Ego and Alcoholism – Church Book Study – Part 2 of 5 – Bob A.

Why should I do this? Or why should I that? Why do I need it this way and that way? Why can't I accept something on whatever it is. Why can I just accept it? Why do i have to argue against it or fight it? Why do I have to balk and keep wanting to do something else differently even though it's hurting me, I still want to continue to do it. I don't know if this fits you but believe me it fits me and oh it still does today, this day today. Did I get restless irritable discontent? I don' t even know that I'm restless was irritable and discontent. And yet, though, I am. I get impatient. Jesus, even when a train goes by. You ever get stopped by a train? And I sit there and I stew and stink. I don't want that damn train to go by in there if I can't do a damn thing about it but I'm still being affected by it. Now, you know, that's got to be something wrong with my brain. There's got to быть something wrong me if that goes on. The damn train. Believe me, I'm talking about something that happens to me. I might be late for an appointment or I might want to go somewhere or something like that and there's that damn train again. This is the disease about the unmanageable life they're talking about and alcohol is synonymous is what I'm talking about. How an alcoholic like me with alcoholism in his brain, how he can't live in a world that he's in because of what's happening in that world now this hasn't got anything to do with drinking this isn't got any to do with alcohol not a thing not a think this is all about why I would spend an hour and a half at a meeting and I lived at meetings I have lived at meetings all these years and how I'll go to these meetings and I sit there regardless of what's going on up here doesn't make any difference speaker discussion participate whatever it is reading or whatever and how will leave after an hour and a have. And then when I leave, I'm the same man without that meeting. I can go out and get in that car, and I'm going to look at the same world that I've looked in all my life. Same things, same, same thing, same old thing, all the time, same things. And yet though, this here, this what I'm talking about is the thing that I needed all the time to live in a world that I could live in, to have my alcoholism being treated so that when I do get into steps, that I can really benefit from it. I can have something now, a different method of living than I know anything about. It's already these steps in this big book. It is a proven way. It s a hit deal all the time. It something now that I have to look at a little bit differently than I did because I had a sponsor it was a step man a god man the first two and a half years him and I would sit at a table similar to this in my house in the kitchen in the dining room and we would talk steps now there was nothing but steps steps, steps I'm telling you I studied steps I know steps I memorized I didn't memorize the book even you know I used to memorize the damn thing so that I could do it without the book to show them how smart I was you know and all that but you see all of them things you know that I'm talking about was that same mind that I was using for the authority to do something a certain way my way I want to be so he'd say he'd read me the step he'd said we're going to do this step not telling me no damn way I'll ever do that step and he'd says well what about tomorrow you want to look at that tomorrow then we'd go into something else well something else we went into would always be in reference to AA or the 12 steps or whatever and so when the next day would get here it was a continuation thing and so while I was with him he was doing my thinking for me he was around me he was the reminder that Thiebaud talks about in his papers and so I had no conflict going on as far as getting into anything too deep he was there with me now when he would leave and go back to Cleveland Ohio where I went into then I would be on my own and then I'd have to do again and live again the same way I always lived figured out life and everything else and still be the same man and so forth now came the time the same thing as sitting here now why would any one of us want to sit here for an hour and a half listening to something you don't want to hear at least I think that anyway it's not that way and yet though that's my problem yet that's the thing that's going to save my life that's The Thing that's Going to Turn That World Around Out There That I Live In So It Isn't A Rat Race Anymore So It's A World That I Want To Be A Part Of That I Can contribute something to this world so that I myself now feel good about the way I act, the way I look, the ways I think and the way I am. This is before steps. This is something that I believe is needed very very badly in Alcoholics Anonymous because we don't need, I know I don't, need another meeting of drunk-a-locks. I know that. I don''t have to hear how drunk you've got because I don' t give a damn how drunk you got. I got drunker. I don't care how many times you did something wrong, I did it worse than that. And that's the truth. You know, and most of the time it really is the truth." Hey listen, nobody hit a police cruiser head on when they make a roadblock and they didn't even see it. I went through the windshield. I went though the windshield, nobody does things like that. Man, you gotta do an alcoholic and do things like this. but the important thing about this is that right now there is no tomorrow as far as the message goes I believe this is the message because this message I'm talking about is exactly what it says in your big book in the first 164 pages and when it winds it up the way it winds up abandon yourself to God this is all about a program of recovery this is always about 12 steps this is all this is about the day that I am in today, this day this is almost coming from a proven method this book was written for alcoholics with alcoholism there's 12 steps that's considered a recovery program this is what I'm talking about now about how to come into AA or how to be an AA and see something that's needed so badly so your alcoholism will be treated so it isn't a question of just being sober, it's not a question that just making or getting by today and hoping that tomorrow will be better, it is none of them things at all this is strictly now about identifying the disease of alcoholism when it's there as a way of life as a power now this here will govern I know this will turn you around it will make you a life a life you've never seen a life your don't know it's bound to because to be able to have the 12 step recovery program in your life as a way of life you would have to find out what the disease of alcoholism other than a word you'd have to figure out or find out about a performance an application that you must give daily each and every day for your life coming from a proven method 12 steps coming from something that has never changed coming from somewhere where it fits any alcoholic with any degree of alcoholism doesn't make any difference that this way is the way that is proven it doesn't need to have anything added to it or taken away from it this is strictly about a way of life now so that your alcoholism will be treated and the method that you're going to use as a way life is already there for you and this is now something that I had to find out why 12 steps are in the numbered form of 12 and why they're in a logical order form where one is before another or one follows another. But it must be considered. It must be looked at. It must being made aware of what this is. You see, it's more than just attending meetings because you... I know for a fact myself you can live in meetings. I know you can. and you can stay sober too and I've had a lot of babies that have done this for many years 20 years but the world they live in the life they have is the same life they've always had this is what they tell you not what I say this is how this is what they tell you until the day came when the new method or meaning the 12 steps were presented and they accepted and done as a way of life their their their world now was not in the world that they always have lived in this was because of what the steps are there for and why they're there in the order form they're in too it must be looked at considered but how can you look at something like that if you haven't even exposed or identified or become aware of self who self is what's wrong with self how self got that way and so this whole picture now starts to make sense where before it was no more it was not it was just going to meetings staying sober and hoping for the best now it takes on new meaning because in a new method I find in a New Method that page 83 is just a brief description of something something that is going to be there but much more than that I found out that it doesn't make any difference of what adversity they're talking about what troubles you have where you come from how bad off you are how many times you got hurt how many times you lost your wife or anybody else whether she died or divorced you or whatever because that happened to me and I found out that this world that I live in is still a good world the world don't suck it's a good word everything about it is things that are so that I can't even describe to you how good you feel inside because you're a part of things that have been happening in your life constantly not just once not just twice but constantly that this here world now that I'm talking about it is not just the world that it was there because I was a drunk or anything else like that it's because of the fact of what I come here for I came here because I got a mind I have a brain and I'm going to have to consider this again today because I'm alive today and it's there today that that mind will still do the same thing it always does if I give it the authority to do it this would be more now talking about why the steps are there I don't know if some of this stuff you agree with it or disagree with it but it's important for me because you see I found out that there is a message in Alcoholics Anonymous and it says that in the 12th step I found that I found not that there's a message and this message isn't that you're going to stay sober that's part of what has to be there but that's not the purpose I believe too that when the book was written in 1939, Publix in 39 that at that time the name of the game was what they said but there's also other words in that big book that say different too and they're called Las Gaspers and they are called staying sober under any and all conditions and all that but I found out that even when I'm sober I can't live in the world that I'm in it's still a rotten world I still have to turn on people I still feel bad I think I'm special and everything else like that so I want to find that I want to have exactly what God wants me to have and this is the introduction to what these steps are all about because it has to be there and what has to be there is a power and then what I talked about before is that I never understood a power because I didn't know what a power meant that I used for my life and so when I started on steps I missed step two I missed it by a mile because I thought they were talking about insanity I was talking I thought they were talking about being insane and I wouldn't buy that but I went on ahead I went to three and so forth and there's no damn way that I ever could do steps by the way I believe they should be done in the order form that I would pick them out too so so now we the most important thing I think would be to try to understand or be aware of or to talk about how helpful Alcoholism, how it comes into your life as an alcoholic and to identify it now. Not that you can do anything about it right now or anything like that, but to identify itself so that if you catch yourself as an alcoholic with alcoholism, you catch myself thinking that somebody disfavored you or they didn't consider you or they Didn't shake your hand or they Didn't say hello or they Bumped into you too hard or Didn't even know you were there. Just go on and on with that kind of thinking so that you could realize, as an alcoholic with alcoholism, just exactly where the trouble lies. Where it's at, just exactly where it'sat. Because of your brain talking to you, because of your brain thinking it should be another way than other than what it is, and then not accepting or not being able to change or not being able to be with something because you don't want to be with it. Now this here would open the door for a lot of reasoning to look at life to look at happenings and the day you're in but you see each and every day I'm reminded constantly consistently every day about my life and about my performance and about my behavior that I'm doing the application of my life is very it's got to be in front of me all the time the reason why is because of the fact that I'm an alcoholic with alcoholism and I found out through the years that I couldn't make it at all one time being sober. I couldn't make it at all. And then after I started making it just a little bit here and a little but there that I was still the authority for my life because when I was feeling good it was only because there was something else in my life other than me. And, then I find out that I can honestly, sincerely, genuinely start a day off in a relationship with a power greater than me which is a God, a Lord of my life today that I learned in Alcoholics Anonymous that I need so that I don't use the power I have, the power that's there that I use, meaning me. And so how can I do this without any of this other information that I've been talking about? Because if self says no, it's no. If self says yes, it' s yes. And that's the way my life has been from the word go. I'm the authority. It's got to be my way and only my way. How can I have any success in life meaning away from the rat race now? It's just strictly the mind and the rat race. How could I have any success in life if I have to go to what brought me here in the first place? A mind that brought me her, and I'm going to still use that same mind to try to figure out my life. And it's the mind that's hurt. It's the mine that's damaged. It's a mind that will repeat itself. It's always the same thing. My future is always from my past if I don't change. Boy, that's a hard nut to swallow. That's really hard to swallow when you've got good intentions and when you mean well but you can't do well. That's a damn dilemma. You know, in step 10 on page 90 when they're talking in there about a spiritual axiom that whenever something disturbs us no matter what the cause we are at fault. I am at fault, me. That's an alcoholic with alcoholism. I wouldn't buy that for years I said that's a bunch of baloney if the guy is acting bad he's acting bad, I ain't acting bad it doesn't matter to me but I forgot about that front part of my brain that says he's the one that's wrong I'm looking at him from my eyesight, from my feelings and from my brain and I don't like what he's doing because he's not doing it my way so it's a spiritual axiom whenever something disturbs me there's something wrong with me all this is about alcoholism it isn't even about steps yet but it's an introduction to something so that something else will be there instead of what's there I don't know about you guys but I'll tell you about me I'm not going to accept my behavior today if I think you're an SB or if I'm a if I don' t think you're so cockeyed and you're still wrong I'm just not going to do it I have something else going for me a new method but first I had to know what was wrong with me and what this character that I am, what's wrong with this character. I had to do a lot of things and I had a swallow a lot of truths about myself. And I had to keep looking and I have to have the daily reprieve and I had to learn how to live in one day at a time today. And I must do this today, this day, not past days, not no records of any time, strictly today. I have to learn how to evaluate the relationship that I have today with a power that's greater than me, which I learned in two. I have find out a lot about a power because I get powerful sometimes. I get real strong about life and about... I wanted a certain way, especially around certain people at a certain time and that could be in your own home mostly. And how this is the king of the castle business. you know this business now what I've been talking about is that, you know Dr. Thiebaud said before is that in 1957 he came out with he came out in that article Medicine Looks at Alcoholics Anonymous and he came out with the description of ego and what ego is and I had to learn a lot about it, a great deal about it but at that time the only thing that I had to hear was about ego and the marvelous recuperative powers of ego how ego can be smashed to the greatest of depths and then bang here it is right back again just like it was before just as strong or stronger than it ever was and how ego controls me how ego is a power and how eagle lives the same place where my alcoholism lives in my brain how eagle will govern me how eagle and alcoholism are Siamese twins how one will bring the other one in they can't be separated man this to me was news that I needed to hear because that helped me understand a little bit more about me and it made me a little more aware of me when I was in control when I would push it and shove it when I wanted to have situations my way do it my way only and then on page 60-63 in your big book I studied it for years and I still study it and it's talking in there about the first requirement when it goes right on now to describe up to 63 describe me and my behavior my way of thinking, my way of acting, the way I look at life how I push and shove and I want the furniture arranged how I want life set a certain way leave it alone it's okay that way all this now is a daily reminder about me not about you I come to Alcoholics Anonymous over 39 years ago for me I didn't come for you and I'm still not here for you I'm only here for me and this I must know I must take that pronoun out of there we and ourselves they and them and all that and I have to put my mind in there me, I now we're on a different basis this has to be more this is all about me this isn't about you no more this is never looking outwardly this is looking inwardly all the time this is always this is about me the way I think the way I act the way I perform I can look at you and I can look at you and I can look at you and I can look at anyone and I can look the same way with the same ideas the same thoughts I don't have to wear faces my alcoholism doesn't have to be there my thinking along that line to protect me to make me in front put me out in the beginning it's not needed it isn't there it isn'T considered this here is a freedom they're talking about in Alcoholics Anonymous the part about happy, joyous and free this is something that I need to know this is nothing this is not something that I have to have but you see I come here for more than staying away from the bottle I come her more and didn't know it at the time that Alcoholics Anonymous is put here on this earth for just the same reason I'm talking about so that I can live in a world with you whoever you are so I can do and be who God wants me to be this is something now that's very important and this has only been in my life I don't have to look no more outside of me to get your approval it's not needed this isn't necessary this is this is something good this is something that this book here was written for so that I could live in a world and the world I live in is the world God wants me to live in I know two I know two worlds there's only one but there's two concepts and I know what it's like to live the other way this is the purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous this isn't my opinion this is my opinion about my life yes but I'm speaking from the word I'm saying everything that I learned in AlcoholicsAnonymous from the 12 steps in an application form doing and being who I should be how could I be this man or how could I possibly find this by myself no way no human power can do this we're starting to come into something now where I had to come into and this here now is something that when I talk in steps it'll bring out it's not needed right here because we're still only in the power form and I can accept and I can look at situations and I can look at people when they have success and they're happy, joyous and free when they're doing something now that they've never done before when they see a world like I see. A world they never had before in their life. I didn't lose this world through drinking, I never had it, period. A lot of them have a lot of things that lost it through drinking. I did. I never had it in the beginning. But it's there. There for each and every one of us. This year's 12-step program is a program of recovery. It's a surefire hit every time. It's not a trial and error. I had a sponsor that talked to me and he told me I'm going to show you a way of living where drinking is not necessary. he said I'm going to take the bumps out of the road this isn't a trial and error program at all this works every time I'm gonna help you get into and see and do things without a trial and error and that's what the 12 steps are all about, a program of recovery but without the information to identify, to see me for who I really am even after years in sobriety to go out in that world out there and think that I'm so special that I can tear that world apart and I can think any thoughts I want and say anything I want and do anything I wants no way I pay a price I have to that's why I think myself and I have thought for years for any alcoholic to come here without this message without this idea now or this talking about alcoholism, ego and self I know why these guys killed themselves these gals killed themselves they didn't hear the message it wasn't there they tried to fit in their life like I did in the beginning I tried to sit 12 steps into my life according to what I believed according to what I thought I tried to put 12 steps in my life and it didn't work I thought it meant this I thought it said this I thought I could do this and I couldn't do any of it because I didn't know who I was I didn' t know what was wrong with me I tried making a world that I couldn' make it sober because this is what they were telling me all the time they were telling me all the same about a change of a character about a method of living where drinking isn't necessary and then from there went into a way of life a method of living now so I could change and I can be different than who I am it's only the beginning really because it keeps adding every day every day my alcoholism is still there it'll turn me around it'll hurt you all I have to do is give it energy give it life and it's there it'll go right into it just like an old elephant boy it's got a memory like you can't believe and I don't want to live like that I don' t want to do them things we've got 820 we've probably got till 830 so you've got you want to spend the last 10 minutes saying anything at all about that and wind us up I'll tell you The reason why is because this here goes on and on, what I'm talking about. I'm only talking about the awareness of self, having self-honesty in self, to identify a behavior or to see a behavior that's in your life as an alcoholic with alcoholism in the day you're in, regardless of time element or anything else like that, not to understand, but to be aware or to recognize that behavior or to see that way of life and know it and identify it because why should any one of us come here to suffer any more than we have suffered? Why should we come here after years and have to look at life so down on the downside or on the hurt side that all we can talk about is the crap that's going on and the way how bad things are and so forth like that. I don't think so. I think there's another way I know there's Another Way to Live and I know it's important because this is what a program of recovery is for this isn't talking about things that are harmful things this is talking about a recovery program coming away from things they're learning how to live and how to do and how you should be so your life is in order anybody want to want to say anything about it so we can go I had such a hard time for a long time to relate me in my life to see that as a real living life and I'll call it synonymous because I run excuses I protect me I don't know anything about ego I don' t know how ego won' t allow me to say words even because I'm afraid you might take them words or think less of me or think I'm wrong or think something you know and so I don''t I have to wait I have the I have sit and squirm and wish somebody would ask a question or say something then I won't have to do it. And stuff like that's the truth. That's a very bad feeling inside because the self-worth and the power or the power itself of being better weight I have to learn to depend on the dependency they're talking about in step three even about how I will want God in my life or how I will bank on God in my wife for my alcohol but anything else negative man leave it alone I'll take care of that and it's on page 37 in your 12 by 12 and this here is the dependency part of how strong I'll be in something I believe in because I think so only I don't get that power that information from a method of living that does that to me I think that and I act like that so I think I can get away with it or I can make it happen and I can change it or make it if it isn't going right maybe I'll make it right this time no matter how many times I've tried and failed, I'll still try again instead of changing I won't do that I'll try to do it differently and that's the old alcoholism I believe that's the hardest thing in the world to accept really is the identity of self of me when I'm in my life living my life because I think I'm so perfect I think i'm so right I think im capable I know how to do this this time and I can say things and do things right. But see what I'm doing there? I'm walking on eggshells again because, man, all you have to do is really stop me dead in my tracks by showing me something that's real. It's reality. And I, man... I get all... I'm thin-skinned now. All Alfies are thin-skin people, you know. All you have do is prove them wrong or pick on them and boy, they'll sure come to life. You try it sometimes, gee. you know let me say this much here right now the reason for this here is this Dr. Thiebaud and Dr. THIEBAUD played a great role in Alcoholics Anonymous I don't know if many of you know this or not, I do I've been with all of his teachings, readings and everything else for all these years he talks in here something that I have to know these things really because to know them my mind I'm no stoop I'm not dummy you know or anything else but see it's not a question of how smart you are how intelligent you know your education is or anything like that this is about something I never considered or that's it's about something that I won't look at or identify or even see it as me so it says in here the fate of surrender reaction in itself an interesting study with some the surrender experience is the start of genuine growth and maturation with others the surrender phase is the only one ever reached so that they never lose the need to attend meetings and to follow the program assiduously, apparently relying on a constant reminder in their daily existence to supply the necessary impetus to the surrender feeling, at least insofar as alcohol is concerned. For a few there seems to occur a phenomenon of what might be called selective surrender. After the effects of the initial surrender experience have worn away, the individual returns to pretty much the same person he was before except for the fact that he doesn't drink and he has no battle on that line his surrender is not to life as a person but to alcohol as an alcoholic many other differing aftermaths undoubtedly occur but study of any and all of them would I am sure disclose the same basic fact namely that the surrender experience is followed by a phase of positive thinking and a feeling which undergoes various vicissitudes before it becomes established in some form or another in the psyche or is lost completely to be merely a memory or a mirage. Well, a part here he's saying here about selective surrender and about how he surrenders to the alcohol as an alcoholic but not to life as a person. See, there were things that I read that nobody would explain. Nobody would tell me Anderson you're acting funny you shouldn't act like that but they would do that if I was fighting somebody or something like that but what they wouldn't tell me is that I've got a mind I've gotta brain that brain is hurt it's injured it got that way when I was drinking it's a permanent condition I can't get it out of there I can repair it it always does the same thing it always has done it protects self it always makes sure that it's inwardly always, protecting me first, that everybody else is wrong and I'm right. These are conditions that I must accept as a disease of alcoholism. This is an ongoing living thing that has to be talked about and has to be identified, at least to me, when I'm doing these things so that I can be away from it or find a new method when I get to the steps. So the purpose of the steps now would be for exactly that, a new message of living so my alcoholism will be treated. Yeah? There's a preliminary for the reason 12 steps are there. I haven't talked about staying sober by the 12 steps or a new method of living or anything like that. I haven'T said anything about that. All I've talked about was the disease of alcoholism, self and ego. Now that's all. This is so that with that information that I just got through talking about in this preceding hour, whatever it's been, so that this here information now is an information now to be there to consider. Not that that information is going to do me any good because it isn't. There's no damn way of whatever I said tonight that I have the power to do that. No way. Because what the disease is, alcoholism, a condition of the mind, the brain, and so the minute that you go to alcoholism you must consider that it's a disease how it got there who it is and what it does and if you don't consider that you'll go out there in the world and try to change or push each other make it happen differently and it won't happen differently and then you're going to have to react again and you'll have to call upon self to fix things or people or places or whatever it is and now you're back in the same line of rat race that you've always been in because the world's going downhill and that's the world that you'll see as an alcoholic with alcoholism when you're alone by yourself. No, all I'm describing is the disease of alcoholism, ego and self. It must be... You see, you don't get lost in a shuffle tonight. It will. What I said tonight will get lost right in a shuffle. It'll get lost the minute you go out the door and you have to figure out where to put the key or something else like that. There goes the whole picture, man. It's all gone. Every bit of it. As soon as somebody blows the horn at you, man, you've done it again. and there's SB again over there, you know. You're back in control. You're black in there with the alcoholism and you're back with self only. Never once have you had any other method to go to, to have, to be or to do. You can't. But you see, if I didn't have this, what I've been talking about, these 12 steps, there is no damn way that I can get in these steps without this information because you see I want to sit on the throne even when I admit there is a power of God I still want to sit there with him I wantto sit with him he can call on these shots I'll call on these shots think not that's the truth this information you know to me it saved my life it's shown me a world that I never knew never could have these are things that are treasured things these are thing that I couldn't even describe to you how important they were when they were going down instead of being where I was all the time I lived in a world of a rat race I lived I'm talking about being sober I'm not talking about being drunk I've lived in a world where I hurt people I hurt people really people I really love I think thoughts even that would just kill them they don't know that but I think it I don't want to have a brain like that I don' listen self-honesty to self man I see me for who I really am and I don't want to be that person no more. Maybe next time we can talk a little bit more about, before we get into that, what was your name again? Dorian. Dorian? Lorian. Lorian, if you will. Our Father, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And give us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen if you come back it works if you work any of the stages thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you yeah