Knowledge and Experience – Big Book Study – Austin – Part 1 of 2 – Mark H.

My name is Mark Houston. I'm an alcoholic, and my God-given sobriety date is October the 19th of 1982. And I stress God-giving. I hear a lot of times in AA meetings, God brought me to AA, and somehow in there for me alcohol had a hell of a lot to do with it too. probably did for a lot of you. I normally try and take five or ten minutes when I do these things to clear the things that I guess are between me and what I hope takes place here. I always find it interesting when I'm asked to do big book workshops and seminars because I am not an individual who believes in studying the big book of alcoholics' knowledge. I am a person who believes in doing the work out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and there is a big difference in that. There's a little story that I always like about it tells the difference between knowledge and experience because I suspect that there's some of you that might have came here with the idea of picking up knowledge or perhaps even information. And what I want to submit to you that if we're willing to do a few things, maybe in fact what we can all have as an experience. But there's a story that sums up for me the difference between knowledge and experience. And there's these two brothers in about age 14, one day in biology class, the idea of having an orgasm got brought up to them. And their twin brothers are identical. They made the decision that they were going to find out everything you could about having an organism. So one brother, he took the path of knowledge. He finished up high school and he went on to college and he went on to get a Ph.D., and he was teaching a class on everything he always wanted to know about having an orgasm. And the other brother, he was a little bit smarter. He went around trying to find a little girl for about two weeks, and he finally found one, and they had sex, and he had an orgasм. And which one of those two people do you think knows more about having a orgasm? The one with all the knowledge or the one with the experience? I sat in Alcoholics Anonymous for two and a half years, and I had a lot of knowledge. And I was dying of that part of the disease that is seldom talked about in Alcoholics Anonymous today, and it's a part that we're certainly going to talk about. I also always laugh about who shows up at these kinds of things. You know, and I'll share some of this as we go along, but just imagine, God forbid, if you took this group of people and you put us all back in the bar and we were drinking alcohol. God forbid. But let's say we did that. And what would happen in there is about a third of this group, they would be pretty much up at the bar just sipping on the drinks and whining in their beer and that type of a thing. That would be about a Third of the Room. And then about a 3rd of the room would be sitting at the tables and they'd be a little bit more active because they know they can get a little more out of alcohol than the guy or gal just sitting up at the bar sipping. And then there's a 3d group, and I fit in that group, and I call them the Mad Dogs. They're knocking the guy's drink over that's up at the bar. They're trying to dance with the wife of the guy sitting at the table. They're out doing dope because they know there's a hell of a lot more in alcohol than what those other two groups of people know. And that's the way I was with alcohol, and that's The Way I Am with this wonderful thing that I call recovery. And that has been my experience traveling most of this United States. There are three groups of people in Alcoholics Anonymous very similar to the three groups of people that I just talked about. Sad but true, we reached a place in Alcoholics Anonymous where it is our individual responsibility to make a decision whether or not to do the work out of the big book about Alcoholics Anonymous. I say sad but true because the message in the fellowship is not the message that's contained in the bigbook, and a lot of you are going to find that out this weekend. If you bought a new big book recently, I want to mention something about, I guess, qualifications. I am not an expert on the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. What I have to share with you is experience. I'm going through the work out of the big book following the precise, specific, clear-cut directions and meeting the requirements for the 12th time. And so I am up here to share my experience with you with that process and maybe to give you some practical tools that you can use if you too would choose to have this experience. And I'm going to present you probably with a lot of paradoxes this weekend. Here's one of them. Those of us that choose to go through and do the work out of the big book and follow all the instructions, do everything it says, we do that because we have no choice. The spiritual life is full of paradox. I have to admit in the first step that I'm powerless over alcohol and my life's unmanageable in order to be given any power. I believe that the spiritual life is not a theory that we have to live the spiritual way. And you see what's always been difficult for me every time back through the work is I'm raised with a mind that wants to compute everything from a logic standpoint, but that won't happen. But if you buy a new big book and when I go back through The Work, I do that and the reason I do that is because the book I used the last time through The Work and all the things that I have highlighted and underline now becomes a barrier for me learning anything new. So when I bought the last big book, because I started going back to the work in February, on the title of this book was a cover page, and I want to read something. It says the basic text pages 1 through 164 remains unchanged. This is the AA message. Just as it was introduced in the 1939 Alcoholics Anonymous, the book that gave Young Fellowship its name. And I can tell you from experience from in the last six months being in Kentucky and Louisiana and several other places that the message that I hear in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is not the message in the big book of Alcoholic Anonymous. And the sad news is that if you're a real alcoholic, you'll die from what I call middle-of-the-road solution. And hopefully we're going to let the experience and what the book talks to us about smash a lot of the middle-of-the-road solutions that we bring into this thing. We're going to do a couple more things and then we're going to shut the tape off for a few minutes. We're gonna ask you a series of 15 questions. And by the time we get up to the third step, we're gonna find out whether or not there's movement in terms of maybe those 15 questions and we're also gonna utilize a prayer for those of you who perhaps came here to have something more than picking up knowledge or information. And like any good alcoholic, what was a simple prayer that my sponsor gave me because I hooked up with him at two and a half years dying of untreated alcoholism, told him what I knew of, what I thought I knew of AA and recovery, and he said I have enough information to be dangerous to myself and anyone else that I ever work with. So he gave me a simple prayer, and that's now been called a set-aside prayer. It really doesn't matter what it's called, but it's a prayer that I use every single time through the work. Because when I begin to go through this process called a spiritual experience, we call them the steps, they're spiritual exercises, the biggest noose around my neck the day I start that work is everything I think I know about myself, my disease, these steps, and most of all God. That will be the biggest news, so I use that prayer as I go back through the work every time. What I can tell you about that is when I do that, the things that I read in my new big book, I have never read before. Example, two years ago through the work in the 10th step, there's a phrase, we've entered the world of the Spirit. I've never understood that. I know why. I spiritually understand what it's like to have entered the World of the Spiritual today. That happens for me every single time through the work when I utilize a new book. So we're going to do a few things and then those of you, that prayer is going to be in that packet that you've been given and we're going to pause for a minute. We're goingto go ahead and say that prayer together so that maybe you too between this evening and tomorrow in your own way can have an experience and not just pick up knowledge and notjust pick up information. See, because if you walk into a spiritual experience with an answer, i.e., those of us sitting in this room right now that are sitting here saying I absolutely know I'm an alcoholic. You cannot begin a spiritual exercise with an answer. Let me say that again. You cannot began a spiritual excercise with an answer. If you want anything to happen, you have to begin with a question. You have to begin with the question. I go through the work every time. A coin has two sides to it. The question that I ask myself since I have distance between me and a drink is maybe I'm not an alcoholic and maybe I don't mean God. And when I go to the work and I pose myself with that question, what I find out is what a desperate alcoholic I am and how desperately I need God. There are three ways that one can go through the big book and go through these steps. And at one time or another I will be unfortunately in all three. The first is the man of contempt. The man of content says, I know I'm an alcoholic. I absolutely know that and that is the attitude that he or she would take in going back through this work. They have what's called contempt prior to investigation. You have another way of going through the work, and that's the attitude of the pious man. Pious man accepts everything. Pious men loves to read Dr. Addict Alcoholic. The third, and that is the path that I am going to ask you to consider, is what I call the path of consideration. See, here is what i learned in my journey through a spiritual experience. When posed with a question, I discovered one day that my alcoholic ego used an answer to shut off learning anything. I discovered that what really happened for me is from the length of time the question was asked me until I answered is when I begin to have movement in there. So, the path that I'm going to ask you to take as we move through this experience is what I call the path of consideration. To be on both sides. Maybe I'm not an alcoholic. Maybe I am. Maybe I don't need God. Maybe I desperately need God, and to take what I call the path of consideration so that I can be open and so that i can maybe have a new experience with what we call the steps out of that book. I want to take about 30 seconds to qualify myself. There's absolutely no emotion in my life about me and alcohol prior to getting here. I discovered something three years ago that my alcoholic ego was doing I would sit in meetings and I'd hear myself say when I got here when the topic was brought up and you know what I realized when I Got Here is not where I'm living now and that When I Got There was keeping me from looking at where am I now with this relationship that I have with God today so When I got there today has no relevance for me because that prevents me from experiencing the presence of God now in my life i took out i took my first drink of alcohol when i was 16 i drank till i was 36 and in between there i broke all laws of man and all of god and i checked myself into treatment in 1982 with brain damage kidney damage and liver damage and everything i owned was in a duffel bag that's how much fun i had with uh with alcohol and i reached the place several years before i checked into treatment that i couldn't control how much i drank i couldn'T control where i was going to go when I took a drink and I couldn't quit drinking. And I harmed every human being that ever loved me and ever did anything for me. And when I checked into treatment in 1982, I did not want to live anymore. Or even worse, I did NOT want to leave feeling the way I was feeling that day. And that's really all I want to tell you in terms of qualifying myself around me and alcohol. Because as I said, spending too much time there keeps me out of experiencing the presence of God now. so you won't hear a lot from me anymore of when I got here. Here's the other thing I discovered. I can't defeat my ego, but it's neat to know what the little guy is up to. He has three major objectives and if you're an alcoholic, a fourth will be accomplished. Here's The First. He wants me separated from God, myself, and you. And if that happens for me long enough, then I will be in a bar school drinking alcohol again. And there are many, many ways in which my alcoholic ego will begin to do that. And one of them is to have me live in the past as to when I got here as opposed to being honest with myself about it. Those of you who have been around AA for a period of time, here's an interesting question for you to ask yourself. Is it possible that the God of my understanding can take me further in every area of my life than I can even imagine if I am willing to take some action? Is God truly everything in my life? Or, with time between me and a drink of alcohol, has my agnostic belief system come back in? Does your ego tell you if your external world looks a certain way that that's sufficient to keep you drunk and in close personal relationship with God? And we'll consider some of those things. I'd like to take a minute and I would like to shut the tape off and then we want to ask 15 questions. Okay, my name is Mark and I'm an alcoholic. We went through a series of questions. Before we do this prayer, I want to share something that's important. I do not share this to brag. I share this because I'm proud of this and this is my sponsorship lineage. And those of you who either have sponsors or are going to get sponsors, I would strongly suggest you find out your sponsorship lineage because if you're a real alcoholic like me, this is a life and death program and sponsors can only give you what's been given to them. My sponsor is a man named Don P. He has been sober 27 years. Got sober in the penitentiary. Just to show you what God does, he's now in charge of the drug and alcohol programs at 16 penitentaries. You don't get from there to there. It's impossible. His sponsor is a man named Gary B., and he lives in Indianapolis, Indiana. His sponsor is a name named Paul M. Paul M is 47 years sober, still very active and very involved in Chicago, Illinois. Paul M's sponsor was a man called Paul S. He was the first sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous in Chicago. Paul S was sponsored by Dr. Bob, and of course Bill Wilson carried the message to him. I share that with you to try and give you an idea that the message that God delivered to me had no middle-of-the-road solution to it whatsoever. And as my sponsor said, you now have a responsibility and that responsibility is to carry into the fellowship and when you are working with others the message out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Real briefly, as I sat in AA for two and a half years and I worshiped all the fingers in AA and here's what the fingers are. Get a sponsor, I did that. Go to a lot of meetings I did that. Get a home group. I did that. Read the big book. I did that and study the big book, go to big book studies. I did that. Go to conventions. I did that sponsor people. And I did that. And I was real, real confused because at two and a half years, I was dying of a part of the disease that we don't talk about in Alcoholics Anonymous. What's really wrong with me? It's that part of the disease. It's called the spirituality. And I was real confused by that. When I went to these two men who asked to sponsor me. Sponsors give you what's given to them. The first one we met in Denny's for a few minutes and he asked that dangerous lethal question, are you powerless over alcohol Mark? Are you an alcoholic? And I said yes. I was sober two and a half years telling you I was a drunk but didn't have a sliced idea what that meant. Let me tell you how important just the first half of the first step is. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous devotes 53 pages to the first half of the first step. First 43 pages, 10 pages in the doctor's opinion. The chapter into action is 17 pages long and has 7 steps in it. Why do you think the first step is the foundation of this entire program? When I got done with the first set, doing the work with Don I began to pursue this process with desperation. There's two lines in the big book that that speak to me about how to go after this thing called recovery. One's on page 28. It says, To seek recovery with the desperation of a drowning man. And the other is in chapter 5, how it works. We beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. So I went to see this man and we sat across from each other. And those of you who have books, if you'll turn to the title page just one second. Let's do something. I want to pause for a second And then I would like us, those of you who would care to join me in this prayer that's in that little handout you have. It just says prayer number one on it. And that's the prayer that we use to be open to a new experience and lay aside some prejudice. Those who care to, would you join me? Would you join with me in his prayer? God, please help me set aside everything I think I know about myself, my disease, these steps, and especially you for an open mind and a new experience with myself, my disease these steps and especially you. If you've got a big book if you'll open to the title page I went to see Don and he'd asked me to bring my big book and I went over and he asked me what I'd done in Alcoholics Anonymous and I shared all that with him. And at that point in time, he introduced me to this prayer. And the reason he introduced me to the prayer was I had a lot of prejudice about what the message in the big book was all about. And one of the ideas I had prior to sitting down with him was, I thought I was in AA. And what I discovered is I wasn't in AA, I was only in one-third of the program, I was just in the fellowship. But he took this title page that says Alcoholics Anonymous, the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism. That's the first promise of the big book. For those of you who answered that you're always going to be recovering, the title page smashes that idea real quick. The big book tells you somewhere between 30 to 50 times that you have recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body. And it starts out telling you that on the title page. I believe if they wanted to use the words recovering, they would have done that. I think some confusion comes in, in that in the tenth step I am told that I am not cured of alcoholism and I'm not. But I am a recovered alcoholic. We will see that word in this book over and over and over again. A woman who is a spiritual advisor of mine, 37 years sober in Denver, says that people who introduce themselves as a recovering alcoholic have never made all the amends. So when they introduce themselves, that is probably true. So we looked at this little thing called the circle and the triangle and I'd never looked at this before and a question was asking me what do you think unity is and I said well I think that's the fellowship that's going to meetings and he said are you in that part of the fellowship and I says absolutely I said you know that I've been going to a lot of meetings now I didn't go to meetings where he went because he came to the treatment center and spoke and I saw him a few times around AA and he scared me so I stayed away from meetings he went to because they talked about this book all the time and they talked about doing this work and so I said to him that yes I was in that part of this circle and triangle and he said to me Mark what is the only requirement for membership and I said the only requirement for membership is a desire to quit drinking and he turned over to the top of page 24 and it says at a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. He said, Mark, you need to understand something. A desire to not drink allows you to occupy a chair in Alcoholics Anonymous but has absolutely nothing to do with you staying sober. And he smashed one of the many middle-of-the-road solutions that I had heard in this fellowship. And that was that if I went to enough meetings and I had a desire to quit drinking, that I would stay free from alcohol. so we determined that I was in that part of the circle and the triangle then he asked me what I thought recovery was and I'd been around long enough to say well that's going through the big book and doing the steps and he said to me have you ever done that and I'm an alcoholic I cannot answer yes or no questions so I begin to pontificate about my experience with these two men and he stopped me and said from now on my relationship with you. He said, when I ask you a yes or no question, I would like a yes or no response, so let me try this one more time. Have you ever gone from the title page to page 164 of this book and done this work? And I said, no. Then he said, you are not in recovery and you have never been in recovery. And that made me angry and that never bothered him very much. He told me one day, he said Mark, I love you far more as a child of God than I care about your feelings. And most of the time he said, my experience is every feeling I've ever had has proceeded with a thought and if your thinking's all screwed up like yours is it's going to produce some real interesting feelings. Don never lied to me and I won't lie to an alcoholic. I won' tell him middle of the road stuff like take your time work the steps when you're comfortable. I share with them what this disease is all about and what's in the big book which is seek recovery with the desperation of a drowning man. So at two and a half years I'm told I'm not in recovery because I've never done the work out of the book. And then he asked me what I thought service was, and I said, well, I think that's going to meetings and emptying ashtrays and doing some of that. And he kind of chuckled again, and he said, Mark, if you're willing to do what I did, and he says, I only know one way to sponsor. Start on the title page, go to page 164. Every time the book asks us to do something, we're going to go ahead and do it. He said, that's the only way I know how to sponsor because he said I can't keep myself sober. I cannot keep you sober. But he said, when we go through and do this, when we get to the tenth step, if you've done this work, you will see that the book tells you that you have entered the world of the Spirit. And then you can take your awakened spirit out to be a service to God and your fellow human beings in every area of your life from the time you get up until the time You go to bed. And since you've never done that, never been in recovery, then you've also never been in this part of the program. He said, Mark, that's your dilemma. You've felt that way most of your Life. He said this is a circle and a circle represents wholeness. You have a three-part disease He's a body, mind, spirit. You've only been in one part of Alcoholics Anonymous. You've already been taking your body to meetings. You've been missing out on two-thirds of what is wrong with you. And everything he said fit and everything he says made sense. So out of this crazy little thing called the title page, he also said to me, he said, do you know that there are 36 spiritual principles that you can live your life by? There's a spiritual principle behind each of the 12 steps. There's an example a spiritual principle behind each of the traditions, and there is a spiritual principle behind the concepts. So he took a simple title page that I'd never really looked at, and pointed out to me that I'm given the first promise and statement of hope that I can recover, that I have a disease of body, mind, spirit, and I can be given 36 spiritual principles to live my life by. And I left his home, and with hope. Because in two and a half years and some of you may or may not relate to this there's a paragraph on page 52 which describes untreated alcoholism. There are three words I use interchangeably one is called the spirituality the second is untreated alcoholism and the third is unmanageability. In a two and half years sober, I was restless, irritable, discontent under constant fear and tension and all that stuff on page 52 was full-blown in me. I was having trouble in personal relationships. I could not control my emotional nature. I was a prey to misery and depression. I couldn't make a living. Now, I had a job and was drawing a paycheck, but I didn't like where it worked. I didn' t like the people. I'd gotten in two fights. They informed me that that was not part of their training program. I was full of fear. I was unhappy. I felt useless and I could no longer be of help to others. And at two and a half years away from alcohol, all that stuff on page 52 was exactly what's going on. He said, Mark, you're dying of untreated alcoholism. He said... Do you know, Mark that you can die a physical death and a spiritual death? He said you've been sitting in AA thinking your problem is alcohol, didn't you? And I said yes. He said Mark, if your problem was alcohol given a little distance between you and a drink don't you think you'd feel a lot better? And I said, well, I never thought about that. He said, Mark, we're going to find in the first step, the first 43 pages, that the disease of the body and mind are just symptoms. That what you suffer from is a spirituality and that only a relationship with God can treat that, Mark. No human power. See, I was confused. I told you the state I was in when I came to AA. In two and a half years down the road, I'm living in a new home. There are two new cars sitting in my garage. There's money in my bank account. I'm making money. I'm married. I even had a dog, for God's sakes. And I'm dying inside and I don't know why. And I can't figure it out. But my alcoholic ego won't let me come into meetings and say, what's going on? What am I missing? He told me exactly what I was missing. So he and I began that journey. He smashed some other middle-of-the-road stuff. I love these sponsors that say, call me every day. He said to me, I work. I have two children. I go to bed early. Do not ever call me past 10 o'clock at night. I can't keep myself sober. I can'T keep you. If, in fact, you think you're going to drink alcohol, hit your knees, pray, get in your car, and go to the 24-hour club. He said, My role here is to sit across from you and take you through this work. That man never gave me advice about anything. When I called him, he did two things for me, which is the only way I know how to work with people. The first is he asked me if I prayed. I learned to lie because if I didn't he'd hang the phone up. The second is he would say get out your big book and you see the gift he gave me he made me understand something very quickly. I was going to stay sober and live life based on a relationship with God and that if I was a real alcoholic maybe if I did these things these spiritual exercises we call steps that maybe I could develop that relationship because see I knew people that had gone to a lot more meetings than me and drank alcohol And I knew people who worked with a lot of people and drank alcohol. And I new people who were of service and drank alcoholic. He said, Mark, we just hope that in the midst of you doing all that somewhere in there, you would develop a relationship with God. See, I see people worshiping in AA the fingers of AA. Meeting. Meetings. Home group. Sponsor. The steps. This is all about a personal relationship with god. If you went to an international convention and went to a meeting of loners. And you heard these men and women talk about AA. You know what you would hear? You know What AA is to them? It is a personal relationship with God. Sometimes I think meetings get in the way of my relationship with G-d. I don't know. But that's all I want to talk about on the title page. If you'll turn to the table of contents. Don asked me a question. By then, I learned to be a little more honest with him. He said, where do you find the first step in the big book? And I said, I don't know. Now common sense should tell us something. The big book, the first time it tells you you're out of step, it says being convinced where it's step three. So obviously everything in the Big Book from the title page up to being convinced must be steps one and two. But I didn't know where to find step one. So he laid out this big book for me. He said, Mark, in the first step we're going to take the first steps in two parts. The first part is he said we're gonna look at the fact that you have a disease of the body and mind. And the second part of that, we're going to look at unmanageability. We're goingto look at the thing called the spirituality. And he said everything in the big book from the doctor's opinion to page 23, we're gonna look at Mark when he takes a drink of alcohol. What's wrong with Mark physically? And from page 23 to 43, we're gonnalook at Mark when he has no alcohol in him so there's no craving taking place. We're gonnalook at the fact that Mark has no mental defense against the first drink. We call it the obsession of the mind. And we're going to use the big book and we're not going to look for answers. We're going take statements out of the big book and we are going to turn them into questions to find out in my gut and not in my head, does my experience confirm I have the craving of the body and the obsession of the mine? He said we're going to find the second half of the first step on pages 44 45, and one paragraph on page 52. There's one sentence on page 54 that says, when the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. What's really wrong with us? Steps four through nine is where the spiritual Malady is over. It's overcome. So that tells me where I'm going to find the first step in the program. And I think that's real important if you're working with a new person. We're going to look at the second step in We Agnostics, right up through the ABCs. And then chapters 5, 6, and 7, we're goingto look at steps 3 through 12. And then if you look in your table of contents, chapters 8, 9, 10, and 11 is where we're gonna be giving instructions on practicing these principles in all of our affairs. So now I know how the table of content in the book is laid out. Now I know if I need to find out where I'm at with a step or I have some questions, I know where I can find it. And I'm going to give you the same exercise that he gave me, which is to go through this big book and particularly the 164 pages and to take statements out of the book and turn them into questions. And I will take some of those and I will show you how to do that. See, he confused me because all my life when I went into a book, I went in to a book to find answers. He said, no, Mark, you can't do that. He said we have to go into this book and we have ask a whole bunch of questions and we answer those questions deep down within ourselves. Are you a real alcoholic? Because, Mark only you can diagnose yourself. So that laid out the big book in terms of the table of contents. If you turn over to the foreword or to the preface and again we're going to use the title page right up through the doctor's opinion primarily as a means of giving you some general information about the program of AA and a couple things he pointed out to me in the preface, ones in the second paragraph was this book has become the basic textbook he said to me I know you've gone to college so you've taken a lot of classes So he said a textbook, Mark, he said is designed to transmit information. This book is different in that it is designed to transmit a spiritual experience. He said in meetings of AA we go in and read chapter 5 how it works all the time. He said that's a grave danger in that. He said for you to read chapter five is like someone who's never even had basic math and you tell them to go do calculus. He said from the title page up through chapter 5 we're going to learn basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. We're goingto learn algebra, geometry. When we get to chapter 5 now we can do the calculus. So we're gonna treat this book like it's a basic textbook and we're gona start at the beginning and we are gona go through this process. Now if you'll turn over the forward to the first edition several of the questions that we ask are gonna get answered. This first paragraph has always been since the time I sat down with him. Extremely important and still is today. It says, We of Alcoholics Anonymous are more than 100 men and women who have recovered that's the second time to use that word from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body to show and the word show is important it doesn't say to tell it says to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. He said to me, what does the word precisely mean to you, Mark? I said, Don, I think that means exact. He said, we here in the fellowship all the time, there's a lot of ways to work these steps, don't we? And I said yes. He said what did the book just tell you? I said well the book said they're going to show me precisely. And he said yeah and a little bit further on they're gonna show you specifically and a littlte bit furtheron they're gunna say we're guna use clear cut directions and a little bit further on, they're going to say be thorough. There is only one way to go through this process, Mark, if you're going to follow the book. He introduced me with the idea of squiggly lines. He said every word in here is important but when you see a squiggly line, you treat it like it's a neon light. So in that sentence we were told the book is going to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered. Third time it tells me I will be recovered and that's the main purpose of this book. It says, for them, we hope these pages will prove so convincing no further authentication will be necessary. I sit in meetings sometimes and I hear a person struggling with whether I'm an alcoholic or not. And I hear elders say, go out and do drinking. The book doesn't suggest we do that until page 31. Anyone who's struggling with the first step, what I point out to them is this sentence. I'm willing to go through the first 31 pages of this book with you and maybe in those 31 pages what you see will be so convincing no further authentication, meaning drinking, is necessary. That's what it's asking me. That's What The Book's Telling Me. Mark, are you willing to go through and take a look at yourself in the pages of This Book? Maybe if you are and you're one of us and you tap into this solution, maybe you never need to pick up a drink again. It goes on to say, we think this account of our experiences will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic. Many do not comprehend the alcoholic is a very sick person, and besides, we're sure our way of living has its advantages for all. So in the foreword to the first edition, look what I'm told, that I can recover from a hopeless state of mind and body, I'm getting introduced to what maybe is wrong with me, that this book will show me precisely how to recover and that that's the main purpose that maybe if I'm willing to go through here these pages will be so convincing to me that I don't ever have to pick up a drink again that I'm a sick person and this book will show me a way of living. Now, I've read this hundreds of times in those first two and a half years I've gone to big book studies page 18 is going to explain something to me basically what it's going to tell us, and it's another paragraph of squiggly lines, it's gonna tell me that little or nothing is gonna get accomplished in my recovery till I sit down with someone who's had this experience and they take me through this work. And that has been true for me and countless others I've sponsored. I want to comment on that if I may. I've lost track and it'S not necessarily important, but here's what I want To share with you all. I probably had an opportunity to do the work with well over 200 people. And in that process, of those who have gone through and done this work, there have only been two who have relapsed. Only two. And of all those numbers of people, they've sponsored hundreds and hundreds and there's been virtually no relapse. And those two who relapsED, one did not finish all the amends, the other had finished all the Amends but stopped doing some things on a daily basis. The point that I want to make is, nowhere in this big book does it tell me that it is necessary for me to relapse or to ever drink alcohol again if I'm willing to do what is in this book. But I told you this before. We've reached the point in AA where we must decide if we're going to do this work. For people that have been around Alcoholics Anonymous for a period of time and perhaps haven't done this work. The question I ask them is, and I give them an exercise, I've sponsored people up to 28 years sober. And the reason is because in meetings I would talk about having distance between me and a drink and dying of untreated alcoholism and that stuff on page 52 and they come up and say let me talk to you. And I give them a simple exercise. Those of you who have got distance between you and a drink, if you're willing to get honest and look at some truth, take those eight areas on page 52, say a prayer, and really write down and see what you've done with the grace and power of love of God and what you have gotten out of this program. Meaning, first question, how am I doing in personal relationships? Am I having trouble? And if you've got ten people that you interact with some consistency, husband, wife, boyfriend, mother, father, employer, get brutally honest about how you're doing in those relationships. Get honest with where you're at with controlling your emotional nature. Are you afraid of misery and depression? Get honest without making a living. Get honest about where you are at with full of fear. Are you unhappy? Can you seem to be a real help to other people? And if you've got distance between you and a drink, you're going to get an idea what you do with the power and grace of love with God. And if You're like me, You know what You're going see? You're gonna see what my alcoholic ego does after about six months of operating in 10 and 11. I mentioned to you, I'm going through this work for the 12th time. I do not do that because I am a healthy, well-adjusted individual. I do that because the first time I went through I developed a relationship with my Creator and once you taste the honey you cannot go back. And I do dat because I operate today in the world in 10and11 and the way that I operate in 10-11 came to me in the truth I saw in steps 1 through 9. I cannot conceive of operating today based on looking at 1 through 8 in 1993. This woman, 37 years sober, said something to me. If 12 months from today you and I sit down and we talk and you have not undergone major changes, you are headed for a drink of alcohol and you are missing out on what it's truly like to live in the presence of God. That is why I continue to go back through the work. I finished all of my amends with the exception of two that I have to make at a grave site in Iowa, which I'll do in the first week in July last year. And when I'm done making amends, I operate in 10 and 11. And I use 10 to move out into the world and 11 for that relationship with God. What I get a chance to see is after about six months what my alcoholic ego does with that love and that grace. When I went back through the work this time, I had 57 resentments. Now some of my friends say if I'd work a program, that wouldn't happen. That hasn't been my experience. Every time through the Work, I see truth at a deeper, deeper level. And I get an opportunity to get a change to see what my ego does. Those same three things I talked about separated from God, separated from me and separated from you. And I get a chance to see what my ego does with information and with knowledge. If you'll turn the page forward to the second edition, you're going to see some general information about the fellowship and how it grew. They're going to also tell you again about recovered alcoholics. Bottom of page XVI I want to mention something that's important and there it's going to talk about when Bill and Dr. Bob hooked up. I seem to only sponsor two kinds of people, those that have black belts and relapse or those who are in Alcoholics Anonymous dying of the spirituality that have never found this solution. And my experience with those people who have relapsed is they've never understood the first step. they've heard the solution and there's some of you sitting in this room they've heard the solutions but here's what you need to understand that's so critical Bill Wilson was told by Dr. Silkworth who treated over 50,000 alcoholics in towns, what was wrong with him Bill was given the problem Dr. Bob, the book's going to tell us spent years using spiritual means to try and quit drinking, and he couldn't. Bill went out for six months, tried to beat up alcoholics with a solution. God didn't do too well. Didn't get any of them sober, that tells us. Went back to Dr. Silkworth. Dr. silkworth says, no Bob or Bill, you need to talk to the alcoholic about the hopelessness of what's wrong with him. So when he hooked up with Dr. Bob, he told Dr. bob what was wrong with him, and then Dr.Bob told Bill what the solution was, and And now when I had both, my foundation, I've got to know what's wrong with me, disease of body, mind, spirit, before I'll seek the solution. I've absolutely got to Know Both. Somehow, prior to that point in time, just seeking God for the alcoholic didn't work and or just knowing what was wrong didn't works. We must know both. And having worked with literally hundreds of people who relapsed, not a single one, Not a single one has ever understood the first step. They were attempting to go through a set of spiritual exercises based on a lie. Let me explain. When we get done looking at the first steps and we use questions, and you go within yourself to see this is you, and you find out that you have a disease of body, mind, spirit, now I've laid my foundation and I know what's wrong with me and I'll go through these set of spiritual exercises and I will develop a relationship with God and I'll be given freedom and power and a sense of direction and happiness. If I think my problem is alcohol, disease of the body and mind and I go through the steps, I'm going through the step based on a lie and that will not last. I was two and a half years sober not knowing what was wrong with me thinking my problem was alcohol. Some of you in the room that I've done some work with, five years sober, going to meetings, had sponsors, very active in AA, have gone through the work based on a lie thinking their problem was alcohol. I cannot build, as Big Book says, we're building a spiritual arch through which I walk a free man. I cannot built that spiritual arch based on an idea or based on life. I must build it based on truth. And we're going to look at that in this first step. In fact, Mark, Do you have a disease of body, mind, spirit? Does your experience... When I talk about truth, understand this. I've done the work with a bunch of people that found out they weren't alcoholics. And those people have as much power and freedom finding out they were not alcoholics as I did when I found out I was. Wouldn't it be incredible if you truly went through this work and found out you weren't an alcoholic? Wow! My good friend Joe H., The lady he's going to get married to. In AA, eight and a half years. Couldn't figure out why. She never felt connected. Never sponsored anyone. Never felt at peace. Went to his group. Found a woman. Went through the first 43 pages. She's not an alcoholic. She got as free finding out she wasn't as I got when I found out it was. Wouldn't that be incredible? We're going to find out in the doctor's opinion. When I talk about the truth, we ask the question, alcoholism and drug addiction we're going to find out the truth you're going to need to know am i both maybe not I am an alcoholic who's powerless over drugs and when we get to about page 23 I'm going to explain that and I'm going to give you a series of exercises to show you that alcoholism and drug addictions are not the same yeah alcohol is a drug true the drug is a drug? True. Alcoholism and drug addiction are not the same. When I went through the work with my sponsor, who did heroin for eight years, he's not an addict. I went through the walk with him and found out that you give me a sufficient reason, I put down drugs. But you put drugs in my body and I break out in craving. You give me enough reason, I can never lay down alcohol. So what I am is an alcoholic who's powerless over drugs. I went to the work those first two times with men thinking I'm an alcoholic and an addict. And I went through the truth based on a lie. Remember, I cannot do spiritual exercises based on lies. I need to do them based on truth. When we get to page 23, I'll give you a couple of real simple exercises. There's nothing complex about it. I think it is important that you find out your truth. We do this in AA. We take addicts and we tell them, well if you're an addict, you're powerless over alcohol too. And they come to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and they do not get well. They do not get Well. We will find some truth in here. And I talk about that because I see a lot of it. I have done work with addicts who found out they weren't addicts but they were drunks. And I've done work mit drunks who found out they were drugs and found out that they were an addict. So that's what we're going to look for as we go through there. Alright. Something else I want to mention on page XX. It gives you some statistics about Alcoholics Anonymous, and they talk about of alcoholics who came to AA and really tried, 50% got sober once and remained that way, 25% sobered up after some relapses. That's a 75% recovery rate. I shared that the message in the fellowship and the message in the book have gotten so far distance. I've heard various numbers, but I've read as low as 20% of those who come to the fellowship now are coming here and staying sober. And my experience is it is because again the message and the fellowship is not the message in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Hopefully, and this is going to make some of you perhaps a little uncomfortable, this book and this weekend is going to smash a whole bunch of middle-of-the-road things like just don't drink and come to meetings. Things like go to 90 meetings in 90 days. Things like go to big book studies. Things like you can't ever make all your amends. Things likes make living amends, things like I'm others in the process of amends things like take your time things like use the Hazleton inventory form or one of the 947 others that are out there. We're going to go through the book and through a process smash a lot of middle-of-the-road solution. You see, middle-to-the road solution may work for someone who's not a real alcoholic but I've never seen it work for a real alcohol. What is an absolute delight and pleasure to me is I'm looking at a whole bunch of faces in here of people who were living in the middle of the road and kept relapsing and some had sobriety for a period of time and they are now engrossed in this work and some have completed and they aren't free. They are recovered. The problem has been removed. It does not exist. That reconfirms to me my responsibility to carry this message because their lives have changed dramatically. I look at Jason in the back and I see Shirley and Ed and David and I See Jeff and I Seen Larry and I could go on and on. Naming some other names of you in here who've been around this fellowship, got middle of the road, drank alcohol in, out, in, and out. Dying of untreated alcoholism who have now done the work and have gotten free. Dan sitting in the back. JD at eight years. This thing works and it's all about a personal relationship with God. And it's from a message that's out of this big book. Let's turn to the doctor's opinion. And again, I'm going to encourage you to take statements out of the big book and we're going to turn them into questions and that's something I'm gonna have you do on your own because time won't allow us to do that. But I would like you to turn over to page XXIV and understand, again, in the doctor's opinion that you have a man who... I've been doing some research lately because I like history. Dr. Silkworth treated over 50,000 alcoholics, so he certainly has some experience with working with the alcoholic. But where it says the physician at our request gave us this letter, he's been kind enough to enlarge upon his views another statement which follows. It says in this statement, And he confirms what we who suffered alcoholic torture must believe. So here's what I do. I take that statement and turn it into a question. Mark, have you suffered alcoholic torture? It goes on to say the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. Mark, do you think your body is as abnormal as your mind? It says it did not satisfy us to be told we couldn't control our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life, we were in full flight from reality or outright mental defectives. I always liked that part. These things were true to some extent, in fact, to a considerable extent with some of us, but we're sure that our bodies were sickened as well. Mark, did you ever feel like your body was sickening as well when it came to you and alcohol? In our belief, any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete. The doctor's theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests me. As laymen, our opinion as to a soundness may, of course, mean little, But as an ex-problem drinker, we can say his explanation makes good sense. It explains many things for which we cannot otherwise account. Don had me do an exercise. He said, I want you to understand something in the doc's opinion. We're looking at one thing. You've got a bottle of booze sitting in front of you and you've taken a drink. The book spends very little time, but in the docs' opinions, that's what we're looking at. I've taken the drink. Alcohol is in my system. Don said, do you have a dramatic story which demonstrates that you took a drink, you intended to do one thing, and something totally different happened? And I said, yeah, hundreds of them. He said, what's the most dramatic? I'll tell you the most traumatic. And it's important you need to sit and look at that. I'm living with a lady. She has two children, young baby. I'm going up to get some milk. I stop at Bennigan's to have one drink. I wake up eight days later in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in a strange bed with a strange woman without the slightest idea how I got from Denver, Colorado to Jackson Hole Wyoming and I had that happen to me hundreds of times that just happened to be the most dramatic so if you want to look at where you're at with this thing called craving think of the times that your intent was to be here for Christmas to be there you took a drink and never made it. That shows me what happens to me and explains many things for which I could not otherwise account. See, because I don't know about the rest of you, but I had a lot of guilt and shame and remorse. A grandmother that I'm going back to Iowa to make an amend in her grave. I loved her dearly. She died. I'm in Alaska. I have three days to get down for the funeral. Six days later, I wake up in St. Louis, Missouri. That was not my intent when I got on the airplane with no alcohol in me because I loved her and my intent was to be there for my mother and the rest of the family and I never made it. And the reason I never made it is because I'm allergic to alcohol and you put alcohol in me and I'm going to follow that alcohol wherever it takes me. Now, for those of you who got distance between you and a drink, I'll give you an exercise because I haven't had alcohol in my life or alcohol in meeting over 11 years. So, a man gave me an exercise and here's what he did. In your meditation, Mark, Imagine yourself going into a liquor store, buying booze and see what would happen. And I did that. It was an interesting exercise. I pull up to the liquor store. I already had a cooler in my car and a glass about three times bigger than this full ice. And I went in the liquor story and I used to like to drink vodka and grapefruit juice when I felt it necessary. And I said to the man, I want a half gallon of absolute vodka. I didn't say a pint and I didn' t say a fifth. I said a half gallon. Didn't blink an eye. Paid for it. I was a little nervous walking out. What would my friends in AA say, right? I get out to my car and I pop that cork and I filled that glass up and took a drink and you know what I realized? I don't have the slightest idea where I'd be in one hour, let alone in ten days. See, I needed to get in touch with 11 years, five months away from a drink of alcohol, Mark. What would happen to you if you put alcohol back in your system again? Those of you who've been sitting there for a while, I want you to think about something else I snapped to one day. My alcoholic ego actually thinks it knows what the day looks like when I'm going to take a drink again. You know what it says? Circumstances are bad, or she left you, or he died, or you lost a job. You know, I've come to understand you know when I am in the greatest danger? Probably when it's going fantastic. My ego also wants me to think that because I got a lot of distance between me and a drink, there is a lot more distance between me and my next drink. You know what the work showed me last time? Those of you who got some time between you and alcohol, think about this. What I saw this time through the work is the more distance I have between me in my last drink, the closer I am to my next drinking. What my alcoholic ego does around this thing called alcoholism is absolutely incredible. Turn over to the next page, XXVI. This is one of the most important paragraphs in the doctor's opinion. It says, we believe, and so suggest a few years ago, the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy. That the phenomena craving is limited to this class and never occurs in an average tempered drinker. Highlight the word never. These allergic types can never safely use the alcohol in any form at all. Give me a volunteer. Ram, I'm going to ask you a question. Did you form the habit of drinking alcohol and found you couldn't break it? Did you lose your self-confidence? Did you lose your reliance upon things human? Did your problems pile up in you? Did they become difficult to solve? That's how I turn statements into questions. He answered yes to every one just like I do every time. We tested this down at Corpus Christi last week. I was doing this with a bunch of people we had some people in the room that didn't have our illness. I asked them the same questions. You know what this woman said to all those questions? No, no, no. You know why? Because she's not allergic to alcohol when she puts it in her body. You understand? You see the series of questions we went through? If you're sitting in this room and when you take a drink of alcohol you answer yes to these questions you are powerless over alcohol physically when it is in your body. And in the doctor's opinion, we are told that will never ever go away. Let me read something. And I'm going to mention the name because this is newspaper clipping. So this is public information. I'm not breaking anyone's anonymity. Actor Don Johnson is being treated for drinking, his publicist said, after making a mess of himself on a Miami radio show. while promoting a Planet Hollywood opening last week. Johnson slurred words and he swore at his hosts who asked him not to use dirty words. I can do whatever I want, the actor responded. I'm rich, I'm famous, and I'm bigger than you. When he threatened to slam the host, one of them piped up and said, You don't know how fast we'll bleep you, pretty boy, said Johnson's publicist. Don was sober for ten years. at some point last year he decided he could handle an occasional glass of wine with dinner. He can't. That is an awesome article that speaks to me of the disease of the body and mind ten years away from alcohol. And let's assume he's done the work. If you've done the works, You know, you absolutely know you can never put alcohol in because you'll break out in craving. But we're going to find out having that information doesn't keep us away from a drink either. I want to read one other article also in the paper. 37-year-old man, married, two kids, did make, he's dead now, a little over $3 million a year, famous baseball player. And I'm coming back from doing a workshop and I'm reading this. This sums up this disease to me. Eric Scholl was buried Saturday afternoon in a private service and the teammates utilized him as a man with courage, etc., etc. A color photograph of Scholl in his San Diego Padres uniform was propped up above his green coffin in the Harvest Christian Fellowship Chapel while ballplayers and friends spoke of his zest for life and quizney, venelec, and deep religious beliefs. Scholl, 37, who died Wednesday in a drug treatment center from a drug overdose this disease is powerful given sufficient reason knowing I have the craving of the body will that keep me away from alcohol given sufficient reasons do I think I have any choice when it comes to me and putting alcohol in my system the next paragraph in the doctor's opinion frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices and does everyone know what that means? That means all your loved ones who came up and says will you please quit drinking or if you're dying of untreated alcoholism all the husbands and wives have said God will you go to a meeting or get a new sponsor. It says the message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. A man sat across from me 15, 16 years sober who drank like I did and he had been changed and he told me he didn't do anything about that change. Another great line in Alcoholics Anonymous, I hear it all the time. Just heard it at a meeting the other day. I've got to change everything about myself. I can't change anything about myself and until I met that, God came in and changed everything. We hear it over and over again. You've gotto change everything about yourself. We support the self-help book industry and it's an absolute joke and a lie. Why? Because lack of power is our dilemma. Now, does that mean we can't get power? But Mark can't change. Mark, I know. I gave away reams and reams and boxes and boxes of self-help books. This was a great one. Managing your anger. Right? I don't have the power to change myself. I'm real clear on that today. I've tried. Tried many times. Talks about in nearly all cases their ideals must be grounded and empower greater than themselves if they are to recreate their lives. Highlight that. That's an awesome promise. And many of us in this room have manifested that. We get to recreate our lives in this fellowship because there's a loving Creator out there who wants absolutely nothing but the best for us and if we develop a relationship with Him, we recreate our wives. Bottom paragraph. And I'm going to do something here that Don did and it's an exercise that I want to pass on to you. When you read the book, either use the word I or put your name in there. And the reason is my alcoholic ego when it reads the word we it thinks it's talking about you. It doesn't think it's taking care of me. It's talking about me. So he had me read this book putting my name or using the word I and this book took on a whole new meaning. So, I'm going to read this. Mark drinks essentially because he likes the effect produced by alcohol. The effect is all that stuff on page 52 that I talked about. And when I drank, I didn't have trouble in personal relationships and I wasn't afraid of misery and depression and I weren't full of fear and I was not unhappy and I could make a living and I thought I could help everybody when alcohol worked. That's the effect. and it took away fear and tension and it Took Away Being Restless, Irritable, and Discontent. It says the sensation meeting this effect is so elusive that while Mark admits it's injurious, Mark cannot after a time differentiate the truth from the false to Mark his alcoholic life seems a normal one. Mark is restless, irritable, discontented unless Mark can again experience a sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks, drinks which Mark sees others taking with impunity. After Mark has succumbed to the desire again as he would so often do and the phenomenon of craving develops Mark passes through the well-known stages of a spree emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again and this is repeated over and over and unless Mark can experience an entire psychic change there's very little hope of Mark's recovery. That is a very powerful paragraph that talks to me about why I drink. I love it when an alcoholic says, I love the taste of beer. B.S. The best taste and drink in the world is cold, clear spring water, but we do not sit down and drink a case at a time. You and I drank alcohol and did dope for effect. The effect was you treated my spiritual malady. The dilemma we reached is one day it quit working. Now I'm in that helpless place where I can't quit. I can' t quit. And it's no longer giving me the effect that it used to give me. That's another reason I go back through the work. What I did last year no longer gives me the affect that it use to give be. So I go b ack through because I want another new experience with this. I tell people this, if you're in AA and you have not done this work, here's the difference between me and you. you put an alcoholic into untreated alcoholism, the state of being restless, irritable, discontent, and you leave them long enough and they don't have any tools and I've got a whole toolbox full, at some point in time the obsession to drink will come back and they will pick up a drink. Those who have gone through and done this work have a whole bunch of tools they can pick up in those situations. We all have... How many of you in here think how you feel has something to do with your alcoholism? Raise your hands. Give me a show of hands. Nobody in here thinks how you feel has anything to do with your alcoholicism? How many of you think circumstances in your life have something to do with your alcoholism Good. You guys are sharp. Here's why. I felt great and drank whiskey and I felt miserable and drank whiskey. It is not a feeling disease. My ducks were all in a row when I drank alcohol and they weren't in a row when I drank alcohol. Now my ego wants to place my alcoholism out here. Remember I said something? My ego wants to tell me that it knows what the day looks like when I'll take a drink. And the way it does that is it says on this day your circumstances will get bad and then you'll take another drink. Or on this date you'll be feeling this. I'm not an alcoholic because of how I feel and I'm non-alcoholic because of my circumstances. How has raised the color of my skin? I mean, a friend of mine and I love this stuff about the dysfunctional family. He says, I came from a dysfunctional family and the reason it was dysfunctional is because I was in it. And I relate to that. This is an important paragraph because it tells me what happens. If you and I are restless, irritable, discontent, and have distance from alcohol for a period of time, we are going to seek ease and comfort and if alcohol and or drugs was my only solution, I'm going back to it again. You see, at two and a half years in this program, I knew I needed something that was far more powerful than the effect I got from alcohol and drugs. And just going to meetings and just reading the book and just not drinking wasn't producing the effect. This disease is internal. Recovery is internal." It has nothing to do with the external circumstances or conditions in my life. It has to do with my personal relationship with my loving Creator. And we're going to be given a set of spiritual tools to find out in the first step that we need power, that we've lost choice, that we'd lost control, that we suffer from a spirituality and be given this set of tools to develop a relationship so that we are given power so that aren't blocked from that power anymore and we can recreate our lives. Let's turn over again to XXVII and then I think we'll take a short break. On this page, they go into the different types of alcoholics and I know for myself the paragraph I wanted to fit in but I basically fit in all of them. The psychopaths, they're emotionally unstable. Always going on the wagon. Yeah, that was me. Over-remorseful and make many resolutions but never a decision. The type of man unwilling to admit he can't take a drink. Type of man who believes after being free from alcohol he can take a drink without danger. We just read about him. Manic-depressive. I wanted to be in the next paragraph, but didn't fit. Types entirely normal and ever respect except in the effect alcohol has upon them. They're awful able, intelligent, friendly people. All these and many others have one symptom in common. They cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of analogy which differentiates these people and sets them apart as a distinct entity. It has never been by any treatment with which we are familiar permanently eradicated. The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence. And then the book follows that up with this precipitates us into a cauldron of debate. And it goes on to say the general opinion among physicians is that chronic alcoholics are doomed. Here's why. Dr. Silkworth told Bill and 50,000 other people like him. Bill, you're allergic to alcohol. Don't take a drink. You won't get drunk. And Bill kept showing up at Towns Hospital almost dead. In the doctor's opinion, Dr. Silkworth has told us what's wrong with us. And then he also says the sad news is I can't do anything about it. He told Bill, you have an allergy to alcohol we look at our own experience with alcohol to see is this me? do I have this thing called craving? Are there times I want to have two and I have 10 and 12? Are there time I wanted to have 2 and go somewhere and I never made it? And did I reach the place in my drinking where I could not control alcohol? Got to understand something about craving. It says the average tempered drinker has never had craving. Example, I did some work with a school teacher. Nine months out of the year, bone dry. June 1, he'd go buy about nine cases of beer By August 15th, he'd be in the hospital almost dying. Says to me, Mark, I'm not an alcoholic. I go nine months out of the year and don't drink. I said, listen, dummy. The big book does not concern itself with how old you are when looking at craving. It does not consider itself with gender. Doesn't care how smart you are or how many degrees you got. It asks one simple question. When you take a drink, do you break out in craving? Does that happen to you? I said, do you think it's normal behavior to go buy nine cases of beer? So that's all we've looked at in the doctor's opinion. One thing. When I put alcohol in me, do I break out in craving? If the answer to that is yes, then you are powerless over alcohol physically. That will never go away. And then there's a little bit more information. I'm going to give you an exercise to do on Bill's story and then we're going to take a break. I have read Bill's Story plenty of times. Here's the exercise I was given. Read the first eight pages of Bill's story and write these three words in your book. Think, drink, and feel. And whenever, in those first eight stages, whenever you think like Bill, drink like Bill or feel like Bill I want you to highlight that sentence. And what's always interesting and particularly I enjoy it with women many times most of their book is entirely marked up. You're going to see why on page 17 we do this exercise. but before we take a break I want to close with a paragraph on page 8 that described me when I came into AA and this paragraph is all internal not external here's what it says no words can tell of the loneliness and despair that I found in that bitter morass of self pity quicksand stretched around me in all directions I had met my match I had been overwhelmed alcohol was my master that described me