm a i'm a foul mouth idiot i'll say crazy stuff and do crazy things like this and and it's just like i mean how many of you are one guy one place and a completely different guy if you go to church you see or with your or with your wife or with your kids or with your whatever the deal is like that guys we were to be all these different personas and it's a lot of work you talk about some people say i don't understand why i'm so tired oh i do besides the physical aspect of the disease besides that part of it like that how do you how hard do you think it is to balance a million personas every day it's like you're just playing these games back and forth you don't even know who you really are authentically and and i think the bigger question sometimes is do you even care do you even care who you what you are and what you're doing and what you're doing and what you're doing and what you are from a character standpoint you you really care and some some guys do and some guys some guys don't i just like i i guys i don't want to go through life like the stage character but what what this did was it rubbed my nose in the fact that maybe who i who i wanted to um uh uh portray myself as um ask yourself this question you ever find yourself saying something just to get along even when you knew that the right decision was something else pay attention next time you're in a group conscious meeting or a business meeting with your aa group like this and people are voting do you look around the room before you vote pay attention i mean guys because i what i would do is i'd go oh ali's ali's hands up so mine's going up you see even if i completely disagree with what ali was getting ready to vote on like that i want to be what everybody wants me to be and expects me to be and so i'll do that that's what i'm going to do i'm going to do that that's called classic garden variety inauthenticity and it will kick your butt um you'll end up being this big old bona fide hypocrite and that's not where you want to be if you're walking a spiritual path and that's the reason why this stuff was so so amazing um the last little piece on here the little promises before the the prayer in the middle of that pages that as we felt new power flow in as we enjoyed peace of mind as we discovered we could face life successfully it just goes on and then we're going to have to go through life and we're going to have to go through and it ends with this classic we were reborn guys i've never known a drunk or a dope fiend yet that didn't at some point in time want to be reborn that i'd just be different than who i am if you sober up and find out that you don't like who you are after we're going to do inventory in a couple of minutes you may really find that you don't like who you are we have a solution we stand at the turning point and that's all uh some powerful stuff um ask yourself these questions as you read through the these these uh promises that are scattered through the book um there's dozens and dozens of them ask yourself are these promises true have they manifested in my life if they have rock on if they haven't why do i believe that they can't be attained or do i not care or whatever most of us we all we all won't walk the same path but most of us will look at the promises and eventually we'll go i i'm not experiencing these and the next logical question is why and the and the next logical answer is maybe i need to look at the steps again maybe i need to look at what's holding me what's blocking me from the sunlight of the spirit because all of these promises are available to all of us if we do the things that we're supposed to do uh if we if we take this work seriously and and that's why i i think i love the idea that we can start over anytime you're 20 years sober you've drifted sideways you're you're you're restless irritable and discontent seems to define your life more than serenity um start over start over grab somebody and let's just get on back through the work like that and you can see what's going on there's no there's no time thing on that we can start over anytime we want to um in the middle of that prayer am i am i the only one that was shocked that a prayer so profound would not mention booze and it doesn't in the middle of that prayer uh there's a line relieve me of the bondage of self see bill wilson has kicked the addiction completely out of the picture they're not dealing with this they're dealing with this new selfishness and self-centeredness that we think is the root of our problem like that and and and in continuing that he's bill is saying if you're gonna get sober if you're gonna get whole and complete if you're gonna deepen that with with god um then you you need to get self out of the way because as long as your hand is on the tiller you're going to be in trouble i had coffee one night with uh joe mcquainy joe mckew of joe and charlie joe was cliff bishop's sponsor who sponsored me for 23 years until he passed away and uh so i was with joe several different times and uh when he would come to dallas and he'd stay always get together and visit and i don't know if any of you guys ever actually saw joe mcquainy in person of joe and charlie like that but he was an enormous guy he was really i remember shaking hands with him and it was like shaking hands with somebody that had a baseball glove on these enormous hands like that my hand would just disappear in his hand like this and we would sit there and and one day he said myers let me ask you a question he said do you um do you think that with more self and i went damn straight and he said why do you think that and i said because i got book after book after book self-help books that tell me that that if i just ignore exert enough self i'll be able to overcome self and he said myers and he i remember him looking at clifford and he kind of rolled his eyes and he said you're gonna have your work cut out on this one like this and they all laughed i didn't think it was funny um and but the reality was is that he was true he said he leaned across the table pushed his coffee cup out of the way and he said myers let me tell you something the happiest you will ever be in your life is when your will and god's will are aligned and the only way that's going to happen is for you to get your hand off the tiller and let god do this because as long as you're trying to run the show you will stay constantly frustrated because it will never work the way you want it to and i remember sitting there looking at him like this and i believed everything that guy said and i believed everything that guy said and i believed everything that guy said and i believed everything that guy said he was just absolutely one of those kind of mesmerizing sort of sort of dudes like that um relieve me of the bondage of self stop and think about how many times you've got up in the morning sat on the edge of your bed and then went huh and the thought came in your head and by the time you went to the bathroom or went and got some breakfast or whatever the deal was you haven't even been up 30 minutes and your head's already rattling around about what you need to do today and who said what and did they really mean that and did they it's crazy you by the time you get on the road you're flipping people off you're driving like an idiot you're and by the time you get to work you already got yourself worked into this frenzy you just walk off the elevator you walk into an office and you're looking around going go ahead you got a problem with me start right now i mean you're ready to just tear into somebody anybody ever lived life like that or is that just me it could be a painful place to be but if it's driven by itself day after day after day week after week it's going to look just like that and if you dig that rock on it's your nightmare live it but i gotta say guys if you're like me 90 of the coolness of our program is once i see it i have the ability to deal with it the solution is there they're going to give that to me the problem with drunks and and and folks in our fellowship like that is that oftentimes if we don't see something we don't realize the problem is there i've got an ego that wants to paint this picture that i'm a super guy that i'm just a sweetheart that just that's just it and the reality is uh without the steps without this inventory that we're getting ready to talk about without this work of being alerted to the fact that i possibly could be this stage character um i will never move towards a change six and seven that are coming up that we're going to talk about six and seven are useless if you don't see first that the problem uh exists then we say which i i still love it they say we can say any other prayer i still love this prayer um because it's just just just the baddest thing uh and then they move us on into inventory which we're going to talk about in 15 or 20 minutes we'll get back into that kind of stuff um i better stop there um um so you guys can go scratch and and stretch a little bit thank y'all