Chris R. - AA Speaker - Big Book Study in London - THE M2 THE ROCK SHOW - Michael Molthan

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If I seem like I'm I'm I am see whiz.
I Uh. This is the coolest for me though, because
we got a few hours here. We can talk about
the twelve steps, we can talk about the program. Now.
By the nature of what I'm going to try to
accomplish here, I can assure you that I'm going to

(00:22):
say some things that some of you guys in here
don't agree with, and I just, you know, I think
that's just so okay. I when is it? When did
we get in our fellowship to a point where we
have to agree with everything everybody says you with us,
but we get so so it's just coming. Y'all need
to be careful coming up on my blind side, because
I don't kill you if you're not careful. This is

(00:48):
a talking to the lady. Oh I didn't know you
couldn't You couldn't see out of that side. Y'all could
be on fire and neked and I wouldn't know it.
I just so if y'all need my intention here and begin,
you know, say something, because I got you bastards covered
and we got we got I work for a treatment

(01:12):
center and I do clerical work for a hospital. I'm
not a counselor a therapist. But I've been around the
industry for a long time and I've got some pretty
strong opinions about that. And I uh, I was such
a chronic relapser, guys. I was in and out of
the Fellowship for so many years, and I was in
therapy for ten years, and I was on when I
tried to commit suicide in nineteen eighty seven. I was
taking I was taking seven pills a day the doctor

(01:36):
prescribed medication, and all of this was, you know, being
swallowed with mass quantities of alcohol and cocaine and ethnic
fetimen and I you know, but the pills were a
real problem. My detox was hugely compromised by prescription medication
that the doctors were lovingly giving me. You know, you
seem a little tense. I am here, this will fix it. Yeah,

(01:59):
And it's it was also a good diet because everything
you put in your mouth just fell right out. You know,
you're just oh my gosh, and I see it. I'm NonStop.
I travel all over the world, and no matter where
I'm at, Guys, it's the same story. You know, we
got a lot of well meaning people out there trying
to help us.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Get well.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
So we may talk about some meds today, we may not.
I don't know. But anything I say from this podium, guys,
is what I'm trying to tell you. I got you
for an hour and then we'll go smoke and you,
guys can decide if you want to stay or not.
That's always an interesting experiment. But because y'all love me
as long as you're agreeing with everything I say, and
the minute I hit on something that you don't agree

(02:35):
with and he just can't talk to us that way,
I'm out of here. I didn't come here to be preached.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
To, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
It's like rock on. You know. I didn't come here
to blow smoke up your butt either, you know. So
I mean I'm here to share my experience with yall,
and my experience might be different than your experience. A
lot of us in this room we got here through
treatmon sentence. I happened to walk in the back door
of an AA me and that's how I finally got
sober in nineteen eighty seven. And our experiences are a

(03:03):
little different. Some of us have other mental issues going
on besides alcoholism, and I suppose I qualified for that too.
But all of this to say is that we all.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Got here from different paths and.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Our experiences are gonna be different. So I try to
come at this thing kind of with an open mind.
You know, we ask the newcomer, you know, we want
you to be open, honest, open minded and willingness if
you want to get sober. And it just seems like
the door shuts about two years sober, you know, three
years sober, ten years sober, twenty years sober. It's like,
if it goes against what I believe, that I'm not
listening to it an shame on us. Every day they're

(03:41):
making new advances on alcoholism and drugget. We're learning new things,
we're seeing new techniques. There's lots of I'm gonna listen
to anything, guys. I'm going to listen to the little
six day sober guy in the back talking, and I'm
going to listen to the old sixty year old geezer talking,
and I'm going to filter it through a thing called
a Big Book of Alcoholics anonymous, and if I can
reconcile it with it, man, I'm gonna. If I'm gonna

(04:02):
this may be good. You'll follow If I can't reconcile it.
It may be just a bunch of bs if you follow.
What works for one may not work for the other.
But what we know without a shadow of a doubt
is the information in this book works for everybody. There's
so many people out there in aa land, out there
on the internet taking shots at people in recovery, taking

(04:25):
shots at our twelve step fellowships, because there's so much
misunderstanding about it. If I've got one bone to pick
with New York, it's that we'd never stood up and
took care of the people that were talking crap about
our fellowship. Oh, they can say anything they want. Why
because most of it's based on not true stuff. I'll
give you an example what I'm talking about. Some of

(04:46):
y'all 'all give you the reading the crowd. It's like this.
If I know I've losing you, it's like this, your
head goes. Let's see talking. I'll gave you this years
ago and early archiveal stuff you can read about this.
Bill Wilson and doctor Bob, those first cats that got sober,
they all understood that you could recover. On the title
page of the damn book they had wrote said, this

(05:07):
is the story of how many thousands of men and
women have recovered from alcohol as you'll follow. Of course,
the treatment centers in the United States got busy about
nineteen seventy one as a result of a wonderful piece
of legislation called a Hughes Act, and we had a
treatment center open on every corner. They were like Tim
Horton's in the United States. You couldn't turn around without
walking into somebody else wanting to verify your insurance benefits

(05:27):
because buddy, we pay like slot machine. And that's back
in the day. I mean, everybody from Canada came across
the border and got treatment intact. And down in the
United we got a bunch of you at the hospital
where I work, still do. And but the treatment centers
all put their own twist on this and some.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Time because you know, and.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
Some idiot who was trying to get somebody to stand
treatment a little longer than he needed to came up
with the old idea, Well, we didn't get sick overnight,
We're not going to get well overnight. We'll always be recovering,
which is great for the treatment center industry, because I
want you to recover you with me. But as a customer,

(06:16):
I prefer you to be recovering, because then I can
guarantee to get you in treatment a few more times. Now, folks,
this is just the fact you're sitting in this room
thinking that you can't recover. You need to come see
me after this is over. You need to come. We
need to visit about this, because that is a misrepresentation
of what this program is about. I listen to folks,

(06:36):
I'm twenty one years sober. Could I get sick again?
You better believe it. I stopped doing the things that
I'm supposed to be doing. I can get sick like that.
I watch people do it every day. One of the
reasons I'm so passionate about this, but this idea that
we have this little crappy self help program that's going

(06:57):
to allow you but only one day at a time,
to get well makes me want to puke because it's
not verified in the literature, and our experience abundantly confirms
that that's not true. There are people in this room
that are gonna recover, They're gonna get well, and from
the podium, we need to be sharing that to the
newcomers so they can get some hope. One of the

(07:20):
reasons that we can't keep the young adults in our meetings.
Who in the hell wants to be a part of
a fellowship that guarantees that you're gonna have to admit
that you're sick every day. I mean, I understand the
need for a humility, buddy, but I mean this is
a little ridiculous here. And some of you, you know,
you're thinking, guys, you've got that look on your faith. Good.
I hope I say a bunch of stuff today that

(07:40):
makes you think, It makes you question what you're doing,
because all of this is geared to do just one
that dumb thing. It's to help us be more affected
with the people we sponsor. My job, I believe I
was saved from the dumpsters of Houston, Texas, so that
I could help another drunk get well and have a
cool life to boot. I just believe that. And I

(08:04):
watch just untold thousands of people that get well and
go out and do the same thing. But I again,
I watch so many more people that get well up
to a certain point. I'm not drinking one stupid day
at a time, but I'm miserable. You'll follow, thought of
suicide is constantly on me. I'm eating prescription medication like

(08:26):
it was going out of style. But I'm sober today,
and we have a fellowship out there that it seems
to want to make that okay, And it's not. It's
not representative, Buddies, of the fellowship that I know and love.

(08:47):
There's two things going on in AA. I see it
in CAA, I see it in narcotics Anonymous. There's two
things happening. We've got a thing called a fellowship, and
we've got a thing called a program. And over through
the seventies and eighties, our fellowship grew membership, and Alcoholics
Anonymous doubled and doubled and doubled again. A lot of
people were coming in. Our success rates dropped through the

(09:09):
stinking toilet. They got big deal down in States. Now
with all the statistical stuff coming out, well, we've proved
that the success rates were just as good today as
they were back then. You know, buddies, any of us
that have been around the rooms longer than six months

(09:30):
can tell you that that's just not true. I mean,
I don't know what to tell you. I sponsor a
bunch of guys, and I mean I watch them just
just no, you do a sobriety countdown sometime with these
big conferences and you watch the little knuckleheads. Of course,
in certain areas you'll get a bunch of people. At
twenty years, you'll pip five or six people in there.

(09:51):
Rock on, that's a pretty good deal. You get on
up towards thirty one, two, maybe forty with us. Come on, guys,
get down to one one year and you'll have you'll
have four hundred people stand up. Well, what happened between
one year and five years? The guys that did the
statistical stuff, well they just don't come to AA anymore. Yeah,

(10:13):
you got that right, because they're drunk. Everybody wants to
get tweaky. I listen, I tell you I'm a card
carrying member of this fellowship. And I love alcoholics anonymous,
I love cocaine on, I love anything. There's a great

(10:34):
new fellowship of New Jersey called a NAS and National
Association of Recovered Addicts and Alcoholics. And they're just a
bunch of little thump and bastards. I mean they're just
they got no traditions, no nothing. They're just like little gunslingers.
Let's go find somebody to fix, and there's there. I
love them. You know, they're just They're any fellowship that
tries to get you connected spiritually. How can you find

(10:54):
fault with that? You know, it's the coolest people get tweaky. Well,
I think you're taking AA's inventory. I am. Let's just
get it out in the open now. I'm oh, my gosh.
I love my fellowship, folks, but things are goofy in
our fellowship. Things are goofy along lots of places. I

(11:14):
love my treatment center, but things can get goofy there
because we've got too many people sharing opinions about something
that they should know about, and they don't know about
what gets alcoholics and attics sober. Brother back, they're pointing,
it ain't the rough. Yeah, absolutely, brother, Come on, guys,
it's God that gets a sober. We're gonna talk about

(11:36):
some of that. This is not some kind of little
self help programs. All I'm saying. I'm in and out
of Alcoholics Anonymous for seven years and I can't get sober.
I can't pick up a thirty day chip. I'm why
don't they give us a two week chip? Damn it,
I'm good at two weeks. I'm a two week wonder

(11:56):
in the two weeks. My house is cleaned, my car's washed,
everything's taking care of the trashes out. I'm washing clothes. God,
life is whoo sobriety rocks. Two weeks and one day,
I'm sitting outside of a seven eleven trying to talk
myself into not going in and buying a beer. And
I've done this over and over and over again. I

(12:18):
was what we call one of these functioning alcoholics. I
know some of you because I recognize you coming in
the door. This is exactly what you are. You know,
because because we all don't hit skid row, and some
of you guys, we've been insulated by money and by
our beauty, our looks. Some of you guys are just
you're too damn smart. You've been insulated by your intelligence.

(12:39):
Makes sense. It's my prayer that every single one of
you that are having trouble standing sober wakes up in
the morning poor and ugly, and you might get this. Yeah,
and so whatever you yet, Oh my gosh, I can.

(13:03):
I can stop for periods of time. And alcoholics anonymous,
they jammed me pretty good in that. Chris, I don't
know why what you're doing wrong if you just go
to meetings and don't drink. You're gonna be good. It's
like you know at the time, and I'm sitting there,
little little minds in the grinding, you know, go to
meetings or don't drink. Go. I mean, I understand it's computing.
I just can't make it happen. The meeting part I got.

(13:25):
I'm a meeting making fool. Meeting makers make it and
I got you, okay, But I'm proof positive that meeting
makers don't make it. I'm proof positive that people that
are real alcoholics and real drug addicts that just make
meetings gradually go insane and either take their own life
or go drink again. It's and a lot of nodding
heads in here. We were talking last night on the

(13:46):
on the on the death march from the board. No,
we were, those guys are good. We were. We were
going at warps feed. It's a good thing. I don't
know how to compute miles per hour to kilometers because
we were really going fast. I don't know. In Texas
we were laughing with Ron and in Texas when it
snows like this, we we we close the state down.

(14:09):
And a lot of y'all not on your head because
you've been down there is. We don't know how to
drive in this stuff, and it's like slow downs, like
you know, we'd have never would have gotten here if
would have been in Texas. But oh my gosh, you
guys are pros because I'm gonna have the last laugh
because a bunch of you guys are gonna be in
San Antonio. International a conference is gonna be in San Antonio,
my hometown in twenty ten. And no, you can't stay

(14:29):
with me. Let's just get let's just get this out now.
But what I gotta tell you, it is gonna be
last laugh because you know when it is. It's July,
first weekend, worst first week in July in San Antonio, Texas.
Y'all are gonna die. It's just gonna be. You think

(14:50):
the hinges of Hell are hot, oh my gosh, And
it won't be like those idiots in Phoenix. Oh but
it's a dry heat, it's not. I can assure you.
Oh good, Bring a pair of shorts, a T shirt
and oxygen. That's all I get. It's gonna be good.

(15:10):
Oh y'all making fun of me. Freezing to death was
on the year anyway. So in nineteen eighty seven, I've
tried everything. I've tried. I say, I've tried AA. It
drives me crazy because we see people all the time
I've tried AA. Well did you work the steps? No?
And shut up. You didn't try you know what I'm saying.
But you didn't try AA. But that's again, that's where
the people out there on the internet are taking our inventory.

(15:31):
You know, ninety meetings in ninety days and I didn't
get sober, so AA didn't work. Well, who came up
with that crap? Anyway, I'm not a big ninety meetings
and ninety day kind of guy. I'm a hey, go
to as many meetings as you can possibly go to
and work the dead gum steps. Take the steps so
that you can have a necessary spiritual experience and recover.
Then you can tell me it doesn't work, because I've
never seen one single person come up and tell me

(15:53):
that that's a fact. The people that the people that
do the work folks get well, that's just my I
don't care if you're a schizophrenic. On top of it,
you get well, you pick up two chips, but you
get well. So that's so stupid. That wasn't even funny

(16:17):
that wasn't even that was so not funny. Okay, But
I'm in and out for the seven years and uh,
and I'm in therapy. I'm just you know, I'm doing
positive affirmations until the cows come home. And I'm not
knocking any of that. I benefited from every bit of it.
I still see a therapist occasionally. I'm a I'm a
huge advocate of therapy. They can get you from point

(16:38):
A to point B pretty quick well, good therapist that
knows what they're doing, especially if thing include God in
the deal. So it's it's and I'm doing detoxes and
I'm outpatient, I'm doing treatment and nothing's working. I'm I'm
in the church. I'm trying to do this in the church,
and I've set naked in sweat lodges and not this

(16:58):
kind of cold. But I mean it's but I went
to church's shape like pyramids, and I mean I did anything.
We were laughing the other I did colonics to try
to get sober. The vitamin regime and colonics. Some of
y'all don't know what that is. It won't do a
damn thing for your drinking, but your complexion will be flawless.
I guarantee you clean you right up, and you'll feel

(17:22):
better than you've ever felt in your life. And it's
like I think I'll have a drink and you're off
of the So I tried to commit suicide in nineteen
eighty seven. I'm working for my twin brothers. Some of
y'all know Myers and with primary purpose in Dallas, and
and and you know, God love him. You know we
were both drinking. We were best drinking buddies. And he

(17:43):
hadn't been for him. I'd been on the street. I'd
spent a short time there in Houston. And but again
I'm a functioning alcoholic. I'm bouncing back, and before you
know it, I got a few hundred dollars in the
bank again and a little girlfriend, and well usually they
weren't so little, but.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Thank God for big women. Anyway, I just.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Just say anthing like it is, and I I got
up from a picking up a stacker return checks and
went to the medicine cabinet and got a couple of
bottles of pills and took them. You know, so many
people I've watched to commit suicide, and Gods, there's just

(18:28):
nothing romantic about it. And there's nothing in me that
wanted to be dramatic. There's no note or nothing. I
just didn't. I was sick and tired of feeling the
way I was feeling. We were talking about it earlier.
You know, people that are not alcoholics and drug addicts,
and our family members, they know we're tortured. They can
watch us. But the depth at which we stewing our
own juices. When I tell you I'm gonna quit, and
and I know that I mean it, I don't mean

(18:49):
I'm blowing smoke. Sometimes you know, hey, baby, I'm gonna
quit you and me, and it's like, but there were
times I told you I was gonna quit and I
knew I was gonna quit. I wanted to quit, I
needed to quit, and I was just done. I don't
know why I've been acting like such a kid all
these years. I'm done, and we're gonna go down. We're
gonna be adults about this, and I'm just finished. And
I thought I had the power to choose whether I

(19:11):
was going to do this or not. And that's the
beautiful reading that you did before. Page twenty four is
one of my favorite pages. It's amazing to me how
many people you want to start some controversy in your
next AA meeting, bring page twenty four, the first two
paragraphs as a topic and watch the room empty. Because

(19:36):
most people will say, I'm an alcoholic, I have a
fatal progressive illness, I have a disease, but I can
choose to pick up or not. It's guys, it's right
all over the world, and all I can say here
with all the respect I can mustard, if you can
choose to do it, you're not one of us. Don't

(20:02):
let the big, big door hit you on the way out,
because you're killing people with that stuff. You're killing people
with that stuff. You're telling people that they can choose
to do this or not. You can choose to work
the steps. That's a choice we got, isn't it. Y'all
chose to come here on a cold, that gun morning.
That's a choice you got to make. We make enough
of those choices, guys, we're gonna stay so over the

(20:22):
rest of our lives. We're gonna do the things necessary
to stay spiritually connected. But this idea of presenting alcoholism
and drug addiction like some kind of behavioral problem must
be stopped. And the problem is we're seeing it in
our meetings as much as we're seeing it in treatment centers.
I tell you, you watch somebody die of end stage alcoholism.
And the sad part is the treatment centers have pulled

(20:43):
all of that away from our groups. When I first
try trying to get sober, you can sit there in
a meeting and say, buddy, you don't look so good.
All of a sudden, having flop out and do a
Grandma Caesar right in front of you. All of a sudden.
It brought this whole thing very close to real, close
to home. You can die from this. For some people
in this room, alcoholism and drug addiction became an inconvenience,

(21:04):
and you put the plug in the drug and you stopped.
And you wonder why all the yelling's about? What's he
sounds angry? What's he pissed about? One day at a time,
I stay sober. What's there to talk about? But I
understand that, And you're welcome. But I said, but you've
got to understand Bill Wilson. In the Big Book, we're

(21:27):
going to talk about it in a second. Bill Wilson
talks over and over three different places in the book.
He describes the different type of drinker, the different kinds.
He continues to distill it back down to but what
about the real alcoholic, What about the real alcoholic? What
about the real drug addict? Which implies that there may
be some of us in these rooms that are not

(21:48):
really alcoholic. Bill Wilson understood. It makes sense. The book
says on page thirty four. If you've got your books,
you could read them on page thirty four. We did
this in I one time, not realizing that all the
page numbers were different. All that great planning on my
part was right up. But when the for those who

(22:10):
are unable to drink moderately drug moderately, the questions how
to stop altogether? We're assuming, of course that the reader
desires to stop, you'll stop right there. And one of
my jobs is a sponsors. One of the things we're
going to talk about this afternoon in one of these
little sessions is some sponsorship stuff in working with others.
And one of my main jobs, like the first job,
is to qualify the alcoholic in the attic that I'm

(22:32):
sitting across with to find out if I'm dealing with
the real McCoy here or am I dealing with a
little disco drunk. You follow because the little disco drunk's
going to crap out, and I'm not interested in wasting
my time on those little knuckleheads. I want the real
mad dog like me, because they're the only ones that
can relate. We're assuming, of course, if the reader desires

(22:52):
to stop. Whether such a person could quit upon a
non spiritual basis depends upon the extent which he has
already lost the power to choose whether he will drink
or not. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as
we know it. This utter inability to leave it alone,
no matter how great the necessity or the wish. Isn't
that cool? It's saying quite clearly here, I'll translate it

(23:14):
for you. If you can stop without God, you ain't
one of us. And I mean stop, I mean stop, folks.
I've just told you I can stop on a dime
for two or three weeks, a couple of months. I've
done it a thousand times. I can't stay stopped. My
head always tells me it's time to go back. That's
what we're going to talk about in a second. This

(23:34):
qualifying business. And I'm just saying, see, this is what
makes you uncomfortable. I sit in here and talk to you,
and the little guy says, God, dang, that's me. We're
swapping spits, sending Christmas cards to each other. But the
little guy in the back sitting there thinking he's the
question whether he's an alcoholic or attic or not. And
now we talk about it out of the book and
he thinks, you know, I might not be an alcoholic.
I hate that man's guts. If you follow Unbelievable, everything

(23:59):
is based on truth. Guys, the one thing that you've
got to have in order to get well in this
fellowship is the ability to be honest. Would y'all agree
with that? That's what it says, and reread how it works.
If you can be honest, I don't care what else
is going on in your life. But we base our
so many sobrieties based it on half truths, untruths. Am

(24:19):
I an alcoholic suffering from a fatal illness? Or am
I a hard drinker? There's a difference. Am I a
drug addict? Because you can be one and not be
the other. Am I a drug addict or a drug abuser?
There's two different things. We have to look at that.

(24:40):
If drinking's my problem, then detox is as hard as
it's going to be. My buddy Danny ep in Maine
says it best. But if I'm an alcoholic, detox is
just the first part you'll follow. That's in our experience.
The hard part is not getting detoxed. Y'all may think
it is. When you're in it, you certainly do. You
hurt like a son of a gun, especially if you're
keep talking all those stupid pills you just you stir

(25:03):
on a spit for six months. It's just terrible, horrible.
It's the next wave we're gonna see, guys. The pill
epidemic coming towards this direction is gonna make the crack
epidemic look like kids play because the doctors and the
stupid pharmaceutical people are working overtime telling us that we
can take these pills with impunity. The problem is if

(25:23):
you happen to be a real alcoholic and you eat
those pills, you're in trouble. We're gonna talk about some
of that anyway. I took the pills and swallowed them down,
and I heard a voice that night said don't do this.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Go back to AA.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
And I'm arguing with a voice because I ain't gonna
go nowhere close to AA again, and I've picked up
my last desire chip. But I heard the voice two
or three times that night, and I lay down on
the side of the bed. I made myself sick. And
the next morning I heard the voice one last time
and it was the same boys, same stuff, Chris, don't
do this, go back to AA. And I went to
a doctor and got some doggy downers and I went
to work because I had to work or I'd be

(25:55):
on the street. And at six o'clock that night, I
was parked on a day just like overcasting. No, not
anywhere close this cold, but over But I was sitting
behind this and I'm less than twenty four hours away
from a suicide attempt. And my head's already saying, Chrissy, Chrissy, chrissy.

(26:15):
You know you're making You're so dramatic. You know, I mean,
you know last night I suicide. Today we're gonna walk
back in. I'm gonna pick up a desire chip. Why
don't we slide on home? Go by Kentucky Fried Chicken.
You haven't eaten, remember, Chris, you don't want to get
too hungry, angry, lonely, tired. I'm sure Living Sober, some

(26:40):
of y'all's favorite books. It is not mine, because that's
why I think I can fix me. If I just
go get a meal, everything's gonna be okay, rock one okay,
And I'm thinking it, and then I think I had
my first spiritual experiences as I got out of that
old beat up pickup truck and I walked in the
back door of an AA meeting. And I'd ever been

(27:00):
to this meeting, but I walked in and it was
on one of the shotgun rooms, and everybody was carrying
a big book and laughing their butts off, and they
were all smoking. Back in the day, we could smoke
in the.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
Meetings, and can I still do that in Canada?

Speaker 1 (27:12):
Back in the day, we screwed it up. If the
smokers has been able to smoke one cigarette, we'd have
been okay, but they got a like six at one time.
I'll show you the only requirement for membership is I
not to think I can smoke? Oh okay, rock on.
Now You've ruined it for everybody. And I was right
there with them, but the ceilings smoking, and I'm lucky

(27:33):
and I walked in and smoking, and they're laughing and
I know they're laughing at me, and I'm really self conscious.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
And you know, I'm.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
Having bathed in a few days, and I've got a
big old flott of beard and patches perpetually crooked, and
I'm just they're laughing at me, not with me. At me,
you're with us big books that's paid sixty two selfish
and self centered aves that we think is the root
of the problem. Y'all understand this. It's all about me.

(28:00):
And I walked in, and course they were just laughing
about something else. And I start to walk out, and
this little girl slid up next to me, a little
nineteen year old girl snugged my belt root and snagged
it and set me down in a chair. She said,
sit down, and cowboy, you're not going anywhere. And that's
how God works, folks. If you'd have done it, you'd
have been dead. You follow up, no, because I can
kick the guy's butt, or at least try. It usually

(28:22):
works to the opposite way with me, But God does
somebody somebody said, Chris, did you ever win a fight?
Never ever? Not once did I walk away todd his ass,
Not once. I'm always laid on the ground. That's the
best you've got to pussy. Oh no, but just be quiet, buddy,

(28:45):
Just be quiet. You think I'm mouthing now, I am.
Some of y'all have the same I can see it now.
But this little girl pulled up there and she took
my breath away. I mean, what are you gonna do?
You can't smack her, You just will you got it?
I sat down and that was I mean, God used
this little girl to her sponsor had seen me trying
to leave, and she said get in. And then this

(29:05):
little girl wasn't off in some little young adult meet
and talking about young adult things. She was in mainstream
AA doing exactly what she was supposed to do, trying
to help another drunk. She didn't give a rights butt
what gender he was. Bless her. I'd have been dead,
folks if she hadn't her, because I was a head
of steam behind me to leave that room. I was
thirsty and didn't feel well. Bad combination.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Chris Raymond and.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
We sat in the meeting and they talked about y'all
have heard my story a thousand and times. They went
around the room and they talked about hope with me,
and they shared miracles with me. Not one person in
those meetings share a stupid war story, not one. Been
in AA for seven years, and every time I've come
back in well, this is the first step meeting. Now

(29:49):
we have a newcomer. Let's tell Chrissy how we got here?
Why I know how you got here same way I did?
Is there any hope besides this? Is there any future
to this? Can you wake up in a few days

(30:10):
and not obsess about alcohol? Am I ever gonna get
laid again? I mean, can we talk about something that
matters here? When you're gonna tell me one more stupid
war story. I get emails from all over the world.
I got one from Africa, No kid, Now, I was
gonna bring it. This guy was pissed he heard me
talk about this from the podium, said Chris. All we

(30:31):
have is our story. I'm so sorry. If all we
have is our story, we're in trouble because my story
never got any Sober fifty book, on page seventeen says,
we have a common problem. That's one element in the

(30:51):
cement that binds us. You'll follow. All I gotta do
is sit down with you ten seconds and visit a
couple of seconds, and we're friends forever. I understand the
connection the identification. Now, the next sentence says, but we
have a common solution, and that's what ties us together forever,
is the common solution. But we never seem to get
around to tell of the newcomer about the common solution

(31:12):
because we're too busy trying to scare him in the
roads with the stupid war stories. Number one complaint guys
that I hear from people coming into the fellowship is
I don't want to go back to AA because I
don't want to listen to any more war stories. And
I understand that doctor Bob understood that he wrote extensively
about it. They didn't in the early days. They didn't
sit around and talk about their war stories. There's two
places that they would share their story, and it's nobody

(31:34):
else's business. From the podium is a great place to
share a story. Makes sense. Friday night, let's hear your story.
I want to hear what you've lived through in a
twelve step call down at Tim Horton's. You got a
drunk over there, You slide over next to him, You
tell him a little bit about your story, and he
tells you a little bit about his, and pretty soon
you all got a little rapport, and then you can

(31:55):
set the hook on the old bastard and get him
to come to an AA meeting. You can talk to
about how you've got well. But he's not even gonna
listen to you unless he thinks that you understand where
he's coming from. I'm not saying that our stories are
not important, but don't throw that crap back at needed.
It's all we have is our story. Those people's war
stories didn't keep me coming back to that group. It

(32:15):
was the hope that they shared with me in those meetings.
Some of you people know you want to take exception.
Got a guy the other day rolling his eyes. Oh great,
just what we need? Another gratitude meeting. Yeah, I think so.
I think so. I'm less than twenty four hours away

(32:36):
from a suicide attempt. I'm ready to make the ultimate sacrifice.
They'll understand check out for good. And now you want
to give me some more war stories to add with
my own? Jeeke? Thanks, Why don't you just give me
the bullets for the gun? Now? Come on, guys. These
people went around and they said, we've seen him up here
in North Texas for years, picking up chips. Let's see
if this cattle stick. Let's go around and share some
hope with him. And they did. They talked about credit

(32:58):
cards and jobs and money and sketch pads and art
and damn rock on, Oh geezer. After the meeting, came
up and said, Chris, do you want to stay sober?
Are you done? And I said, well, one day at
a time. He said, that's what I thought. He said, Buddy,

(33:20):
I need to explain this to you. And I understand
that people do that, and if you really need that
little parlor trick to keep yourself sober for a few days,
rock on. But that's not what the book says. The
book says that we live life one day at a time.
Every day is about today. Y'all understand that. Because I
can be present today with y'all and not be worried
about what's happening in my hometown of Ingram, Texas, because
I'm here with golf today. How cool is that? That's

(33:43):
what Bill Wilson was talking about. He didn't say we
get up every day and decide not to drink. I
can't imagine anything more painful than that. Y'all understand it's
a tough decision to make once and now you're asking
me to make it every day. Oh my god, he said, Chris,
one day at a time. We're going to show you

(34:03):
how to live life, but it comes with a commitment
that you want to do this for keeps. Are you
down with this? And I said yes, And he hugged
me like a just like only people in aache and
hug God thing. And they just a big old arm
and just it's just. And the next day they were
on my doorstep and they brought me back to a meeting.
And we went to a meeting in the morning, and

(34:25):
then we went in the back room and chased a
bunch of Alenins out of their meeting and they were
in there just talking and we had serious visits. We
got on our kne We got on our knees and
did a Third Step prayer. They asked me if I
had a problem with God, and I said no. We
did a Third Step prayer and after lunch they gave
me a notebook and we started working on a course.
Step Boom boom boom. Been in AA for seven years

(34:45):
and never worked a single step. Nobody in seven years
it ever qualified me. You would be well, you're an
alcoholic if you say you are, no, you're a member
of Alcoholics Anonymous. If you say you are, you have
to I have certain symptoms to be an alcoholic, and
if you don't have those symptoms, you ain't us. We're

(35:08):
not collected membership here, folks. This is life and death
for us. The sad part is the millions of other
people out there that are dying not being able to
hear the message because there's too many middle of the
road sobs killing them with their opinions. Does that make sense.
That's pretty hard heading. I probably shouldn't have said that.

(35:32):
Let me look, it's the flu. Two weeks later, I
sit on the tailged of my truck and I have
this spiritual experience, the realization that the obsession to drink
and who other outside issues has gone. And I don't
know when it lifted, folks, but the obsession went away.
And I'm a cat that could not not drink, could
not not upset, And it happened, and I cried like

(35:54):
a girl sitting on the end of that truck. And
I went up to my apartment and cracked up some
hot jazz and some rock and roll and washed the
dishes and realized that I was on solid ground that
the promises were coming true. And this guy's this was
not as a result of being around the fellowship for
seven years. This was as a result of some good

(36:16):
sponsorship that I got when I walked in the back
door of an AA beating in Louisville, Texas and pulled
my head out of my butt and started doing the work.
In order for this to work, you got to do something.
And we killed the newcomer every day when we just
tell them, well, what you have to do is just
come back. Why are we telling newcomers that come back,

(36:42):
keep coming back, but work the steps. In my home group,
we have a bunch of accountability. We have a bunch
of people that are holding each other accountable and that's
exactly what we do. We're going to talk about it later.
But you've come into my group with a couple of
days in. You're right, and I'm watching you and if
you're not sitting with a guy and it's in the
group to say, buddy, what's up. You haven't got a
sponsor yet. Let me help you get one. Because I

(37:03):
got a nest of sponsores that I sponsor that can
sponsor you. You'll follow and I'm gonna make sure that
somebody grabs hold of you so that you've got somebody
to bounce stuff off of when things get crazy, you
think you're gonna come back to my meeting and dump
your crap on our table so we can clean it up.
Our meetings in Ingram, Texas are not dumping ground for
personal problems. You could do it here in Canada if
you want. They're called open discussion meetings. If that's what

(37:24):
you want to do with them, that's great. But we
go to literature based meetings where we talk about God
and the steps.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
That's the only reason.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
And afterwards we go out and the pickning table. Everybody
loads up, they go pocket Depp and smoke some cigars,
and everybody starts talking what's going on with your life?
Because we want to know. See, the fellowship doesn't stop
at the door of the meeting. The fellowship is God.
I've been so blessed. People take that stuff out of context,

(37:50):
just every talk I do. And they said, oh, but
if I couldn't have talked about my problems when I
first got here, I would have done I never could
have stayed sober. I understand that sweetie is selfish, bit,
but let me ask you a question. Sometimes the cousin
can be humorous, and so that's why I understand that.

(38:13):
But how many people did you kill in the process
with this? This is I'm not I've never said, from
this podium or any other podium, I've never said you
shouldn't talk about your problem, because you should you with us.
That's what this is about. That's what sponsorship's about, That's
what fellowship's about. You'll follow. We were talking coming over
about a lot of the guys in the United States
are losing their job now, the financial stuff. God, I mean,

(38:35):
how did we how did how did we screw things
up so bad? You know that the ripple effect is
getting our neighbors on both sides of the of the
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
And we're talking about that. We've got lots of people
in the program that are hurting financially and needing. Gosh
for me to stand up for a podium and say,
we don't need to talk about that. Of course we do.
But in the meeting, the little guy picked up a
meeting schedule at the probation office and he's sneaking in
the back door even as we speak, and he's sitting down,
and he saying, let's see what these guys that got, Well,
we're not gonna get a chance to talk about the

(39:05):
spiritual experience. It's gonna change our lives because we're too
busy talking about your stupid weed eater one more time. Yeah. Oh,
but if he doesn't talk about that weed eater, he
might drink over that weed eater. Y'all understand where I'm
at with this. We need to talk about the weed eater.

(39:25):
But the little guy came to hear about a solution
to his problem called alcoholism. But we think it's perfectly
okay for us to take a meeting time up talking
about our day, and I'm just here. I just disagree.
Thanks Mom, I know a relative. So let me tell

(39:47):
you what we're gonna do. We're gonna kind of show
you what I do with a guy with a newcomer.
There's lots of people like you get somebody like Ron
who's been sober for a period of time, and he
come and asked me to sponsor him. I'm gonna sponsor
him different than I'm going to sponsor a little new
guy that's just coming in. You know, got a little
fried pie, you know, the little newcomer look and looks

(40:09):
like me. I know. My first wife said, I'm the
only guy that could wear a tux and still look
like I crawled out of a dumpster.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
We're not married anymore.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
When I get a little new guy, what we're talking
about is we're talking about how to get them through
the work quick. One of the biggest mistakes that I
think we make in all of our fellowships is that
we take too long to get these people connected spiritually.
Our job in AA and c A and NA, and
I agree with NA, don't have a bone to pick
with any of these fellowships. Our job in those fellowships, though,
is to get the newcomer connected spiritually. Over the years,

(40:49):
what happened is we got vague on that. My job
is to get you connected to God. Whatever your understanding is,
we're going to talk about that quick and fast. My
job is not to fix your problems. And the Big
Book is quite clear that when we allow a newcomer
to start depending on us for their money, for their
job information, you know, with this relationship prompt when we

(41:10):
place ourselves in a position to be a counselor and
a banker and a doctor to the newcomer, then we
why the hell does he need God? And then when
we give him the wrong information because we're not trained
to do that, then he can just say, well, you you,
you got screwed me up. We need to do what
we're supposed to do, and that show them the path

(41:31):
to God. Everybody gets tweaky about that. Oh this is
not this is not about God. This is not a religion.
I didn't say it was a religion, but it is
a spiritual program. And I gotta tell you we're gonna
hit it hard today because we're seeing so many people.
I know it makes some of you squirm, but it's like,
what do we got to sell folks? I mean, people
come to alcoholics anonymous, we say we have an answer.

(41:53):
What is the answer? But you can sum it up
and say that it's the twelve steps that gets this
connect fit spiritually, because ultimately what got Abby sober a
spiritual experience. What got Bill Wilson sober nine days in
Town's Hospital last week December eleventh was was his admission

(42:13):
date back to Town's Hospital. He'd been in. Bill Wilson had
been in that hospital three other times previously and then
left AMA. All three times with me. How many of
you guys ever got a head of steam up like that?
I'm gonna get sober. And you show up the detox
and they start wining you off the detox mad and
he says, this is not a good idea. Maybe a
better time and I'll cook anywhere out the door. And
that's exactly And Bill Wilson left three times in nineteen

(42:36):
thirty four. December eleventh, he admitted back to Town's Hospital
for the fourth and last time, where he completed treatment.
You're with us, y'all are gonna hear me talk about
this word commitment a lot. We've got a lot of
people straddling the damn fence. I want to get sober,
but I don't want to get sober. I want to
get sober. You know, I'm talking to a guy yesterday,
said Chris. I just don't know if I want to
get sober or not rock on. But what you want

(43:02):
me to talk you into getting sober? Go drink you
cause if I chase you, I'm gonna ruin my opportunity.
Here you with us, I'm gonna be here when you
get ready, when you decide you want to go do this.
We're not selling something here. But what we have to
offer the newcomers the spiritual experience. What Bill Wilson nine

(43:23):
days in town the hospital, working the twelve steps he's
making as a men's letters from the hospital. Ebbie's working
with him in the hospital nine days in ten days,
and he has his barn burning spiritual experience. Everybody thinks
he had this experience experience, and then no, he was working,
doing the work, and then he had his experience. You'll
follow doctor Bob, same thing. Had a spiritual experience, Bill

(43:47):
d number three lawyer, Spiritual experience, Chris Ramer Downstream, nineteen
eighty seven, Spiritual experience. The sad parties that we allow
people sitting in these rooms to not even have their
own version of a spiritual experience was what we're afraid
to talk about it. I'm gonna say this real quick.

(44:10):
In the hospital where I work, what we're seeing is
thousands of people come back into the hospital with long
term sobriety. Used to be fifteen years ago when I
started working out there, we didn't ever get somebody fifteen
years sober. You'd stop the hospital, everybody'd be out there saying, buddy,
what happened? You know? Be every little bee hiveh around
the guy and now probably a fourth of our community
at that hospital has had ten or more years of

(44:32):
sobriety and lost it. Why because they stopped doing the
things that got them there to begin with, and the
disease got them again. We need to talk about that today, folks.
What kills alcoholics is untreated alcoholism, Folks. It's not the booze.

(44:55):
There's a little girl in the back's been looking down
the whole time I talked, and I said that she
looked up as big around. What. No, that's what we
have to do when we qualify an alcoholic or an addict.
What we gotta do is we gotta find out is
the boozier problem, is the dope your problem? Because if
that's your problem, buddy, I got a quick answer for you.

(45:16):
Let's detox ship then we're done. Oh well, it's a
little bit a little more complicated than that. Yeah, no shit, Okay,
then stop telling me that one day at a time,
I can stop drinking and I can get well. Because
I'm gonna say it again, I may say it a
hundred times in a few hours I have with you today.
Going to meetings and not drinking does not treat alcoholism.

(45:40):
It does not not if you're the real McCoy. So
real quick, when a newcomer comes in, what we're gonna
try to do is we're gonna I'm gonna qualify them
a little bit, and that's what we're gonna talk about.
I'm gonna set some parameters with this guy going in
the door to help them understand what I expected them.
If they need somebody to pamper them and mother them,
and I need somebody I can call every minute of

(46:01):
every day, I'm gonna say, listen, I want you to
meet my friend Ron because because that's not me, I
ain't babysitting nobody. I'm gonna be there at your back
and call in the first day's early sobriety you with us.
But after a period of time, we're gonna get you
on your feet. You're gonna have to be it's gonna
be you and God. I'm gonna take myself out of

(46:22):
the equation. And that's the problem with so many people,
and they're afraid to sponsor people. I don't want to
sponsor too many people, you know, because I just don't
have time. I said, I've never understood that if you're
sponsoring somebody. They're quite labor intensive. Early on, it's like
raising a kid. Watching the lady on the plane yesterday
with two kids, and it's like I walked down. I

(46:43):
was like, God that, but I wish I had some
money to just give you, you know, for the I
mean just juggling these two kids that she couldn't turn
away for five cent. How do you go pee when
you've got two kids, I mean, how do you do anything?
It's like I just no, I don't have any. No,
I don't want any because kids, it's just labor intensive.
But once they get up, once they get older, you

(47:05):
don't have They're just you know, with us examples of
that in here, little guys out running around. Let us
come and buy checking on you. Every once in a
while we stopped. I sponsor probably thirty five guys, two
brand new ones. Now that's all I can do, one
or two at a time, getting you through the steps.
After that, I'm patting you on the butt. Welcome to
the fellowship. You're in the trenches with us. If you've

(47:25):
got a problem, swing back by and let's visit about it.
If you're with us, Paul, check in. But I'm not
taking you on the wreck. These guys that keep coming
to me, I need some face to face time. No,
you need a freaking therapist. You need a therapist and
some friends and a dog. That's what you need you

(47:46):
because you're wearing me out alight. Anyway. The first and
the biggest gift, I'm gonna do this real quick and
then we'll pick it up in the next session. The
first and the biggest gift that we can give a
newcomer is qualifying a drunk. We got we got a call.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Fine, I said.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
The number one question that I get asked all over
the world run out. I can be in Europe or
I can be I don't care ingram Texas. It's the
same stuff. People want to slide up, and they're usually
really embarrassed about it, especially if they've been around the
program for a while and we may have somebody all
in here, and just don't be embarrassed because a lot
of people do. You come up and you'll want to
ask and say like like, I'm not sure if I'm
really an alcoholic, and I really feel sorry for you

(48:23):
because it's frustrating to watch. It's sad to watch. If
you ever watch people come into AA and they just
get comfortable. They're just like they're home. They know that
they're supposed to be there. And then you see those
that come in and they just kind of circle the
paripia and they never get comfortable. They don't share any meetings,
and they don't you know, they just in and there
out although they're they're not convinced to their innermo self

(48:43):
that they're one of us. Now, what we got to do,
what we're supposed to do. Our job is to give
that cat a good case of alcoholism or show them
another fellowship. That's our job. In nineteen eighty, I went
to my first AA meeting and I walked in the
back door trying to save a marriage ridge in a
business and I was all banged up. I just finished
a quarterbier in the truck and I walked up the door,

(49:04):
up the steps and somebody else this was it? Were
there twelve steps? Oh Jesus, it was we see symbolism
and everything. It was an it was a it was
an attic over an office building. And I but I
walked up to this and there's an old geezer sitting
in this easy chair with his one light hanging down

(49:25):
and talking about a program of attraction. I didn't know
if we were in an AA meeting or a seance.
And I mean, it's scary enough to walk in the door.
And I walk in this like like psycho, you know,
you know the like, and this guy and this guy
moves in his easy chair and I see that this
he's how long you been laying there? Dad? I mean,

(49:45):
you're freaking me out, you know what? He said, Welcome,
And he introduced himself and he says, it's you know,
my name is Jack R. Whatever it was. And he says,
do you have a problem with alcohol? And I said,
I said, yes, I think I do because I'm drinking now,
you know, I'm sitting in this seance and then my
eyes cleared. People think I'm making this up, and my
eyes cleared like this. And there was three other people

(50:07):
in the room you couldn't even see. They were sitting
in chairs and they were out. There were there were
family members of a of a drunk. They were out
alanine ladies and so and so. Basically, he said, well, welcome,
welcome to alcoholics. Anonymous and I sat down in this
little chair and then we talked about their husbands for
an hour. Rock On I said, this is gonna be good.

(50:28):
I'm in this. I'm I'm I'm gonna be back. I'll
just be back drunker next time because this and I
went to other meetings. Guys, but you know, you got
to understand the meeting that that newcomer comes in might
be the only shot we get at him. You know,
you know with us, if the old stuff back in

(50:50):
back in in Texas, you know, oh you know this
runs him out or liquor running back in. You don't understand, guys,
sometimes we leave and don't ever come back. Why because
we we offed ourselves that night. We see it time
and time and time again. There's a window of opportunity
to do this, folks. We're gonna talk about that in

(51:12):
this next session. In fact, we probably all to let
some of you smoke because you look like you have
the urge. We'll do that. Smoke. Guys, come back, Can
we do ten minutes? Like ten minutes, it's like go smoke,
like you're gonna go slow out there. Okay, everybody bay back.
That's good. Everybody came back. That's good. Oh that's so good.

(51:37):
I mine's Chris Raymer, a grateful recovered alcoholic drug addict.
We'd encourage everybody. Again, thanks for the tapers, because I
sometimes forget to do that. Yeah, we get fortunate enough
to get to come to a bunch of these and
get it. A lot of people can't. So these you support,
you buy the CDs and stuff. It helps. It's just

(51:59):
another way of contributing. So thanks you so much, real quick,
because I could ask a lot about this stuff, this
Seventh Tradition stuff. This is the way I like to
do it. I mean the way they do it. And
I've been signed where they charge a little stipend to
kind of cover their butts. But the Seventh Tradition stuff,
it's like for self supporting. It used to be back
when I first started talking years and year, you know,
two hundred dollars to get you anywhere in the country,

(52:20):
and I guarantee you flying is expensive now, and a
little Motel six was expensive, and the speakers and any
of these this AACA any of our talks that we
don't get any money for this, I think we should,
but you know we just did, absolutely not. This is okay,

(52:43):
Seventh Tradition stuff. Just thanks for dropping a dollar a
deal and covering the basket all the guys that organize this,
they're always reaching in their pocket buying another hamburger for
the speaker, and this that and the other, and stuff
all adds up, So thanks for doing it. It's all
like I'm getting that. I was traveling with a guy.
I was in Houston doing a talking and this guy
that I've worked with, he's like twenty years sober too,

(53:04):
and he says, he says, oh, you know, I said
something about having an apartment in San Antonio and he says,
so you've got two houses. And I said, yeah, if
you buy a little small houses you can afford. If
you could buy a dozen of them as small as
we buy them, you know, a little, I mean. And
he says, oh, well, you must get you know, a
bunch because you speak so much, you know, you get
all that extra money from that. And I guess that's
And I'm looking at these guys and he's in AA

(53:25):
and he thinks that we're getting money for this. It
just it freaks me out that people don't understand that
no no, no, no, okay, I uh we want to
talk about qualifying and drunk now in an attic and
kind of slide through this stuff. Visit a little bit

(53:47):
about this powerlessness piece the disease itself. Will go to lunch,
and then we'll come back, and then I want to
talk to you in the next hour about the next
eleven steps, the next ten steps, because I want to
take the fourth in the last hour after lunch. We
got two little sessions after lunch, because we don't want
to kill anybody here weighing them down. I hate those things,

(54:07):
you know, workshops where he's just like, you know, got it,
they ever gonna finish, you know, because I think that's
one of the big problems that we've made in our fellowships,
is that we've made this too damn complicated. This is
not that complicated. I know a lot of you guys
should go to workshops, and you know, we spent all
weekend talking about six and seven. You know, we're not okay.
So because I think if it had been that important,

(54:33):
Bill Wilson would have given a little more attention than
two paragraphs. I don't care what he wrote subsequently after that.
I know some of you all make a big deal
of it. I just my deal again, is my point
of coming from is trioch. I got a little newcomer
coming in here. I want to get in through the
steps and want to getting connected spiritually as quick as possible.
Are we all on that same page? Okay, I can't

(54:54):
take every person that I sponsored through the steps at
the same pace to some of you, little guys are
fried highs when you get here. Some of you. If
I was dealing with just a little alcoholic, I could
let you sleep for three days and get your detox,
and I could get you in there. We could be okay.
Little cocaine addicts are pretty easy to do because they
they have practically no detox. I don't know if y'all

(55:14):
know that or not. That's one of the reasons that
cocaine addicts die so often, is that because they bounce
to quick. You know, in the United States, you bring
a cocaine attic in says we want to admit this guy.
By the time the paperwork to admit him is dry,
he's had a nap and and eating a little snack

(55:39):
and he says, you know, I don't know what the
big deal was. I mean, I think we're over I
think we're overreacting here a little bit. And y'all follow them.
But then on the other end of the spectrum again,
We've got the people that are drinking and possibly eating
those stupid prescription medications, and they just suffer for months
and they cannot They have a tough time zipping their
pants for about the first two months they're in here

(56:01):
and so or unzipping whichever. And so it's you can't
go as fast with those guys. You gotta be gentle
with them. Everybody here's DCDS and Wethe. If anybody had
taken me through the steps that fast, I would have died.
You know, I understand that. But how many people do
we kill with the belief that everybody has to go slow.
It's my one point of contention with narcotics Anonymous. They
are adamant about take your time to work the steps,

(56:24):
and I am equally adamant of if you have time
to work the steps, you ain't one of us. The therapy,
the big therapist stuff, the big therapist stuff in treatment
is stuff. Again. He goes back to, well, he didn't
get thick overnight. We're not gonna get well overnight. Y'all
understand this. Some people misunderstand when I tell my story
from the podium, I had a spiritual experience. I'm between

(56:44):
my fourth and fifth step when I had a spiritual experience,
when the obsession lifted from me and me I'm two
weeks into this, diligently working. The guy that's got my sponsor,
he's showing me how to do ten and eleven. I'm
praying and meditating, and he's having me work I'm doing.
I'm working with others while I'm there at the club
you'll follow. I'm not doing big book seminars and sponsoring people.

(57:05):
I'm getting coffee for you. That's man, that's leaps and
bounds from where I was as a selfish individual with me.
If I canna do anything for you in the olden days,
it was absolutely by accident if that happened. So but
I want you to understand that the stuff on the
outside took a long time. I was years trying to

(57:25):
heal financially, physically, there was lots of damage, physical damage
that took long long time to heal. You know, it
wasn't an overnight matter. But the spiritual experience that allowed
the obsession to be removed happened very quickly and can
happen very quickly if you'll do the work at a
pretty good clip. I was talking to one of the
nice Ladies. Earlier, Joe and Charlie were famous about trying

(57:47):
to get people off dead center with us because somewhere
along the line, guys, we got this idea that it
was okay to go slow. We'll go whatever pace you want.
Why are we doing that? Why are we telling people that,
I mean, you might not be able to sense it.
Here's what happens. Mean me. Here's a guy named Bill White.

(58:12):
He wrote a book called Slaying the Dragon. But we
wrote some excellent articles about this little window of opportunity,
and I talk about it pretty often. There's a time
when we can come into this thing and get our
feet on the ground and start feeling better physically and
get detox, and there's a window where it seems like
we don't have to do jack. It seems like everything

(58:34):
we touch is spiritual in nature, and we're comfortable in
our skin. With us, we make fun of him when
they come into meetings. The old geezers want to sit
up and laugh at us. Oh, he's he's on a
pink cloud. Now, well, I understand it, but the I
personally find the term derogatory. I mean, it's not a
pink cloud, it's God's Grace and William.

Speaker 3 (58:54):
Yeah, this guy that these articles understood that this is
an anomaly, and I don't know how long it's gonna last.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
And he makes a clear point in here that window
of opportunity to get your feet on the ground and
feel comfortable in your skin may last six months, and
it may last six weeks, and it may last six hours.
It's different for different people. I know that most of
us have experienced it. I've done workshops where we raised
our hands and most everybody in the room had a

(59:25):
period of where they just walked in. It's like dodging
a bullet. Oh my god, I'm saved. Which it's not
gonna stay that way. What the old timers said after
he made a joke about the pink cloud is true.
When you come out of that window of opportunity, you're
gonna be in more pain than you've ever been in
in your life. And if you're not on solid ground
when that pain hits, you're gonna drink and you're gonna

(59:48):
drow So that's just the nature of the beast. I
sense a real feeling of urgency around doing this work
with my guys, because if I drag my feet as
a sponsor and getting you through the work and you
come out the other side into reality, out of you relapse,
and then you come back in the meetings and somebody

(01:00:09):
just wants to take your inventory and say, well, you
just didn't want it. It's my one big bone with
people that say there's sponsors and yet don't sponsor. We're
going to talk about it in that last hour. The
problem with this business is, and I take it pretty seriously.
My job is to get you connected spiritually, and I'm
going to do whatever I can do to get that done.
But I'm not going to belabor this and take forever
to do it. Because if you're not willing to do

(01:00:30):
what I want you to do to make this happen
pretty quick, then I need to move on to somebody
that will you follow. I'm not here for your convenience.
I don't want a damn thing that you have. You
want something that I got called so bright, and then
let me show you what I did, and I did
it quickly, so there you go. First thing we got
to do is give these guys a case of alcoholism.

(01:00:50):
Everybody comes in says I'm an alcoholic. I can go
to that hospital as eighty patients in the hospital this morning,
and I can go to every single one of them,
especially the ones coming just out of detos, Hey, are
you an alcoholic in an attic? And every single one
of them will say yes with us. They hurt the pains,
They yes with tears. I'll do anything to get well,
and they mean it. And if we can get them

(01:01:13):
pretty fast, they can get their feet on the ground.
But if we mess with them too long, let them
sit too long. What happens is this thing called ego.
The Harry Teabout wrote about it in the thirties, the
reassurgence of the ego starts to come back. How many
of y'all understand, without going into a lot of detail,
what happens is a patient comes in and they said,
I'm gonna do anything you asked me to do, and
they show up on time and they do you with me.

(01:01:34):
They got a damn poll, you know, with a drift,
and they're hauling from SEU and up to the you know,
they're boy, this guy's willing to go to anything. Walk
out of SEU with a butt showing go sitting big book.
You're ready to get so raunch you buddy. Uh huh
uh huh. Three days later, he's found she was walking
out of scu I saw her in those little paper slippers,

(01:01:58):
and I knew that God brought her to me early shit. Yeah, okay,
well that might explain why you weren't in Big book
this morning, right, Yeah, we were up kind of late
last night. I think, you know, talking God and stuff.
You know, what's happening is what's happening is their egos
rebuilding and stuf. Now, all of a sudden, sobriety and

(01:02:19):
God was the most important thing in my entire life,
and now all of a sudden it's taken second place
to the girl. You know, you get a call from work,
and now all of a sudden, work and so egos rebuilding,
and now, all of a sudden, everything else is more
important than what we started out to be. You follow.
If I don't give these cats a case of alcoholism,
if I don't help them see that they're dying of
a fatal progressive illness, they're going to crap out because

(01:02:43):
they're not going to remember the consequences of a week
or a month ago. The page that we read the
first hour talked about the mental obsession. It says you
won't remember the consequences of even a week or a
month ago. Can you all remember back to that? If
I could remember the sound of that jail cell clanging
in Denton, Texas when I got my wi and I
turned around and there was a guy about the size
of six of you, y'all, I wouldn't never drink again.

(01:03:11):
I mean I did. I swore off. I'm hyperventilating, breathing
through the bars. I'm hyper ventilating because I've heard that
click of that jail and I know that this is
not This is going to be one long damn night
with me in the drunk tank. Nothing happened, guys. I'm
just locked up for the first time, and I'm humiliating
and I'm not ever gonna do it. And I know why,
because I'm drinking. I'm not gonna drink, and I didn't

(01:03:32):
until the next night. And my head said, Chris, bud,
if you need something, knocked edge off, but don't do
like you did last night. Just one. And then the
craving kicks in and I'm off to the stupid lapers again.
The Doctor's opinion up in the front of the book,
Doctor Silworth wrote the letters he began to see an anomaly.

(01:03:53):
He began to see that people that came to his
hospital the detox didn't matter if it was a drop
dead gorgeous woman or a bugly guy, it didn't matter.
They were certain similarities. And this was the basis of
which the American Medical Association many years later used as
a basis for saying that alcoholism and drug addiction was
a disease, not some kind of a but behavioral problem.

(01:04:15):
In order to be an alcoholic or a drug addict,
you guys have got to have two main symptoms. You
have to have the phenomena called craving. A doctor's opinion
up to Pace twenty three. Don't want to write it down,
y'all can look at it later, but this is how
it's busted out. In the book up to Pace twenty three.
It talks about alcohol in your body. What happens when
I drink this phenomenal craving kicks in. The problem is

(01:04:35):
not that Chris Raymer drank a beer. Millions of people
in Old Canada drinking a beer today. The problem is
that I drank eighteen beers. My first wife used to say,
you just seem so thirsty. Sometimes I'll tell you that
Texas machismo craft has killed millions of Texans. I guarantee

(01:04:57):
you you know, yeah, well, you know we Oh my gosh,
what happens is with people that are genetically wired like us.
It's a point that I need to mention alcoholism and
drug addicts and folks. Because of the latest studies that
have come through, we know without a shadow or a doubt,
it's genetic. If you want to continue to blame getting
slapped around as a kid through your alcoholism, go ahead,
but there's gonna be more and more people are going
to turn around and call you a fruitcake because of that.

(01:05:18):
I'm not saying that that outside stuff didn't affect you.
It did not cause alcoholism. It's genetic, folks. It's no
different than I have high cholesterol. I eat like a
little bird, and I watched what I put in my body.
But cholesterol killed my father, and it will kill me,
and it will kill my twin brother because we both
have very unusually high cholesterol. We both well. With us.

(01:05:39):
It's just genetics. It's not anything I'm doing. It's just genetics.
There's nothing I can do. It's the same thing with alcoholism.
My little sister didn't catch the bullet my twin brother did.
Raising the same family. She's never had a problem with alcohol.
We saw it Christmas again. It's just the same stories.
Take at worst, you know, just they drink a little
glass of wine and set it down and mom, jesus up,

(01:06:00):
it's free. She looked, she did that. She looks around
like that little she's a little geek right now, she's
looked at. She says, no, it's just it tastes a
little off. Is there is there alcohol in it? I

(01:06:23):
don't care if there's a dead cricket floating in it.
I'm gonna drink it. You gonna We're just wired different guys.
I'm just telling you. But once I start to drink,
the question that we ask the newcomers, the Doctor's opinion
talks about once you start to drink, can you guarantee
me how much you're gonna drink? People get confused because
they think that every time I drink, I drink until
I black out. In stage alcoholism looks like that you'll follow.

(01:06:46):
But that's what I'm saying. There's many of us that
it progresses very slowly, and we've got people in our
hospital right now, sixty fifty sixty years old that just
recently began to develop symptoms of alcoholism, obvious symptoms of
no control once they start. That they were born with it,
but it progressed very slowly in them. Genetically. We can
look at different races. Uh, the Asian community has very

(01:07:08):
little propensity for alcoholism and drug addiction in their In
their it's because it's genetic. They certainly live under a
pressure cooker existence, but it doesn't seem to affect them
like it does us. If any of you guys have
have North American Indian blood in you, Estimo blood, any
of that in you in your Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous,

(01:07:29):
the chances are you caught that genetic marker. It's it's
an amazing thing to it. There's a great book out
there called Born that Way that talks about the age
old question of nature versus nurture. It's an excellent read.
It doesn't just talk about alcoholism, but it talks about
this idea that that mom and dad passed on a
lot of stuff and it wasn't so much how we
were held as how as well. Yeah okay, so so

(01:07:55):
so I started to but I didn't. Okay, So the
first thing most everybody can understand that, Yeah, I started
a drink, I started drugg and it got away from me.
That's the question we all to ask every drug addict
instead of asking how many dded eyes have you had it?
How many times have you been to prison? And how
many times? This is all crappy, stupid questions. This is
how we kill women in AA because that's what we
want to do, is we want to ask them about

(01:08:15):
the drama. But like again, a lot of these women
are been insulated. You're not going to experience a lot
of that stuff. We need to ask one question around
the drugs with the women and the men. How many
times did you ever go back to a money machine
in one night? Yeah, if it's more than once, welcome
to narcotics anonymous. You know, but even at the truth,

(01:08:35):
we don't do that. That's not normal. That's how my
first wife knew I had a problem with drugs to the beginning.
She said, you were back at this money machine four
times last night. Well, there's my money. I know it's
our money, and now it's no money. What was that about?
Why didn't you just take the whole checking account at
five o'clock. You're with me because I wanted sixty bucks

(01:08:58):
at five o'clock, because I was gonna get a little
something to knocked the edge off. And then I was
gonna go on down the road. And I knocked the
edge off, and the phenomenal craving, with the phenomenal craving
kicked in, and I went back and got another sixty,
another sixty, and another sixty in another sixty. No, that's
all I got something. Everybody can pretty well see this.
Our treatment center industry is built around that phenomena called

(01:09:20):
craving business. You know, We're gonna we get past it
by the thing called detos simple to do. We're gonna
take the same chemical you're addicted to. We're gonna use
that to wean you off of that substance. Hit it
out of your system. At that particular point, there is
no more craving involved. I don't care what Terrence Gorsky says.
There's no more there's no more craving involved. We have.

(01:09:42):
We have twenty four anti craving medications out there on
the on the on the on the surface, coming at us,
you know, to help us with the cravings. They work great, folks,
Take them if you can, as they work great, but
once the STEP's out of their system, the craving problems
is not in there. This is what nobody thought this through.
You know in the States, you know to just say
no crap, you know, just say no. I understand that

(01:10:04):
I can just say no and I can get detoxed.
I can't stay detoxed because my head. The pages that
we read on page twenty four, this says the main problem.
On page twenty three, it says the main problem centers
in my mind rather than my body. We can get
you detoxed. It's one of the things that we have
to look at, guys, because a lot of you, guys,
what's happening is you're sabotaging your own sobriety. I'm not

(01:10:26):
gonna drink anymore, but I'm gonna keep taking Leanesta. Well,
but Lenesta's alcohol and a pill. It may not trigger
you now, but it will trigger you eventually back to
your drug of choice, and you could agree or not agree.
I've got a hospital full of people that are there
for ambient and Leanessa. Prescription medication is what's killing us
in our fellowships. This is not drugs. This is medication. Okay, fine, okay, fine,

(01:10:55):
all that dentist work that you went back in every mind,
I know exactly what we're doing here. That's why I
get cranky with the ideas that we tell the newcomer
just don't drink, you go to meetings, because that won't
treat this problem. I can get it past the physical,
and I'm going to be comfortable in my skin because
I get past it. But my mind was going to
start kneedling on you, and that's what kills alcoholics. And

(01:11:18):
you can compare the deal my head says a week out,
two weeks out, you know it starts to rationalize and
justify it. Why it's okay for me to put a
little something back.

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
In my body. I'm one of those guys in marijuana.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
I know some of these guys let them. I just
it was a drug that I just didn't lie. Paranoid
and horny don't go well together. I can drink a
case of beer no, and go to work and I'm fine.
A cop roll down on what's up? That's yeah, No,
I'm not off by but I just I have to
I can't drive, I can't do anything. I smoke a joint,

(01:11:51):
I go, I get naked and get in the closet
is what I did me. I don't know, I don't
know who's that knocking on the door. You just ordered
a pizza. But every time I stopped drinking, I'd get

(01:12:16):
out a little ways. I know I can't drink because
I know where it leads me. But I've never had
a problem with pot because I don't like it that much.
And said, but you could probably smoke a joint. And
so I smoke a joint. Don't like the wake it
makes me feel. Two hours later, I'm peering out the window,
run across the street, get a quarter of beer, and
I get home. I get downtown. Y'all understand, I go
back to my drug a choice. Let's cross addiction. We

(01:12:38):
got the collegiate, the little college AD's kids at our hospital,
and they all think they can still smoke pot and
drink beer. I'm gonna leave those OxyS alone. Good for you,
rub rock on. I'm glad to rock on. Good for you.
But I'm still gonna drink. But you're not gonna stay
sober then, because two things will happen. You'll neither become
a lush around the alcohol, or it'll lead you straight
back to the OxyS. Guys, if there was an exception

(01:13:01):
to the rule, don't you think we would tell people that?
I mean, can you imagine? Can you imagine the hospital
that we would have. Guys, come on, We'll get you
off the oxy, We'll get you off the hairwine, We'll
get you off the cocaine. We're gonna teach you how
to smoke pot like a prol We're not gonna do
more beadwork. And at what we're gonna do is we're
gonna show you how to make the demons. And we're
gonna when we could, we could keep that place full.

(01:13:24):
You know what, guys, you can't. You can't put another
side of Most of us in this room have done it.
I'm gonna leave this alone and I'm gonna pick this
like trading seats on the Titanic. I'm done with that. Okay,
Oh yeah, you seem a little wide. Well, I'm doing
a little fetament now. You know. It's like, but this
is buddies, But this is where your minds go. This
is what your head tells you can do. And I'm

(01:13:45):
telling you, we're watching thousands and thousands of people relapse
around the alcohol, around a stupid prescription path if you
put it in your body and it changes the way
you feel, you're in trouble. And I don't give a rats.
But if the doctor's prescribing it or not, we're gonna
move into the second piece of the state of that thought.
Don't throw anything. God, people are soul, are territorial around

(01:14:06):
their meds. I need those medications. You might, most of
us don't. I'm not telling you to stop taking anything.
I'm saying most of us don't. Two hundred and twenty
seven million prescriptions of antidepressants in the country in the
world today, the number one prescribe medication on the face
of the earth is antidepressants. Now, what's wrong with this picture?

(01:14:28):
We were talking about it coming over. There's two kinds
of depression, folks. There's a little deed depression. The guy
that wrote Comfortably Numbs talks the best about it. And
then there's big d depression. I understand it's the clinical
depression that needs medication. Rock On. Such a small percentage
of us in the world have it, it's not even
worth writing about it. And the pharmasastaceutical companies couldn't survive.
Settle them to the people that actually need it. But

(01:14:50):
they're gonna give it to the cat. Are you fitting
a little down? Uh huh, have a little trouble sleeping,
aren't you? How did you know doctor here, because I've
seen twenty Bozo's just like you already this morning. Here,
let me hear you. Here's your three prescriptions. Thank you doctor,
and two months later you're picking up another desire chip.

(01:15:14):
The mental obsession is what kills alcoholics and addicts, and
the book says that nothing can defend us from that.
From twenty three to forty three probably the most powerful
pages in the Big Book as far as I'm concerned with.
Twenty three to forty three it talks about the mental obsession.
That's the stories in there where it talks about Jim
the car salesman, and Fred the businessman, and the jay walker,
Hi a jay walker. I know. It just freaks me

(01:15:40):
out because and our families see, they all think that
we should be able to think through this. What they're
gonna end up doing is they're gonna wait till wey.
I get calls every day, has do you think she's
hit bottom yet?

Speaker 4 (01:15:51):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
What do you? What do you mean? Well, she just
had a DWI and Child Protective Services has been called them.
They're gonna get her kid if she drinks again. I
understand that, but what are you thinking that that's gonna be?
That's there no such thing as a bottom for us,
because you won't remember the consequences of a week or
a month ago, because normal people, eighty five percent of
the population out there can remember that. Oh my gosh,
I cannot believe I've screwed up like this. Be party

(01:16:13):
too much, I'm hanging around the wrong people. I'm in
jeopardy of losing my kids. I am so done, and
they never do another drive with me. If we'd have
been drinking together, you'd have said they were an alcoholic.
If we'd have been shooting dope, you just said they're
a little dope beet from hell. But they had good
power to stop and stay stopped. Page twenty twenty one

(01:16:35):
talks about it modern drinkers, hard drinkers. But what about
the real alcoholic go with us? What about the real
dope being? These are the cats that need, absolutely have
to have the spiritual connection. They don't get it. They're
not gonna stay sober. Jeez, I'm in a eight for
seven years, and nobody will tell me that at what

(01:16:56):
point does I change my mind qualify for inanity? Well,
I just changed my mind because you're on probation, you
get caught again, you serve out a ten year sentence.
What do you mean you just changed your mind? That's
the insanity. Why is it that people in alcoholics anonymous

(01:17:17):
wo are afraid to call the disease what it is.
It's a form of mental insanity. The treatment centers can
help some guys. You just think about it. Up until
nineteen thirty five, and we got the Big Book of Alcoholics, Anonymous,
and we got the Twelve Steps. Millions of us got
in insane asiums, most of us at our own hands,
because we couldn't stand the pain. You combine the mental
obsession that tells me I don't have a problem with

(01:17:40):
the phenomena of craving, and you've got to set up
for death. Underlying at all is a topic that nobody
ever wants to talk about, not in treatment, not in therapy,
not in the probation officer, not in church, not anywhere,
damn sure, not in our AAMI. It's called the spiritual malady.

(01:18:01):
Bill Wilson wrote extensively about it. The spiritual malady is
this internal condition. These little issue man pins. I got issue.
I brought up a handful. I didn't fear we'd have
fifteen people here on this cold frozen tundra. Look at
this if you see. If you want one, just find
one that's got one and beat them out and get
it because I didn't bring it up. But I'll send
you something if you want to. But little issue man pens.

(01:18:21):
And if you'll notice the little issue guys, you's sitting
there like this, got these little exits on the outside,
and he's got this little dark spot on the inside.
And this is the inside stuff. This is what we're
supposed to be looking at, because this is what we're
drinking over. Bill Wilson describes it The Spiritual Malady does
it on several pages. One of the main ones is
on page fifty two, where it talks about the bedevilments.
How many of y'all understand these symptoms when you're not
drinking and drugging, All you little alcoholic fanatics in here

(01:18:43):
play when I'm not drinking and drugging, do you find
yourself irritable? Restless, and discontent? Check check depressed number one
symptom of alcoholoism and drug edition is depression, folks, boredom, anxiety, fear,
feeling of uselessness, no sense of direction, trouble and personal relationships,

(01:19:07):
trouble making a living great line. On page fifty two,
it says we were unhappy. She didn't know it. Shit,
Oh my god. Listen, guys, but see, I'm spending ten
years in therapy listening to the therapist say, well, Chris, let's
what what's what's the problem? I say, I can stay
sober for a period of time, guys, And in my
head says it's time to take a drink. And I

(01:19:29):
go back with me, but just one, and I drink
it and I get loaded again. I go back to
the therapist's office and the therapist looks at me with disgust. Well,
tell me about it. Well, I was feeling a little cranky,
it's feeling a little arable, feeling lot. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
Well, and.

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
Went to the seven eleven, and she's you went to
the seven I thought we talked about going to the
seven elevens. I know, but it's on the way to work.
I know, but there's got to be other ways to
get to work. I know what it is, twenty miles
out of my way, well, how bad do you want
to stay sober? Listen to this crap, guys, and people

(01:20:07):
are being killed with this stuff all day long, all
day long in the States, trying to connect the drinking
with something external. Listen, guys, I put the plug in
the jug and I start to walk away from the
alcohol and drugs, and the time starts to click, and
my internal clock starts to grind, and all of a sudden, gradually,
almost imperceptibly, the irritableness, the restlessness, the discontent, the low

(01:20:28):
self esteem starts to creep back. You'll follow, and I
wake up one morning and I'm shaving and I'm just depressed,
and I don't like my wife anymore, and I don't
like my job, I don't like the town I'm living in.
Feeding of uselessness overcomes me. You'll follow, and then I
get this little head, you're probably clinically depressed. Yeah, that's
the ticket, that's what. And then I'm off to the

(01:20:49):
stupid races. You probably need a drink. One drink, and
we're off of the races. You follow, and I don't
have the power to stop myself from doing it. And
that's why alcoholics anatics trying to treat this internal condition.
God the therapist for years trying to connect the dots
with me. Chris, tell me about your external world. We
talked about Vietnam. We talked about it. I'm gonna tell
you something, guys. We talked about my mom so much.

(01:21:11):
I'm afraid to be in the same room with her.
That and me being gay. I'm gonna tell you something
we talked about I'm so not gay. We well, we

(01:21:31):
talked about it NonStop. Well, Chris, there must be something
that you're drinking over. You see, hard drinkers, modern drinkers,
they got something to drink over. The young guy at school,
the pressure at school. Okay, well, let's set out a
semester and see if that will stabilized. So he sits
out and drinks himself into a coma. So maybe it
wasn't the school. Maybe it was untreated alcoholism. I mean,

(01:21:52):
why don't we start calling this for what it is.
This is not about the drinking and drugging. It's about
what happens when I laid the stuff down. I don't
get better, I get worse. How many of you guys
have known that my first wife came back with a
bottle of Vodkas says, here, drink this. I said, Honey,
I've got two months of sobriety. He said, you you
ain't sober, Jack. I liked you better drunk. If you insist,

(01:22:19):
I'm just trying to save the marriage, honey. An audible
sigh of relief. You know, but I'm gonna control it.
I'm gonna hold it together. But two days later, the
craven kicks in and I'm off to the stupid races
one more time, I follow. I need to be returned
to sanity. That second step stuff. And that's what this

(01:22:41):
whole piece is about. This guy sat down in nineteen
eighty seven after I walked back in. They sat down
and they opened the pages and they showed me and said, Chris,
for the first time, we need to qualify you, dogar.
We need to find out if you're an alcoholic or not.
Is alcoholism your problem or is life your problem? That
these cats come to treatment and we spend ninety percent

(01:23:02):
of the time in treatment fixing their external world, and
I'm so glad that we do. I'm glad that we
get a chance to do that. But if all we
do is fix that external stuff, they're still gonna drink.
That makes sense, They're still gonna get loaded. We got
to do both. And that's why I love therapy. I
love medicine. There's so many physical things that a doctor
can help us with. But if all we do is
throw another pill at this thing, I love it. When

(01:23:23):
the guys come to treatment the first of the doctor's
look at coming back off of about a six month
meth run. But if you seem a little tense, are
you depressed? You've just ruined your life. You know, have
no money left, the girl's gone, everything's gone. Well, here

(01:23:44):
I think we can help you out. And that's like
right right now, the prescription where you go, well, what's
the problem. The problem is untreated alcoholism. When in nineteen
eighty seven guys, that obsession to use lifted, and oh,
by the way, a lot of that stuff that I
was taking those medications for went away too, And gradually
depression lifted, and the anxiety went away almost immediately, and
that sense of impending doom waiting until the next shoot

(01:24:06):
to drop ceased to be there. And about six months,
eight months out under a doctor's care, I weaned myself
off those medications and never had to put get on
any more, which is pretty cool. Makes sense anybody from
this podium, anybody in this room hear me say to
stop taking your medication. As I didn't say it. I'm

(01:24:27):
not telling you to do that. I'm saying, if you
don't want to experiment with it, talk to your doctor
and see what happens with it. You might find you
don't need the expensive craft to get through the day.
God's power is real. So he sets down and he

(01:24:47):
asks me the same questions about the drugs. When you
put it in your body, can you control how much
you use? No? Given sufficient reason, can you stop and
stay stopped? No. Your textbook drug add people are saying
what fellowship should I go to? Go to the fellowship
you're comfortable in. But if you're not a drug addict,
don't go to ca and try to help a cocaine
addict get all cocaine. Because you're talking about something you
don't know nothing about. We've got too many people talking

(01:25:08):
about stuff they don't know nothing about, saying goes the
other way. If you've never had a problem with alcohol,
stop trying to help somebody get off the alcohol. If
you've never had a problem with it, if you don't
understand it, and inadvertently what's gonna happen is you're gonna
kill somebody. You're gonna hurt somebody by giving them the
wrong piece of information. You follow Why I love the
guys that start these other fellowships and coaddicts Anonymous and

(01:25:30):
cocaine Anonymous and God, these fellowships where people can get
together and they can identify and see what's happening. You're
a pilladdic and you're sitting in my meeting and you're
coming unglued, and you're sitting in a room full of alcoholics.
We don't know what's going on. Hell, we've been sober
six months. Why you look like you're coming unglued? He is,
he's going through second third stage detox. He's coming undone.

(01:25:51):
But we don't know that because we're not pilladics, and
we've allowed him to stay in the same room with us.
We should have sat down and qualified him in sure
he got in the right room. We could still be friends.
You'll understand it. This idea that if you're an alcoholic
anonymous you can help everybody just ridiculous. I had a
lady the other day, when you talk to me about kids,

(01:26:12):
are you nuts? I don't know nothing about no birth
and babies don't want to either. Don't want to. They
asked me, I'm gonna show you something real quick here
and that you guys do want. And in the AA

(01:26:33):
book before AA messed around and lost our copyright or
gave it away. In the front of our book, some
of you guys, I saw a cat in here that
had a third edition had a little circle triangle on
the title page of the book. There's a circling triangle,
and there's not there now on the fourth edition. Don't
bother the look because it's not there. But I've got
a rubbish stamp and I can stamp it right back
where it used to be. It's just one of those

(01:26:54):
things we do. One of the one of the one
of the the problems of it is that AA was
going to save themselves a bunch of money trying to
battle the litigations, the copyright infringements using that circle triangle.
The drunk junk guys were the stickers and stuff, and
so they were gonna anyway. They just they took it out.
But the old timers used to use that circle triangle
to make sure we were in all three parts of

(01:27:15):
the program. And I can show you when I stand
for your little book, but it talks about the recovery
is always on the bottom, and then unity and then
services on the side. It's a three part narcotics. Anonymous
has a circle in Diamond that talks about the same
basic stuff. Go with me. It's three different parts of
the program to treat a three different parts of the disease, body, mind, spirit.

(01:27:37):
And I can show you up here, but with a
newcomer or with an old timer. This is what we
use to help everybody stay on the same page with
me and an accountability group instead of sitting down and
listening to you ad nausea and tell me about your
pathetically boring life one more time. All I'm interested in
is knowing is are you in all three parts of
this program? They'll follow me that offended some of you.

(01:27:59):
I know, I know. I'm sorry. Your life is fascinating
and you're a beautiful child, oh God, and we're glad
you're here. Do they have Barney in Canada? Yeah? Yeah,

(01:28:21):
Recover Unity service. Okay, So what they did with me
that night is they said, Chris, I said, I don't
know why I can't stay sober. I've been around AA
long time, blah blah blah, can't stay sober. And he said, Chris,
it's easy to find out. I'm gonna show you right now,
and then you guys can turn around and show the
guys that you sponsored how to do this too, because
it's just real simple. If you're in all three parts
of the program, you will not relapse. I don't give
a rats, but what happens on the little exes on

(01:28:43):
issue man on the outside, everybody wants to focus on that.
People in treatment come in there believing that if they
can fix all the exes that they can stay sober.
That's a damn lie, and we kill people by telling
them That'll y'all understand that I could stay sober if
my wife stays. But you know, it may be God's
will that that wife goes away, way far away, you
know what I'm saying. But a lot of us, you

(01:29:03):
know what, we're afraid of the change we did. You
talk two hours just about that. We're afraid to make
the changes and the hard decisions in sobriety. The whole
purpose of working the steps is get spiritually connected. So
God tells us what to do. God starts to tell
us what to do, and you start questioning it. Well,
I don't know. I've had that job for sixteen years.
I don't know. I don't think I should leave it. Well,
why don't we talk about it? Are you been happy
at that job? I hate that son of a bitch,

(01:29:26):
But you want to argue you're right to stay there.
Do you think God wants you at a job that
you can't stand? That's your crap, not God's. You'll follow me, buddy,
I'm gonna tell you what my first sponsor said it.
He said, when God closes the door, he's gonna open
a window. But it's hell in the hallway. You'll follow.

(01:29:46):
And some of you guys, that's where you are. You've
gotten sober and you're hiding in the hallway and it's
time to enter a room and you're afraid to do it. Man,
let me help you because you need to get on
with this living thing. Some of you guys are put
your life on hold waiting for somebody else to change.
Guess what if they were gonna change, they would have
already done it. Okay, Recovery Unity service. The recovery is

(01:30:10):
the is, the is the basics. He asked me that
night he said, Chris, what's recovery. I don't know, Media,
I don't know, he said, obviously, recovery is the twelve steps.
Y'all agree, twelve steps. This only thing we have to sell,
twelve steps. So let me ask you a question. Did
you do the twelve steps? If the question at the

(01:30:30):
time being an AA for seven years, I said, well,
I'm working the step to the best of my ability,
which translates to no. He said, because next time we
ask you this, ah, yes or no questions, so there's
no trick questions here, yes or no. Did you work
all the steps? No? And he took a little X

(01:30:51):
and did a little X on my deal like that,
which I didn't appreciate it. I'm very tasked for you
into that. I got a check. I'm okay. I got
an X. I'm not okay. He said, what's this next piece?
This unity says, what's this? What's this unity thing? I said, well,
it's the fellowship. I guess it's the meeting. He said, excellent,
are you going to meeting a meeting? Maker? Make it?

(01:31:12):
And he put a chat. I'll give you that one.
He said, what's this service? On the on the other
side of the triangle here, what's aa service? We only
have one primary purpose, and that's to carry the message
of hope to the newcomer you follow. We take our

(01:31:32):
awakened spirit and we help another person stay sober. That's
what that's a service that we carry. Oh, but you
haven't worked the twelve steps, so you have no message
to carry it. And he put another X on it. Oh,
I was not having a fun time at this, y'all junction. Y'all,

(01:31:53):
I understand. I mean, I'm pissed. Do you remember me,
the most important person here and you're shaming me? I
love that term. You're shaming me? Oh my god. If
you said Chris, we're just trying to show you in
a three part program designed to tree to treat a
three part disease, you're in exactly one part. And you wonder,
take a three legged stool, start cutting legs off and
see how long you could cut one leg off and

(01:32:15):
balance on two legs. Maybe, but you cut two legs off,
it's not gonna be long. You're gonna be fall on
your skinny little butt. Yeah, you need to get in
all three parts of the program, and we watch, guys.
I can have any patient that walks back into that
hospital for our work, and I can ask them these
questions right here the relapses, and we can go directly
to why you relapse. Guy comes in, buddy man, welcome

(01:32:36):
back and saw you about eight months ago. You sure
got banged up? Are you okay?

Speaker 2 (01:32:40):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:32:40):
Huh? What happened? My wife left? You're a liar. I
didn't ask what happened in your life? I said, what
happened to cause you to drink? I told you my
wife left. Open your book. Remember that rubber stamp I
put in there last time that you got and never bothered.
Look out again. Obviously, let's go back through the three

(01:33:03):
parts and find out where you're at. You know, with us.
Every single time I can find a spot on that
breed legged stool that they've cut parts off. Have just
you're with us. They're either heavy in service and haven't
worked their own program. Whey, they're not working any of
the steps with me, and all they're doing is trying
to live in meetingland. Either way, it won't work. How

(01:33:23):
many circuit speakers I travel around, Guys, I've been speaking
from the podium since almost I got sober two or
three years in I started speaking and really active on
this stuff the last ten years. How many circuit speakers
do you think I've watched relapse people that we share
podiums with. I could start naming your names right now
that you know and love that have relapsed. Why Why
could they stand from the podium and do what we're
doing here and fall on their butts? Why because they

(01:33:46):
didn't do the same thing the little brand new knucklehead
has to do. Y'all understand, there are no gurus in
AA where all people suffering from a spiritual illness that
needs to be treated. And if I stop doing those things,
if I start thinking I'm too cool and I don't
need to sponsor anybody now, I don't need to work
the steps myself, And what's gonna happen. The obsession to
use is gonna return. You will follow, and my head's

(01:34:09):
gonna say you you can take a drink. I don't
have a choice whether I'm gonna drink both. I have
a choice for whether I'm gonna stay in all three
parts of the program. Y'all cool with that? Just about
the first step and this thing about choice, any of
y'all got questions on that? Real quick? We'll bust up
for lunch here, and just to say, anybody got questions
around this first step stuff? In everything I talk about

(01:34:34):
guys about working the steps, I'm not a stickler for
how you work the steps. I don't think Bill Wilson
gave a rats. But if you did a three column
inventory or four column inventory and extended eight column inventory,
I don't think it really cares. Whatever floats your boat
as far as I'm concerned. It works for me. Y'all
with me. But I think that around this first step,
you've got to understand. There's one hundred pages that explains

(01:34:54):
all twelve steps in the Big Book, sixty of those
pages for about the first step. And yet we have
people coming into treatment. Well, Bobby, by the time you
got here, you had your first step, You've already done that.
Let's move on. They haven't done jack except add on
a whole bunch of drama to their life. But they
don't understand what it means to be alcoholic. Bill Wilson
talks about it in a Vision for You. He talks

(01:35:14):
about doctor Bob. He said, doctor Bob had much knowledge
about himself as an alcoholic, but he didn't really understand
what it meant to be an alcoholic. He knew he
had a problem with alcohol. That that's light years away
from knowing that he's got a fatal illness. Go with
us physical allergy, mental obsession. That's where we have to
go with thisy cool, anybody got a question, he's just frozen.

(01:35:40):
This is the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:35:41):
We just can't do that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:44):
Let's let's do that. If we're gonna pass the basket
for the selling, you're gonna do that. You're gonna do
it at the beginning. Yeah, we did this in ice.

Speaker 4 (01:35:54):
Some one's I'm not realizing that all the page numbers
were different. All that's brilliant handing on my part was
right up there into those who were unable to drink
moderately with drug moderately. The questions how to stop altogether,
we're assuming the first as the reader desters to stop.

Speaker 5 (01:36:13):
Group stop right there now. One of my jobs is
as sponsors.

Speaker 1 (01:36:16):
One of the things we're going to talk about this
afternoon in one of these little sessions is some sponsorship
stuff and working with others.

Speaker 5 (01:36:22):
One of my main jobs, like the first job, just.

Speaker 1 (01:36:26):
The coolest things about the breaks besides y'all get a
chance to go smoke and pee, is that we get
a chance to visit and talk a little bit, and
it's like, you know, we're limited time here. We want
to keep this short sweet, so y'all can have some
day to do what you want to go do too,
And we want to cover some stuff, some of the questions,
some of the things you're you're commenting on rings true,
and I want to touch that real quick and then

(01:36:47):
we're gonna fly through this hour. This is going to
be a be a quick hour because we're going to
talk specifically about the steps and some thoughts again in
case anybody came in late. A lot of you guys,
I know somebody coming just for the food and and
I don't have a problem in the world with that.
But I'm here to share some experience with the steps
and sponsorship and UH and the and the program of

(01:37:10):
recovery from my perspective, my point of view, years working
in the treatment center industry, in years trying to get
sober and not being able to get sober. So I
do I get lots of emails from lots of people
around the world, and a lot of you guys, I
mean you truly do share my story, the same kind
of story. And we didn't all get to this fellowship
and get well real quick, and some of us have

(01:37:30):
really struggled. You know, if somebody's struggling because they just
simply refuse to do the work, then I you know, okay,
let's just get with it. But if somebody is struggling
because they haven't been told all the information they need
to get well, and shame on us as a fellowship.
I know that sounds harsh, but there's this idea around

(01:37:51):
our fellowships that if you're gonna get well, you're gonna
get well no matter what you hear. That's just crap.
I mean, that's just absolutely rubbish. If you're the real
McCoy and you want to get well, you better have
the tools laid out in front of you and to
know what to do. Why should some of us spend
years suffering before we finally get to hear the solution.
Everybody wants to let everybody off the hook, and I

(01:38:11):
get a little tired of that. I think that there's
a gazillion musks in the book and there's some rigidity
to it, and the closer you want to get to
God there that you're just going to have to do
some things. I mentioned earlier about the little issue man pins.
A lot of you guys want to talk about that
and visits. A lot of you people in this room
are on the same page of me. Y'all understand, I'm
want to repeat myself one more time. I am not

(01:38:34):
saying your issues are not important. You guys who are
so you mean? Some of you guys have been hurt
and you've been traumatized deeply, and you believe that's who
you are, and I am so sad for you because
that is not who you are. And if you want
to continue to milk that crap until the day you die,

(01:38:54):
go ahead, and you can be mad at me in
the process, but it's going to block you from the
sunlight of spirit till the day you die. God is
not going to be able to use you unless you
get through what's kicking your butt. And some of you guys,
it's the alcohol and drugs, and some of you it's
childhood trauma, and some of you it's abuse. And I'm
not making light And don't think for a second that
I make in light of any of that. If all

(01:39:14):
needs to be addressed, but it's gonna be addressed before
you can help anybody else, you've got to get through
it yourself. You'll follow. That's what the twelve steps will answer.
If you don't think there's a god, I guarantee you.
Let's work the twelve steps and you're gonna get there.
Somebody took exception with my comments about depression. I'm going
to tell you something, folks. The word depression elicits attention

(01:39:35):
from people. Is it depression or is it self pity?
Because it looks a lot alike. Y'all with us on
this one. Those of us that have suffered from real
clinical depression in a fetal position underneath the bed, not
being able to get out of the house, understand what
that's about self pity. You can just milk that just
so long, and the people around you will say, you
know what, why don't you go outside and feel sorry

(01:39:57):
for yourself? If we're sick and tired of listening to
your crap in here with us. That's all I'm saying.
Self pity is what kills alcoholics and addicts. Big Book
says resentments are number one offendive read on what it
says is as it's disguised, as it comes out. As
with most of us, self pity makes sense, and why
I can see it is because I are one. I'm

(01:40:19):
gonna tell you, I'm the I said I didn't have
a tattoo. If you look under my shirt, it's a
big b you know, big victim. I'm the victim boy. Yeah,
y'all laugh. You don't know what it's You don't know
what it's like. I patch you. And why do we

(01:40:42):
do it? Why don't we hang on to it? Because
it works. I can pull that line on it. I
guarantee it. If I did it in here, I could
get the sympathy that I needed. I could borrow some
money and get laid. I guarantee you it wouldn't be
much money, and she probably wouldn't be real pretty. But
but why do we keep using the same old, tried
and true stuff as we do it? Because it works

(01:41:05):
yo with us. It's just like my first sponsor gave
me permission to be happy. You know, it's okay to
come into a meeting and ship. I mean, God, there's
so many people out here and talk to this says God.
Damn Chris. My life's on fire, and I'm just I'm
loving everything about my life. And I said, buddy, I
heard you in the meeting and you didn't open a mouth,
I said, buddy, I just I'm embarrassed to share how
good it is. Oh man, we have screwed up. We've

(01:41:26):
gotten so far off the page it's not even funny
aa ca. All of our twelve step fellowships should be
a pep rower. We're not supposed to be a guy thing,
dumping ground for people's problems, a little junior therapy session,
a pissing and moaning group. I mean, guy's life is
tough enough. I want to come for an hour and
hear that all the cool stuff that's going on, the
miracles that you guys are walking through, the illnesses that

(01:41:48):
you're walking through, the financial stuff that you're walking through,
you're coming out the other side. That's the stuff. We're
going to share it with a newcomer and pull them
with our vision. You can't share it, you can get past.
If that's all I'm that's all I'm going to say.
Once I sit down with a guy and we talk
to him, I get some parameters around him. We're not
going to do a whole sponsorship deal, but I just

(01:42:10):
I want to make sure I'm qualifying a guy if
the guy wants to get sober. I'm going to help him.
If the guy has any inkling that he doesn't want
to get sober, and the Big Book calls it a
lurking notion'll know what. On page I think it's thirty
three in the book, he says, if you've got a
lurking notion that your case is different than we need
to talk about it, because the lurking notion looks like this.
I can stay sober for a while until I get
off fation, and then I'm going to drink again. Well,

(01:42:30):
I don't want to mess with you, because if that's
where you're going with this, I'm not going to take time. Well,
if you don't work with him, he might die, that's fine,
but he's going to die on somebody else's watch. He's
not going to die on mine. I don't have time
to mess with somebody that's not done, and it's not
my job to make sure you're done. I had a
call from a lady I've told this story because it
happens all the time. He wanted me to come talk

(01:42:51):
to her son, he says, And he says, I think
he's ready to get sober. And I walked into his
living room and I said, little brother, you want to
get sober. Yeah, you've done. You're finished with a cocaine.
You don't believe it because you want to get sober.
You want to try something different. Well, I'm not real shirt. Come,
aunt left, left the room, lady chased me out in
the parking lot, pissed mad. What kind of tors strip call?
Was that? A successful one? I stayed sober and I

(01:43:16):
didn't piss him off and didn't try to jam this
down in his throat. Makes sense. This is a program
of attraction. Me trying to talk him into getting sober
ain't attractive. Go with us. That's why one of the
little things I have to talk to you guys about
in the next hour. With a little big book comfort,
you know, it's like sometimes we have a tendency to
get a little rough with this big book. A lot
of you guys in here, we know enough of this

(01:43:37):
book to be dangerous. We walk in and somebody quote
this quotes a page you know well, and we eat
their butts. You know, you're off the page, and you know,
all right, man, we don't want we only thing we're
doing is looking like idiots when we do that. We're
not supposed to do that. We love them tolerance, take
him out back and beat them up. No, I'm just kidding, OK.

(01:44:00):
I wanted to show you something real quick. I was
going through some archivel stuff this summer. The guy that
brought Alcoholics Anonymous to Texas was a guy named Larry Jewel,
and in nineteen forty he started corresponding back with Ruth
Hawk in New York. And if this little archival piece
I have is just is a compilation of correspondence between
Larry and the first guys that started AA in Texas

(01:44:23):
and New York, with Bill Wilson and those guys. But
in one of these letters, it was in nineteen forty,
and I remember that this is a year after the
Big Book was published in the first edition. In this letter,
he says, I stuck to the principle. This is Larry
Jewel talking. I stuck to the principle that this is
strictly a spiritual business, and did so against great odds,

(01:44:43):
even to the extent of telling those who were inclined
to diminish the importance of that principle that our group
was not for them, though they were welcome to his friends.
We mean business. We run in this thing for fun.
Damn Old Larry was a thumper. But we think the
message was all broughted down because of the treatment centers.

(01:45:04):
Everybody want to blame the Trenthmanent Center. So this is
long time. Forty treatment centers that ever started that nineteen forty.
But already in a year after the Big Book was published,
they were already catching resistance to the spiritual solution. Because
I'm just trying to say, guys, y'all get ready because
in the trench you're going to take some heat. If
what you have to offer is a spiritual solution for alcoholism,

(01:45:25):
and you understand that, and you believe that, and you're
telling somebody else something different, you better look at what
you're doing. The steps were intended to help bring about
a spiritual experience. Again, I've just said it a thousand
times this morning. This is not a self help program.
Bill Wilson wrote, if you want to see a copy
of this letter, it's a night. It's in as Bell
sees it. You wrote this letter in nineteen sixty six.

(01:45:46):
That was five years before we passed away. The AA
preoccupation of this sobriety is sometimes misunderstood, but you all
agree in an AA that we have a misconception that
if this is all about just not drinking, I mean,
we'll pick up any periodical or any piece of AA
literature and that's what it talks about. All you have

(01:46:06):
to do is stays over today. That's not true. That's
not what this was about. Subsequent AA literature talks about that,
but the big Book didn't. Bill Wilson in nineteen sixty
six knew it was. To some the single virtue seems
to be the sole vivid end of our fellowship. We

(01:46:26):
were thought to be dried up drunks who otherwise have
changed little or not at all for the better. Such
a surmise why they misses the truth. We know that
here it is. We know that permanent sobriety can be
attained only by a most revolutionary change in the life
and outlook of the individual, by a spiritual awakening that
can banish the desire to drink. If we, as a

(01:46:50):
fellowship in any of our are are carrying a message
that doesn't include that, we're off the page. And I
know that some of you in here got sobered without
the spiritual experience, and I know you believe it's you're
right to carry that message to somebody else. But my
concern is that you squeeped under the door half measures

(01:47:11):
middle of the road, but you assume that the the
little guy next to you is going to be able
to do the same thing. And I just get tired
of We talked about it earlier. Everybody just wants to
wring your hands. When you guys go out and kill yourself,
jump off a bridge, get killed in a car wreck,
We bury you and then somebody sits back in the back. Well,
you know, the truth of the matter is that the
little bastard just didn't want it. Well wait a minute,

(01:47:32):
who was it that told him that all he had
to do is just go to a meeting and everything
was going to be okay. I can't fix you. I
wish I could. God can fix you. That spiritual experience.
Once I qualify a guy and I give him a
case of alcoholism and drug addiction and he's got a

(01:47:54):
little tension around him, the first step experience is as
uncomfortable as hell. I hear peoples one guess one, I'm
an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic. You're not there yet. I've
been in the room when people were diagnosed with terminal cancer,
you know, and you could just feel the air leave
the room. That's a diagnosis of alcoholism and drugudicction, folks.

(01:48:15):
And you're sitting in there, you get uncomfortable with this.
You sit with it. It's not fun. And that's what
propels you through the rest of the steps. Is this
discomfort around the first step experience with us. If you've
got a lurking notion, guy comes back in after nine
months and he hasn't worked the steps, I think I
didn't make my amends properly. That's not it. You didn't

(01:48:39):
understand first step. It's always about first step, because if
you understand first step, you'll do whatever it takes to
make those damn amends you with us. That one amend
you know, guys, that you're not gonna make because nobody's
gonna ever find out about it anyway, the one you're
gonna drink over eventually, if you think you're really an alcoholic,
making that amend to be like kissing a baby's But

(01:48:59):
compare with what you're fixing the face makes sense. It's
always about first step. Do I really think that I
can get by without working the rest of these steps?
Talked to a lady yesterday coming from Houston, and she's
been sitting on a four step. I'm still working on
that old four step. Giggle, giggle, but I'm gonna get
to it one of these days. I says, Honey, you've
been out of treatment eight months. You had a nearly

(01:49:21):
completed four step when you left our hospital, and now
eight months later you're still sitting on it. You're gonna die.
You think that you've got something to do with whether
you drink or not you follow. She thinks she's got
a choice because she's been sitting on a stupid fourth step. Well,
I didn't understand it. I had questions about it. Eight

(01:49:42):
months you've had questions about it, and you didn't ask
those questions. You understand God? First step step is what
we gotta get. Second step, well that's the guy. Are
you willing to believe that there's a power out there
greater than yourself? Nine times out of ten, the guy says, yep,
probably is next man. I go to these second and

(01:50:04):
third step meetings and listen to you guys, and you
just that's all you want to talk about. Well, when
I got to alcoholics Anonymous, I hated God and I
didn't want anything to do with God and then shut up?
Who cares what we were killed? The book says over
half of us didn't have a problem with God. You
were this. He says, half of us did, half of
us didn't. But we need to hear it in our meetings.

(01:50:25):
Everybody's had a problem with God. I didn't have. I
meant out the dumpsters in nineteen seventy six in Houston, Texas,
and I know, damn goodwill that God's there with me,
but I can't stop drinking. Y'all understand I didn't have
a problem with that. So why aren't we going to
waste any time talking about it? I want you to
write a conception of what you think God is. If
I have a problem, let's do that little exercise. If
I don't have a problem, we're wasting time. Second step

(01:50:49):
is one question, do you believe there's a power out
there greater than yourself? It's a yes or no question, dammit? Yes?
All right, let's go. Third step. Are you willing to
make that power a part of your life? Are you
willing to give some cause, some control over to this power? Yeah,
cause we've done such a great job ourselves. Uh, I mean,

(01:51:15):
it's just it's a It's hilarious to sit with a
newcomer and watch them try to justify why. You know,
I mean, you've done such a great job. I mean
good heavens I understand that. Can you imagine with the
power of God with you. The book says in the
chapter of the Agnostics, lack of power that's the dilemma.
Doesn't say lack of power on the alcohol and dope
that's a part of it. Lack of power in all
the areas of my life, you know, with us. I

(01:51:35):
want I'm wanna move away from this. I wanna point
something out. You see that little word that says unmanageable.
They're not talking about your external world. They're talking about
what's going on inside. Let me ask you the questions
we always do. How many of you guys bank and
dog when life was great? How many way it was
really really crappy when you had lots of money, not

(01:51:58):
I've popped up it? Yeah good looking girl? Yeah no girl, yeah,
very kind. You have to blow up. I know, I know,
and we all laugh about it, guys, but see that's
the deal, and say we all laugh about it, and
we say, yeah, you know that's right because the unmanageability

(01:52:20):
that the book is talking about. The second step stuff
is in the lack of power is about the unmanageability inside.
You keep chasing that idea that everything out here is
gonna get back. I can get sober if I can
finally make some money, I can get sober. If you
finally marry me with me, I can get so over.
If we can finally have babies, I can get sober.
If we can just shoot those babies, I can get sober.
We can just I hear it all the time, go

(01:52:42):
with us. It is always waiting on something else to change.
The good news is nobody out there has to change
for you to get sober. The questions of this, are
you willing to let that power? But I don't know
about that power. I don't know what that power looks
like me neither answer the damn question. You speak well,

(01:53:04):
But so many people got killed in thee in the
wars and the Christian I didn't ask you if you
wanted to be a Christian. I asked you if you
were willing to believe in the power greater than yourself
and willing to let that power help you stay sober? Yes,
or damn it? No, Well, I'm just not sure. Thank you, baby.
Did you hear what she said? Move on? That's exactly

(01:53:25):
what I do. No go read this, No go read that. No,
let's talk about it tomorrow. God die. And some of
you are irritated. Well, my sponsor worked with me for
months on this. Good for you, and she missed a
hundred other drunks she could be working with while she

(01:53:46):
was trying to baby you. You either what what we
got or we or you don't. This is about the
spiritual experience. The follow Some of y'all are getting so uncomfortable. Oh,
I love it when you have your spiritual experience that
you're fixing the have because I pished you off. You're
gonna You're gonna send me so much money, okay, Third

(01:54:08):
step prayer. We take them to them, We talk to
them seriously. We're looking paid sixty two with the new guy,
and we say, selfish and self centeredness. That's the root
of the problems, are y'all with me? The root of
the problem is not alcohol and dope. The root of
the problem is that I'm selfish and self centered to
the core. You'll follows people. I want to take exception
with that. If the bottles with the symptoms. The dope
is the symptom. It's the selfish and self centered. If
I could just get out of my head, I could

(01:54:29):
experience the beauty of this world. But I can't because
I'm too a bunch of ingrown hairs. Not a pretty side,
is it? Oh yeah? And then we look at the
prayer and paid sixty what is sixty three? And we
we go this little prayer with him, and I explain
it to them, says God, is I'm gonna offer myself
to you the bill would me and do with me
as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self.

(01:54:52):
You see it there again in the second page. It
says it, we leave me of the bondage of self,
not we leave me in the bondage of crack cocaine.
Self is what's got me that I might better do.
Thy will take away my difficulties. That victory over those
difficulties can bear witness to those I would help. You'll
see what they're saying. He's saying that all God's kids
got troubles, and every one of us are gonna We're

(01:55:12):
gonna let God take us to a different spot. And
then we're gonna turn around and get our little butts
back in the meeting, and we're gonna start sharing that meetings.
We're gonna start talking about it from the podium about
how cool life is in sobriety. Listen, guys, because this
is exactly what it's gotta be. I listen to your
stories when you come up afterwards, and we just get
the hug next and I get to watch you walk

(01:55:32):
through that HEPSI and the and the treatments, and the
and the and the and the and the financial difficulties
and the molestations and the rapes. Good. That's what God's
gonna do with us. He's gonna allow us to bear
witness to what happened in our lives. And all of you.
You don't have to have a story like me or
a story like You've got your own story. God's gonna
use it. That next hour we're gonna we're gonna talk

(01:55:54):
about it. And that's all the book is trying to
tell us is that God's gonna remove your difficulties, so
victory over those can bear witness to those that you're
gonna help God. What a cool prayer. We found it
desirable to do the spiritual step with an understanding person.
Do it with whoever you want, to do it by
yourself if you have to. But the bottom line is
do it well. My sponsor had me get on my knees.

(01:56:15):
That's great. Some people don't want to do that. I
don't care. Say. The prayer wording is option the cool
here's the key piece everybody wants to miss. I did
a third step prayer. Next we launched out on a
course of vigorous action. First step is personal house cleaning.
We get up up on our knees from doing a
third step prayer. We've given our life to God. Say okay, baby,
what are we going to do with it? Now? We

(01:56:36):
need to do a little inventory. We find out while
we can discard, we need to move on. Get with
the inventory. He's talking to a guy. I've talked to
some of you about it. I was over in Seattle
doing the talking, and my talk was on a Saturday,
and we went over to listen to this old geezer
talk on a Friday night and of this Indian reservation.
He's passed away now. He was sober forty plus years.

(01:56:57):
Bill was his name. He's just the nicest guy, but
he talks about getting sobered, and he talks about on
his third day of sobriety, he's out there working in
a logging clearing out there, and his sponsor drives up
in an old car and hands him in noble and
says it's time to start working on a four step.
And there was two hundred people in the room and
everybody just busted out laughing. You'd have thought he told
the funniest aa joke on the world. And I'm looking
at the guys, I'm with all little bumpers, and we're saying,

(01:57:19):
what the hell's funny about that? It's exactly what we're
supposed to do. Everybody has this misunderstanding, this misgiving about
what the fourth step is. About four steps and inventory folks,
treatment centers want to drag this out. I've got an
eighty page four step guide on my desk right now,
eighty I'd send it to you, but I couldn't afford

(01:57:40):
the postage. Oh my god, can you imagine a little
fried pie coming back in the little blipps all burn
up and a crack pipe and all this nutcase and
you drop an eighty page guide. Well, here, let's get
started on this four step you know, just forget it.
I don't want to go drink. That is is nuts.
It's an inventory. It's supposed to be done on the
You could do it on a couple of little pieces
of paper. You'll follow. The guy that has ten resentments

(01:58:05):
is going to do a successful inventory. The guy that
has two hundred resentment that's fine. But guys, we gotta
get serious about this. You say a little prayer, said, God,
show me who I'm pissed at. I can do this.
I can do this, and then you write down names down.
I even even followed some of these people in thirty years.
You're not pissed at these people. Why are you writing this?
This is not an exercise in writing. I want to

(01:58:26):
see the current stuff, the herb, the job you wid me,
the people at work. AA. I want to see you.
I want to see some names on there that we
can dig our TV. I don't know what my second
grade coach. Oh, y'all know what the Trump couch broke means.
It means it's two body too deep in therapy and

(01:58:49):
everybody's out to get me and my second grade coach,
and I'll be carrying it for fifty years. You're a pussy.
Now you can put me on the inventory. Let's move on.
Really had more time we could do this because it
takes a little time, and I'm not gonna spend a
lot of the intercause he's in it. But it's pretty simple.
I make a list of the people I'm pissed at.

(01:59:09):
Second column. Why am I pissed at these people? Now,
I gotta be honest about it by lying the second column,
I'm gonna lie in the last column. That's the way
it works. Gotta get honest. Third columns pages on. That
shows you areas that are affected by my resentments. You
with us, these actions of course column I'm looking at
my part, all those inventories. Just help me see my
part so I can get free of this victim craft.

(01:59:29):
You with us. I don't want to hear one single
question about that. Well what about me? I was molested?
This is let me tell your point blank. I'm not
saying that you've caused it. I'm saying, if you can
see your part in it, how long did you carry
that without telling anybody? Thirty years? That's your part. Bless
your heart.

Speaker 5 (01:59:45):
Move on.

Speaker 1 (01:59:49):
We're not gonna spend any more time on that than
we're all to the next door nator that keeps getting
your newspaper. No, I'm not making light of that. I'm
saying this is not therapy. We're making a list. You're
with us of the resentments. Also, I'm gonna make a
point that seems to be a one a misconception that
we don't put our name on there. The book tells
me to put my name on the list, my inventory.

(02:00:11):
It says sometimes it was remorse, and then we were
soared ourselves. Some of you guys, hear your own worst enemy.
You can't see the sunlight of the spirit because you're
too busy beating your own self up, and you need
get to get to a spot where you stop resenting yourself.
You're gonna do that the same way you're gonna get
You're gonna stop resenting your ex husband. You're gonna put
his damn name in the first column and do this
inventory work. It's the most freeing fun thing you'll ever do.

(02:00:35):
But we paint this picture in all of our fellowships
that it's a truck. You go into any meeting tonight
say I'm working on a four step, and everybody will go, oh,
that was torture. I worked on mine for six years,
and then is there any wonder that nobody wants to
attack it? You'll follow. It's something to be done quickly. Guys.

(02:00:58):
When I'm sponsoring a guy, I gotta get him in there.
We're gonna get up from the third step prayer. I'm
gonna hug his neck. I'm gonna give him instructions on
how to do a fourth step, and I'm gonna walking
straight through it and says, oh, by the way, a
week from today, we're doing your fifth step. Period. Well,
I don't think I can do it. Well. This started
out well, but it's ending bad. I'll see you later.

(02:01:19):
Y'all understand. I'm not gonna give him time to sit
there and stewing this as we watch the hundreds and
thousands of you people relapse around the fourth step. Why
because some sponsor that doesn't have time to mess with
you anyway, is letting you swim in your own juices.
Don't let them stew in that stuff. We're gonna make
a list. We're gonna look at this stuff. I'm gonna
help them see their part in the fourth column. They're
gonna get free. We're gonna do a little two column theory. Inventory.

(02:01:42):
Why do I got the fear and why do I
think I got it? It's because I'm depending on something
besides God. That's why I'm gonna look at my sex inventory.
Sex inventory, guys, there's nine questions in there to answer
around my relationships with the opposite stacks, you with me,
my relationship with you. If I'm doing a proper fourth step,
I could sit down and do a fifth step with you,
including my sex inventory, and you would never blush and
I would never bush because I'm talking about my behavior

(02:02:04):
towards women, and it ain't got jack to do with
pokey pokey. Everybody thinks that this fifth step is about confession.
It's not. This step is a piece of it. It's confession.
I need to tell you some secrets that I'm keeping
with me, But that's not all it is. Makes sense,
how do I treat women? See guys that have sitt

(02:02:25):
down to a fifth step them and they get all excited.
Oh goodie, now let's do the sex inventory. We're done here,
thank you, We're finished. If you wrote that crap down
the way you treated God's kids and you're excited about
talking about it, we are so not on the same page.
By buying now the follow. It's real simple, direct. It

(02:02:46):
takes you a week to knock it down. Finish it. Guys,
If you forget something on this and God brings it,
God says he will constantly reveal more to you six
months down the road. If you want to do another
little fourth step, fifth step and a year, I do
one once a year and do multiple fifth steps. I
sit down and do a fifth step with you, and
you do a piece with me, and then we go
do you and do thee and more people I get
to know and allow them to know me, the freer

(02:03:07):
I get. You'll follow. We've got a bunch of you
in here walking around on pens and needles because you're
still afraid somebody's gonna find out about that bad stuff.
Get free, you'll follow. Everybody thinks everybody's gonna be run
screaming from the room when we start reading Sponsor's prayer,
is this keep me awake, and God, please, if it's
not too much trouble, let me hear something different. Oh

(02:03:36):
my gosh, all right, we dump that old fifth step.
While you're doing a fifth step. I've got a piece
of paper lined out, and I've got an eighth step
list on there, and I've got a sixth step list.
You're with me. I usually got it on a divided
piece of paper. So what we're gonna do is, it
says an hour later, we're gonna get quiet with God.
We're gonna go back over the first proposals. We're gonna

(02:03:57):
make sure the stones are in place. Blah blah, yeah,
oh the drill. What we're gonna do is we're gonna
get quiet. We're gonna look at this business, and then
we're gonna go to God in six and seven and
ask God to remove the character defects. We got a
character defect list from the from the deal. As you're
telling me what you're doing resentments, I'm writing it down. Jealous,
you know, selfish. Anytime you're judging somebody, you're being selfish,

(02:04:17):
you follow. It's just that simple. I think I know
how the world's supposed to be now, fear, fool, greedy.
I'm dropping them down, you know, And I'm gonna use that.
And then while you're making this list, while you're telling
me your fifth step, I'm writing a little list of
my own about the people I think you might owe
amends to. Because you're telling me the people you hate
trust me. Usually, if you hate somebody you've done something

(02:04:38):
to you need to clean up your stuff, you know.
So I'm writing this down. We got a beginning eight
step list. By the time we finish that this step
cool hour later we do six and seven. Guys, God
removes the character defect. I become willing. I need to

(02:04:59):
know what I'm looking You follow with this stuff coming
back in the meetings with the guys. Guys, I'm working
on six and seven. I'm working on six and seven
GM in the need it's two paragraphs. What do you
practice being an asshole? I don't understand. I've seen some

(02:05:26):
deficiencies and I'm willing to go to God for those.
I asked God to remove them. You go with me.
I get up. I've got my eight step list. I
sit down with my sponsor again, and I'm my little sponsee.
We're working together. I'm gonna help you organize your amends.
We're gonna look at all the amens. Which ones can
we do now? Which ones do we need to put
off for a couple of weeks days, I don't know whatever.
Initially now everybody wants to but all we want to

(02:05:47):
do is we want to make our first approach. We
got cats in this room right now that have been
sober a lot of years. They still have financial amends
they're not making. And I know that because it's frustrating,
because a lot of us are in debt and we
can't go right a big old fact check. That's what
I want to do. Here's your twenty thousand dollars. But
you know what, when it push come to shove, that
old boy that I owed the money to, he would
take ten dollars a week until it got paid off

(02:06:09):
over nothing, But I'd hit from him for three years
because I was unwilling to do that. You follow, you
want the results of the amends, make your first approach,
and then don't back down from it. If you tell
that credit card company you're going to send them five
dollars a month, send them five dollars a month, and
you go hungry before you don't send them five hundred

(02:06:29):
five dollars a month. And it's my job as a
sponsors to help you organize your amends so we can
start making those damn things. It's not an option. I
watch people relapse around these all day long. You follow
talking to a buddy of mine the other day had
a position open for him. This was the job he'd
been looking for forever and ever. He's seven years sober,
and we sat down with it like this. He called

(02:06:50):
me before I left to get on the plane. He
called me and he says it got turned down for
the job. There was one little chicken ship piece of
stuff on his record that he knew about and didn't
clean up. Why because he didn't think anybody'd ever find
out about it. This was a high security job. They
knew about it, and it cost him a job. You
follow now, he's pissed way around. I needed that job.

(02:07:12):
Didn't God know where the men at it who made
a conscious choice to look the other way in this
little piece of dishonesty. I gotta tell you something, folks.
You do something to the world over here, it's gonna
come up and bite you in a butt over here.
The old expression is what goes around comes around. You
kick at the universe, it kicks back. Some of you

(02:07:34):
wonder why you're so unlucky because you putted some stuff
out there. You want to start cleaning it up with
some good stuff will start coming back around. And I
know there's a bunch of you in here that do
not believe that could think that's just hoky. I just
I've seen it too many times. Makes sense. Start cleaning
up the universe. I'll tell you a way I do it.
With these the men's we could talk two hours about this.

(02:07:56):
But I was in the food business, and they harmed
a lot of people, waitresses, bus boys, people, little and
I'm gonna cook and I've got the reins, and and
so you bring me beer, alcohol, whatever their orders get

(02:08:17):
you don't some of y'all all waitresses, y'all know, I'm sorry,
And but that's just it. I worked with thousands of
waitresses in my fifteen years in the food business. It's
no way I can go and make the personal amends
to some of those people. I could make because I
kept them as friends, I knew them, and I made
amends for my Brewish behavior. But the truth of the
matter is today I make a standing point until the
day I die to make amends to waitresses. If I

(02:08:38):
go into a restaurant and I don't have enough money
for the food and the tip, I don't go into
the restaurant. And I ain't talking about some little the
little little Measley can't can't tip. I'm talking. Oh, that's
here in Canada. That's real money, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:08:53):
Let me do that.

Speaker 1 (02:08:57):
That's every's dead. I don't know the first time I
came to Canada for a ceade like that, they were
passing the basket. They were drop it in, and I said,
like the chief bastards and coming. They were dropping in
ladies entities, and I'm thinking, I didn't know all the word money.
I thought it was this the But I'll tip to
a fault. And I guarantee you if if a waitress,
somebody cook gives me some food that I don't like,

(02:09:18):
I was just sit there, drives my wife crazy. Why
don't you send it back? Nope, because it'll take that
waitress's time and it will make her uncomfortable. And it's
not her fault. She didn't cook it. I'm just not
gonna eat it. Makes sense. You think that's stupid. No,
it's a way I can set the universe strength. Sooner
or later, you're gonna stop hurting people. Sooner or lady,
you're gonna stop hurting people. I'm gonna make these amends.

(02:09:46):
Then I'm gonna practice. While I'm making these amends. I'm
gonna practice the disciplines of ten, eleven, and twelve. We'll
follow tenth step stuff. Is this accountability piece, guys, It's
just not that complicated on a daily basis. I'm gonna
sit down and I'm going to look back over my day.
I do it in the morning, when I do it
at night, and I'm going to see where have I
been selfish and dishonest and fearful? Where am I? Where

(02:10:07):
am I off the page? Have I harmed anybody? Did
I cuss too much? Did I get too too snippy
with the guy at the at the at the at
the screen or at the airport? You'll follow did that
a few weeks ago, you know, sat down and did it.
The next day, I was back on the airport. I
made a point to go find it. He was on break.
He said, this guy wants to talk to you. I
went in there and I apologize for getting snippy with him.

(02:10:28):
He was just doing his job. You'll followed, Oh, Chris,
what differences make? He probably didn't even remember you. He
trusts me. He remembered me and also remembered the fact
that I came and made amends. And I was a
good example of that day with what I call it
synonymous was about I'm gonna say it again. Guy's going

(02:10:49):
to stop stirring up the universe, stop kicking up the mud.
We're gonna do this on a daily basis. When we
said it, the book says, when we when we were wrong,
we promptly admitted it. What is the word promptly mean
to y'all? Well, I'll pick it up when I when
I do in the inventory in six months, you know this.
It means now I'm gonna by my bed. I always

(02:11:10):
keep a little piece of paper and I write this
stuff down. The next day, I go and I clean
up the wreckage of my past, so I'm not carrying
all that crap around with me on a daily basis.
You'll follow send somebody in an email comes across, you
know how emails. Sometimes they misunderstand what you say in
an email. And it happens to me all the time
because I'm pretty short quick anyway, y'all send me an email.
Y'all do it all the time. Y'all send me just

(02:11:31):
page after page of emails, and I, you know, walk on,
but dude, love XO Chris Raymer send. I'm just don't
have time to answer. That kind of an email, you know,
except I'm proud of it. Go get them, you know,
and email me back. You know you were offended because
I didn't answer every little stupid thing that you know,
a comment on. But now I gotta go clean it

(02:11:51):
up and I take care of that. That's what we
do prayer and meditation, guys. We work the twelve steps
so that we can get a conscious contact with God.
I'll clear on that. So if we're not getting quiet
with God on a regular basis, what the hell are
we doing. I can't tell you how many people I
work with when I ask them about their eleven step

(02:12:13):
prayer stuff, I ask him, where do you pray? You
have a place in your house that you can go
to and be quiet, where the stupid dogs aren't eating
you and the kids are not you know what I'm saying.
A little place where you maybe you can read some
of your spiritual literature or just get quiet with God
for a few minutes. It's amazing to me how many
people don't have that. Where do you go to pray?
We're out in the garage? Why we aren't? When my

(02:12:34):
wife said me, oh, this is gonna be good. Let
me see if I can get this straight. You're begging
God on a daily basis to keep you sober and
give you the power to do life, and make you
some money and make you successful and keep you healthy.
But you're ashamed to let her know you're praying. Oh
God loves this. It's I s it swallows like the

(02:12:59):
ones that where do you meditate? Oh in the morning,
you know, doing my business. You know I'm in the
bathroom and I gotta get fired all that. God's gonna
appreciate you went out of your way for that little
quiet moments. I pray and meditate when I'm driving. Yeah,
so you're the guy driving six miles an hour out
there in the center lane. Come on, get quiet with God.

(02:13:21):
Turn the stupid TV off, get the iPod out of
your ear, and get quiet with God. It's in the
stillness that we get to hear God's word. Double amen.
But see, here's a problem. A bunch of you in
here not hearing God's word, and you're pissed about it.
But you're you're you're blocking you from that guidance. Guys,

(02:13:42):
come up to the hospital. I'm talking to my case manager.
I don't know what to do with about my marriage.
You know what she don't know either. She's never walked
a day in your shoes. You'll follow. You want to
go answer shop. You want to go answer shop with
everybody in the area. You want what you think I'll do?
What do you think I should do? I'm not saying
don't bounce it off people ahead, but ultimately the answer
is gonna come from God. You were this Every time

(02:14:03):
I do this, guys, I do dozens of these years
talking about the steps. Every time somebody will come up,
I promise it, come up and say yeah, like right,
like God's gonna tell you what to do, like you know,
like give you instructions, like yeah, God, of course, that's
exactly what dear Wilson and doctor Bob was talking about.

(02:14:24):
We need a spiritual experience were we need to get connected.
You read the tenth step promises and says we're gonna
be placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected.
You've not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed.
How cool is that some of his power starts to
flow in and you start to see that this is
about you think this is all about happy. You know,

(02:14:45):
some of us are just gonna be miserable. I have
a nice life. I don't know what to tell you. You
seem to have this all figured out. You've got it
forced before, You've got it all all in your mind
exactly how it's all gonna play out. Guy's not gonna
bring you anybody. It's not going to straighten at your credit.
He's not gonna help you in the health department. You're

(02:15:05):
just shit talking about contempt prior to investigation. But you
got to get quiet. You get quiet with God, guys,
and you've worked these other steps, You're gonna get some guidance.
Don't try this prayer meditation business until you get all
this other stuff cleaned out. Bible talks a lot about it.
Don't go to me and talk to me about stuff
you need when you've got hate for a man in

(02:15:27):
the in the rooms makes sense. You can't hate a
person on this earth and expect to be spiritually connected.
It's not gonna happen. The audacity about that. I need
to sum it up by just saying this. This program
is not about justice, and we got entirely too many
people in AA expecting this to be about justice. This
is about mercy, thank God. It's not about justice. This

(02:15:49):
room would be empty, we would be in We would
be God. I don't like gay people. You know what
You need to get straight with that. You need to
get your mind around this. You cannot appreciate their lifestyle,
but you can't be harboring ill feelings towards another entity.

(02:16:14):
You think you're spiritually connected is a bigot. You're not.
We sit in AA and you're allow it to happen
day in, day out. Makes sense. Guys in prayer, meditation,
the disciplines. Every day I get quiet and I look
at my life. Every day I spend quite time with God, prayer, meditation.

(02:16:35):
One of the guys in my sponsorship, Leonard's a guy
named Paul em up to Chicago and he spends he
spends forty five minutes an hour in the morning, forty
five minutes an hour at night meditating. Some of us
have full time jobs. We can't afford to do that much.
But he's on the right track. And I got to
tell you his life is his life is golden because
he spends quite time with God. You will know what
to do. Am I supposed to go back to school?

(02:16:57):
Am I supposed to Am I supposed to move to Texas.
You you ugly guys, stay here. We have enough of
you already done and everything. No, let's see.

Speaker 5 (02:17:08):
Well, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:17:09):
I don't know, but I do know if you get quiet,
God will start showing you. The other discipline, of course,
is is the is the piece that we don't talk
about near enough, and that's working with others. And Bill
Wilson is crystal clear about this business about working with others.
It's not an option. I wanna read something to you,
and then we're gonna take a quick break and we'll
finish up. Cause if we're gonna end up asking some
questions and we'll run over that hour, I wanna show

(02:17:31):
you something on page fourteen in the book. Bottom of
page fourteen, top page fifteen. I'm gonna take a chance
in private. I don't scald somebody by reading this, cause
I don't wanna do that. Bottom of page fourteen. This
is the s This is in Bill's story, Edie Thatcher,

(02:17:52):
the little guy that the little guy that uh twelve
step Bill Wilson is, he's talking about this roll and
Hazard snagged Ebby from the streets, took him to his house,
working through the twelve steps, and then it was six steps,
but the rudimentary spiritual principles, which was originally this first
center Christianity was just get off your butt and to

(02:18:12):
help somebody, basically what it was. And he worked these steps,
and Abbie got caught fired within a few weeks he
went and found Bill Wilson with us. He didn't set
down there Alino club and played dominoes and wait for
the drunk to come in the door. You know, he
went and looked for a drunk to work with because
he knew he had to just what it said, my
friend he's talking about. Abby had emphasized the absolute necessity

(02:18:34):
of demonstrating these principles, and all my affairs particularly was
an imperative to work with others as he had worked
with me. To see, that word imperative means you got
to do it. Faith without worse was dead, he said.
And how appallingly true for the alcoholic. If an alcoholic
fails to perfect it enlarge his spiritual life through work
and self sacrifice for others, he could not survive the

(02:18:55):
certain trials and low spots ahead. If he did not work,
he would surely drink again, and if he drank, he
would surely die. Then faith would be dead. Indeed with us,
it is just like that. To get it, He's saying,
if you want to grow spiritually it, you've got to
go work with others. We got too many people. I'll
tell you one of the big things in Texas down
the Bible belts. We've got a lot of people coming

(02:19:16):
into AA and a lot of these guys will start
realizing that actually, we're going to ask you to do
something in here, and so they say, you know what,
this is all spiritual in nature. I'm just going to
go back to my church. And I think it's a
great idea. I think all of us should go back
to our roots. If that's what we want to do,
go back to church. But you're still gonna have to
go work with a drunk. And if you don't work
with a drunk, go work with an old person. You

(02:19:36):
don't work with an old person, go find you a
sick one to work with. But you're gonna do something
to get out of your head. And it's not an option.
This is why a lot of people don't stay sober
in the church, because they go on Sunday morning, I
drop a twenty in the basket and they say, well,
I'm done what I'm supposed to do. No, no work
through self sacrifice. See, the cats that put this together,

(02:19:58):
that did all the leg work, gonna be blessed from that,
not just the obvious way they get to stay sober.
There'll be some other blessings attached. The people that sat
back there and made coffee all day long, the people
that are the end up cleaning the damn toilets after
we leave from this place. The people that work self
sacrifice for others, they're the ones that are going to
get blessed. But we paint this picture and alcoholics Anonymous

(02:20:19):
that this is some kind of an option. It's not.
That's what we got to talk about in the next hour.
Go over smoke. We'll be back back here. And he
had like eight years of sobriety, and he was our
go to guy down in the valley. And you need
cocaine anonymous, you need an AA contact down the valley,
and you call me and give mean Allen's number, because
it's he's he's active in the deal. He's worked the

(02:20:40):
steps we know he has because he's working with us.
He stays connected, really dropped off. He got a little
Pisson podcast for somebody in cocaine anonymo, I don't. They
had a little little disagreement, and how cool he solved
the disagreement by right to talk about the US twelve
steps and Lan Wang, I've been even relate it is.

(02:21:03):
I mean, I'm a big yeah, a lot of work,
but this is what I can't remember. And he so
he did, and he went home, and he's sharp, and
he goes to the church and he and yet gradually,
day by day the internal condition came back and started
kicking his butt. And he answered in his head was

(02:21:24):
about three years after he walked out of that meeting,
was I can smoke pot. And that's what he did,
and he led him back to the other stuff. And
now it's I don't know if it's been falling up.
He's he's very sick now physically, and it's I see
thousands of these sings. Alcoholism is progressive, it's genetically talked
about earlier, and it will get you eventually. What worked

(02:21:46):
for you ten years ago, I ain't necessarily going to
work with you today, which all need to hear about me.
And my story is that I worked with more guys
now than I ever did when I first got sober,
we'll follow. And it's like because I have to, as
I feel a sense of urgency to do it, some
responsibility to do it. But I want to stay connected.
And I got to tell you you were talking earlier

(02:22:07):
about this spiritual connection. I watching alcoholics anonymous, all of
our fellowships. I watch a bunch of us have the
same experience over and over with God. And there's nothing
wrong with that except that eventually it'll stop working for you.
My sponsor always says, Chris, I smell more, and that's
what I'm asking you, guys, I smell more. I don't

(02:22:30):
want to live out the experience that I had twenty
one years ago. I sat on the tailgrad of a
truck two weeks after I started doing the work and
cried in the presence of God, knowing that I was
safe and that I was protected. And that was a
pretty cool experience. But guys, I'm not living off that experience.
I remember it because I talk about it quite frequently.
But I'm excited about the experiences that I've had. Somebody

(02:22:53):
asked me about some spiritual reading, and I've spent some
time in airports, and I find myself in this last
year or two. Just you know, I mean being touched
by other literature, not just a stuff there's being pulled
in certain directions. Is a couple of years ago, I
made a decision that I wasn't gonna do this anymore.
I'm sick and tired of taking flat from people that

(02:23:14):
I didn't want to take flat from it. And you know,
just because you tell somebody the truth doesn't make you mean,
but it translates that way sometimes, you know what I'm saying.
I tell you something you don't want to hear it,
then I'm the bad guy. And yet the true friends
that we have in this world, the people that will

(02:23:35):
do that. My friends will tell me if I've got
a little booger in my nose, you know. But let's
face it, most of us will just snicker and look
the other way. You know, Oh my god, he's got
a booger in his dose. You know what. But some
of you guys, you you'll call a spade of fade.
And that's what we do. And we're not trying to
be mean or hurtful, but we're just you know, if
what you're doing is working for you, rock on. But

(02:23:58):
if it's not working for you, if you don't feel
like you're being fulfilled in the fellowship. If you're walking
into these meetings and you're just bored with AA, then
there's a problem there. Why don't we listen to this,
look at this spiritually, and let's let's fix the problem,
because that's what this is all about. This is spiritual growth,
is what Eddie was talking about. This is what Bill
was talking about. And I want to grow spiritually. I
don't want to stay the same. And God continues to man.

(02:24:21):
I'm sitting in the one of the books. Uh, there's
a book about homeless guys in Port Worth written by
the same difference as me, and he's written about this
this black guy that's the slave and he comes and
he's living on the street. And anyway, he becomes friends
with this guy and they start a mission and they're
down there feeding the poor. And now I'm sitting there

(02:24:41):
and I don't know about got everybody convinced that I
can get off the circuit. I'm you know, I've talked
to my sponsor and we Christian you do what you
need to do. And I've talked to work and talk
to my life and I'm going to back off and
I'm gonna least like to speak maybe five six times
a year, and I'm just going to back completely off,
you know. And of course I read this book. And
I'm sitting on the airplane coming back from Seattle, and
I am, yeah, there's a corn has a song called

(02:25:06):
coming Undone, And I'm on this plane and this this
flight attendant's walking by and she stops and she said,
are you all right? And I'm coming undone? You're follow
I'm sitting on this plane crying like a girl, and
I have to put the book down and I'll stop
and I'll get my stuff together and open it back

(02:25:28):
up start crying again. It's like, because God's having his
way with me sitting on the airplane, I wish he
would just wait un til I got home, you know.
So I get so I could cry like a girl
and cry it, but I gotta do it on a
cry on a crowded American flight, and I just God's
gonna take you. You know what. Don will tell me

(02:25:49):
when I'm done. Don'll tell you when you're done. You know.
My mama asked me one the other day. She said, Chris,
when's your debt to AA gonna be paid? She's she
asked that all the time, every time holiday comes, when's
your debt to AA? I'm gonna tell you something. My
debt took Alcoholics Anonymous will never be done. My mama
didn't do well money. My mama didn't see me eating

(02:26:11):
out of dumpsters in Houston, Texas. She did not. I
made a special attention to protect her from a lot
of crazy stuff that we did out there, and she
didn't have to see that. She didn't even know about it.
The bottom line is when will my debt be Listen, Guys,
when I'm sitting on the tail good of that truck
and it hits me for the first time in my
adult life that the obsession to drink and to do cocaine,

(02:26:32):
I need to eat those pills is gone. I'm gonna
tell you it was an experience, and I knew from
that moment that you could get free from this. But
those old geezers when I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous, that
old guy that got hold of me, and that kid
that started to sponsor me, he was a year sober,
less than a year sober when he started sponsoring me,
and he said, buddy, this is what we're gonna do.
My sponsor had me working with others.

Speaker 4 (02:26:52):
We did this in I some one I might read
abue all the page numbers were different. All that some
great designing on my part was that that ndack those
who are unable to drink moderately is drugs moderates people.

Speaker 5 (02:27:08):
I had a problem in the world of that man.

Speaker 1 (02:27:10):
I'm here to share some experience with the steps and
sponsorship and in the program of recovery from my perspective,
not going to view and years working in the treatment
center industry, when years trying to get solder and not
being able to get sober. So I do.

Speaker 4 (02:27:26):
I get lots of emails from lots of people around
the world, and a lot of you guys, and then
truly who share money.

Speaker 1 (02:27:31):
I don't know what I just said I'll do, but
you and your sponsor will say that's okay. I don't
know either. We'll walk together through this. When I got
there in nineteen eighty seven, these old guys got around
me and they said, Chris, the reason you can't stay
sober is because you're selfish and self centered to the core.
You you do great as long as everything's going your way,
but when life starts throwing you some zingerish and crumble

(02:27:52):
like a deck of cards. You need to realize that
you you have a place here that you're gonna be
able to touch certain people that nobody else can touch.
So why don't you practice hitting out of yourself. It's
it looks like this. We're gonna go make some coffee.
We're gonna clean up the ash trays. No, I don't smoke,
you clean up the ash trays. No, you're here to

(02:28:14):
serve the group. We will clean up the ash trays.
You'll follow. We need somebody to answer the phone. No,
I just got here. I am the most important person here. Remember,
I got my little desire to tip. I'm gonna milk
this for a while. I'm gonna walk around and feel

(02:28:34):
sorry for myself, and I think I'm detoxing. Still, I
need to pray now. They said, Bud, you can do that,
but you're gonna answer the phone, and the phone rang
d you know, and I'm sitting there. No. See, I
don't want to look stupid. I said. That's the biggest

(02:28:58):
fear in this room right now. That's why you want
sponsor somebody. That's why you won't reach out to help somebody.
You don't want to look stupid. You're afraid you're gonna
hurt somebody. How can you hurt a drum? I mean
it's a train wreck. Yes, it's already a bloody mess.
Are you can't mess it up? We're gonna go into
this thing with working with others with a clear understanding.
We are not therapists, we are not doctors, and we

(02:29:19):
are not bankers. I need to borrow some money, don't
do that. I need some What do I do? I
don't know. I gotta lit.

Speaker 5 (02:29:27):
We did this in I set. I'm not read as
in all the page numbers of difference. All that's great
signing on my part was read at the rendet.

Speaker 4 (02:29:37):
In the program of recovery from my perspective, my point
of view and rules working in the street in center industry.
When years trying to get so they're not being able
to get sober.

Speaker 1 (02:29:48):
So I do. I get lots of emails from lots
of fools, the lending to eat me No, because I
don't want to do anything, because it makes me feel uncomfortable.
Remember the first time somebody asked me to read how
it works? I kind of little. I got a little
throat thing going on here. I don't right. You're afraid
of you. You're gonna mess it up. You are, of

(02:30:08):
course you are, so what. Everybody's gonna laugh, and we're
gonna move on. Stop taking yourself so seriously. These guys
just sat right there and waited. I said, oh, what
do I do? She says, now you're talking, answer the phone,
Luisville Groot, Louisville Grood. I got that so far. I
knew the person on the phone. That's how God works.
And she says, Chris, is that you? And I says,

(02:30:29):
so and so is that you? And turned out. I
drank with her husband, and she wanted an meeting for
an hour. She says, she wants an alem On meeting.
He said, the schedule's right there. Let me show you
right here. Tell her right here, he says, listen, there's
a meeting at seven o'clock. And I'll be right here.
I'm not doing anything obviously, social calendar completely empty. Now

(02:30:49):
I'll I'll meet you out front. You remember what I
looked like. And there you go. And so I waited
for her. She pulled up and she got out. She says, Oh,
I'm so glad you're here. I was so nervous. To
do this. But I've got to do something, She says,
what are you doing down here? Now? She says, I'm
sober two days but I'm so but but I'm but

(02:31:09):
see that this is the grinder. But but I'm but
I'm sober, and I want to stay sober. You've got
to do exactly what the book give it away. You follow,
took her to the meeting back there, got her a
pep of coffee, introduced her to the lady that I
just met that day in alan On and she hugged
her neck and you'll follow. And I walked back out
to that phone ring. Oh, I mean I've done this.
You know, phone run somebody who's just starting to reach

(02:31:31):
for listen. But you gotta be careful here this this
phone is very important and you'd be very dangerous. I
could be back down the hall in the bathroom, the
phone ring. I'll get it. I'll get it. My whole ship.
They created a damn monster. But what they did was
they gave me the opportunity to feel useful. You follow.

(02:31:51):
In fact, I'm less than twenty four hours away from
a suicide attempt, and now they're telling me you can
do this, you can help us out. I want to
make a point real clear, because people want to people
want to split this all the time. Working with others
doesn't necessarily mean sponsorship. You gotta You can't show somebody
how to do a forestep unless you've done a force step.
But if you've done a four step, you'd better be
out there showing somebody how to do a force step

(02:32:13):
or you're gonna forget how to do it makes sense,
You got to You can't give away what you don't have.
But this idea that we're gonna put a time in it.
You can't sponsor anybody till you've been sober a year.
Why why we need we don't. We don't have time
to wait for you to get a year under your belt,
because if you wait a year to start working with others,
you're not gonna get a year. Working with others. Is

(02:32:36):
anything that has to do with helping an alcoholic or
a dope thing stay sober? You follow you page one
twenty nine. In the bottom of the page, it says,
even if he displays a certain amount of neglect and
irresponsibility towards the family, it is well to let him
go as far as he likes and helping other alcoholics
during those first days of convalescence. This will do more

(02:32:56):
to ensure his sobriety than anything else. Did you get
it during those first days of convalescence? And we're killing
people all over AA lamb by telling people that they
can't do anything until they've been sober a period of time.
Why can't the person if the meeting's set up properly
and you've got a format there, Why can't a newcomer
chair a meeting? Why why you have to wait six

(02:33:19):
months before you can chair a meeting? Because if you
wait too long to start feeling responsible, you're not gonna
stay sober again. The book says, unless you can give back,
you're not going to be able to keep it. And
we've got these little laddered up buckeroos all over the
country right now, one drunk at a time, this juggernaut

(02:33:40):
of new sobriety. Of course, they're taking flat from the
old geezers, a lot of them sitting in the back
of the room taking their inventory. They're too young. They
shouldn't be doing that. You shouldn't sponsor anybody to you why,
because you see in sponsorship, I'm not taking these little
guys on to raise. I don't want to raise you.
I want to get you connected spiritually. Pat you on
the popo, and go get me another one. That's why

(02:34:02):
so many of you are afraid to do it. Well,
what happens if you need this? What happens that she
needs that? Then you connect them to a responsible member
of the world unity. They'll follow what I'm saying. You
don't have to have It's okay and sobriety to say,
you know, damn it, I don't know. Let's go to
my sponsor and we'll find out. Pierre, I read this
when I talk about working with others. Was in a

(02:34:25):
box four or five dolls around two thousand, right before
nine to eleven. It came out. This is a Christmas time,
it said. The most frustrating thing about answering Integroup's phones,
says Bob r manager of the Integroup Association in New
York City, just finding an AA member willing to take
a twelve step call for some sick alcoholic who has
phoned this for help. Sometimes it takes up to twenty

(02:34:48):
calls to identify just one willing volunteer. Some of the
responses we hear when a live member actually does answer
the phone. What's a twelve step call? How did you
get my phone number? Do you mean you actually want
me to talk to someone who's still drinking? The status
response came from a member who exclaimed, no, I can't
do it. I'm busy all day. Today is my sobriety anniversary.

(02:35:11):
Oh I know. I love you guys. This is guys.
This is a result of what we call affectionately piss
poor sponsorship. We've letten too many people off the hook,
the believing that you can get a free ride in
this thing. You can't. The Big Book says, the price
has got to be paid. Everybody gets a chance to

(02:35:35):
work with another drum post in your own way, not
the way Chris Raymer does it, not the way Ron
does it, the way you do it. You're with us,
Bill Wilson and Bill's story up in the front. It says,
each in our own way carries the message you don't
have to be like me. If we don't want you
to be like me, got enough, thank you? Oh we
want you to be like you. That's who's God made you.

(02:35:58):
I've seen it in a thousand times. You'll be sitting
in there like this and a little guy will come
up and look around. He'll come sit right next to you.
You'll follow. Now that's gonna heat up. You're gonna stay
there and be awake, be present. Is your spirit gonna
be alert enough to see what's happening here? He's coming
apart as the scenes, sitting right next to you. He

(02:36:19):
keeps looking over at you. What do you think he
wants to time? He's coming undone. Something's happening. Treatment centers
told him to go find a sponsor. He's saddled up
next to one of you guys comfortable with you? Do
you get to decide because they're gonna turn right on
you right after the meeting. Excuse me a minute. Can
I talk to you for a second. I need this.

(02:36:43):
I'm not sure about this sponsor thing, but I think
I was supposed to get one, and then you get
to decide you as a responsible member. So you say
you're gonna Dustin hurt? Honey. I'd love to help you,
but I just started with his new job and a kid.
You're sick, and I just really don't have time right now.
But I can hook you up to somebody that can.

(02:37:10):
I'm gonna ask you one more time, who in the
Hell's in charge here. I mean, last time I look,
God's in charge. I think God knows that you're starting
a new job and the kids are sick, and I
think you need something to get your head out of
that for a minute and try to help somebody else.
Otherwise you're gonna crumble under a deck of card Do

(02:37:30):
y'all understand what we're saying here? I just this idea.
Myers talks about it from the podium. There's some people
that are good sponsors and some people are bad sponsors.
Lets everybody off the hook. My experience is that every
little fruitcake in the world has gets an opportunity to
turn around and help somebody else. And that's what it's about.
The guys that I sponsor, It's all about accountability. If
I'm sponsoring you with me, we're through the steps. In

(02:37:54):
thirty days, forty five days, mass we're through the steps.
And if you don't have a commitment, a service commitment,
and are not sponsoring somebody, we're having to talk you
follow because as this climate, if you can't find somebody
to sponsor and in a couple of months you're not
even try and you are you coming before the meeting
and staying late. You know, are you coming in accurate?

(02:38:15):
But that's what I did for seven years, Chris, for
seven years in alcoholics and holms. Could you sponsor anybody? No?
And you have the cohonys to stand there and say
that you were in AA for seven years. All of
these guys we talked about it earlier today to come
back in after a rebats come back into that hospital.
We asked him point blank, said, buddy, how many people
you sponsored? None? Why we're losing the battle success rates

(02:38:45):
through the toilet. There's not enough to go around, especially
with the women. Number one email I get from all
over the world were women looking for women's sponsors. There's
thousands of women sober out there. They know exactly where
to go to buy that special shampoo. They can tell

(02:39:06):
you all about lighting candles and taking long bubble bass
and being good to you. But if it gets down
to brass tacks and they got to tell somebody how
to finish a four step, you get off dead center
on that stupid of men. They can't do it, and
so we keep sitting in them at the same women
over over and over until they just get the war out.

(02:39:26):
It's time for everybody to get in the trench well
with it. We were laughing about a driving through choosing
and a pouring rainstorm, and looked over to my right
hand side and got they got a big ditch down there,
and there's a couple of little little Mexican laborers down
there with shovels, I mean, wet as if they crawled
out of the river, and they're just pouring, just just
and they got seven guys in slickers with clickboards standing

(02:39:48):
on the outside of the ditch looking in, kind of
pointing the fingers, checking it out. Welcome alcoholics, and as
I'm preaching to the choir, because I know exactly, because
I know a bunch of you in the room. You're
acting in service work. You're doing the deal I've talked
to you. You're sponsoring a bunch of people. I'm not
even kind of going near you. Welcome, But the cats
that are not doing it, you're missing the point. I

(02:40:10):
just touched on it. The first time you walk into
an AA club, into an AA meeting, church fellowship, Paul,
and you walk in, you hear's somebody talking in the back,
and you sneak around and you look around the corner
and you see one of the little guys that you've
been taking through the work. And he's got a big
book open and he's got his finger in this little
guy's nose. He's telling this. Now listen here. Now I
wanted you to pay attention here. I'm going to show
you something really important here, Oh my gosh, And like
I tell you, you'll back up like this and you

(02:40:32):
have tears will come to your eyes because you'll start
to see exactly what this is about. You've got to
give it away in order to keep it. Everybody gets
to do it. The question to God is this? This
is where can I be of the most service? What
can I do? So? A great book out there called

(02:40:56):
Alcoholic Anonymous comes of age on page one nineteen. It's
one of my favorite passages. Unless each AA member follows,
to the best of his ability are suggested twelve steps
of recovery, he almost certainly signs his own Deathborn. Drunkenness
and disintegration are not penalties inflicted by people in authority.
They are results of personal disobedience to spiritual principles. We

(02:41:17):
must obey certain principles or we die. The principle of
giving is the keystone of what this whole thing is
about one drunk working with another drunk, one little pill
head working with another little pill head. That's how this
thing works. You give it away, you get to keep it.
Remember what we talked about. What goes around comes around.
So I'm over here taking care of this little girl

(02:41:39):
that I don't even want. Some of these guys that
call me guys, it's like, oh my god, please God,
anything but this guy. I hate this guy. You'll follow.
He comes up, says, buddy, I know we've had our
differences in the past. That I'm dying here. I really
need some help. Can you work with me? Yes? Do

(02:42:00):
you follow? If you can hear an audible click in
the universe, Because I'm doing something I don't want to do,
but I'm gonna do it because it's the right thing
to do. I mean, over here, I get to see
some good stuff come in my way, and I'd do
it without that. I'd do it just with a sense
of accomplishment. Oh my gosh, it's how XA speakers started

(02:42:24):
in Iceland. Those little guys couldn't be twelve step work
because nobody would let them do it. You got to
be sober two years sponsor, you got to be sober
this long to do this, you got to be sober
that long, you see. But you don't understand. I can't
stay sober unless I work with somebody, unless I feel useful.
So they started xay fpiakers. Don't tell me how many
thousands of people have been helped by those websites and
on all twenty four hour radio station out there in

(02:42:46):
the ocean. Hundreds of emails from ship captains out there
alone by themselves, trying to stay sober, able to access
those radios and those downloadable CDs because two little knucklehead
meth heads alcoholics told the hierarchy eat it. I'm not

(02:43:12):
trying to be disrespectful. I think we respect our elders.
If you want to talk to me about the book,
and you want to talk to me and guide me
and help me grow spiritually, I'm right there with you.
If you want to tell me what I can't do
in God's world, I want to tell you to back off.
We got too many people in this fellowship telling people
what they can and cannot do, and this is up
to God. See here's what happened. Those guys got me

(02:43:33):
in nineteen eighty seven. I'm a fried pie. I tried
to paint a picture of what I would like, but guys,
I was insane. And one of the things that y'all
need to understand it I make it sound like one
that they were really mean, and they weren't. They were
very straight with me because that's what I needed. I
couldn't think a grave and hughes. It was black or white,
and they were very direct with me. But they didn't

(02:43:55):
let me just run. You're a Chris, go get them.
They walked with me. They set me down the meetings
is Chris, We're going to chair of the meeting.

Speaker 2 (02:44:01):
Oh man, I don't want to do this.

Speaker 1 (02:44:03):
I know you don't, buddy, but we need to get
started because we need somebody to boln here next month.
And I'm gonna show you how to do it. Come on,
get up here. And they walked through them and they
showed you what the words were, and they explained how
we do this. You with us, they taught us that's
what we are in olcoholics anonymous. There were teachers, were teachers.
One of the biggest problems I had. I'm gonna find
this one of the biggest problems that we have guys

(02:44:24):
in our fellowships today. Is that we have too many
people just doing it the same old way that hasn't
worked before. Our meeting formats were killing our fellowship. I
know we were talking earlier about the great line. There
was a great little article that talked about open discussion
meetings and everybody bought into that in the early seventies.
And one of the things that happened was is that everybody,
in their attempt to bond with the treatment center industry,

(02:44:46):
decided that open discussion meetings were what we needed to do.
In the early days, what we had was speaker meetings
and step meeting you with us. That's what we did
early days. But we don't do that anymore. What we
did was we got on the open discussion. The newcomer
needs a chance to talk about where he's at because
if he doesn't talk about it, he's going to drink over.
But you see, that's not what the big book said.
The big book says, shut up talking about it and

(02:45:07):
go help another drunk and you can stay sober. But
we set up these little rules ninety meetings and ninety days.
Why why it might be okay here in London when
you've got a thousand meetings, Well, what about some little
burg over there in the in the farm land. They
got one meeting a week. Well, how bad do you

(02:45:29):
want to stay sober? Ninety meetings in ninety days behind
That means I've got a drive ninety miles to get
to a meeting. That means I can't do the farming,
I can't be at the kids recital, I can't do
my other stuff. Well, I think if we were supposed
to go to ninety meetings and ninety days. I think
if we were supposed to be in a meeting every day,
it would have said so in the book. But it doesn't.

(02:45:50):
It says we're supposed to be of service to our
human fellows. We're supposed to reintegrate with the mainstream of life.
I'll tell you this right now, folks, I don't care
how new you are. If you've got to make a decision,
but you can go into your son's little league game
and going to an AA meeting, you better get your
ass to that little league game. We're not paying a

(02:46:11):
good y'all a run with this one. I can see already.
But Chris said, Chris said, we don't need meetings. It's
amazing to me. What y'all hear me say it, please,
I'm not saying that. I'm just I'm sick and tired
of the little one liners killing people in our fellowship.
I went to a listen, guys. I didn't have anything

(02:46:32):
going on. When I first got sober. I was in
a meeting every damn day, sometimes twice. I went to
probably an over a hundred meeting to night. Again. I mean,
I didn't have a problem with that with us the guys.
That came a time that I had to go get
two jobs so I could make financial restitution. Now do
I need to be going to a meeting meeting makers
make it? Or do I need to go pay the
people that I've screwed for years. I need to go

(02:46:53):
pay the people I screwed for years, and then I
can go back to the meeting. You follow. You can't
work with anybody. Why Bill Wilson's working with people like that,
and that's why you stay sober. How do you learn
to work with others? You work with others. It's not
something you can read out of a book. You've got

(02:47:14):
to go do it. And we're going to teach you how.
One of the things I do with the AA guys
that I get a responses that I get. I've spent
some really quality time talking to him about one the
history of alcoholics anonymous and the legacies that have been
to pass down. Y'all't realize that just a generation ago,
I mean, how many people one hundreds and thousands of

(02:47:35):
people were dying of this disease, locked up in insane asylums.
And all of a sudden, nineteen thirty five comes down
the pipe and we got this real thing that at work. Now.
There's millions of us just in AA alone, millions of
us sober. We are the one thing that has been
proven to work for real alcoholics and real drug adds.
This is the one thing that works. It's the responsible

(02:48:00):
ability of each of us to carry that message. When
they came out with that responsibility, Cracker AA talked about it.
They talked about we NA does it with a lot
of it. We were a fellowship. We have the fellowship,
but it starts with me. It starts with me. I'm responsible.
If I'm sitting in a meeting and the little newcomer
walks in the door and the whole group is sitting
and talking and visiting, having a good old time, it's

(02:48:22):
my responsibility. To get off my dead ass. Excuse me,
I'm leaving for just a second. I'll finish this in
a minute and go see if I can grab that
new comer. That's what guys that I sponsor do. They
watch the door. They can watch the babe over here too,
And I know they're doing that because I'm watching her too.
You think that stuff stops when you gets over, You're mistaken.

(02:48:45):
I am happily married, but I'll watch everything. But I'm
also but I'm also watching the damn door, paying attention
to what's going on there, because if somebody comes in
and one of my guys is not there, we're going
to have a talk. You follow my responsibility. I'm not
going to look the other way. Hey, buddy, the little
luke I came in. He's sitting in the back of
the whole damn time. Not that one of you went
and got and saw on it. Why you fop, because

(02:49:09):
your job is to do that. It's not to visit.
You can visit later. Go get the cat. That's what
we do. Talk to him about the responsibility to carry
this message to the alcoholic and we get an active event.
I talked to him about AA etiquette. We don't talk
about it much when I'm gonna talk about it a
lot now. But I have a responsibility to teach you
if i'm sponsoring you, how to dress in an AA meeting,
what to do in an AA meeting, how to be punctured.

(02:49:30):
I don't know. Some of this has got to go.
If you're an old geezer, you need to peel a lot,
sit close to the back rooms so that you're not
disturbing everybody in the place every time you get up
with us, ladies. I'm telling you half the complaints that
my wife gets. So the women she sponsored, those men
look at me. They look at me like I'm a
whoreror Oh honey, stop dressing like one good health and

(02:49:58):
I understand fashion, but you where I mean it makes
an old man like me sweat. You wonder about these
little new guys trying to get them to focus. Oh
my gosh, I'll follow what I'm saying. We talk about etiquette.
We talk about hitting on time and talking to the
speaker and being a part of the group. And you
see something happening, you know you take care of it,
and you be a part of this thing, because that's

(02:50:19):
what we are. Doctor Bob's deal. One of his best
quotes was, you know, carry the message and if you
must use words, because people are watching us, they see
us in meetings, so pay attention to how you address,
when you speak from the podium and what you say,
and oh no, you know that's the way we do it.
Pay attention. I started sponsoring guys when I first got sober,

(02:50:42):
not because I wanted to do again, because somebody pointed
out that it was my job to do that. And
I thought it real hard because I didn't want to,
you know, get involved in that, and I thought I
could put it off. And I was so lucky that
I had somebody that really quite forced me to do it.
And I've been sponsoring people ever since. I have a
spot with Mark Houston in Mayom, Texas. He says, y'all

(02:51:03):
know a lot of yall the line. He's a good
friend of mine and he's you've been a good sponsored,
good friend, and I love him dearly. And he has
has people he's sponsors, and I do. I sponsor a
bunch of guys local and a bunch of a lot
of long distance. We have a little group called Mad Dogs.
We meet every two weeks every on Thursday nights. Tonight,
they're meeting without me, and there'll be forty people in there.

(02:51:27):
People I sponsor, the people you sponsor, and the people
might lineage and we'll get in there and we'll do
an accountability group, a little mini steel on steel. I've
got those formats if you ought ever won them, because
y'all can start that stuff. But it's a great way
to keep your women if you sponsors a bunch of
women and you get together and it's about holding each
other accountable. How many how many meetings are you going to?
How many guys are your sponsoring? What's your weekly commitment? Well,

(02:51:47):
I've committed to come to the meeting on Tuesday night.
That's not a commitment making the damn coffee and taking
the ashtray, guys, a commitment picking the stupid as the
butts up from the parking lots, a commitment to follow
everybody gets a service commitment, or we don't play well fuck,
that's it's just it's we just get a chance to
be real with each other because the more people we
talked about it earlier, they can get to know me.
My exercise program, guys, was completely changed as a result

(02:52:12):
of a little guy that was about six months sober,
busting my chops about my dishonesty around extra time. I
quit smoking. Another two years ago quit different quit smoking
to guards as a result of a little guy that
was Brandy sober calling me on my stuff with me pastors,
and I hated them. I know today, don't you know

(02:52:33):
who you're talking to? But you see, I give the
guys we have these things and alcoholics anonymous. We have
these things called unsigned death pass and a lot of
you guys are part of that. I'm gonna not call
you on your stuff if you don't call me on
my stuff, and we're gonna be good bye you until
the day cows come home. We just I love you,
love you, love you. You're with me, and you can
cheat on your wife, and you can lie on your
expense reports and you can do all this other happy board.

(02:52:54):
But I'm not gonna say anything because you'd have to
say something with me too, and we don't do that.
I'm gonna watch your back. You're gonna watch my back
with me. I am my brother's keeper. If I can
ever help you get no more meeting formats need to change, folks.

Speaker 2 (02:53:12):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:53:13):
I love the primary purpose formats with the workbooks. I
love the advilt seest meetings. I love the big book
meeting where we just read a couple of paragraphs and
talk about it. Anything that takes us away from well,
this is your meeting. What do you want to talk
about today? I don't, And everybody laughs, and everybody says,
I hate those kinds of meetings, and yet the meeting
formats stay, stay open, discussions heavy with that. I know

(02:53:37):
some people like that, but a lot of people stay
away from my fellowships because of those meetings. They cannot
stand those needing. So let's have a few more big
book meetings. But at your based meeting, we can't go
wrong with those needs because we're going to end up
one way or another talking about the steps and God,
and that's ultimately what we're at. You'll cool with that,
and uh yeah, big kind. When I was fourteen years old,

(02:54:07):
and I remember about the age that I was because
I was sitting out on a back porch picking table
thing there and my dad used to sit out there
and drink. And this was long before I started drinking.
I drank at seventeen, a month that Bill Wilson passed
away in nineteen seventy one. I started drinking in January

(02:54:30):
nineteen seventy one. But I'm sitting there on out of
a goat print ro this is the country as they come.
And I'm sitting out there and I'm crying, and my
mom comes out and I'm trying to hide the tears
in dusk and she says, what's wrong, What's what's up?
And I'm coming apart. Don't understand the spiritual melody with
fourteen years old's kicking my ass and irritable lessons and discontent.

(02:54:50):
I have this low self esteem. Its feeding of uselessness,
the depressions kicking my butt with me now three more years.
I was to find a solution for that, just called
Boone's Farm apple lime. But at the time I didn't
have it. But my prayer to God that night after
mom left, my prayer what the God was? And I
was a church guy, kind from the Baptist Church of mine.
My prayer to God was God, I just feel so useless.
I says, if you could just find something that I

(02:55:13):
could be useful act, it could just give me a job,
I'd be cool. I mean, I remember it like it
was yesterday. I wish i'd been more specific with the prayer.
I wish it had involved a hot woman and lots
of money, but it wasn't. It was I wish I
could be useful. That was the prayer. You know, fast forward,

(02:55:34):
you know, three more years I took a drink. Nineteen
years later, I crawled into an AA meeting.

Speaker 2 (02:55:38):
After a suicide attendant.

Speaker 1 (02:55:47):
I guess about six months after that, I'm sitting over
with this other group in Lewisville, Texas and helping this
old geezer pick up coffee cups. And I've got to
I got to drill down. I know what I'm supposed
to be doing. And and he's washing coffee cups and
he's got these little glasses off. And I talked about
this one thousand times. Some of you have heard me
talk about it. His name was Email. He's passed away now,

(02:56:08):
but he was old, sober a long time. And he
took his little glasses off like I had. He was
wiping his glasses and his eyes were carried up and
his like mine are now. And he looked at me
and he says, he says, buddy, I can He says,
we need you. Caught me up short. We need you

(02:56:40):
see that's like light years compared to keep coming back
if you work it. That's a general statement. He looked
me in the face with tears in his eyes, and
I want to argue with him about it, like what
could I possibly do? He says, you need to understand.
He says, the legacy is carried from Bill Wilson and
doctor in those first one hundred to the next generation

(02:57:02):
and the next generation. And if you break that, then
how many other people are not going to get the message.
We have so many people out there that want to
talk about the damage. We didn't you drank a drug
and we caused all this problem, and we who seem
to want to focus on that, but just think just
the simple act of doing this. I'm not going to

(02:57:23):
drink and drug anymore. I'm done on a daily basis.
I'm going to live my life. Tiffy. We don't ever talk.
We don't even think about them, the thousands of people,
the family members that have come into the program because
we simply got sober, the people around us at work
that got sober because we simply stopped using the ripple

(02:57:46):
effect of our sobriety. I think there's a dark side
out there folks that would like to just simply say
this quite black, that you're not needed, that you're ineffectual,
that you're too messed up, that you're too bruised to
help anybody. That's what the dark side would like. You're
too much of a fried pide, you're too young, you

(02:58:09):
don't fit in, you can't do this, you can't do that.
That's what the dark side would like. The fellowship of
the ineffectual people found by a bunch of things that
don't matter, a bunch of thoughts and attitudes about people
that should have kept them to themselves. To begin it,

(02:58:30):
mL road and looked at me with tears in his
eyes and said, we need you do what you're right
in front of You. Do the next right thing rife,
and people's lives will change. Now, buddy, I can seek
my teeth into that, because all I ever wanted to
do is be useful. Never wanted to be rich, never
wanted to be handsome, never wanted All I wanted to

(02:58:52):
do was wake up in the morning and know that
my life mattered. We got too many people, and our
fellowship's letting people off the hook. And I'm telling you
this right now. I'll end with it. Every one of
you little guys sitting in this room has carried a
big book or brust it up and walked into a
meeting and tried to change the topic when it's just
some stupid, ridiculous Thank you for every single person in

(02:59:19):
here to grab the little newcomer when you were booked
up already and had plenty to do on your plate,
but nobody else seemed to want to go out of
their way to help them. Thank you for every woman
stood around and stayed. Every one of you little guys
that stayed in here's got a couple of months under
your belt, and you're here. You're home, every one of
you old geezers. You've got a bunch of years under

(02:59:40):
your belt, and you keep coming back, and you keep
taking the flat. You listen to the crack, but you
keep coming. You cannot. You will never know how much
I appreciate it. I'm twenty one years sober, and I
don't have a clue how to stay sober. Twenty two years,
not a clue. You think it's the same, it's not.

(03:00:02):
Every year's different. Every year's different. I'm shaven last year
shaving like this, and I see this and canna coming
out of the side of my ear.

Speaker 6 (03:00:12):
No, I'm not talking about in my ear. I'm talking
about out of a side of my freaking ear. There's
a hair this long. I look like an insect. No
one who told me about that?

Speaker 1 (03:00:31):
You think that little whipper snapper is gonna tell you
about It's done them old geezers. Yeah, Oh my gosh,
I don't know what it's like, but I know this.
We're on the rocket ride to the coolest life we
can imagine, folks. Now, I'm not trying to blow smoke
or paint a picture that this is all pollyanna. It's tough.
It's tough in the trench. When you go to group
Conscience and you say, guys, we've got seventy open discussion meetings.

(03:00:52):
We've got no open literature meetings, We've got no big
book studies. I'd like to suggest that we close down
a couple of those open discussions and maybe started big
book meet You're gonna take all kinds of flat first
time you start talking about God in a meeting. Bill
Wilson didn't have a problem talking about God in a meeting,
But all of a sudden we get real sensitive. No,

(03:01:13):
you be careful with the HP word. I am. I'm
so careful with it. I won't use it. It's God jeez, Louise.
First time you get in a meeting, no one start
talking about it. Somebody's gonna bust you, but somebody's gonna
jam you on it. For any of you that are
taken flack, I want to thank you for doing. I

(03:01:34):
gotta tell you for every one of you guys that
are just brand new here. Some of you cats just
have a few days sober under your belt. I'm when okay,
the same thing email told me. We need you.

Speaker 2 (03:01:44):
Thanks so much,

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Chris R. - AA Speaker - Big Book Study in London

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Chris R. - AA Speaker - Big Book Study in London