Fewer Clipboards, More Trenches – AA Speaker – Myers R.
AA speaker Myers R. breaks down sponsorship, step work, and the purpose of AA—challenging myths about how long the work takes and why action matters more than talk.
Myers R., an AA speaker from Texas, spent seven years sober but miserable—twisted up, full of resentment, and convinced he knew everything about recovery. In this talk, he walks through what changed: how a sponsor willing to ask tough questions and hold him accountable freed him from arrogance, and how that same direct approach to sponsorship and step work can move people from suffering to solution faster than most in AA think is possible.
Myers R. explains that effective sponsorship is based on the Big Book, not on how sponsors were personally sponsored, and that working the steps can happen in weeks, not years. He challenges the idea that inventories need to be eight hours long and argues that keeping sponsees uncomfortable and motivated is more effective than letting them get comfortable in meetings. Myers R. emphasizes that a sponsor’s job is to guide someone through the steps to a spiritual experience, not to solve their legal, medical, or emotional problems—that’s what therapists and other professionals are for.
Episode Summary
Myers R. opens by acknowledging the courage it takes to show up—most people won’t, even when they’re desperate. He describes his own bottom line: seven years sober and utterly miserable, full of resentment, contempt, and arrogance. He didn’t want to do what others had done to get well because it would require admitting he didn’t know everything.
The heart of his message is about sponsorship and step work. Myers R. reads directly from the Big Book—particularly page 14, where Bill Wilson describes the genesis of AA’s twelfth step: *”My wife and I abandon ourselves with enthusiasm to the idea of helping other alcoholics.”* He asks the room when they last left a meeting enthused about helping someone. Few hands go up.
Myers R. identifies the core problem: people have preconceived ideas about sponsorship based on how they were sponsored, not on what the Big Book actually says. If sponsorship is supposed to follow the Big Book, then every sponsor should do it essentially the same way. Instead, he finds some saying they can take someone through the steps in a month, others claiming it takes three years. Some insist you can only sponsor one person at a time—a claim he challenges by reading from *Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age*, which describes how newly sober members (some only a week sober) had to sponsor people because the need was so great.
He addresses the underlying fear: sponsorship is intimidating. But he reframes it. A sponsor isn’t a guru. The sponsor’s job isn’t to fix someone’s life problems—legal issues, medical problems, trauma, relationship breakdowns. That’s what therapists, lawyers, and doctors are for. A sponsor’s single job is to guide someone through the steps quickly enough to create a spiritual experience that brings recovery from alcoholism.
This is where the practical stuff gets real. Myers R. walks through his actual process:
– First meeting: qualify her, get through Steps 1-3 in 30-40 minutes. Give information about Step 4. Set a date within 7-10 days.
– Second meeting: two hours for the inventory (the Fourth Step). Then she does Steps 6 and 7 alone that night.
– Third meeting: she brings her Eighth Step list (already written). They refine it in 20 minutes.
– Throughout: she’s doing Steps 10, 11, and 12 while working through amends.
– By week two: she’s at a meeting doing twelfth-step work with a newcomer.
He challenges the assumption that inventories need to be eight hours long. He’s done inventories in 90 minutes that worked just as well as the long ones. The problem with long inventories is that they let the sponsee justify and explain their bad behavior. “Wrong is wrong and right is right.” A sponsor’s job is to illuminate that—not to sit for hours while someone constructs a narrative about why they did what they did.
He uses the commercial inventory analogy from the Big Book: “Milk, sour.” That’s the inventory. Not the story about how the cooler broke and the delivery was late and the weather was bad. Just: milk sour. Same with Step 4: “I got pulled over drunk and got a DWI.” Not the 20-minute story about the bad day that led to it. Just the fact. The defect. And in the fourth column, what it points to (selfishness, dishonesty, etc.).
Myers R. also addresses what the book doesn’t say. It doesn’t say a sponsor has to read the Big Book *to* the sponsee in order for them to have a spiritual experience. The spiritual experience comes from *action*—from taking the steps, not from intellectual understanding. Reading is fine, but it’s not the priority.
He draws a parallel to raising kids. With a one-year-old, you hover close. As they grow, you step back, teach, let them learn. By high school, you let them walk free. Sponsorship works the same way. Your job is to move someone from total dependence on you to dependence on God—or whatever they understand God to be.
The urgency Myers R. emphasizes is real. He doesn’t want newcomers to get comfortable in AA before they do the work. Comfort kills motivation. Pain is what drives people to do the work. If you let someone sit in meetings for a year without working the steps, they’ll trivialize it, set it aside, get comfortable, and never get the spiritual experience that brings lasting recovery.
He finishes with a vision that ties everything together. He describes Kelly—a newcomer—at two weeks sober, doing twelfth-step work with another newcomer. At two weeks, Kelly is a full member of AA, aware of her responsibility to carry the message. That’s the miracle. Not that Kelly will never have a bad day, but that she’s on the path and part of something bigger than herself.
Then comes the final image that gives the talk its title: “Fewer Clipboards, More Trenches.” He describes ditch diggers standing above with clipboards directing, while one person digs. He’s the digger. He needs people in the trenches with him, not standing above giving direction. AA needs fewer people pointing fingers and more people doing the work—carrying the message to the hundreds of thousands out there dying, unaware there’s another way.
Notable Quotes
I just have to admit that I don’t know everything. And I don’t want to do that.
Faith without works was dead. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic. For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead.
The biggest single problem in sponsorship is that we have a preconceived idea about the stuff, and it’s undaunting.
If your inventories are going too long, you’re letting your protege spend too much time justifying his bad behavior. It’s as simple as that.
My primary purpose is to carry a message of recovery to a bunch of sick little knuckleheads out there that don’t have a clue that there’s a solution to their problem. And I do. Because it was given to me in the first 164 pages of this book.
What we need in AA is fewer people with clipboards pointing fingers and giving direction and more people in the ditches in the trenches carrying a message of recovery and hope.
Sponsorship
Big Book Study
Steps 8 & 9 — Making Amends
Step 12 — Carrying the Message
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 4 — Resentments & Inventory
- Sponsorship
- Big Book Study
- Steps 8 & 9 — Making Amends
- Step 12 — Carrying the Message
People Also Search For
AA speaker on sponsorship
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Oh god, I love you guys. It's, you know, it's funny.
As often as I get to do this, it's it's a if it's a captive retreat where you got you got 180 people show up for the retreat and you got 180 people that are staying there on the grounds to do the deal. You have 180 people in here on Sunday morning to do a workshop deal. If it's a deal like this where people got to drive anywhere or even get up to go someplace, they just don't do it.
It's like it's like I'm hip to the whole concept and idea of sponsorship and working with others and doing all this other kind of stuff. as long as it doesn't require that I do anything except sit sit in a meeting and do nothing. It's just I just want to share.
I just I don't really want to do any of that other stuff. I'm going How nice for you. Um but but I'm always you guys are automatic hero status in my book because you're willing to get up and just take the chance that there might be something here that we could learn.
Um, you guys that I don't know, you got to you got to know from my story stuff that I I am I come from a place of of total arrogance around AA in the in the the idea that yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm batshit crazy. I'm a nutcase. Uh, but I'm not really willing to do what you do.
I'm not really willing to look at anything else. There's this whole there's this veil of contempt that's in front of me that keeps me from addressing anything that might be a different idea about Alcoholics Anonymous. Last night when we were talking about this stuff story-wise and we talked about this deal about um about me being crazy and suicidal and really really unhappy at 7 years into this deal.
I'm seven years from my last drink. I'm seven years from my last outside issue and I'm I'm just so miserable. I just am twisted around the axle about everything.
I can't. I hate you and I hate your ideas and I hate my kids and I hate my beast of a wife and I hate I I just hate you. And it just And yet there's there's am I the only one that ever felt like that?
Am I the only one that just I I can't stand who I am, but the thought of doing what you do to get where you are is just distasteful. I just can't because it's going to demand that I do a couple of things that I don't really want to do. It's going to demand first that I have to admit that I don't know everything.
And I think maybe guys in the in the light of day, that may be my biggest stumbling block. I just have to admit that I don't know everything. And I don't want to do that.
I've been I've been sober seven years. You see, I got I know all this stuff. Oh my god.
And it took an old guy that loved me enough to rub my nose in this stuff and to keep asking me a bunch of questions. And it's just like at one point I remember asking Cliff, I said, "Cliff, do you always have to ask so many questions?" And he said, "The more questions you'll answer or the more questions you'll ask yourself, the less I'll ask." But until you get into a habit of asking yourself the questions because left to if I don't ask questions then my ego takes over and my arrogance takes over and I put myself in a position because my ego wants me to be in a place where I'm really comfortable in my own skin and so I so I I can sell myself the bill of goods that I know everything I need to know to stay sober. I may not be one of them real intelligent gurus, but but I know enough to stay sober.
And that's the story that I'll sell myself. And that's the place that kept me in ignorance about what this big book was about. And more importantly than that, more more importantly, it kept me in a place of ignorance around this thing called sponsorship.
If we started right here and asked Steo what his experience was with sponsorship. We talked about this a little bit last night and we went around the room, everybody in here, God bless you, everybody in here would have a different idea about sponsorship, wouldn't you? because we base our concept of sponsorship not on the big book, but we base our concept on how we were sponsored.
I I'm sponsored a particular way and so that's the way I'm going to sponsor. I I had my first sponsor was a kumbaya kind of guy and it was a touchyfey kind of deal and we'd read a lot of spiritual stuff and we'd sit around and we'd talk about lofty ideas and we'd we and that was it. we and so when it got time for me to start sponsoring guys at six, seven years sober, God, that's what I want to share.
That's what I want to do. And some of you guys are in the same kind of situation. I run across it all the time.
And there's nothing wrong with any of that except except sitting around talking about stuff will never get you from point A to point B. It may make you feel better for for a for a moment or two. See, guys, the weird part about this stuff is is that we want to treat Alcoholics Anonymous like it's therapy.
AA is not now nor ever was therapy. It is not. The confusion here is that sitting in a meeting in a discussion meeting may be therapeutic in nature, but it is not therapy.
And so the illusion that we're sold, the the the the the bill of goods that we were sold is that we can sit in a meeting and we can recover just because we're there. Guys, that's like saying that I can become a parent by just going to a PTA meeting. It It doesn't work.
I mean, how many PTA meetings do I have to go to to be a parent? A lot. I may never get there.
You see what I'm saying? And it's that same kind of bizarre thought process around this deal. Let's ask oursel a couple of quick questions here.
If um turn over to page 14 in your big book if you brought them. Yeah, we see them. Yeah, all these guys have got them this morning.
Yeah. Very bottom of that page. This is the genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous as we know Alcoholics Anonymous.
And while I lay in the hospital, the thought came that there were thousands of hopeless alcoholics who might be glad to have what had been so freely given me. Hm. Perhaps I could help some of them, they in turn might work with others.
Now my friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs. Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. Faith without works was dead, he said.
And how appallingly true for the alcoholic. For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the 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.
I love the next three lines. My wife and I abandon oursel with enthusiasm to the to the idea of helping other alcoholics to a solution of their problems. My wife and I abandon oursel with enthusiasm to the idea of helping another alcoholic.
That's fairly powerful stuff. Guys, look at your own experience in leaving meetings. Go to meetings.
Leaving meetings. Go to meetings. Leaving meetings.
How how of how long has it been since you left a meeting enthused with the idea of helping somebody? Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Guys, I went to a lot of meetings, a ton of meetings, and I never left enthused.
There were a lot of times I left the meeting wanting to drink really, really bad. I don't know what it was about those meetings the last seven years I was at that group. I just used to get really thirsty sitting there.
I just damn, come on, guys. But I didn't know. I didn't see part of the problem here is that is that we bring into we bring into this deal a bunch of preconceived ideas about sponsorship, right?
Let me ask you a question. If right now we said Kelly's new meat, we Kelly's brand new in here. She's just sitting there like this and she she we're we're all going to sponsor Kelly.
Okay. Now, if Kelly walked up to you after a meeting and she said, "Would you help me with this work?" What's the very first thing that we do? Every one of us seems to go and I shoot to a forep.
God, there's another eight hours out of my day. There's another. And I'm all I'm I've got all these preconceived ideas about how much time it's going to take to get Kelly through this work.
And we do this over and over and over again. That's the reason why those guys I was telling you about last night, these guys with 22 years sober that have the all those hundred years of sobriety and they've sponsored three men between them. And when you ask them why, they'll come up with all kinds of of of of excuses.
You ask them again and they'll they'll narrow it down a little bit. You ask them again and say, "No, I'm not satisfied with that. I want to know the real reason why." And the real reason why is these collect this collection of men with over a hundred years of sobriety are afraid to sponsor because they really don't know what they're doing.
That's one. And two, they have a preconceived idea that sponsorship takes too much time. And I don't have it.
I don't have it. I'm a busy guy. And guys, I'm telling you, I run a business.
I have three daughters. I have a wife. I've got other interests and like to do.
And and when when somebody approaches me in those first seven years, that was my deal. My head took me to a place I'm going because I'm buying into all this stuff. I have to sit knee to knee with this man and read the big book to him and then we got to do this step stuff and then it's going to take all this other time and then and I see an I see this painful road of of of sponsorship that's going to take me out there a year and it's just going to be a god dang, I don't and then he's going to leave anyway.
hell, he doesn't really, you know, and I've got all of these things going on in my head telling me why I can't do this thing. Let's get let's get one common baseline and then we'll start this. Okay.
If um the quote that I read last night about Bill Wilson talking about there's no such thing as a personal interpretation of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. If we use that as a beginning point for our discussion, then the next logical assumption would be well if if there is no such thing as a personal interpretation of the 12 steps according to Dr. Bob.
Um then we got to we got to get a baseline here someplace. We have to have something to go from. And that's the reason why they wrote the big book.
The big book gives us the baseline. The big book sets the common solution that we were supposed to have. In theory, guys, and I don't know if it always works like this, but in theory, every one of us in here should be sponsored in exactly the same way.
There's nuances of this thing. There's there's there's vague differences, but the but the the bare basic nature of how we sponsor and what we're supposed to do should follow the same form and function. Why is it that we walk into groups and we got one guy over here says he can take you through the work in a month and you got a guy over here going, "Oh, no, no, it takes at least three years to work this work." I've had conversations with guys that go, "You can't effectively sponsor but one man at a time.
That's it. And until he dies or gets drunk, you can't sponsor anybody else." And he'll defend it to his dying breath that that's the truth. Where he got it, I don't know.
I keep saying, "Please show me this." If we if we're going to agree that the baseline is the basic text, then show me where it says that. Let me read you something. You'll get a kick, I think.
Look at this. I broke three pair of glasses this weekend. I had one just fall apart.
I stepped on one and I got I'm down to my seeds and stems glasses right here and I just go if this breaks and I don't know what we're going to do. There a lot of dope fiends in here today. This comes out of when AA comes of age.
It was soon evident that a scheme of personal sponsorship would have to be devised for the new people. Each prospect was assigned an older AA who visited him in his home um or in the hospital, instructed him on AA principles and conducted him in his to his first meeting. But in the face of many hundreds of pleas for help, the supply of elders could not possibly match the demand.
Brand new AAS sober only a month or even a week had to sponsor alcoholics still drying up in the hospitals. Take that. I want to pimp slap that guy.
THIS IS CRAZY. This is the truth here, right? These guys, a week sober, are sponsoring people cuz the need is there.
I got news for you. Statistically, they tell us that for every one of us in here, there's 40 of us out there still drinking and dying. The need is still there.
Okay, so we're assuming that every one of us are we the common thread that runs through every one of us is there's that there's an underlying fear about sponsorship, right? Can we all agree on that? I don't know of anybody that's that's a sponsor giant that just says, "I'm not afraid ever." Guys, I'm telling you, I've been I've sponsored hundreds of men in 19 years, and I'm telling you right now, I'm still a bit anxious sometimes about the process.
It is a big commitment, and it's a it's a there's something there's something more um I don't know what I don't know how to explain it. There's just something deeper about it. It's just a you have this little skinny scared buckaroo that two weeks ago was drunk or hanging off the end of a crackpipe and and he's and he's looking for somebody to help him see truth.
Is it my wisdom that helps this guy? Not in the least. It's my ability and my willingness to let God work through me to get connected to this guy that helps and changes everything about that relationship.
And the relationship does indeed become spiritual in nature. It's a it's a heady kind of a thing. This is not me stepping into guru pants.
I'm going to be the guy. It's not that like that. It's me submitting to a very humble process and let God work through me to help this guy do that.
And it's after you've experienced it from two different perspectives. I'm assuming that everybody in here is sponsored like I used to sponsor. I step into the guru pants and now I'm the one that's going to be and I see this far more.
I see this that attitude that I see the one of of of what a humble gift that God has brought me. This chance to be a part of this new drunk's life. Um that perspective is much healthier and it seems to work much better in trying to get these cats through the through the maze of the work.
The biggest single problem in sponsorship guys is that we we we uh we have a preconceived idea of the stuff that we were just talking about and um and it's undaunting. Somebody said one time that this this in this same conversation, it it later turned into a fairly like a bloodbath. But the the when these guys were trying to defend this this issue of you can only sponsor one man at a time.
And um and asked him why and he began to explain what he does with his guys. And I'm going where does it say you're supposed to do all that? I'm not I'm not clear on that stuff.
Go back to go back to page 59. Let's start let's start looking at the at the the a little path of of information that can help us see some stuff on page 44. We read the stuff last night.
Let's go over to 44 first. The part about the pre in the preceding chapters we've read all that stuff. You've learned something of alcoholism.
We hope that we made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. In early days of AA, this is the very first place that they brought these guys when they came in. Kelly just walks into the room and she's shaking and she's vibrating and she's a fruitc cake and she doesn't know anybody.
She's scared spitless. One of the strong women in the group would sache up next to her and sit down and say, "Sweet pee, let me get you a cup of coffee and let's talk for a minute." And we talk and we find out and she says she's a she's a drunk. And we talk and we get I don't take Kelly's word for it that she's a drunk just cuz she says she's a drunk.
I I don't we we're not there yet. But at some point in time in the evening, I'm going to scoop Sy. I'm going to pretend that I'm a girl now.
Why do I get myself into these things? Like I could have picked anybody in the room and I picked her. I'm going to pretend I'm a girl for right now.
I'm feeling very pretty all of a sudden. I just So here's the deal. I'm going to at some point in time in the evening, I'm going to get next to her and I'm going to say, "Hey, um, let me ask you a couple of questions.
Why do you think you're an alcoholic?" Now, put your finger on this thought. mainstream AA is now just what are you doing? You can't you don't have no right to do that.
Oh yes I do. It is my responsibility to do this. This is the first barrier we need to break down guys.
If you feel like this is just just take a deep breath, relax. We're going to talk through it. This is the first barrier that we need to bust open.
We have every right to question her reason for being in that room. She's sick. She's insane.
She's a fruitcake. We don't know what's going on with this little girl. She may have all kinds of other problems to do.
We need to find out where she is. We're not trying to be intrusive. We're not trying to be exclusive.
We're not trying to bust her chops about anything. We're trying to in absolute clear unadulterated love. We're trying to ask her a simple question.
Why do you think you're a drunk? And she's going to tell me, well, I got this DWI, you see, and I and I'm blah blah blah, and my husband kicked me out. I I know, Kelly, but that's all that's drama stuff as a result of this other stuff.
Let me ask you a quick question. You flip over in your big book and you take them to page 44 and you read them this check this this first first paragraph. We hope we've made clear to the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic.
If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely. Or when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. Classic Bill Wilson, no gray area, black and white.
This is the question to ask. Have you lost the power of choice and control? If you say, "I I swear, honey, I'm never going to drink again." And then a week later you find yourself back at the 7-Eleven with a tall boy in your hand, you've lost the power of choice.
If you tell your husband, "Listen, I'm just going to have one drink with the girls down at this place like this, and then I'll be right home to put that hairy chicken leg in the oven, and I'll I'm dinner's on. We're going to eat, okay?" And then you find out that you had a 12-pack or a six-pack down there at that at that place. You've lost the power.
the the physical part took over and you've lost the power of control. That is it. I don't care if you've been in jail.
I don't care if you've been raped. I don't care if you've been molested. I don't care if you've been I don't care.
And neither should you. At this stage of the game, we don't care. All we're trying to do is make the distinction of what this kid is.
Is she an alcoholic or is she not. Maybe she's just a heavy drinker. Maybe she just needs to go to get a good therapist and talk through some issues.
That's what we need to find out. it in the early days around the traditions that's the way that was a tradition three in the short form like this they touch about the only desire is a desire to stop drinking the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking read the long form of that and it's a lot clearer about what we're supposed to be doing but the important part here is is to understand that from a historical standpoint they didn't let people come sit in our meetings and twist and turn for weeks and months and months to years unsure about what they were just because they're here remember guys you're and your experience will bear this out won't it Your experience will show you that sitting in meetings with people, there are people in there that that are aren't alcoholic that they got a DWI cuz they drank and drove and a judge said, "You need to go to AA." So, they're here, but they're not alcoholic. They don't drink alcoholically.
They're just they just screwed up. They just got spanked and they're here. Are they welcome?
Yes. But we need to make the distinction and understand because the way to work with her is to get her into therapy or get her into church or get her into something else. We don't want a non-alcoholic sitting in the meeting talking about stuff she doesn't know anything about.
I'm not a dope fiend, guys, and I have no business sitting in an NA meeting goes, "Oh, yeah. I know all all about shooting dope. I I don't I don't know anything about it." That's the reason why I need to know with this little girl when she comes in.
When Kelly's here, I need to know what she is. Can I relate to Kelly? Can we identify?
I tell her a little piece of my story. She tells me a little piece of her story. We do this little paragraph and I have a pretty good idea.
I'm not labeling her drunk. I'm not labeling her an alcoholic. She's going to make the own her own distinction.
She's going to at some point she's going to say, "I drank just like you, Myers. I did. I guess that means I'm an alcoholic, too." She she I'm helping her make the decision.
She's one day in our fellowship and she already knows what she is and who she is. And this is good. This is excellent because from this p this point we can make a great beginning to go through the rest of the work.
Guys, let's look at this room real quick. Sponsorship is like raising kids. How many of you guys have kids?
Any of you got little kids, big kids? Anybody? But at some point, okay, right now picture this situation.
You got a a one-year-old kid that just learned to walk and you're standing around this kid and this kid walks this way and I'm like that. I'm right over there with her back over here. Here.
I'm check. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I And I'm just I got my arms around this kid.
I watch everything this kid does to make sure that she stays real close like this. Now, as this kid gets older, I'm doing less and less of this stuff. And I'm instructing.
I'm standing back going, "Might not be a good idea to touch that stove." See what'd you learn from that? Ah, the stove is hot. We don't touch the stove.
Okay? And see, and we're just teaching these little lessons like this. Now, by the time we get this cat up to high school, we better be ready to go like this.
We better be ready to just stand back and watch this young adult walk free and clear. If this kid at at at 17 years old is still walking up the stove going like this, we have a problem. We have something we need to do.
It's called incarceration. Or we need or we need to shore we just need to shore up some loose ends on this stuff, right? We need to make sure that that but that's exactly the parallel that we're running with kids with with guys that we sponsor.
They come in and they're new and we're holding them real tight and we're just kind of god they're little kids and we got to make sure that everything but quickly as they begin to learn we begin to let them grow and grow and grow. Your reliance Kelly as as as and me as your sponsor is your reliance is not supposed to be on me forever. Your reliance will be on me for about that length of time, for about that much time.
And within the next couple of weeks, we're going to work through this work. And gradually your rel your your your reliance is going to drift upward to the God of your understanding or downward to your God of wherever it happens to be. But it's going to be not me.
I'm not God. Neither is the group. Neither is I'm not that person.
And I don't want to be that person. And it takes a great deal of the anxiety and the fear out of sponsorship. I am not in control of your life.
I'm simply there to do one thing. Flip over to page 59 uh or page 60 where it read uh the step 12 is having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. We tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, period. A clear-cut Bill Wilson classic declarative statement. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of sitting in 90 meetings in 90 days.
It didn't say that. Having had a spiritual awakening of sitting in adnauseium discussion meetings, it didn't say that. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these 12 steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics.
What was the message we were trying to carry to the alcoholic? That we had had a spiritual experience as a result of working in the work. That was the message, guys.
and B that and with the with the stuff that I read last night, that's why we're here is to carry that simple message. Now then, but as a sponsor, I'm supposed to help him with his legal problems. Oh, are you?
I don't see your law degree. I'm supposed to help him with his medical stuff. Oh, are you?
I I fascinating. I I didn't know you'd gone to medical school, Dick. I didn't I I mean, just don't get me started on this stuff.
Sorry, I get carried away. I I just I am sorry. I I it it just kills me though.
But we But don't we do it all sitting there in the room and we're all sitting there holding hands and we're all sitting there all warm and fuzzy and somebody brings up some medical problem and now we're all going to solve the medical problem. We're going to jump in with this our opinions and ideas about why you should be off those antid-depressants. If you're doing it, stop.
Stop. You're not a doctor. The two most freeing things I've ever learned in AA is I don't know and I'll have to get back to you.
Cuz guys, I I don't know what it is is we step into sponsor pants and all of a sudden we think that we have to know everything. We don't and we won't. And there are a thousand things that are going to come up.
I don't know how to help you through your deal about being molested. I don't know how, guys. I've not been molested.
I got some great therapy friends that I know. I got some great guys that are I mean they're therapists going broke everywhere. They need the business and they're qualified.
They can help you with some of this stuff. Get past some of these issues. But this deal of sharing that kind of crud and then expecting a sponsor to clean it up.
It's tall stuff, guys. It's tall stuff. My job is to as quickly as I possibly can get you to a place where you can have a spiritual experience sufficient enough to bring about a recovery from alcoholism.
I've sponsored as many as 50 men at one time. Could it could you start 50 men at one time and get them through the work? I don't think so.
I don't I don't think there's anybody that sharp. I don't think anybody's got that kind of time. But could you could you sponsor for a 5year period down at Homerbound, I was sponsoring uh I was hearing three fifth steps a week.
Three fifth steps a week. And um and there ain't no telling how many hundreds of guys that we work through the the work during that period of time. And you can do this stuff real easy once you get the extraneous stuff.
Once you get all the goofy stuff and peel it off the tree, you got a stick there in the middle like this of what you're supposed to be doing. The rest of this stuff is just it's just stuff that you've shouldered. Pretty soon you got all you're shouldering his burdens and your burdens and everybody else's burdens.
And it we're not made for that, guys. And God never intended for us to do that. That burden is God's.
That burden is God's. It's not yours. And there's a great deal of freedom in understanding that, not from an intellectual standpoint, but from a gut standpoint to know that it's not my responsibility to help you with all these other problems.
I can help direct you. I can help do the things that are necessary. And you guys are you're hip on that.
I think sometimes we just bite off way way way too much. And it's it's no wonder you don't want to sponsor more than one guy at a time. I understand that.
Over the years, I've sponsored hundreds and hundreds of guys. I have no idea how many, but many hundreds that I've carried through the work. And I've never We talk about fifth steps and inventory, and I've never ever had more one go more than two hours.
Let's talk about this a sec because it seems to be that the very first place that we go when we talk about sponsorship is is inventory. I don't want to sit there for eight hours while this guy dumps all of his stuff on this thing. Let's clarify something real quick.
I did um I did two fifth steps before I did the one that I did with Cliff Bishop this last time. And um and I've done some inventory stuff since then, but the but I'm talking about big primary inventories and and I've done journaling. I've you know written out my just write out your life story.
Um let me tell explain there's a there's an inherent problem. The big book gives us a great description of what the inventory looks like. Um inventory is not confessional, guys.
We'll be doing some confessing during the whole thing, but if you think it's just about confessional, just go find you a priest someplace and read the stuff to him. Just go tell him what the lowdown is. The book was real clear that what we were trying to do is see the exact nature of the mistakes that we made.
We're we're trying to find character defects that we've allowed to grow in here. Guys, let me let me explain something. I wasn't born selfish.
I wasn't born a bigot. I wasn't born uh all with all of these defects of character. I learned these.
I honed them from the time I was a little kid in short pants. I honed all these things and and and what we're trying to do through the process of this inventory is look at the exact nature of that stuff and try to figure out how to get clear of that. Once we identify it, then God can take these things in six and seven and get them out of there.
But we have to be able to identify it first. That's the reason why I think the inventory process is so powerful. It's it's like could we go to church and just pray about it in a vague nature?
Well, we I've did that for a long time. I go, "God, please." I just sitting in a Sunday school class and I'm going, "God, please make me a better man." And I, you know, it's funny. Years later, I look back on that experience and I wonder, I seem to think that God must have been sitting there going, "God, Myers, what the hell does that mean?
>> What What does just make you a better man mean?" You see, but when I came to him with an inventory that said, "God, guess what? This is painful to talk about, but I just realized that I'm selfish and self-centered to the core and that I'm dishonest and that I'm that that I'm I'm I'm inconsiderate, that I step on other people, that I cause all kinds of problems, that I'm prideful, that I'm boastful, that I'm full of arrogance, that I'm full all of these things that I illuminated as I'm going through this stuff. Please take each and every one of these things from me.
And it seemed to be like somebody had stuck 220 right up my little rear end. I just went and it's like it worked. the connection got made and all that stuff got removed from me.
It was just an amazing process, but I had to identify it first. One of the greatest problems we run into, guys, around this thing about inventory is that we let these guys go too long on this stuff. Now, I know a lot of you guys have had powerful experiences in inventory.
And you'll say, "Well, my inventory was 8 hours long and it was just a beaten." And and some people do have long inventories like that, but let me tell you what my experience has been. You can agree or disagree. It doesn't make me any difference, guys.
Trust me on that. Um, the inventories that I used to do with guys that went eight hours long are no more effective than the ones I did that are an hour and a half long. The difference is is that in the in the former, I just let you talk too much.
That was the realization that I made. Yes, this is about talking. Yes, this is about sharing stuff.
But guys, let me tell you something. Well, remember in the book at the very first part of the fourstep stuff when they're talking about that, they liken it to what? a commercial inventory, didn't they?
A commercial inventory. And a commercial inventory is like this. Milk, sour.
That's the commercial inventory. It is. I mean, that's where we're heading with this thing, right?
It's like, what? But what you want to tell me in the inventory is, well, you see, we got this milk in and then the coolers weren't cooling, right? And well, actually, let me let me let me back up a little bit.
It what it really happened is is that the guy that delivered the milk was late getting here with the milk. So, we had two days worth of milk sitting right here and then the cooler did its dealing and I'm going well stop. Fascinating stuff you're telling me there.
But I DON'T GIVE A RAT PATUTI about the date guy being late delivering the milk. It means nothing to the inventory. What means something into the inventory?
Milk sour. We got to get rid of it. Milk sour.
It's not good. I got pulled over by a cop and got a DWI. I didn't.
But you hear this on 90% of the the the stuff. I resent the police department because they pull me over drunk. And then he wants to go into this big long story of what happened.
See, I had this particularly bad day and I got off and I went blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And I'm just going and as sponsors, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You're doing this and you're just kind of looking at your watch going please kill me now.
I just I don't want I don't want to I don't GIVE A RAT'S PATOOTUTI ABOUT your your debacle with the law. I don't care. You were you weren't supposed to be drunk and that's it.
That's all we need to see. I just stop. Stop.
Stop. Fascinating. Let me ask you a question.
Were you drunk in the car? Uh-huh. It's all I need to know.
I don't need to know anything else. Next. And then we whittle these things down.
It all goes back to the thing. The fourth column stuff is pretty simple. They're asking four things and every it just snaps into place.
There it is. There it is. There it is.
We ask about hard things to I want to know, you know, whose yaha did you touch? And and just I mean, I want to know some details about the stuff, the things you're going to take to the grave with you. But, you know, we're not going to spend a bunch of time on this stuff.
An hour and a half inventory is plenty. And I've done p guys with 60 pages of inventory in an hour and a half. They're still sober today.
They're still kicking butt and taking names. They're still doing the things that they needed to do because we cut through all of the stuff that takes all the time. Listen, the golden rule, the absolute carved in stone cosmic rule book stuff around inventories with sponsors and proteges is this.
If your inventories are going too long, you're letting your protege spend too much time justifying his bad behavior. It's as simple as that. Because that's all he's doing.
All he's trying to do is justify why he did what he did. Don't let him do it. >> >> wrong is wrong and right is right.
And that's all we're trying to illuminate on the stuff. Um, we all good so far. The the when you go back and you look at the historical data, you go back and look through Clarence Snider stuff, most of these things went um went um 45 days and they were through the work.
Um, what pains me is that most of the places that I travel to, most of the guys a year a year and a half sober still haven't worked the work. They're still floundering and because of the stuff that we read last night, the stuff on page 24 that we won't be able to bring into mind with sufficient force, the pain and suffering of even a week or a month ago, that stuff. Um, there is some urgency here, guys.
There is some urgency. The dead last thing I want you to do is come in and be comfortable in AA before we start the work. I want you to come in and be so uncomfortable and so much in pain sitting in the room that you're willing to be motivated to do the work.
Because remember the stuff we talked about last night, pain is the only thing that'll make you do this work. If you're comfortable in your own skin, you'll trivialize it and you'll set it aside. You will.
You will. So, in the big picture thing, I know people say say, "Well, this they work these guys through the steps way too fast." Says who? Based on what?
If you're not working guys through the work fast, it's because you're not really sure about what you need to be doing about getting them through the work is all there is to it. And there's nothing wrong with that. Just go back through and look at it from a slightly different perspective and pay some attention to what you're doing and you can get them through the deal.
My guys, I I'll do this and we'll close this thing down. My guys, we we they come in uh we meet. Kelly says, "Will you help me?" I said, "Yep, sure will." We sit down, we spend 30 minutes.
In 30 minutes, I qualify her, get her through step two, unless she's got some real problems with it. Get her on her knees. We do step three, and she's up standing there.
Three. We got 30 minutes, 40 minutes max. In that first meeting, I give her some information about the fourep.
She leaves me ready to do the four step. Kelly, Sweet Pea, you have exactly seven days to 10 days to do this. Let's set a date right now.
Next Tuesday. That's seven days from now. Okay.
Seven days from now, we'll meet right here at four o'clock in the afternoon and we're going to do this inventory. Kelly shows back up. She's got the inventory.
Two hours later, we're through with her inventory. She gets up. We sit in the meeting for a bit.
She goes home. She does six and seven that night by herself. Next time she comes back, she comes back.
She sits down with me with an eightstep list already written out. We sit there and go through the eightstep list. I help her move it around.
So, we all the money stuff over here, all this, we're not going to get involved in the but it's a 20-minute conversation. A 20-minut I know some of you guys are going, "But when do you read the book?" It it didn't say that we were supposed to read the book to get them to the spir spiritual experience. The book has got a great deal deal of stuff in there.
But her experience is going to be based on the action that she takes, not the intellectual stuff that she garners. You see what I'm saying? It's a different kind of a deal.
You can get them into the book if you want to. I got no problem with that. You can ask her to read the book, too.
If she's wanting to do this thing, she'll be motivated to do that anyway. But that's not the important part. The important part is is that you're keeping the blowtorrch right up against her little butt.
She's motivated to do the things that she needs to do. And then as she does this stuff, she's I'm not putting a limit on the time it takes to do the the amends. That's between her and God.
I'm just there to make her accountable. Kelly, next time we sit down together, I want to look and see what you've done amends wise. I want to see where you are.
We want to keep there's a momentum to an amends process. Once it starts, it needs to go. You'll end up with some straggling stuff out there that you're going to have some trouble cleaning up.
I understand that. I'll help you with that as much as I can. While you're doing that, you're doing 10, 11, and 12.
Kelly, Friday night, we're going to go um to uh to Homerbound, and I'd like you to come out there with us and sit in the meeting with us while we're doing the deal. Kelly's now two weeks sober. She's sitting in a meeting.
Um she's she's doing the stuff that she's supposed to be doing. She's pretty much through the work and she's sitting in a windup joint joint. Uh I said, "Kelly, after the meeting, see that little girl over there that's been crying the whole meeting?
Why don't you go see if you can talk to her a minute and tell her what's going on?" The little girl that's crying over there that's detoxing doesn't care a wit about me. I'm just a crusty old guy from Texas. What that little girl wants to know is, can I get up in the morning and not obsess about drinking and drugging?
That's what she wants to know. And Kelly has the answer. Kelly's two weeks from her last drink.
Kelly can walk up and say, "You know what? in the morning. You don't have to drink.
This is what I did. Kelly's 12step this little girl at two weeks sober. And the miracle happens.
The miracle happens. Will this little girl over here get it? I don't know.
It's not my deal. But Kelly is on the path. Kelly at two weeks sober is a part of and a bonafide member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Fully aware of what our responsibilities are to Alcoholics Anonymous. There's a price to pay to be here, guys. There's a price to pay.
There is a there is a responsibility when we're here. We're It's not a free ride. The book was real clear on that.
Bill Wilson wrote a whole chapter on working with others. Chapter 7. Trying to get us to understand that once we draw a sober breath, we're supposed to look out there.
We're supposed to look to the next guy to give him what had been given us. And that miracle is the most powerful thing I can offer. Will Kelly have bad days?
Yes. Will she be goofy at times? You bet.
But when she calls me, I'm going to say, "Kelly, that's interesting. I know. Uh, how about you go down to 24-hour club and sit with a drunk for a while and get clear of this?" Well, you didn't just listen to what I say and I'm having relationship problems.
I said, "I understand. I heard all that, Kelly. I'm just telling you like that.
We'll talk about the relationship stuff a little bit later on. Right now, I want you to go to 24-hour club, take you a couple of dollars down there so you can buy a cup of coffee to that little girl that just came in off the street." Dig. Kelly goes, "I dig.
I don't care what she says or does to me. I don't care. The but but the reality of it is is that what Kelly's going to do is what thousands and thousands of us have done.
She's going to walk down there with her teeth all gritted and she's going to walk in and she's going to buy a cup of coffee for some little gal and they're going to start talking and 10 minutes worth of conversation is going to stretch into an hour conversation and Kelly's going to say, "See you later, sweet pee. I got to get back to back to school." and she's going to turn around and walk out of the room. And when she walks out, she'll be what, as Bill said, curiously lifted up and she'll get on the cell phone and she'll say, "Myers, I don't really remember what it was I called you about this morning." I say, "Kelly, I know that.
I know that." Bill understood. Bob understood. These cats were were dead nuts on about what they were going to do.
Somebody told me one time that they were bored in AA. And I I always go bored. How can you be bored watching one miracle right after another miracle?
You take little screwed up messes like Dustin Barnes that walk in here like this and sit down and do the work and get I'm just telling you guys. Could any of us have fixed Dustin? >> Uhuh.
Only God could fix Dustin and only the only a fellowship and only strong sponsorship could keep Dustin's goofy head out of the way long enough so he could do the work so the miracle could happen in his life. And that's our job. And as you watch this little army of buckaroos rise up around you, you'll understand how cool it is.
And you'll sit there at the end of the day and you'll just go, "Oh, I know that that that an observer to my life from the outside would look at my life and say, "Myers, I think your life is pathetic." You know, I I don't really care. All I care about is that I can sit on the edge of my bed at night and I can hear this woman next to me breathing that I absolutely adore. I can't wait to be in the same room with that woman.
And I'm going to sit there and I'm going to listen to her breathing for a couple of minutes. And I'm going to thank God that for the first time in my pathetic life, I know exactly what my primary purpose is. My primary purpose is to carry a message of recovery to a bunch of sick little knuckleheads OUT THERE THAT DON'T have a clue that there's a solution to their problem.
And I do. I do because it was given to me in a set of in a lit literature in first 164 pages of this book. It was clear and concise and I could understand it.
And more importantly, I could transmit it. I could give it to somebody else and they too could walk free and clear of this stuff. Nothing is cooler.
Nothing is cooler. The only thing that's missing from this picture is you in the trenches with us. You ever see these guys out on the street with, you know, like like ditch diggers like this?
They're like, you'll have five or six guys standing up there with clipboards and they're like this. And there's one little Mexican guy down the bottom of that ditch down there like dig in this ditch like this. I'm the little Mexican guy in the bottom of this ditch.
I am. And I'm keep going, come on, guys. I need somebody in here with me.
And another guy will drop in and another guy will drop in. But what we need in AAA is less fewer people with clipboards pointing fingers and giving direction and more people in the ditches in the trenches carrying a message of recovery and hope to the guy that that we assume that everybody that comes into our room knows exactly what it is that why they're there and all this. They don't.
And guess what? There's hundreds and hundreds of thousands that will never ever even make it to our rooms, dying out there in St. Paul, Minnesota tonight because they simply don't know there's another way to do it.
We assume that everybody knows AA's here. They'll come when they're ready. No, they won't.
No, they won't. They'll die tragic lives and they'll kill everybody around them that they know. It's a horrible blood bath out there, guys.
And we need every one of you in the trenches with us helping us do that. For those guys I stepped on, I'm sorry. For those guys that disagree with me, I am sorry to that, too.
Um, and I'll spend as much time as you want to talking about those issues and this kind of stuff, and we can do that stuff during the workshop. Thankfully for me, they've gathered up some guys that are far smarter than I am about the steps to come up and help with this, and it's going to be so cool. And I thank every one of you for letting me come do this.
Thank you. >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message.
Until next time, have a great day.