Audio
Transcript
Source: Myers R – St. Cloud, FL 2006 – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: myers-r-st-cloud-fl-2006-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:58:22
============================================================
There are some sick ones here, I'll tell you for sure. This is good, this is good. For the guys that I have not met, my name is Myers R. and I am an alcoholic. I mean, I took my last nasty drink on January 15, 1988. My home group is the Primary Purpose Group of Dallas, Texas, which causes a great deal of confusion. I told them last week I was going to go to Florida and talk to the Dallas Primary Purpose Group in Florida, and it's just kind of like, okay, if that's what you say. It amazes me. Lately, over the last maybe five or six months, I've gotten to talk at five or six anniversary deals, and I can tell you that they're quickly becoming my absolute favorite thing to do. To see a group of people come together and do the work and take the heat that starting any group causes. It doesn't make any difference where it is or where you are. It takes a great deal of commitment from a lot of people to get a group started and then maintain it and grow it and nurture it. Lots of prayer and lots of sweat and lots of commitment, and I am so grateful to know you and see you.
I'm so proud to be in the same room with you. This is good stuff. I had an opportunity. I've got to tell you guys, no matter where I go, there's always this moment of uncertainty as you step into a guy's truck that's carrying you from the airport to a conference, and you're wondering, do I have a carload of middle-of-the-road guys, or do I have a carload of guys that know and understand the Big Book?
You kind of test the waters a little bit, and these guys are all lathered up, and I'm thinking, oh, thank gosh. It's going to be a great deal. I want to thank Melissa and Mike. I've been talking to Melissa on the email stuff for years, and I got to meet Mike and Kevin, my new buddy here. By the way, if there's something you disagree with tonight, Kevin's going to walk me to my car tonight. He's my appointed bodyguard this evening, so I'll be good.
These guys in here may get a little wet. I get kind of lathered up. Speaking of getting lathered up, now that I've made an impression with a coat, I'll remove this coat. Thank you very much. I told Cliff Bishop, my sponsor, that I would never, ever. He said, just don't embarrass me from the podium, and so I said, okay, I'll always make a great impression, but I'll lose that coat just as fast as I can. I can't stand that stuff.
Where to begin? There's this deal. I need to tell you going in on this stuff. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to share an experience that I had, but I want you to understand it was my experience. It may not be your experience. I want you to understand that God didn't wake me up yesterday morning and said, Myers, I want you to go out there to Florida and straighten them sons of guns out. He didn't say that, you see. I've never met anybody in AA that meant me any malice or any harm. I've met the kindest, gentlest, sweetest people in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous that I've ever met. The greatest people on God's green earth.
Sometimes when I talk, and I talk about my experience, people say, well, it sounds like you don't like AA. And nothing could be further from the truth. There is something about an AA group that is just absolutely precious. Sometimes I see things happening that I don't agree with. And I see things that disturb me greatly. And we'll talk a little bit about that stuff tonight. Not a lot. But what I have come to find out is that there's this deal of sifting our experience through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and the traditions on a group level and seeing where we are.
And hopefully that's what we'll get a chance to do a little bit tonight. Not to make you feel uncomfortable, not to make you squirm, but just to give you a chance to go through the same stuff that I went through, which is kind of a soul searching look at our program, what we're doing, how effective are we being. If you know me for two minutes, you know I'm going to ask you a thousand questions. The guys I sponsor, they hate my guts, most of them, because I can't stop asking the questions because it's only in self-scrutiny can we really see where we are. Because self-deception runs rampant.
For seven years I floundered in Alcoholics Anonymous and had some really horrible time, not AA's fault necessarily, most of it was my fault because I'm too lazy to get in the big book and read and understand what's there. I don't want any responsibility, I don't want to sponsor you, I don't want to drive your stupid bus to a treatment center, I don't want to do anything. And so I got to reap what I sowed, which was a pretty miserable way of life.
I'm a third generation drunk. Some of you guys have met my evil twin, Chris. My grandfather was a drunk, my dad was an alcoholic that died as a direct result of his drinking. And then there's Chris, my twin brother, that's right there in front of me. And you'd think with all these guys there that I'd know, man, I'm not going to do that. But you know how it is, man, we just get all sucked up into it.
[00:05:19]
And I am indeed the good twin. Thank you. And you'll see, you'll see, you'll want to embrace me after this talk, you'll think I'm so good. It's going to be good. I got to tell you, I want to thank Melissa for not making me talk from up there. We did a talk in Copenhagen, Chris and I did a couple years ago, and we talked in a cathedral of this huge, huge church. You know how churches are in Europe anyway, they're just really imposing.
And I walked into this cathedral with all this glass, and it looked like the Sistine Chapel, and the pulpit where they had us talking was 25 feet above the floor of the sanctuary. I'm level with the balconies. And it's the most uncomfortable. You have to climb up these ladders and then another little set of ladders, and you walk up on this thing with a couple of thousand people out there, and it's just, oh, it was the most uncomfortable.
And it just took forever. First, it took forever not to step back, because I kept trying to fall off that stupid little deal. But the second thing was, it made me feel real self-conscious about, I like it here, these guys are in the spit zone, I'll spit on them half the time during the night like this, they'll be doing this by the time I'm done. But I like that, I feel comfortable in that situation.
This thing of being removed from everybody else makes me special in some way. And it's real disconcerting. I don't want to be special. Left on my own devices, I'm a busted up drunk who has the power to do absolutely nothing of any worth or value. It's just a horrible way to be. Chris and I drink like idiots. I'm not going to get into a bunch of drunk stuff, because it's not the important stuff. I wish I had a great drunk lot to tell you. I wish I could excite you with stories of living on the street and all this other stuff. The fact of the matter is, I'm a pathetic coward of a drunk. I drink, I say loud things in bars, I get beat up. And that's kind of it in a nutshell.
You guys remember when you first sobered up and it's like, the more you drink and the more the disease gets you, the more fearful you get. You're having less and less control of everything every day, and yet you want more control and you're exerting it through physical stuff. A man that would normally never touch his wife, and towards the end of his disease, he can't keep his hands off of her. Now, this is not everybody, but this is me. As the scrawniest kid in the playground, and believe me, I looked just like I did when I was on the playground, as the scrawniest guy there, a bully made me the most upset thing in the world.
I absolutely hate a bully with a passion, and booze quickly took me right there. I gotta manhandle my way around you, I can't go to the grocery store sober, I can't go anywhere sober because I'm too fearful, I'm too afraid. Everything in my life is unraveling, and I seem to be unable to do anything about it. I'm a functioning alcoholic, I have a bindery there in Dallas that we've had for 30 years, and I used to be able to do all of it drunk. All of it I could do after a couple of brewskis, no sweat.
And then towards the last of it, you know how it is, the disease progresses, we get sicker, I drink two beers and turn around and walk into a wall. I'm like that, and I'm slurring words, and I'm just acting a fool. So in the last six months that I drank, I got beat up in a liquor store for trying to beat up a liquor store clerk for calling my house over a credit card that was no good. You know how it is.
And then I tried to beat up a guy in a pizza place one night for reasons that I don't remember. Oh, and I forgot almost that my daughters, who's three and a half years old, is standing right there watching the whole thing as they beat me off this guy with a beer pitcher. It's not pleasant, and you might understand this. So Chris is working with me, and he's been sober. He sobered up in November of 87, and now it's in January, and I'm just coming apart. I can't stand it.
I gave Chris hell. I mean, he's doing the deal. He goes to AA, he gets sober, and his life is great, and he's going to work, and he's doing everything that we do. He's pulling all the pieces of his life back together again. He's got this little girl he's dating, and it's just a cool deal, and I'm watching it. And from my perspective, I'm miserable, and I'm so unhappy I can hardly stand it. My best drinking buddy is not there anymore, and I hate his guts, and I hate AA, and I hate your stinking big book, and I hate everything. I'm just a hater.
[00:10:06]
Because I don't understand any of it. There's still this illusion that I can hold this whole thing together. And so quickly, Chris had introduced me to the joys of other outside issues, which we won't get into, but it sort of sped things up, if you catch my drift. And it literally fell apart in months. It just simply was chaotic. If you can imagine what it's like, Chris was living with me at the time, so we've got two active alcoholics in the house, and my poor wife, who's trying to hold our business together, and this little girl there, and we put her in front of the TV set.
And she comes in the kitchen one evening, and I'm supposed to be cooking dinner, and she said something and interrupted. Chris and I were solving the world's problems, and she said something and interrupted me, and she kept saying, Daddy, or something. Anyway, I finally couldn't take it anymore, and I just looked at her, and I said, What? And I remember pushing her down. Now, she's three and a half, and I'm an idiot, and I'll never, to this day, I'll never ever forget the hate in that little girl's face as she slid across that kitchen floor and slammed into the cabinets on the other side.
And I just, Chris is real quiet, looking at me, and Sarah's looking at me, and I'm just frozen. I didn't want to be a bully, guys. I didn't want to be a coward. I didn't want to be what I had become. And yet, here I was, and I had to face the fact. So I asked Chris, you know, if he could help, and he said yes. And so, when it came time, a month or so down the road, Chris took me to my first AA meeting, and I walked in, and I loved AA from the very start.
That old smoke-filled room, the little old shotgun room. And Chris maybe told you about this room. It's the dangest thing. It's about from here to the wall, nah, not that far, half that distance, and almost as long as this, with a table that runs right down the middle. And you've got 60 people in there, all smoking, and by about halfway through the deal, you can't see the top of the room. There's no ventilation anywhere in the deal like this, and if you stand up in it, you just pass out.
It's just like a bunch of guys laying on the floor flopping around like this. It's terrible. So you just, you know, the guys that have been around a while, like me, you just learn. You just got up like this, and you just walk to the coffee sideways like this until you get out in it. But that's the kind of room it was. And I loved those guys. I loved those guys. I didn't get a sponsor, and I didn't work the steps.
We didn't do those things. But, and here lies the problem. Now you've got to understand, this is my deal here, and I'm not attacking AA in any form or fashion at this stuff. This was simply my deal. I'm involved in a group who has slowly but surely taken the big book out of the picture, and we're real involved, 21 meetings a week, all of them open discussion meetings, and it's pretty sick already. And then, guess what happens?
We get these guys come in from out of town, California. But I'm not going to say that. And these guys decided, it didn't make any difference where they were from, but they decided that what we were going to do was, they, in a group conscience meeting, they said, you know what, I think we're talking about God too much. Why don't we just not talk about God in the meeting, and then we're not going to scare the newcomer off.
And I'm thinking, well I'm not thinking. What I'm doing is I'm really looking around the room at him, and him, and him, and they're all going, and I just kind of fall in. And doing just like this. And so, on that night, in that cold November, we voted God out of our AA meeting. And it was ugly. Buddy, these meetings, these meetings that were already absolutely painful to sit in, got so absolutely, in Iceland they call them dark tunnel meetings.
And I know why. And that's exactly what it was. 21 meetings a week of nothing but arrogance, and ego, and lots of sharing things. But we had no common solution. And so as a result, we started slipping and sliding like big dogs. And people were getting drunk every week. It was just nasty. And I'm getting crazy again. I mean, I'm just, you know, for three years I managed to hold it together pretty good.
But now all of a sudden I'm sitting in these meetings. Listen, I'm a poster boy of Middle of the Road Solution. I'm a card carrying member of that club. And I'm telling you from personal experience, you can stay clear of the booze and the other outside issues, just go into a bunch of meetings. Can you stay happy? Can you? I don't know. I couldn't. Perhaps you can. But it was pretty painful. And so Chris has now moved to the Hill Country and got a big book sponsor, and he's worked back through the work, and he's doing great.
And I'm talking to Chris, and Chris is saying, get out of there. I'm telling you, go find you another group. But we got this loyalty to the groups we sobered up in, right?
[00:15:00]
There's something kind of in there. There's something kind of, it's just the, I mean, it's cool in some ways, but there's just this ingrained thing, these are my buddies, these are the men and women that I love more than anything on earth, and I'll stay. We can make this happen, we'll be okay. Deep inside, I know this is a bad decision, deep inside I understand I'm in trouble, real trouble. Now, fast forward, I managed to hold it together for another couple of years, I'm now seven years sober, I'm writing hot checks all over Denton County, I can't keep my hands off other women, I'm absolutely, I am so wrapped around the axle, I'm so twisted that I just can't hardly see straight.
I'm yelling at my wife again, I'm starting to get physical with her again, I'm starting to, you know, put my hand on her and just kind of push her out of the way, this kind of stuff. I'm not hitting her, what difference does it make? I'm still so fearful again, so consumed with the spiritual malady, which I don't understand because nobody's going to tell me about it, nobody's going to talk about it.
It would be years before I would understand what the spiritual malady is, it would be years before I would connect all the dots and understand why I behave so atrociously in AA. It would be short order though before I'd run across thousands of men and women who've gone through the exact same thing, the exact same deal. All those years I drank and did those other crazy outside issues, all those years and I never one time considered suicide.
Seven years sober, that's all I can think about, all I can think about. I simply cannot stand who I'm becoming again and I am so fearful. If AA doesn't work, if I can't get clear of this stuff, I'm destined to die a drunk. My grandfather did, my dad did, I've got to figure out a way. I had to check out in front of this beer cooler in the store and I had no reason for being in there except to buy beer.
And I get kind of comatose in front of this deal and some lady's tapping me on the back and she's really mad and she says, hey, are you going to get something or not? Which tells me that I'd been standing there for a while. I really don't know guys, I just know that I'd been there long enough to irritate the heck out of her. And it scared me so bad I just backed out and called Chris and said, hey, I'm in trouble, help.
And for the second time, he stood the ground. Bad twin he may be, he stood the deal and he helped me. He said, don't do anything, in a couple of days I'll be in Dallas, I'm going to get you hooked up, I'm going to do a talk with some people and I'll find you a place where you can go to get the book. And I said, okay. And he did, true to his word, he did. And I got plugged in with this old coot named Cliff Bishop and he's given me his permission to bust his anonymity every time I talk and I do willfully and I love the guy.
He's just this crusty old guy and he knows the big book and he's not afraid to tell you that you're full of stuff, you know, he's just not afraid to tell you and it's just a weird deal. I come, I want to make sure that you understand me on this thing, guys, it's an amazing thing. I go sit down with him and in 45 minutes, as I'm sitting in his living room, he tells me a bunch of stuff that I've never heard before.
A stuff that came out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and I think he's making it up. I think he's just, I'm going, well, you really know some cool stuff. Where'd you get that stuff? He's going in the book. You don't read the book? I said, well, no. Why should I do that? I mean, I just, see, I know some of you guys are going, I don't understand anybody could be that stupid. Trust me. I'm that stupid.
I am. It just, I didn't know that there was a way to do this stuff. I didn't know that there was a set of directions in this thing. So he starts carrying me through this thing and there's such a conflict here. I go to a first meeting with this guy and it's a big book deal and we are studying the book and afterwards, I'm sitting there in the parking lot thinking this and this is what my head's telling me.
I want desperately what these men and women have. I can see it in their eyes. I can see the way they walk. I can see the way they talk. I want everything these people have. However, these people probably need to know how much I know about the big book of Alcoholics and Honesty because I've been sober seven years. It doesn't matter that I'm suicidal and I'm a goofball times ten. It doesn't matter. They need to know what I have to share.
And so there begins the battle. And so for you guys in here that are older, that have been around for a while, that are frustrated with this resurgence of the big book and you have problems with that, and some people do. I run across it everywhere I do. I say, I'm joined at the hip with you. I understand what it's like to live in conflict. Intuitively I know that the message of depth and weight was handed to me that night.
I knew that. And yet to admit that I really don't know anything about the book takes some powerful doing. And when you're an arrogant little pissant like me, it's really hard to do. And so started the battle. The meeting would start.
[00:20:01]
We'd do our big book study like we always do. And I'd go, oh, oh, oh, I got something. I had no choice. So I start sharing. Well, you know, for me and everybody collectively, the whole… This is painful for me, guys. For me, everybody would just kind of roll their eyes and look at the ceiling like this because they knew what's coming. Now, they didn't do that in my old group. They said, come on, let's go ahead.
I was the best guy in the old group because I was always bringing the problem. I was bringing the stuff. You see? Collectively, we have the craziest relationships on God's green earth. And yet we're going to go sit in a discussion meeting and ask those crazy guys that haven't had a decent, honest relationship in their entire life what we're supposed to do with our relationship. Isn't that odd? It is to me.
It is to me. So anyway, here's the deal. And this goes on for a couple of weeks. And finally, one night, I'm just busting at the seam. I've got some cool psycho stuff that I want to share. There's some new guys in there. And I'm just going, oh, oh, oh! And I'm about to pee on myself. I'm so excited because I know the answer to this thing, right? Well, here it is. Cliff Bishop gets up. Some of you guys have heard this on tapes before.
Cliff Bishop gets up and walks across the room. It's a big room like this. And he walks over and he lays a note down in front of me. And he just keeps walking. And I'm thinking, he wants to tell me how much he liked what I had to say, like this. I'm just so full of it! And he goes, I look at the note, it's down here like this, and I pull it off and it goes, and the note said, why don't you shut up until you know what's in the big book?
This is my sponsor. Where's the love, Cliff? You know, I'm just going, where's the love? I said, I'll see you guys later. I'm out of here. And I walk straight to the door and there's a guy named Phillip who is a member of our group and still there in good standing. And Phillip walks all the way across that room and catches me right at the door. And he says, please, don't leave. Don't leave. We need you here.
And by the way, we all have those notes. And I just sat there and okay. And afterwards Cliff and I had a little chat and we talked and I said, okay, I'll shut up. And we go back through this stuff and it's an amazing couple of years. At the end of those couple of years, I've now connected the dots. I understand we have a disease of body, mind and spirit. I understand that this is a deal of an illness, not of willpower.
I understand that the spiritual malady, see, I didn't understand why Bill Wilson spent so much time in the front of this book. Everything from the beginning of this thing all the way to page 44 where we agnostic starts. What's he talking about? Why are all those stories? Who gives a rat's patootie about Fred and Jim and the Jay Walker and what I don't understand is that these are the important things that we need to understand because they explain in great detail, the mental obsession.
That's the part that separates me from the heavy drinker. I drink just like the heavy drinker does. I had a lot of buddies that were heavy drinkers. Given sufficient reason, they could stop or moderate. Could I? No. See, it all comes to a head when I try to stop. I'm the world's greatest stopper. I'm just a better starter, you know? And I just can't keep… And that's the whole thing. If you've got an allergic reaction to booze, don't start.
Stay away from it. Super. I wish I could do that. And if I could do that, I'd be in great shape. But there's the rub. And why can't I stay stopped? Because of the mental obsession. And the mental obsession is being driven the whole time by a thing called the spiritual malady. And there's where the rub comes in, guys. I have a spiritual condition inside me that keeps me separate from God and from everybody else.
It keeps me separate from you. You are always prettier than I am. You're always smarter than I am. You're always better than me. And it's been like that since I was a little turd this big. You see what I'm saying? You remember when you drank your first beer and you straightened up a little taller and the bumps fell off your face and your hair wasn't greasy anymore and you're just thinking, God damn, man.
One with the universe. We had a deal. I don't tell you that. I don't tell you that. I wasn't going to talk about the goat sex or any of that kind of stuff tonight. It's a story for another time and another place. So we have a spiritual malady that drives the whole deal. And so here's the scenario. I'm doing OK. How many of you guys? See if you can follow along with me. You leave a meeting.
[00:25:00]
I'm doing OK. How many of you guys? See if you can follow along with me. You leave a meeting at 730 at night and you're groovy. It all is right with the universe. You're all warm and fuzzy inside. You've been there with your AA buds all night. They're all doing good. You're doing good. Everything is great. You go home. You lay down. And you get up in the morning and you sit on the edge of your bed.
And something's not right. That feeling of being disconnected is there. You see? By the time I'm having my bowl of Cheerios, I'm getting pretty twisted into it. By the time I get in traffic, I'm really into it. By the time I get to work, I'm a nutcase. I'm a nutcase. You see? The spiritual malady, this feeling of being disconnected, is eating my lunch again because I'm not treating the spiritual malady.
I'm not treating the internal condition, which is alcoholism. My deal is, guys, that I was taught all these years was, if I manage well, I can stay sober. And that is a lie. If I manage well, I can stay sober. And that is a load of crap. Don't do that. And if you're selling that in a meeting, please stop. If you can manage to not drink on your willpower and your manipulation of the external stuff, you're probably not one of us, guys.
I know that hurts some of you, but the reality is that. The book is real clear. If you can stop or moderate on a non-spiritual basis, you may not be one of us. You need to take a hard look at this stuff, regardless of how much time you've had in AA. It doesn't make any difference. And these are things that get me, you see. When we tell people that meeting makers make it, and we ask them to come to a thousand meetings a week, this is exactly what we're telling them.
We're telling them, if you can manage well, if you can be here, then you won't drink. But none of it treats the internal condition. Is the meeting fun? Yeah, please. I'm begging you. Don't go get on the cell phone as soon as this talk's over and tell your sponsor that I said don't go to meetings. I didn't say that. But what I want you to understand is that there's no place in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous where it said that the power to recover is in the meeting.
It didn't say that. It said it was in 12 simple steps that would get you to God, and God would remove the obsession to drink and do those other outside issues, and you will have had that spiritual experience. But it came through the steps we worked, not the meetings that we made. And that's why I get so painful when I think about people doing 21 meetings a week in a discussion deal, seven years sober, I'm falling apart.
I sit in a meeting in that group up in North Texas, and I have one of these burning things at the end of the thing where they say, hey, does anybody have anything they've got to share? Yeah, I've got to share. I love you guys, but I'm not going to make it. And this guy interrupts me. His name is Jim, and I'd kill him tomorrow if I could find him. And Jim said, maybe kill is not a good word. But Jim says, listen, we're kind of short on time here, and I know what you need to do.
You just need to double up on those meetings. And I remember thinking, it was just real clear all of a sudden, I went, huh, there's no sense talking. There's no sense arguing. There's no sense because these guys simply do not understand. I'm not relating to these guys, and they are not relating to me. We are not identifying because we stopped talking about alcoholism years ago, and now we're talking about the daily grind of getting a marriage together and a babysitter together and a job together and the rest of this kind of stuff.
And we're just not, we're not identifying with each other anymore. And I remember walking out of that front door of that dadgum AA hall, and I walked out there and I got in the seat of my old Land Cruiser and it was hot, golly, it was hot. And I closed the door and I just put my head down on that Land Cruiser steering wheel, and I wept. I wept like a baby because, guys, I'm telling you, I'm already going to six meetings a week.
I'm telling you right now, guys, I would not steer you wrong. Meeting makers may not make it. You can get real sick making a bunch of meetings. Let's make sure that when we're in the meeting that we're talking about a spiritual experience brought about by a set of clear-cut directions that the big book gave us. Please, let's do that. And what we're going to do is we're going to see the nature of AA begin to shift.
And instead of a bunch of guys thinking that they can manhandle their sobriety, guys, we call it the AA trinity, the job, the AA trinity. How many times have you had a guy in treatment? I saw a busload of guys out here that got out just a minute ago. All right. I want you to stop and think about your experience. When you got to treatment, busted up, absolutely brutalized by the disease, you were what?
You were willing and ready to do anything that needed to be done. Most of us get there and that's where we are. A lot of times we'll slip into those situations and want to sponsor those guys right there. And if they'll let us, we'll meet with great success. But a lot of times the treatment guys don't want us in there yet. They want to wait They want to wait until they get out. It's their house, it's their call, that's what we're going to do.
[00:30:00]
But guess what? You take that same busted up dude that absolutely would do anything when he first got there, fast forward 27 days, and let me tell you what you got? You got you an arrogant little piss ant that's full of himself and absolutely bulletproof. Bulletproof. Because our book tells us that we will not be able to bring into our mind with sufficient force the pain and suffering of even a week or a month ago.
And it's the truth guys. And yet we go into our meetings and everybody wants to talk about their war stories. I don't get it. Listen guys, I can't even remember my own war stories. Why am I going to remember yours? It's simply waste time. Is there a time for a discussion like that? Is there a time for a war story? Yes. It's called a twelve step call. Remember it. Do it. Use it. It's important. This guy comes to me and he's busted up and he's drunk.
We need to swap some war stories. This guy needs to know that I understand the drink game. That I understand what it's like. He needs to understand that. But past that guys, this guy sitting in our meeting, he's there. We got him. Let's keep him. Let's keep him with some hope. Let's drag him with a vision of how cool Alcoholics Anonymous and our recovery thing can be. Some of you guys say, well you make it sound like AA's in trouble.
For five minutes I want to talk about a few things. And you can believe them or not believe them. But I'm telling you right now. These are things we need to talk about. Hang on. Well I'm screwed. There he is. My glasses. Some men miss other things when they get my age. I just miss my eyes. I'd do anything. I'd do anything to have my eyes back on this stuff. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area tonight, I can name you two groups that will ask you to leave your big book outside if you come in.
If you walk across the parking lot with a big book in your hand, they've got people standing out in the parking lot that will tell you to go take your book back in your car. Thank you very much. We don't need it in our meeting. Because our solution's not coming from the big book anymore. Our solution's coming because we are junior therapists. And our God-given right, because we're ten days sober, is to try to share all that wisdom we've got.
And as a result, we're killing all kinds of drunks. It's the dangest thing you've ever seen. In that same area, North Texas, I can name you three groups that are charging money to hear Fifth Steps. Scouts Honor. And everybody always wants to come up and say, how much are they charging? How good a Fifth Step do you want? I'm not fooling you guys. I'm not fooling you. I'm not fooling you. I've seen it.
I've seen it. I've seen how painful it is. For the last four years, membership in Alcoholics Anonymous is flat or declining, depending on the year. We're not growing. Less than 5% of us, statistically, based on intergroup sales of chips, less than 5% of us are getting sober and staying sober. 5%. We took a program that had a success rate of 90% or better up through 1950-something, and we've taken it to a place where very few of us guys, statistically, you know what that means?
Based on the number of people in this room, it means this pew of people right here are going to get sober, and the rest of you guys are just screwed. Statistically, that's what that means. Now, I don't know about you, but it scares the heck out of me. I love you to death. I know. This guy goes, thank gosh, it's me. I just… I don't know about you guys, but I'm so tired of Alcoholics Anonymous being the butt of every joke.
Every comedian has got to take some cheap shot at AA. Every goofy sitcom has got to take some cheap shot at 12-step recovery stuff. Every one of them. And I used to resent them and hate them, and you know what? We deserve every piece of it. Every piece of that crap we deserve, because we allow it to go on in our meeting ad nauseam. When we watch these meetings going down the toilet because people aren't willing to buck up and just say no.
No! We're not going to do that. I think the open discussion meeting is the worst thing that ever happened to Alcoholics Anonymous. However, I'll tell you this as a caveat on this thing. The problem we have with this thing is we let it go too far one direction. We've got groups with 20 or 30 meetings a week, and all of them are discussion meetings. None of them are big book studies. So what we have is a bunch of junior therapists in there thinking they know what's in the book, and they don't know what's in the book.
They were just like me. A bunch of well-meaning people trying to turn AA into therapy. Trying to turn AA into this big therapeutic support group with nothing else. Trying to treat an external condition like that's why we drink. We do this every time we talk like this. How many of you guys drank when you had a ton of money? How many of you guys drank when you didn't have anything?
[00:35:00]
See? How many of you drank when you had the best looking babe in this county? How many of you guys drank when you had Satan's sister right here? It makes no difference, guys. The illusion that we can deal with the external circumstances and stay sober needs to be smashed. That's some of Nancy Reagan's just say no stuff. God love her, but I'm telling you. Alcoholics Anonymous and alcoholism is an internal condition.
It has to be dealt with internally. And that's what the steps we're talking about in this thing. Look at your book on step 12. Not 12. Go to page 60. I was so delighted to see some of you guys with big books in here I almost just about flipped. Page 12. At the very top of the page, guess what that is? Step 12. Right, just like you'd read on the lampshades in a lot of these rooms. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps we tried to carry this message to alcoholics.
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. There was our clear cut direction, guys. That is tradition 5, our primary purpose. Tell us what our marching orders are in this thing. So, what did this mean? Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps we tried to carry this message. What message? That we'd had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps. That's our common solution that the book talks about.
I mean, I know we're all jazzed and excited to be here because we're all drunks. Or we're all addicts, or we're all whatever the deal is. I know that there's empathy in that, and there's safety in numbers. I love being in a room full of drunks. But let me tell you something, guys. That's not what holds us together. And that's why we're drifting sideways. Because that's what we think is the only thing that's holding us.
It's our common solution. So you've got a brand new guy, this sick guy right here. And he comes walking into a room. I'll apologize later, but I keep… I think they know something I don't. I do. I do. So here we are in a situation like this. This guy comes in, and he's sitting in a meeting. And we've got this guy over here that shares some stuff. And this guy over here is sharing some stuff. And now this lady over here says, Well, I know what the topic is, but I really need to share about this babysitter thing.
And so she takes up half the meeting talking about that. Then we get it back on topic again. And then some old coot over there says, You know, this is a program where we take what we want, and we leave the rest. We hear this stuff all the time. What about this guy? It's no wonder our new guys walk out of the room and go, What the heck am I doing here? I've got no instruction. I've got no way of knowing what's real.
What's real? I don't know. I'm a busted-up, drunk kid. I can't even make a decision whether I'm going to go when the light turns green or not. How many of you guys stood in grocery stores going, I just don't know what to buy. I just… I mean… And here we have a guy in here that honestly wants to stay sober. He indeed really does. And he's sitting in his truck after the meeting, and he's going, Okay, now, which path do I follow?
The bald-haired guy over here? Or the meeting-make-or-make-it guy over here? Or the take-the-big-book-and-shove-it-up-here-you-know-what over here? I hear all of this stuff, guys. No wonder that nobody's staying. No wonder our women are saying… You know what? It won't. You know what? It won't. That lady will crawl back in her kitchen, and she'll die. She'll die. And she'll pull her whole family around, right down the drain with her.
Unbelievable stuff, guys. The book said we had a common solution. And it's time, as sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous, that we got gathered up and make sure that we're all on the same page and that we understand, collectively, what the common solution is. At the end of the day, there's only two questions that need to be asked. Have I had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps? Have you?
It's easy. Ask it to yourself. Just ask it. And if you haven't, let's get it for you. Let's get you plugged in. And if you have, do I understand what it takes to carry somebody through the work? Because 12-step work is my next obligation. Once I draw a sober breath, this man's sober as of this morning, and guess what his deal is tomorrow? To go help a drunk. No six months, no year, no… That's all.
It's not in the literature. Don't say that. Stop telling people to do that. They work the work. Could he sponsor somebody at a day sober? No, come on now. Could he show a new guy where the coffee is and help him understand what it's like? You need a big book. You need one of these. Let me show you who the predators are. Let me show you who the good guys are. Let me show you who the… See? You bet he can.
And as he does the work and as he progresses through this stuff, and as the light comes on in his eyes, it says on page 132, we have recovered, have been given the power to help others. He doesn't have to be a smart dude. I'm not. And I've sponsored hundreds and hundreds of men. I'm an idiot left on my own devices. Just ask my wife. She'll tell you. Ask my daughters.
[00:40:01]
Oh… Okay. Listen to this. I got a letter, an email from a guy in London after we'd been over there and they started a big book study just exactly like Primary Purpose Group that you guys got here. Exactly like that. That's what they started in London. And they got a response back from this guy and he emailed it to me and it says, My intergroup, in accordance with intergroup discussions, will not be promoting your extreme cause.
A few of my members have already had bad experience with your method and relapse. Leave us alone and do your recovered program elsewhere. Extreme cause? They're trying to study the book for crying out loud. What's extreme about that? If you don't study, you don't know what the common solution is. If you don't know what the common solution is, you're part of the problem. That's what we're trying to fix.
See? There's such huge freedom in knowing what's in that book and understanding what it's like. Why is it so many of us hold sponsorship at great distance? Some guy's eyeballing you after the meeting and I'm going… My old days, it was like, Oh, no. Oh, no. Let's see. I go to the bathroom. That's it. I'll do anything to duck this guy because I don't want to sponsor this cat. I don't really know deep inside what I'm supposed to do anyway.
I don't even know why I drink. How can I help this guy do this stuff? You see? So fast forward a bit. You've had a sponsor that had spiritual experience carry you through the work. Now, you've had the spiritual experience. You understand the depth of why you do the crazy things that you do and you're able to carry that message effectively to the new guy. And then you wonder why it is that all of a sudden you've got 30 friends that you didn't have before.
30 people who have given you the opportunity to affect their life because you understand what's in the book. Are you a rarity? Yes. Does it take courage? Yes. It does. It takes a lot of guts. Would it be easier just to sit back and say, Oh, screw it. Let somebody else do it? Yes. It's no wonder so many old guys in this thing have decided to put some distance between the program and them. They just got tired of fighting the fight.
They just got tired of watching them slide down the toilet and not able to do anything. You know? Listen to this. Then I'll stop reading this. Promise. Well, maybe not. Listen to this. Whose responsibility is the name of this little piece? Bill Wilson wrote this in 1966. It was a copy of a letter that he wrote. An AA group as such cannot take on all the personal problems of its members, let alone those of non-alcoholics in the world around us.
The AA group is not, for example, a mediator of domestic relations, nor does it furnish personal financial aid to anyone. I want you to filter this through your experience in open discussion meetings. Okay? What I'm reading right here. Though a member may sometimes be helped in such matters by his friends and AA, the primary responsibility for the solution of all his problems of living and growing rests squarely upon the individual himself.
Should an AA group attempt this sort of help, its effectiveness and energies would be hopelessly dissipated. Now, here it is. Listen. This is why sobriety, freedom from alcohol, through the teaching and practice of AA's 12 steps, is the sole purpose of the group. If we don't stick to this cardinal principle, we shall almost certainly collapse. And if we collapse, we cannot help anyone. Bill Wilson realized in 1966 what was happening to the Precious Fellowship.
Bill Wilson understood this stuff. Guys, I'm not making light of the fellowship. The fellowship saved my bacon. I love being in rooms where people held me close and loved me. But guys, let me tell you something. Maybe not here, but there are vast places in this world where there is nobody doing program of Alcoholics Anonymous, where everybody got hung up in the fellowship end of the deal and never progressed any farther.
The fellowship is good, guys, but let me tell you something. The book tells me on page 24 and 25 that I've placed myself beyond human aid. And that tells me clearly that I cannot depend on an AA group to keep me sober. I cannot depend on the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous to keep me sober. And if you do, you're going to find a time like I did when walking into that meeting is a painful experience.
And after the tenth time that old Joe shares about his inability to get a job, you're just going to want to weep. Just going to want to weep. I sponsor this guy that comes from another group in Dallas, Fort Worth. We did his fifth step a couple of weeks ago and he had 60 resentments on it. And I said, hey, let's run down this thing real quick and let me see where most of this stuff is so we can see who's this guy in my group.
Okay, who's this guy in my group? Who's this girl in my group? Who's this guy in my group? You get the drift? I looked down there and counted on the thing and I said, hey, buddy, we can take care of half your inventory right here. All you've got to do is get out of that group. I mean, what this guy was doing was he was going to all these meetings and he was listening to all this lame talk meant by, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know,
[00:45:00]
I don't know, I don't know, These are people that simply have gotten caught up in the fellowship deal and simply for whatever reason are not willing or able to get on with the program part so that they can share that. And as a result, he got so twisted up and so absolutely hateful about everybody. Amazing. Amazing. That's where a lot of these resentments come from. So here's the deal, and I'll wrap this up.
For some of you, you're going mercifully. He's going to quit. This is not a spank-a-thon. I mean, this is not a… I'm not here to spank anybody, but the interesting part about this stuff was is that at some point in time in there, I had to look at a program and whether or not I was doing it. Where am I in that? Do I really understand what my truth is? Come to find out at seven years sober, I'm still ambivalent about my own disease.
I still don't know whether I'm a drunk or not. Crazy, isn't it? But it's funny. The next time you're in one of those discussion meetings, ask the guy as a topic, can you guys tell me why it is that you're an alcoholic? And go around the room and listen to what you hear. I'll tell you going in what you're going to hear. You're going to hear 90 people share, or however many there are in the room, share about the drama of their life.
I'm an alcoholic because I got a DWI. I'm an alcoholic because my wife left me, because I got put in jail, because I got raped, because I got what? Just fill in the blank. I'm not making light of any of that. But trust me, guys, none of that made you an alcoholic. And you need to be crystal clear on that because, not just for your sake, but because when this guy comes in and says, will you help me, you need to be able to help him qualify this guy.
Can I walk up to Mike and say, Mike, you're a drunk and you really need this program? I could, but Mike would hand me my head and say, get out of here, you little zealot. That's not my job. However, if Mike's floundering in a meeting, it is my responsibility to walk up and say, Mike, let me ask you a question. Have you ever read page 44? And you go, well, yeah, I guess I have. Well, if you've got a second, why don't we look and see if we can figure out whether you're a drunk or not, so this ambivalent nature that you've got about this thing will go away.
I'm a drunk. I'm a drunk. OK. Well, let's read it anyway. No problem. And so we read it. We'll either find out that he is a drunk or not a drunk. But that's my responsibility. And early AA embraced it, embraced it. But somewhere along the line, guys, in the guise of tolerance and love, we turned our back on the responsibilities. And so we got guys sitting at our meetings for year upon year that may not even belong here.
And we wonder why they struggle. We wonder why they are so, so goofy about doing the steps, why they resist the work. Let me tell you something. If I could take this man and sit down in the back of the sanctuary and in five minutes convince him that he's an alcoholic that has a chronic disease that's going to kill him, he's going to be much more motivated to do the work, to get involved, to do the things that we need to do, much more motivated.
Of all the men that I've sponsored, I've never taken over 30 days to work anybody through the work. Most of the time, it's 10 or 15 days. And I'm of the belief that that's what it ought to be, unless you've got a guy that's still detoxing. What other reason would we want to wait for the arrogance to rekindle itself and then to be bulletproof? That happens. We want to be careful of that. That's why it's so important that we get them as quick as we can, like they did in the early day of AA.
They got them when they were drunk, when they were throwing up in the porcelain throne, and they were as sick as they could be. You ready to go to any length? You bet your life. Detox me for 30 days on some funny pills and let me walk out arrogant and full of myself? Yeah. I am. I'm cool. I'll get back to you. Thanks. Slick. I mean, I don't need you. I don't need you. I'll tell you a quick story. This sums up the whole thing.
Some of you guys have heard me tell this story before, but there's a guy named Terry that I met at Homeward Bound down in the hill country, down in the hood, actually. It's down in South Dallas, and it's just a rough, rough part of town. Terry had been living on the street for a bunch of time and through one hot, hot summer. Believe me, summer in Dallas is miserable if you've got air conditioning. If you're living on the street, it's unbelievable.
The insects just kick your little butt. Terry was just ed up, and he was living in the back of a pickup. Some gangs came by one night and pulled him out of the back of that pickup, and he landed on his face like that from the bed of his pickup. They had him by the ankles. He was sleeping, and they just pulled him out. They busted his nose and busted his lip and busted all his teeth out. He was a mess.
He had this red hair that stuck straight up, looked like a gerbil that licked it in a bunch of different places. A mess. Skeeter bites all over him, all swole up like this. He's sitting in a meeting. After the meeting, he starts walking towards me, and I'm going, oh, man. Okay, God, you said you'd take care of this. He walks straight to me. He says, but I need exactly what you have. Will you help me?
Yeah, you bet. Turn around and go, oh. I don't know what I'm going to do this way. This guy scares me, you know.
[00:50:00]
So we work the work. We get through this stuff, and I'm telling you, the change is absolutely amazing. Most of you guys know exactly what I'm talking about. This guy's walking taller. He's just everything about him, man. He still looks like hell. He can barely understand him, but he's doing great. The experience is there. He walks up to me one night. He says, hey, I want to borrow $10 after a meeting, and I said, Terry, you know I don't loan money to drunks anymore.
I'm out thousands. I don't loan money to drunks. And he goes, I just need it until Thursday, and I hand him $10. He splits. I split. He's riding the bus from the hood, which is 30 miles from where our meeting place is, over there every time we have a meeting. After the deal, he grabs his stuff, heads back over to where he's living in this little halfway house. Terry shows up on Thursday, and he walks up to me, and he hands me a business card.
It says tea and something or another window washing, and he's got a bucket and a squeegee. That's what he did with my $10. And he set up this little business, and he got a couple of cats in the halfway house to work with him, and they're over there in the ritzy part of Dallas washing windows all day long. And he comes back in on Thursday, and he hands me my money, and there it is. I'm just telling you, this is a guy who weeks before was just absolutely pathetic, and now he's doing what he's supposed to do.
He gets commitments there at the club. He's helping me every day make coffee. He's always there. Guys, I've got guys that won't drive down the street for an AA meeting, and he comes 30 miles on a bus with three changes in that bus to get to our deal. I'm telling you. So he called me one day, and he says, hey, I think I've got a way to get my class C, whatever truck drivers have, license back. And I said, great.
And there's a part of me that's going, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to see you do this. I want you here with us. But he says, no, I've got to do this. He said, this is what I really want to do. And I said, oh, great. And so he does this, and he gets on the road, and he leaves, and I don't hear from him for like a week. And I'm worried times 10. I'm just going all, man. When he gets out to this place out in Tennessee, and he calls me about 10 o'clock at night, and he says, hey, I want to talk to you something about before I actually get into it too far.
And I said, let's hear it. He said, well, I pulled into town. They can't offload me for another two days. I'm going to be stuck here in this town. So I was at the coffee shop, and I asked him if they had an AA meeting, and they don't. And I started talking to the waitress, and the waitress says, no, but we've been waiting for a long time for somebody to come start one. And so Terry goes, Myers, what do you think?
I said, you got your big book? And he said, yeah. And I said, rock and roll, dude. He does. The next morning, they meet in the coffee shop, and they start this meeting there in this little town in Tennessee. He offloads his stuff, and he heads up, and a week or so, I don't hear from him. And he calls me one night, late again. And he calls me, Myers, I'm in Maine. No book study. Terry, you know what you probably have to do.
Yeah, I'll get back to you. And he hangs up the telephone. And the next day, he starts a big book study there in his place in Maine. And he's like Johnny Appleseed, starting these dead gum meetings all across the deal. My point is telling you this, because I got guys that I sponsor now that have been 20 years sober and have never made a 12-step call. 20 years sober, and they've never, ever had a service commitment to go carry a message of recovery to any place.
They just come into a lame meeting and sit there and spew, and then clean it up, and then get out. You see? The book told us in our primary purpose in Tradition 5 that we had a responsibility. Bill Wilson wrote a chapter, Chapter 7, the whole chapter. Everything in it. If Bill Wilson had thought going to that damn meeting was so important, you know what he would have said? Step 13, go to meetings. He didn't say that.
Step 12, get off your rear end and go find you a drunk to work with. Don't wait for that guy to come into you. We meet in a fellowship hall of a church in the middle of Dallas where nobody would find us if they didn't know where we were. Members of our group are conducting 32 meetings a week other places besides our three meetings a week carrying the message of recovery. Thousands of people are here in the Big Book every week as a direct result of the efforts of these little Big Book guys that are out there doing what they were supposed to be doing all along.
We're not trying to raise up a sea of zealots. We're not trying to raise up a bunch of Big Book thumpers shoving Big Books down your throat. What we're trying to raise up is a bunch of people who know and understand this God-given program that so greatly will affect your life. That's what we're after. And it just takes a little bit of courage on your part to get into the work, find somebody that's been through the work and see if they can help you.
This is about perceptual change and then I'll shut up. Scout's honor. This thing about perceptual change. I got a garden. I love my garden. And I'm ending that garden a year after I got to primary purpose. I'm still fairly goofy. I'm a lot better than I was, but I'm still fairly goofy. And I'm picking worms off these tomato plants and I'm sitting in there and I'm thinking the thought crosses my mind, you know what, in a couple of minutes I'm going to go in there and I'm going to have to see that woman that's a beast that I'm married to.
[00:55:01]
I've got three daughters in there that drive me to distraction and in the morning I'm going to get up and I'm going to go to a job that I absolutely hate. Now Cliff Bishop introduces me to a 12-step concept where I'm supposed to get off my rear and be out of self and the miracle of recovery happens. Now fast forward a couple of years, I'm on my knees in that same garden picking those same stupid bugs off that tomato plant, only this time I cannot, I cannot wait to be in the same room with the woman that I adore.
I cannot wait to be in that house. I cannot wait to embrace those daughters that I love so dearly. I can't wait to get up at 4.30 in the morning and go down to that job that I absolutely love. See, my wife didn't change, my kids didn't change, my job didn't change, what changed was my internal condition because now I'm addressing it. Now I'm treating the spiritual malady with a simple program of action that demanded that I do a few simple things and nothing could be sweeter, nothing.
Some people would say, Myers, I think your life is pathetic. Screw you, I don't care what you think. I know exactly what my primary purpose is. Left on my own devices, I'm a badly behaved drunk that pushes women around and treats people horribly. With a program of action, I can be the kind of son that my mom wanted, I can be the kind of husband my wife dreamed she would have, I can be a good father, I can be a great employer.
See, it's all about perception. And at the end of the day, when you're sitting there on the edge of the bed and you take a deep breath and you've said those prayers and you know that God is good and you know that you have a purpose and you're clear on that, and you know how many lives you're affecting, you know here how many lives you're affecting because you're carrying a clear-cut message. And you'll know how good life can be.
Joe McQueenie said one time, the happiest you will ever be in your life is when your will and God's will are the same. And our whole process here is just to find out what God's will is. Come with us. We need each and every one of you, women, kids, everybody, old dudes, we need you all here because there's thousands of us dying out there. I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to be here and how much I love every one of you And stay.
It's cool. Thank you. How many of you are willing to come back next week for another episode? Yeah, me too. Whew, it's good. What a nice batch of guys. I love this. Normally we do the chips after a meeting, but like I told you, we're a real…