Why Meeting Makers Make It but Stop Reading the Book – Myers R.

thanks jerry nice introduction i'll send you some folded money tomorrow okay i am i just i gotta tell you sometimes i just get kind of emotional uh the y'all can say people say what they want to about zoom meetings and this sort of thing but i gotta Tell you in in the last three or four years i have met so many people on zoom that have become my homies I mean, it's just I can't even begin to explain how cool it is and how this world is full of some amazing folks. And I just it always makes me smile to think about every one of us here as being sort of walking dumpster fires at one time in our life. And then to see what we are like now and to see how many people's lives have been changed because we were able to get back on the straight and narrow and do the things that God intended us to do. And it's just sort of an amazing, amazing kind of a deal. So for those that I haven't met, my name is Myers Raymer. I'm a very grateful, recovered alcoholic from Ingram, Texas, which is in the middle of nowhere in central Texas. I was in Dallas, big city Dallas, for 45 years, and we moved here a couple of years ago, and it's like a whole different world here in central texas and um the uh i i sobered up in january january the 15th of 1988 um chris my evil twin brother um he he took me to my very first aa meeting and it was funny because chris would actually save my life twice um in in my recovery deal he he looked at me and said i'm not going to took me into my first aa meaning and then almost seven years later when i was a suicidal mess and not able to function. Chris introduced me to some crusty old guys at the Dallas Primary Purpose Group, which was a complete life changer for me. It changed everything about how I looked at recovery. And I'm sure I wouldn't be here today if it had not been for those introductions And and those and those old guys that had the courage to just tell me the truth. I mean, sometimes I think in our rooms we all love each other and we're all pals, but we find ourselves sliding over to co-signing people's craziness instead of just telling them the truth sometimes. And these old guys looked me right at me and just said, Myers, there's a really good chance that you're going to die if you don't get this. This stuff started. I said, you're way behind the curve. At seven years in the program, I didn't even know who the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous were. Now, I mean, that's that's cray cray stuff. I mean that's what was I doing in all those meetings? Well, I was listening to a lot of weird stories and that group I sobered up in, I don't ever rag on them because they were the nicest bunch of people I had ever met to this day. I saw a bunch of them this last weekend. I did a talk in Dallas, and they were amazing. Just seeing some of those folks. But the culture of that group was we had 32 meetings a week, 32, and they Were all discussion meetings. Nobody read from the big book, and nobody knew anything about the big books, but we managed to have 32 discussion meetings a weak, And it was crazy. Let me tell you, a friend of mine sent me – I won't get off into a bunch of this. I'll get back into some story in a minute. A friend of mind sent me some stats from Harris County. Harris County is down around the Houston metropolitan area in Texas. But he sent me some stats that were published by the intergroup office there on chip sales. And I don't think it's very scientific, but what I found fascinating was that if you go back to the last ones I had that were before COVID in Harris County, They sold 16,000 Desire chips in a year's period. And they only sold 6,000 one-year chips, which indicates in a not very scientific way that 10,000 people were missing in action. We don't know where they went. Did they leave? Did they go away? Are they still there? Are they sober today? We don'T know. And so it was troublesome because when you looked at it, you would kind of go like, I mean, let me just say this. I think at some point in time, there is this sort of, it's a sweet spot in a way. It's just like a common thread that runs through almost every one of us where all of a sudden we have these aha moments when we connect dots and we began to realize things. And so I spent a lot of years, a decade in AA and I didn't give a rash rear who was here. I didn'T care if you were here. I just as long as I was sober one day at a time, I was OK, which is crazy. You see, I didn' t realize this whole realm of coolness in our recovery world was available. I didn''t know. I come from a long line of alcoholics, and we used to make jokes that if you kick the Raymer family tree, little drunks and dope fiends would fall out all over the ground. It was just like there was a bunch of them, and so my dad was a brilliant guy, a craftsman, and he was an alcoholic, and he Was kind and gentle, and He was a fine old guy, but Um, uh, but he, he was drunk and I found myself kind of following through. Well, let me ask you this question. How many of y'all ever had parents that drank or loved ones that drank? And you said, I'm never, I're never going to do that. I mean, I'M 15, 16, 17, and I'm going, there's no way you couldn't pour that stuff in me. I'm not, IM not, no way. And then at some point in time, you take a drink and then all of a sudden you go, i i think i understand why he drank it seems to make sense to me now you can kind of connect those dots and and uh all of a sudden i realized for the very first time i'm not scared of anything especially girls now i'm telling you girls terrified um and and i drink a beer and all of a second i could talk to any girl in the room that because this is a program of honesty i'm going to tell you, they never talked back. But it didn't seem to matter. It didn't. It didn't seemed to matter because I could just. I was OK. Things get progressively weirder. I met the queen bee, my wife, who was 10 times smarter than me. And she's just a brilliant gal still is. And and she and I got married and started a bindery in Houston. And then And I'd already started the bindery, but I was going to wreck it because I'm not that smart. But she is. And so we managed to hold it all together. And then we moved to Dallas and built a bindery and then built another bigger bindery and then build another bigger, bigger bindering. And pretty soon we were rocking it. And my name was on the side of the building and everything is fine. Except I can't seem to stay clear of the booze, but it doesn't seem to be a problem. How many of y'all could see that the progressive nature? I'm OK. I'mOK. And then I'm not OK. And Then I kind of go like, holy hell, what do I do? I just I'm falling apart here like this and I can't seem to to get clear of it. And so Chris is my optic in front of me. Chris and I are twins and I'm three minutes older than he is. So you should be able to see the wisdom here that three minutes. And Chris sobered up two months before I did. He'll never let you forget that, too. So Chris would – I always figured Chris would crash and burn, and he did. And we just kind of followed in the same footsteps in the progressive nature of this stuff. And then finally he got sober in November of 87. And then two months later he took me to my very first meeting. And it was love at first sight. Now, listen, I've known men and women who have walked into a meeting, stayed there and stayed sober for a jillion decades, and everything was fine. But y'all, I just, the book goes into great lengths to explain the depth and weight of different appearances of alcoholism, the moderate drinker, the hard drinker. real alcoholic. And I've never made that distinction. We're sitting in rooms with people who, you know, oh, you just don't drink and just go to a bunch of meetings. And I'm thinking, OK. And so I spent seven years thinking that I was OK because I was going to six meetings a week. I mean, how could you how could that not be OK? And I should be fine. I wish we could do a bell curve of what it looked like with my family as I got into AA. It's like I sober up, they're all smiling and jumping up and down, and everybody's thinking it's the coolest thing in the world, including me. They're not scared of me anymore. I mean, it's pretty fun, and things get really good. And then along about three years into the deal, things get Really Goofy, and then it starts getting goofier, and I'm still going to a bunch of meetings. I still have a sponsor in name only. I've never worked the steps, and I can't tell you anything about the basic text. I don't know anything about restless, irritable, and discontent. I know what that feels like, but I didn't understand it as the book described it, and I see this so often now. I am hypersensitive about it to people, men and women that I talk to. most of the men that I sponsor are guys who have been sober for many, many years and who are going through the same nightmare that I went through. I don't know. It's crazy, y'all. How many of y'ALL Let me ask you this. How many of yAll have ever been sober for a period of time? There's no booze, no weird stuff going on, and all of a sudden other stuff starts creeping into the picture. Maybe it's, I'm eating too much. I'm spending too much money. Porn. I mean, gambling, it doesn't make any difference. It's just something else. Somebody said one time, he said, Myers, didn't you recognize restless, irritable and discontent when it began to manifest in your life? And I was going, shut up. I don't even know what that means. I mean no, well, I didn't recognize it. I just knew that I'm struggling and my family is terrified of me again because I am, I mean, I leave a meeting feeling like a spiritual giant. By the time I get home, I'm wrapped around the axle about something totally stupid. Don't even know what it is. And now I'm truly a producer of confusion instead of harmony. It's just an uncomfortable place to be. And guys, I bought an airplane when I sobered up. I could finally take a check ride. I bought a plane and then a little bit later I bought another airplane. And then because two is not enough, I ended up buying another plane. Now, I just got to tell you, it's like guys that own six motorcycles. I'm going, why do you need six motorcycles? I don't know. It sounds good now. I remember thinking, why Do I Need Three Airplanes? I mean, the cost connected to it was, I mean I'm talking thousands and thousands and Thousands of dollars to pay for these things And to maintain them And it was fun, yes But I'm buying hundreds of compact discs I'm a music nut And I buy all this music And I'm not listening to half of it I'm paying for it I'm just buying clothes I don't wear I'm being, I'm saying I mean It's just I'm using I'm doing I'm tools. I don't use, I don' t need them. It's just crazy like it. And I just, I knew I was going to need to do something. And so I finally, I'm battling this depression that is killing me. And it's just, they've got me on some medications for the depression stuff and it's not really doing much of anything except just making me feel messed up. And So I finally called Chris. there was more story to it i don't have time to talk about it but the the i finally i crashed and burned um i didn't drink uh but i made a pretty good fool out of myself and i uh chris uh said hey uh did you ever call uh cliff bishop and he passed away years ago and i always use his full name because he was an absolute to these days i think if i'd have looked at clifford a little closer i could have seen little angel wings coming out of his back i just i mean he was just an epic guy. And he was so amazingly kind to me. And I told Chris no, and he gave me the number again, and I called him and he said, come on over. And He began to convince me that maybe what I needed to do was start over, study the text, and concentrate more on what it was going to take for me to be in line with what the basic text said I was supposed to be. And I didn't know what that looked like. I'm a meeting makers make it kind of guy, y'all. I think that the only thing that is necessary in this program is that you go to a bunch of meetings. Well, imagine my surprise when I start studying the text and it doesn't say that. I was just going like, whoa, whoa. Wait, wait, maybe I got a different version of the big book. I just, it didn't say that. So my deal was, my plan was to go to these meetings for about three months. I was going to study the text. I was gonna get real book smart. And then I was gunna go back to my original home group and I was guunna be kind of a, yeah, like an AA stud. And I was just gunna walk in and, yeah, I know all about that big book and I just... But I never went back. I absolutely fell in love with those with those folks over there. But more than that, I fell in loved with what they were teaching and what they were doing. When when COVID started, we had I still lived in Dallas at that time. We had 52 commitments a week other than our three big book studies that we did. Fifty two commitments carrying the message other places. And I was so pulled by that eventually. At first, I kind of pushed against it, but it was a huge game changer. Cliff Bishop was sponsored by Joe McQuainty out of Little Rock, Arkansas, and Joe and Charlie, that guy, and Joe in Clifford were – I mean, it was like an MMA fight. Every time I'd go over to see Clifford and Joe would be over there, he'd drive down and we'd have breakfast and stuff together. And Joe and them would just ask me a bunch of questions. And they got a lot of joy out of seeing how little I knew about the program because they were always laughing about it like that. It was just, you know, by this time, I'm approaching 10 years sober and I've never sponsored anybody. I've ever carried the message um and i'm i'm better the this internal condition is is is better uh i'm not buying all the stuff and and um i sold one airplane which was a good deal and i i just i'm doing better um so um joe had a breakfast one time that we were having like that joe said myers the thing that always drives me crazy about you, son, is that you always make it complicated and it's not complicated. And I said, Joe, it is. Let me look at this book. I mean, it's huge. It's just full of all kinds of stuff. And he started laughing and he said, this book is real simple. And your focus should be on two things. How much time are you spending with god that's one and how much time are you spending with god's kids that's two are you carrying the message and are you practicing a fair uh an energetic 11th step and i'm going no to both because i'm not because listen y'all ever notice that if you crawl up in your head for a little while you can convince yourself of anything i mean you stop and think about how many excuses you made for your bizarre behavior when you were drinking and stuff, and if you'll just sit through it for a while, I could just, maybe it's aliens that made me do that. Yeah, aliens, that's it. That's what made, and we just head off in that direction. It's crazy like that. Well, it's the same with this. He, he, I'm, I're convinced that the program is too hard and that there are good 12-steppers and bad 12-steppers, and I don't need to do any of that 12 step and stuff, because I don't want to hurt anybody. And Clifford finally ran out of patience with me, really. He finally just said, you know, I don'T know what to tell you, Myers, unless you're willing to get involved and come with us and do what we do. And I said, Clifford, I'm driving you over to the Salvation Army at least twice a week. And he goes, Myers. I understand that. But you don't do anything there. You're useless. You just go and carry my books in and sit there and play on your phone or walk outside, and you're not doing anything. And he was right. And he said, until you decide to make a change there, nothing's going to change. And I got to tell you, y'all, intellectually, all these years later, I still can't make what he was talking about make sense. But I can tell you this. If your life in AA, if your If your existence in these rooms is all about you and what you need And what you think you deserve or whatever the deal is Unless you understand what work and self-sacrifice looks like You are never ever going to reap what this program was originally intended We'll sell ourselves short every time Joe used to always say, Myers at some point in time you're going to remember that we're supposed to be here to feed, not be fed. And it was a game changer, y'all. I mean, I looked at it and I went, holy cow, he's absolutely right. So I'll tell you a little piece of this story because I just want to make sure you're clear on it like that. Clifford said, will you go to Salvation Army tomorrow night? I said, absolutely, I'll go. You want me to pick you up? And he said, no, don't pick me up. I'll be there. You just go on and I'll see you there. So, okay. So I get over to Salvation Army and nobody's there. Nobody is there except the Salvation Army guys. And I'm thinking, okay, this is... I'm calling Clifford. He doesn't pick up the phone. I'm callin' John. He doesn'T pick up THE phone. I'm called all these guys. And so I realized I'm in a weird place. Later, I pieced it together and realized that they had just hornswoggled me. They just made me do it because they knew I wouldn't do it on my own. And so I walk into this place, the Salvation Army in Dallas is epic. It's huge, 160 or 70 guys and this big gymnasium looking room. And they're all, I mean, it's a big place. And I realized that if I don't do this talk, if I Don't Share and chair the meeting, then we may lose that gig. And there's no way I was going to let that group, it happened. And So I went ahead and went and went in. And I knew where we were from the, from a day or two ago. And I just went ahead and did the meeting. And pretty soon we were laughing and we were cutting up a little bit. We were just having a pretty good time. And there was guys asking questions and it was just sort of fun. And toward the end of it, I'm looking at my clock and I got like five minutes and I'm thinking, Lord, this is so sweet. I'm going to milk this for 10 years. I's never going to come back, but I'm going to tell everybody yeah i did that deal out to sally and i just i'm just gonna do the usual stage character thing that i'm really good at and and so um it's funny we dropped hands after the after we said the lord's prayer and i'm walking kind of toward my big book bag that had all my stuff in it and i and this guy said hey uh mr myers can can you come back tomorrow night and there was a piece of me that went, holy cow. I can't believe he asked me to come back. And I was really excited and it kind of got me in the fields. I got a little emotional. And then there was another piece of meat that went You know what, Myers, if you'd have walked a little faster, you'd already been out to your car, and you wouldn't have to go back. That's how weird that whole scenario was like this. If you don't think the dark side is messing with your head every time we get into these decision deals, you know, go talk to that guy. No, don't talk to that guy because I think that we're fighting this uphill battle sometimes with the dark side that just wants you ineffective and just kind of useless. And I'd grown really used to that. The next day was a game changer. I got up in the morning and my DNA was altered. I don't know what it was. I do not know how that work, but it was a game changer. And I remember working with Wanda during the day and she kept looking at me and asking me why I kept looking at the clock. AndI said, man, I got to go to Salvation Army again tonight. And she said, what time do you go over there? And I said, eight o'clock. Andshe said, Myers, it's eleven o' clock in the morning for crying out loud. What are you doing? AndI'm saying, well, you know, anyway, I just went ahead and I checked out about two o'clock, went home, picked up my ensemble for the evening. And I mean, I'm kind of excited about going over there. I know what we're going to study. I Know What We're Going to Do. And so I just go and I walk in and the place is just in chaos. The gymnasium is just full of folks. And this enormous guy starts walking towards me kind of quick and kind of fast. And it scared me. i'm not used to people walking toward me that fast and and he was enormous um this guy's arms were big around as my legs i mean to give you some kind of idea how big this guy i'm kind of built like a jackrabbit anyway but it was weird like this and he swooped down and grabbed me and picked me up and he Was just like holding me like like i was like a little rag doll and i remember had my hands up like this against his chest and i was just kind of sitting there i didn't know what to do. And he said, you know, Mr. Myers, we've been looking for you coming back all day long. And I remember looking up at him and I go, me too. And, and he smiled at me and he just kind of lowered me down on the ground. I mean, he's holding me like my legs are off the ground and he's just holding me. And I kind of went, golly, this is just like, what the heck's going on? And,and, and we had this, this meeting like this. The other night I was talking to Jason in Sally Ann, New Zealand. We were talking about this stuff. Guys, I felt like Jimmy Swagger. We were, we were, I had my big book out and we were just like, I was all sweaty and it was, we were having a blast. It was pretty cool. And that night before we finished with the Lord's Prayer or as we finished, this guy said, hey, can you sponsor me? And another guy goes, me too, me too. And I walked out of that at night with four guys to sponsor. I've never had anybody that I would. And all of a sudden And you can bet that my conversations, what they were like at Clifford is it was a crazy deal. I just – I can't even begin to describe what a game changer it was to begin to realize that the meetings were important. I'm never saying that the meeting are not important. but as you begin to study the text some of you guys from primary purpose groups that are studying as you began to study one of the first things you realize is is that there's not a lot of mention about going to a bunch of meetings or later brochures in AA talk about it a lot but the book didn't matter of fact for 20 or 30 years we only had one meeting a week in most geographical areas one meeting per week not any of this other crazy stuff um and um it was just about trying to help folks it was it was about kind of keeping up um uh stuff into perspective um there was a letter that bill wilson wrote in 1966 i want to read a little piece of this because it always makes me smile now this was in 66 bill wilSON would die what 71 just a few years down the road at the end of this little piece this thing is called whose responsibility at the end of it said this is why sobriety freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practice of a 12 steps is the sole purpose of the group we don't stick to this cardinal principle we shall almost certainly collapse and if we collapse we cannot help any that it's kind of heady when you look at it like that and you realize what it was he was trying to tell freedom uh this is why sobriety freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practice of a's 12 steps is the sole purpose of the group now we've morphed it guys we've taken it a lot farther we've done a lot of those things and i'm not ragging on it i'm not knocking it i am just saying let me give you a great example the other night i was on a on a zoom um and i did a 20 minute share to bring a topic and then they were going to share for the rest of the hour so i brought the topic i thought it was pretty sweet i thought it was going to be pretty fun and the first little little girl that starts sharing had a pet that died and so she's telling this story about how this pet died it was obviously not my topic but everybody else that shared that night shared about her pet diet now listen i'm god love her and god love her little pet i i'm not ragging on any of that stuff like that but but let me ask you this question what if curtis was brand new my buddy curtis what if he was what if he was brand knew in aa and he just walked in like this do you think that curtis gives a rat's fuzzy rare about somebody's pet dying. I mean, I'm not trying to be mean about anything, but I'm just saying we have these little windows where we have an opportunity to slide in and perhaps change the course of somebody's life. Why am I seven years sober and I don't know anything about the big book? Well, I'll own my part. I didn't read it. The book's right there. I owned one. I just was too lazy to read it. I own that, but we never ever talked about that. 32 meetings a week and every meeting starts like this. Well, welcome. Who has the topic tonight? And you see hope in people's eyes when you look around the room and then all of a sudden somebody goes, well, I had this, well it's kind of silly talking about it, but I went to this store and I I had this thing happen in the store and he starts talking about some shopping incident like this. And you watch six heads go and hit the table. People just checking out now for an hour. I got to listen to people talking about their shopping experiences instead of talking about what Bill Wilson and the first 100 begged us to talk about. how many of y'all have ever listened to i know some of you because i know you personally have listened to some old don pritt's uh uh tapes don pritz was an iconic aa guy in colorado or in the denver area he sobered up in the federal penitentiary system in the early 1960s and then was a mover and shaker up in that area and started dozens of book studies those book days would get big enough and he would move over and start another one, and then somebody else would take that one over. And he just did it over and over and again. And it was amazing. But in one of those talks that he did, he said, these days I am so concerned that we talk more and more about sobriety and less and less about recovery. Guys, listen, I always talk about this stuff because it's a game changer. If just staying sober one day at a time is all you want, all you need, if that's it, so be it. So be it, but I got to tell you, the first 100, the folks that codified all of this stuff, the folks que wrote it, they expected more. How do I know? Because I read it in the text because the big book is clear that that's what they did. That's what wanted to do like that. When you go back and you look at how many times the word recovery is used in the book, How many times these reoccurring themes, how many times the word approached is used? Twenty three. You don't know the truth. Twenty three times approached, meaning that we were supposed to approach people. We weren't supposed to sit in meetings and wait for people to come see us. Sometimes that's not going to happen. We hope it will, but sometimes it doesn't. The vast majority of people that I've sponsored over the years have been men, men that I met in halfway houses and treatment centers and jails and places like that, where I carried the message to them. And then they realized, come on, y'all, it takes a lot of courage to go to something like AA or this sort of stuff like that. And if you don't have some idea about what that looks like, I mean, I think statistically that most people quit drinking because they want to be out of trouble, not because they wanna live a transformed life. And what Bill Wilson in the first 100 wanted us to understand is that we could live a life that was truly transformed, that it could be completely different. Well, let me ask you this question. Well, I want to just tell you a little piece of the story. My oldest daughter, Sarah, is a sweetheart, and she's tried for several years to get sober and never made it. There was always something to kind of pull her to the dark side again. It was just kind of a crazy deal. And two years ago, she got sober again and she's still sober and she is kicking it. She is doing really, really well and I am real proud of her. But the moment she stepped into an AA room, a club, I began to be hypersensitive to the things that were being said. Listen, if you are a long time sober guy like Ryan and you're kind of a pillar and, you know, I mean, the cat's brilliant and he knows this stuff like this. He can sit in a meeting and if somebody says something stupid, he can go, that's stupid. If somebody says Something Confusing, he Can Go, That's Confusing. If Somebody Says Something That's Spot On, He Can Shake His Head Yes And Go, Rock On, Brother, That'S Right On. Because He'S Been Around And He Knows It. But What Happens If Gretchen, Who'S Sitting Right Next To Him On my screen. What happens if Gretchen just got here? She's been sober a week, she's been out of treatment a week and she walks into an AA meeting and she doesn't know squat. Now we can talk about our dead pets or we can talk about shopping or wecan talk about all this other stuff or maybe, just maybe, we could do what Bill Wilson and those cats asked us to do, which was circle around this common solution that the book talks about and pull these folks with a vision of how amazing recovery can be. There was this old guy where I first sobered up, his name was Horse Jim. I still don't know his, no, I never did know his whole name like that. We just called him Horse Jim, and when he would introduce himself, he'd always do this. He'd go, hi y'all my name is jim i'm sober today and that's the way he'd say it and he'd look at just you know look across the room and i'm thinking holy cow i mean what's the picture that that paints if i'm in the meeting and and i hear that it just seems to paint a picture that recovery is a burden and it shouldn't be it should it right y' all i mean don't y'All agree The thing is transformational. Well, I think I was talking about this the other night with Jason and that when we were talking like that, Chris and I had a layover in Copenhagen. We were leaving Copenhagen and we were going to, we had a 13-hour layover in Amsterdam. And if you can get to a browser, maybe somebody else's browser, put in amsterdam red light district you when you walk out of the airport you walk into a bus station and when you get through the bus station you get into the amsterdam Red Light District that goes on forever like that and every kind of devious weird crap in the universe is there on that street and and then figure out a way to clear your browser because you don't want people to see that stuff like it but my point is is that we weren't the least concerned and all we did was is walk up and down the street laughing until I thought literally I thought I was going to throw up on the street. It was the funniest night. Neither one of us had coats, and we were freezing to death, and so we'd walk into these places and look around, and I would go, I got to go, Chris. We'd start laughing, and then we'd go down to the next place just trying to stay alive for a little bit, but it never one time concerned me that I was around a bunch of weird stuff going on and that there was every kind of devious thing. It wasn't, but y'all, that's what freedom looks like. Freedom looks like I can go where I want to go and do what I want to do. I had a guy call me one time and he said, Myers, I just, I just. And then he just started crying. And I said, dude, what, what's going on? And he said. I just my, my daughter's getting married. And i said, what do you, why are you crying? I said we don't like the guy. Well, let's go kick his ass. So let's get, let's go finish it. I was just, I don't know what to say. And he goes, no, it had nothing to do with the guy. He said, but they've decided they're going to serve champagne at the reception. And I went, and I'm missing this. And, and he goes. I can't go. And I said, I didn't understand. He says, they're gonna serve champagne. I can be around. And i said, dude, you need to be locked up or be back in treatment or something because you're crazy. If your whole being is that frail and that fragile, what kind of life are you going to have, buddy? You don't want to do that stuff. Listen, since I've been sober, I've been in crazy dope houses. I've been in all kinds of weird places like that. I'm never one time ever have I had a problem and felt compelled in anything else other than to be there to help the reason I was there in the first place. I don't know, y'all. I feel like I'm spanking sometimes and I don'T want to spank anybody. Y'all, I love you to death. And if going to a bunch of meetings hits all the sweet spot, then walk on. But I got to tell you, I think this is the biggest reason why book studies have become such a center of everything thing that I do. I think that book studies helped me see clearly what the program looked like, what my recovery should look like. And it showed me in a million ways how easy it was to be of service to somebody else. If you don't understand the text, you're going to be the guy standing there trying to shoot from the hip and say something hip slick and cool and make them like you or this guy just that all goes away completely when you begin to understand the simplicity of what bill and those cats were asking us to do and then once we realized that then the pressure was taken completely away and i was i was free to move about the cabin sponsor help do the things that i was supposed to do it's pretty uh um pretty uh cool deal um let me talk about one more quick thing before we get out of here if if you find yourself in a position where you feel like you're drifting sideways now i'm going to tell you this just from my own experience i've never ever met one person in aa ever in the 35 years that i've been in these rooms i've Never met anybody that didn't drift somewhat left or right or or we just we just tend to move clear we're sweet over here and then we get over to a place like this where things aren't quite so sweet that's drifting and and and the there's nothing wrong with it as long as you recognize that it's happening so if you real if you realize that you're content and everything is okay at one point in your life and then later you realizethat maybe you're irritable restless and discontent that maybe somehow or another you've stepped away from the sunlight of the spirit that you kind of moved over here. Start paying attention to it like that. 99.9% of the time, it's because we stopped doing things that we used to do. We've moved away from the things that мы used to do. Is it working with others? Is it time with God? It could be anything, but as a collective fellowship, we're famous for drifting away from the things that used to be our sweet spot, and go look at that stuff. How do you tell if you're drifting? My favorite way to tell is to go read the promises. Go read. I have this fancy big book right here, and I'm going to look on page 75. Y'all don't have to look right here. I'll just read it real quick. I'm just going to read part of it like that. These little fifth step promises, I'm skipping down some just for just two seconds. Just listen to what this says, and then you can ascertain yourself. Am I in that sweet spot or is this all just kind of empty rhetoric? I wouldn't judge either one because I've been there. I know what that's like. I'm going to skip down. We're delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our creator. Now, we may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we're on the broad highway, walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe. Wow. Wow. I mean, either you are or you aren't. If you're not feeling like you're walking hand-in-hand with the Spirit of the Universe, then come on. Let's get busy and look at that. That's why inventory is so cool. That's the reason why strong sponsorship that you've given spiritual consent to, they have a sponsor that's willing to look at you and say, dude, I'm concerned that you're struggling here. I'm concern that you don't seem to be in that magic place that you used to be. I think this is sponsorship 101 stuff. And I'm supposed to tell you the truth. But once you see that you're not lined up, then let's do what we got to do. And 99% of the time, what's missing is I've either made my 11-step stuff, my time with my creator, I've made that superficial again, and I'm more interested in the morning when I get up with what's on my cell phone or what's online or what I do on the internet, what I've got all these distractions. Sometimes I have to reset. I have just go back around it and start over. there's that, or pay attention to the people that you're sponsoring. How many of you, the vast majority of men that I've sponsored sponsor very few men. They just don't. They're getting better, but they just don'T because they're busy with other things, and I just, but work and self-sacrifice for others is a game changer. It changes how you think about yourself and how you think about others. And in the end, I'm going to say this and then I'll close. I am so amazingly delighted that I am sober today. I love the fact that I haven't had a drink or anything else. I love being sober. But I am that times 10 that a useless POS from Central Texas could actually change and affect lives in a way that I never dreamed that I could. And it's not because I'm smart and it's nicht because I am witty, it's niet because I m anything else like this, but just simply said, I m going to do what those rascals asked me to do, which was to get off my skinny rear and try to be of service. And when I do, everything shifted, everything changed, and all of a sudden life is worth living. Regardless of the job, regardless of the relationships, regardless of all the other stuff in life like that, you can get to the end of it look back and go made a difference and that is pretty special pretty special listen i love you rascals a whole lot if y'all ever get to texas come see me the only deal is if you're from georgia or back up that direction you got to bring boiled peanuts okay because it's the one habit that's the One Habit I haven't quite gotten clear of okay thank y' all