Mental Obsession – Awakening Workshop – Part 4 of 18 – Local AA Speakers

right bad alcoholic welcome everybody let's all grab a seat man look at all these people are you guys really gonna go through all 26 weeks who's here who's here still committed that is pretty darn good man seriously and how many people did the homework for last week right now so we're gonna this is the this is interesting tonight this is being last week of talking about the mental obsession after this week we go into the spiritual malady in step one and after next week we're in step two so it's happening anybody a little tired of beating this up one put that hand up anybody feeling a little mangled a little bit like what the hell what the heck right yeah it's a tough deal so let's do a quick recap The book is a textbook, and it's designed to transmit an experience. It's not designed to be known well, and like a lot of us end up being able to quote pages out of the big book and have it internalized, if you will, but the next step besides knowing the book is actually going through the work and having an experience so the reason for all these questions that we're going through in step one is to get really really really crystal clear on whether or not i'm an alcoholic or an addict as long as i have a little bit of wiggle room in my head that man this doesn't really apply to me or i don't know if it applies to me and I don't really care to find out if it applies to me because I'm not going to really honestly think through the questions, then I'm shortchanging myself. So if you've had a couple times during the last seven or eight weeks where you go, man, I'm just so tired of these questions, make sure you keep on keeping on. Make sure you keeps on asking these questions honestly. Because the idea behind these questions is it put us into a place at the end of step one where we are literally going, if there is nothing bigger than me in this universe and I'm left with my own abilities to try to combat this disease that is progressively more powerful, more hideous, more life-sucking all the time. in my life, drinking or dry drinking or dry then I only got two choices and we're going to get into those choices which is I could blot out my miserable existence to the bitter end or I could accept spiritual help and we, the three of us who are running the workshop are convinced that and a lot of you in here are the same way no one's going to want to take on the work in steps two three four five all the way through 12 unless i am at the heart and soul convinced that i have no opportunity to save my life apart from divine intervention make sense all right okay so last week on page 30 just a quick recap this chapter and i'm just reading right out of what we put in the top page 30 this chapter talks about most of us being unwilling to admit we are real alcoholics or addicts. We are still looking at what goes on in my mind with respect to the alcohol without alcohol in my system or drugs in my system. Where alcohol is concerned, I am mentally different than other people. So we're looking at this thing called an obsession. We're looking at this saying called illusions, false or erroneous perceptions of reality. We looking at these delusions that i tell myself tell myself this isn't me and then later on in that same page we alcoholics of men and women men and woman who have lost the ability to control our drinking are using we know that no real addict no real alcoholic ever that's no squiggly lines that was expensive text back in 1939 ever how often is that that's that's a scary one right because what does our head tell us we were still out there drinking and using hey this time it'll be different i'll get control i'll be able to manage it this time i'm gonna get the buzz i'm going to get the juice i'm to get the effect without any of the effects all the bad stuff that goes with it right never regains, ever never ever regains recovers control all of us felt at times we were regaining control but such intervals were usually brief and inevitably followed by still less control so the idea behind this chapter is we start playing around and you're going to hear it tonight with Leanne and you'll hear it tonight with Nancy talking about two more stories out of this chapter is going to go over two more stories of this mental thinking that's going on before I even take that first drink so I'm going to be able to say to myself do I have some control do I have a choice, do I have any power and those aren't words to try to wordsmith with yourself those are words of experience just look at your history as you're reading through and listening these guys talk tonight, look at your own history of your drinking and using and even after all the conversation in your head did i really have control could i really pull it off did i have a choice did i Have A Choice And Not Pick Up Again Once I Started Drinking Or Using Did I Have Control Over The Amount And If I Didn't Have Control Over Picking Up Or Excuse Me Of You The Amout I Use And I Didn'T Have A Choose Of Picking up do i really honest to god have any power wow okay so then we go through a couple stories and um we define you know in jim's story first we talk about the slipper man slipperman was one of my favorites you know the guy didn't drink for 25 years you know in some circles of aa you'd call him a 25 year chip taker right he never did a darn bit of work right but he didn't drink but in the back of his mind for 25 years day and night was the day he knew was coming and what did he know when he retired what was coming? The drink. And man, was he on to it. Pulls on his slippers. Four years later, where is he? He's dead. So his experience with pulling on that drink wasn't the same ability of control that he had 25 years earlier. He thought he was gonna be able to do it just like he did 25 years before and he couldn't pull it off. So the progression nailed him. Then we went into Jim's story and I'll close with this. Jim's story is the beginning of talking about the attitude when we start using or drinking. Jims life was sort of going into the shitter. Jim had lost the automobile agency that he had, he's getting grumpy with his boss, he is not very grateful for anything, he has gotten an argument, he got a lot of stuff going on and he picks up tonight it's not going to be that way tonight it is a different kind of mental attitude just before somebody picks up so with that I really appreciate you guys being here and doing all the work means a lot let's go ahead and say the set aside prayer with the mental obsession you know second me my book okay god please set me please set aside everything i think i know for an open mind and a new experience help me see the truth about step one my mental obsession before i start to drink all right let's do five minutes meditation here we go okay oh gosh that was dark okay leanne recovered alcoholic okay i'm gonna get right into it uh thank you pat you're back give me a second here gosh this room just keeps getting bigger how many people are here from the beginning okay how many people like kind of started thank you started like maybe halfway through or just recently okay good wow I think we have everybody here that started with us this is great so alright so we're in the second half of more about alcoholism and I want to back up a little bit to page 34, in the middle of 34, when it talks about for those who are unable to drink moderately, the question is how to stop altogether forever. By the way we're going to smash a few ideas as we go through this chapter and as we go through the book because there's nowhere in the big book that talks about staying sober one day at a time. I get it in the beginning we need to hear that, do this one day at a times but we need finish it with for the rest of my life, right? One day at a time, I'm going to stay sober for the next 10 years. For the rest in my life. And the old-timers back then, they weren't going up and saying, so are you ready to get sober one day at the time? They were saying, are you done? Are you done for good and for all? So back to this paragraph, for those who are unable to drink moderately, the question is how to stop altogether. We're assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. the reader's got to have a desire to stop i don't think anybody comes into the rooms of alcoholics anonymous that's a moderate drinker that has a desire to stop we're looking at people that are probably fall into two categories they're either hard drinkers or real alcoholics right there's really the only two that are left if you're a moderate drink or you're not coming in here trying to you know you can stop on your own you're if youre a moderate drinker but heart because there's that fine line so it says whether such a person can quit upon a non-spiritual basis without God depends upon the extent to which he has already lost power to choose whether he will drink or not. So if I've lost the power to choose, that puts me in what category? The real alcoholic. It's basically saying that this person is, if they haven't lost the Power of Choice or Control, they're probably in that hard drinker category right so when we when we go back over now we're going to skip over to page to page uh what am i doing pages 37 okay so 37 these stories that we're gonna look at every single one of these people have lost the power of choice one of that's the one thing that they all have in common they all lost thepowerofchoice and so it's always interesting to me that we always are trying to figure out why is it that when i don't have alcohol in my body and I've got a period of sobriety, that having a drink sounds good after a period of time, right? Because I'm not fulfilling that physical craving, right, if I'm not putting alcohol in my body, which, right we all get that, right. We all get that, that when we put alcohol we can't stop, right if we're real, if we are the real alcoholics or the real drug addicts once we start we can stop, right, we would get that because it's in us, we have a physical, we have a reaction called an allergy and we break out in this craving okay but if I I don't have, if I'm separate from a drink for a number of days, months, years even, there's no craving, right? People sit in meetings and go, oh, I'm craving a drink and I haven't had a drink in five years. No, you're obsessing. Do the work. You'll understand. You'll get it. You're obsessING, right. What is it that makes us want to drink? Because now we're going to see the second part of this disease, which is the mental obsession, that I have a mind that's going to take me back to a drink, right, That it might sound good after a period of time. And every example in this chapter is going to show the strange mental blank spots, right? That intention's not going to keep me sober. Knowledge is not goingto keep me sober. A desire, even though the only requirement is what? A desire. I have to have a desire in the beginning, but that desire in the beginning is not gonna be the final outcome to keep me sober, right. Willpower's not gonna keep me sober. If willpower could keep me sober, well then I'm probably a hard drinker, right? Self-discipline, human power, I'm beyond human aid, right, and we're going to see that with all these because the one thing that all these people have in common, whether it's Mr. Carpet Slippers, whether it's Jim, whether any of these guys, they all failed to do one thing. They failed to stop, they stopped going to meetings. Oh wait, it doesn't say that, right. Oh, they didn't call their sponsor. No, no, no. It doesn't say that either. Right? They all, that is a result of right. Failing to enlarge your spiritual life. Every single one of these guys that goes back out and drinks again, the book even talks about it says because he failed to enlarage his spiritual life. And that shows up as not going to meetings that shows us as not calling people that shows up. So that's what we think. Oh, well he, you know, did you go to a meeting that day? You know, because I know people that go to meetings and leave and drink. So meetings don't keep me sober, right? I've had people hang up from their, I've heard people talk to them. I've heard Joe Seas talk about this all the time. He'd be talking to his sponsor on the phone and drinking and doing meth while he's talking to a sponsor on the phone. So my sponsor is not going to keep me sober, right? No one, I'm beyond human aid, self-control, nothing, nothing humanly possible on this planet is going to keep me sober. And we're going to see that in here. So I'm going to go, so you think that the insanity is what, like I did a lot of insane things when I was drinking, right? We can all, we sit in rooms like, like, I love it when there's the topic in an AA meeting is let's talk about insanity. Everybody talks about the crazy shit that they did when they were drinking. Well, that's easy. You know, I can be a hard, I could be a normal person that I've seen, I've seen my husband do crazy shit when he was drinking, you know? But it's not the stuff that I did after I picked up, right? Stone cold sober, I decided to take a drink. Stone cold sober, a period of time, the idea that drinking sounds good, sounds good. Right? So thinking the drink through, you're going to smash some of these ideas to think that you could think that's another way that it shows up too, right? Did you think the drink through? Well, the first question needs to be, where's your prayer life? Where's your relationship with God? You know, what's happened when somebody relapses? So not going to meetings, not calling their sponsor, thinking the drink, that's how it looks on the outside. So the insanity of this disease is not what happens to me after I pick up a drink. I know we do crazy and absurd things when we're drinking. Crazy, crazy shit when we are drinking. And it's fun to talk about those stories but that's not what qualifies me to be a real alcoholic. That stone cold sober I decided to pick up a drink without...see my alcoholic ego also thinks it knows what the day is going to look like when I'm gonna pick up again. Oh it's gonna be the day that I lose my job or if I lost my job, or if i lost my kids or you know those are horrible things you know but that's not you know if my spiritual life is in order then i'm not going to pick up that i can stay sober one day at a time for the rest of my life if my spirit life is an order all right so insanity insanity comes what vaguely right it's insanity is vague right insanity is what else sudden right comes suddenly let's look at let's look at a couple of these stories here before we do first of all first of all in some circumstances we have gone this is on the middle of page 37 in some circumstances we've gone out deliberately to get drunk feeling ourselves justified by nervousness anger worry depression jealousy or the like how many of you drank just because it was the day like did you really need to, did you really need an excuse to go out and drink? Like, like if I'm going to pick up, if, if I'M going to PICK UP, like you hear people say, you know, Oh, I started, you know, I picked up a drink because you know my, my, I lost my job that day. Well, that person picked up long before. Why? Because they were failing to enlarge their spiritual life, right? Because we can make up all kinds of excuses, but even in the type of the type of beginning, we're obliged to admit that our justification for a spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened. Right? So even though I know it's going to happen when I pick up, I still decide to pick up a drink. That's insane. Even though I'm allergic to peanut butter and I know my throat's going close up. Would you think I was insane if I wouldn't go with what the hell is wrong with you, Leanne? You're allergic to peanut butter. Why do you keep eating peanut butter? You know, wouldn't you think I was crazy? Like what is wrong with you? Like that's how people look at us on the outside. Like they see what happens to us when we drink. They know we're Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde and they can't understand like what is wrong with you. You know that every time you drink, this is what's going to happen to you. But my mind tells me something different. Like I'm going to make it happen this time. I'm not going to get caught. It's got to be different, right? We come up with all kinds of justifications and none of them are good enough reason. We now see that we begin to drink deliberately instead of casually. There was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be, all right? So let's see. Here's a story, The Jay Walker. So when I first read The Jay Walkers, I remember when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I read The J. Walker, I thought this is a stupid analogy. This is so stupid, like a guy goes out and he's running in front of cars like I'm sure right, and it even tells you in the paragraph down below like on page 38 says you may think our illusion is too ridiculous and it wasn't until I started doing the work this way that the Big Book Awakening and those of you that did the work asked you to substitute drinking with this and this is how it reads our behavior is as absurd and incomprehensible with respect to the first drink as that of the individual with a passion for say drinking oh wait a minute we're substituting jaywalking for drinking now this sounds right now now this is comfortable for us to listen to right because you think of somebody with a passion for jay walking that's stupid right but i'm going to read this as we have been asked to write this in our book because it doesn't sound so ridiculous he gets a thrill out of hang i can't read my writing hanging out in bars of course i did he enjoys himself for a few years in spite of friendly warnings up to this point you would label him as foolish chap having queer ideas of fun luck then deserts him and he and he goes on major binges or benders several times in succession you would expect him if he were normal to cut it out presently he gets drunk again and this time has a medical complication within a week after leaving the hospital I'm back in the bars on another bender he tells you he has decided to stop drinking for good how many times did we tell our loved ones we were going to stop drink for good but in a few weeks he's back drinking again on through the years his conduct continues accompanied by his continual promise to be careful or to keep off out of the bars altogether finally he can no longer work his wife gets to gets a divorce and he is held up to ridicule he tries every known means to get the jaywalking sorry the drinking idea out of his head he shuts himself up in rehab hoping to mend his ways But the day he comes out, he races back into the bars, which sets off another spree. Such a man would be crazy, wouldn't he? Why would he keep going back? Because we are crippled with this thing called a mental obsession. And like the book said earlier in this chapter, the idea that I'm ever going to be like other people, presently, maybe, presently. Presently at 10 years, at 20 years, at 30 years, that idea has to be smashed. Once a pickle can never be a cucumber again, right? You could leave the pickle out of the jar, it's still always going to be a pickle, right. Kind of like us. You may think our illusion too ridiculous but is it? We who have been through the ringer have to admit we substituted alcoholism for jaywalking And it makes perfect sense when we do that. And then it says here down below, it says some of you are thinking, yes, but what you tell us is true. But it doesn't fully apply. Really, where are you in your alcoholism, drug addiction? Are you in the first stages, second stages, third, fourth, fifth stages? You know, because maybe it doesn' t fully apply because you' re still in the first stages of alcoholism or drug addiction. We admit we have some of these symptoms, some of these symptoms right if it ever happens in me and it never happens in you i'm not like you but we have gone to the extremes you fellows did but we Have Not Gone To The Extremes That You Fellows Did Nor Are We Likely To For We Understand Okay Now It'S Going To Now They'Re Going To Talk About How How We Some How Yeah How Do We Some Justify Like Maybe Now That I Know This Stuff I Can I Can Stay Sober Or Maybe I Can Control The Amount That I Drink For We Can understand ourselves so well after what you have told us, right? The knowledge of the information that such things cannot happen again. We have not lost everything in life through drinking. So wait a second. Do I have to lose everything in Life? Do I Have to Lose? What do I have to have been to jail, gotten DUIs, um, uh, lost a family, lost all my money, lost a job, right? Like Bill Wilson didn't lose his wife. You know, these guys were not drinking under bridges and paper bags either. But that's the idea that we kind of think that we have to be in order to be an alcoholic right now. I haven't lost everything, right. That's what I said when I was 21 years old. I don't have these problems that you guys did because I was looking at outside circumstances for something that's an internal condition, right, did I think, drink, and feel like the alcoholic, regardless of what stage my alcoholism was at. Where was I? Did I think, drink, and feel? Not did I get DUIs or did I lose everything, right? But these guys are saying, well, you know, we haven't lost everything in life through drinking. And we certainly do not intend to. See, because I'm going to keep drinking and I'm gonna keep everything that I got. And that's exactly what I said at 20 years old. You know, I'm not gonna have these problems. In a 20-year period of drinking, I got DUIs. I ended up in jail. I lost husbands, custody battles, jobs, you name it. Every single one of those things had happened to me. I mean, does it need to happen? No, because then what do I tell that woman that lives in Rancho Santa Fe that doesn't drive anywhere, that gets a ride everywhere? Do you think just because she's never gotten a DUI she's never hasn't lost her husband or hasn't lost her family does she think can she think drink and feel like me like an alcoholic absolutely we can't look at the outside circumstances to qualify us as alcoholics I've sat in meetings before and I heard this man tell this one woman who got a DUI he's like well if you got a dui if you think you need to be here you're probably an alcoholic I'm like where does it say that in the book I don't know this is misinformation that's going around you know and people are telling people shit that's that's bullshit it's bullshit you why would you tell somebody like some somebody well if you think you're an alcoholic you probably are that's crazy my thinking isn't what my thinking is what got me here but but me thinking that i'm an alcoholic doesn't qualify me to be the real deal all right so that may be true of certain non-alcoholic people who through drinking foolishly and heavily at the present time are able to stop or moderate because their brains and bodies have not been damaged as ours right this is this is basically reiterating what we just read on page 30 was it 34 and 34 same thing right but the actual or potential alcoholic chronic or not right with hardly an exception will absolutely be unable right here we go neon signs it's in italics will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge this is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize to smash home upon the alcoholic reader as it has been revealed to us at the bitter end do i need to go back out and drink to figure out if i'm a real the real deal do i mean can i listen to your stories can i hear one single successful relapse story like where somebody's gone out and gotten up at the podium go guess what i figured it out we can do this you know i have yet to hear one person that's the real deal go back out and come back and say that it works, and that we got this and that, you know, don't smash the idea that you can be like a normal I have yet I can get a good look at a T-bone steak by sticking my head up a cow's ass but I'd rather take the butcher's word for it right I believe you I believe, you guys when you say it doesn't work I believe okay, so now we're going to go to fred fred is a partner in a well-known accounting firm his income is good he has a fine home is happily married and father of promising children college age he is so attractive a personality don't people say we're we are alcoholics and we have such an attractive personality right especially when we're not drinking that is that that he makes friends with everyone if ever there was a successful businessman it is fred right sounds to me like he's a functioning alcoholic. To all appearance, he is stable, well-balanced individual, yet he is an alcoholic. Yet, he's an alcoholic, it's like so, oh bummer. We saw, we first saw Fred about a year ago in the hospital where he had gone to recover from a bad case of the jitters that was his first experience of this kind. He had much, he had been much ashamed of it, right? Can you imagine back in those days when they didn't have the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous? It's a shameful thing that these guys had to go through. Far from admitting he was an alcoholic, he told himself he came to the hospital to rest his nerves, right? He thought they were nerves, right? Sounds like a bad case of, right, the jitters. The doctor suggested strongly that he might be worse than he realized. Uh-oh, he might not be. He might be what? An alcoholic. For a few days, he was depressed about his condition. I would, how many of you were depressed when you found out that you were, When you've kind of figured out that you're an alcoholic, I'm like, I don't even want to say that. I don' t even want say that I'm an alcoholic. It never occurred to him that perhaps he could not do so in spite of his character and standing. Fred would not believe himself an alcoholic We on the outside as alcoholics can look really good, right? We can carry it off, we could pull it off for a long period of time much less to accept a spiritual remedy for his problem. God forbid that God run my life you know oh no not the spiritual stuff you know we have to one thing before I I'm gonna turn this over to Nancy here in a few seconds but one thing that we have to stop doing stop worrying about we might scare away the newcomer oh my god really so when were you planning on telling them the truth all right so he was because so far we're not even we haven't even gotten to step two we haven't even got but how much of god do you already see in this we've already we already have learned that we're beyond human aid how much do you see that we are we are we need something much bigger than us all right so i'm going to finish reading this out and then i'm gonna let nancy finish he was interested and conceded that he had some other some of the symptoms right if some of those symptoms happened in me and they never happened in you i'm not like you he's got some of the symptoms but he is a long way from admitting that he could do nothing about it himself he was positive that this humiliating experience plus knowledge the knowledge that he had acquired would keep him sober for the rest of his life self-knowledge would fix it all right go ahead man that was great poor fred we're not done with fred i'm nancy recovered uh addict alcoholic okay page 40 so we heard no more of fred for a while right he's gone off and he's doing his self-knowledge, living his life on self- knowledge. And he's not that bad. He has some of the symptoms, but he's not going to worry about it, right? He's going to go out and handle his business and do what he does, being the likable guy that he is. Wonderful Fred. So we heard no more from him. And one day we were told he was back in the hospital. Uh-oh. This time he was quite shaky. He soon indicated he was anxious to see us. The story he told is most instructive, for here was a chap absolutely convinced he had to stop drinking, who had no excuse for drinking, who exhibited splendid judgment and determination in all his other concerns, yet was flat on his back nevertheless. Okay, let him tell you about it. I was much impressed with what you fellows said about alcoholism, alcoholism, and I frankly did not believe it would be possible for me to drink again. I rather appreciated your ideas about the subtle insanity which precedes the first drink, but I was confident it could not happen to me after what I had learned. I reasoned, uh-oh, I reasonED I was not so far advanced as most of you fellows, there's a good delusion, that I had been usually successful in licking my other personal problems and that I would therefore be successful where you men failed. That's it, Fred. Hang on to that self-confidence. I felt I had every right to be self-confident that it would be only a matter of exercising my willpower and keeping on guard. Can you imagine living that way when your mind is screaming for a drink or whatever? man crazy making by that time he needs a drink right okay in this frame of mind poor Fred I went about my business for a time all as well I had no trouble refusing drinks and began to wonder if I'd been making too hard work of a simple matter. See, I'm good. I'm all right. It's easy to say no. Just say no one day. I went to Washington to present some accounting evidence to a government bureau. I had been out of town before during this particular dry spell. Can you late, Pat? So there was nothing new about that. Physically, I felt fine. Neither did I have any pressing problems or worries. Nice to be in that ignorant dishonesty place. My business came off well. I was pleased and knew my partners would be too. It was the end of a perfect day, not a cloud on the horizon. Uh-oh. Dangerous place. He's all proud of himself now. Life's great. I did such a good job. Me, me, me. Yippee! I went to my hotel and leisurely dressed for dinner. Here's the expensive part. As I crossed the threshold of the dining room, the thought came to mind, uh-oh, that it would be nice to have a couple cocktails with dinner. I did such a great job today. I deserve it, right? That was all, nothing more. I ordered a cocktail and my meal, then I ordered another cocktail. And after dinner, I decided to take a walk. It was such a nice evening. When I returned to the hotel, it struck me. What struck him? Yeah, that insanity, that he's having a strange mental blank spot, a little mental obsession going on here. A highball would be fine before going to bed. so i stepped into the bar and had one and then what happens craving i remember having several more that night and plenty next morning so here he is he's unable to stop he set the ball rolling he can't he has no power you can't do anything about it now and then this is kind of funny I have a shadowy recollection of being in an airplane bound for New York and I'm finding a friendly taxicab driver at the landing field instead of my wife oh poor Fred the driver escorted me about for several days anyone ever have a similar experience oh where am I oh my god I don't know where I am but at least the cabbies driving well life is good let's stop for another drink several days I know little of where I went or what I said and did then came the hospital with unbearable mental and physical suffering how many of you were blackout drinkers Wow, yeah. You can relate right? Poor Fred. As soon as I regained my ability to think, well where had he been before? Right? What happened? He was just blotto from this experience of being driven around for several days in a taxi cab you know you think he called his wife at some point I mean why wasn't she there to meet him I think he did huh he got the wrong car who knows who knows what happened got in the wrong car maybe called her maybe didn't okay so it's more expensive writing here not only had I been off guard I had made no fight whatever against the first drink this time I had not thought of the consequences at all I had commenced to drink as carelessly as though the cocktails were ginger ale I now remembered what my alcoholic friends had told me how they prophesied that if I had an alcoholic mind the time and place would come I would drink again yeah when we're on our own power we have no defense they had said that though I did raise a defense it would one day give way before some trivial reason for having a drink and sometimes we don't have a reason right we just do it well just that did happen and more for what i had learned of alcoholism did not occur to me at all just not available right strange i knew from that moment that i had an alcoholic mind i saw that willpower and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots I had never been able to understand people who said that a problem had them hopelessly defeated I knew then it was a crushing blow you know it's that place and that strange mental blank spot where we need God to open us up and the thing is we don't think to turn to god we're in the grip of a progressive illness it gets worse never better and the mental obsession is going to win out because we don't have the power to remember to turn to God we just don't know how to do it and if you do and you did that and you're sober today as a result god bless you that's awesome two of the members about now these next couple pages are um tell us how to make 12-step calls and you know the need to make them today isn't as great as it was then when they wrote this book but in my early sobriety I made one the woman was incredibly drunk she'd been to the meetings we knew her she called us she was really sloppy drunk but her daughter needed to get to school so my sponsor and I went over there and I took her daughter to school and picked up some booze on the way back to the house because she may have gone into DTs and and died so this is exactly what we did two of the members of Alcoholics Anonymous came to see me they grinned which I didn't like so much and then asked me if I thought myself alcoholic and was I really done have I had enough of the torture of what's happening to me. Fred had to concede to both propositions, as did my friend. They piled on me heaps of evidence to the effect that an alcoholic mentality such as I had exhibited in Washington was a hopeless condition. They cited cases out of their own experience by the dozen. And we did that, and as she had a little alcohol in her then, you know, the three of us were laughing away at some of the crazy episodes as a result of our drinking. And she began to be able to relate that she's not the only one that has this problem, and it's not a shameful problem. It's a disease. this process snuffed out the last flicker of conviction that i could do the job myself okay so he fred is now surrendered to the fact that he's he has a hopeless condition he can't stay sober on his own power no amount of some of the things that that leanne went over are just not going to work you're not going to remember to pull out those phone numbers you got at the meeting and start calling people you're going to be off to the bar just like Fred and think oh well I had such a great day just a cocktail with dinner it'll be alright it's like Jim as long as I put it in my milk and it's on a full stomach we come up with these crazy things that we think are going to enable us to do it and pull it off and not have to ever admit that we're the real alcoholic or the real drug addict. Then they outlined the spiritual answer and program of action, which is what? Step 2 through 12, which 100 of them had followed successfully. Though I had been only a nominal church member, churchmen, their proposals were not intellectually hard to swallow. But the program of action, oh, I don't know, though entirely sensible, was pretty drastic. I don' t know about this. I don''t know if I'm going to get through this. Yikes! That's a lot of work, right? It meant I would have to throw several lifelong conceptions out of the window. what do we ask you to do before you do any of the work in the steps say the set aside prayer because we have lots of lifelong convictions and ideas and um considerations and feelings that go with them and all that stuff which you know we're going to get to see an inventory that's that listening to that stuff can prevent you from writing a fourth step, can prevent your from taking an honest third step with the total awareness that you're beyond human aid. So to take a third step and turn your will and your life over to a power greater than you that you hope reveals itself to you through the rest of the steps is pretty drastic, right? That's what Fred thinks. okay so what happens to fred he's you know willing to um he he made up his mind which is a good thing to make a commitment to yourself to go through with the process yay fred i had the curious feeling that my alcoholic condition was relieved, as in fact it proved to be. How cool is that? Wow. An intuitive sense that early on. Wow. I may not ever have to experience what I just went through. Oh, I have goosebumps in my head and throughout my whole body, you know, because I remember that moment in my own early recovery. It was like, oh my God, I may not ever have to go back and experience that again. That's a godsend, right? That's a beautiful shot to the heart. Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve a couple of my problems that i'm facing no it doesn't say that it says all my problems right all of them my sex problems my money problems my thinking problems my health problems everything my family problems my relationship problems any problem that you may have can be solved that spiritual principles would solve all my problems i have since been brought into a way of living infinitely more satisfying and i hope more useful than the life i lived before i wouldn't go back to it even if i could fred's story speaks for itself we hope it strikes home to thousands like him he had felt only the first nip of the ringer you know i wonder how much you know was that the first time he pulled something like that where he was like lost in a taxi for a week you know he was in and out of the hospital a couple times maybe before that so that's why they say it's the first nip of the ringer most alcoholics have to be pretty badly mangled before they really commenced to solve their problems yes beaten flattened many doctors and psychiatrists agree with our conclusions one of these men staff member of a world-renowned hospital and his name was Percy Pollack and I couldn't really find any information on him but he worked at Bellevue Hospital in New York City which today I still I believe is still a mental hospital it may not have been then I'm not sure but it would make sense that he would have an opinion on us working at a mental hospital he said what you say about the general hopelessness of the average alcoholics plight is in my opinion correct as to two of you men whose stories I've heard there was no doubt in my mind that you were a hundred percent hopeless apart from divine help had you offered yourself as patients at this hospital I would not have taken you if I had been able to avoid it there's some honesty huh people like you are too heartbreaking though not a religious person I have profound respect for the spiritual approach in such cases as yours for most cases there is virtually no other solution here's yet another doctor telling us that so to wrap it up once more the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink or drug except in a few rare cases neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense his defense must come from a higher power and if you don't believe that that's true then I have to say you have some reservations that you might want to take a look at right so how can you depend on the group as your higher power right at this point in the work we're like smashed. It's like I don't have any resources that I can depend on to keep me from getting loaded. That's pretty clear, which is partly why I spent a year and three months in a halfway house in the beginning. I knew I couldn't manage my life. I didn't know how to manage my life, I had brain damage. Probably all of you did not have brain damage but I did and I was afraid to go off and live on my own. I could not manage my own life and we're gonna get into that for next week, that's gonna be fun. We're gonna enter into you know that weird area that we call the spiritual malady my spiritual maladies started when I was about 10 because fear came into my life and I created all kinds of lifelong conceptions based on fear I didn't know it at the time but I saw it in my inventory, and so thank you very much. We're going to do some questions back. Excellent. Solid work guys. That was really well done by both you ladies. If you would pull out your questions on page 13 of the Idiot's Guide. I call it a genius guy, right? And what time is it? Oh, perfect. We've got plenty of time tonight. Hey, before we get into these questions, just one more reminder on this deal. There's a big difference between still having the mental obsession and want and not, and still trying to beat the gig, beat the game and still having the mental obsession. And to the soul heart of yourself, you want to have relief. You want to be recovered. On one side, I had the mental obsession before I came in the rooms and I was trying to beat The Gig. You know, how long can I, can I fend myself off? I'm not looking for anybody else's solution. I'm looking for my own solution i'm going to figure out how many people ever went to treatment heard the word trigger my wife's a psychologist and she laughs when she hears that because she's one of us she's coming up on 25 years and when anybody ever talks about triggers it's like are you are you kidding me are you killing me a trigger so but some of us in the rooms tonight still have the mental obsession going on even though we're sober. Even though we are sober, we still have the mental obsession going because we're not through the work yet. When I was out there, I had the mental obsession and I would try to fend myself off from it and I had the experience of Fred. I had the experience with Jay Walker. I had the experience Jim. I had the experiences of not Superman. I could never pull off 25 years but I had that experience anybody can relate to that then we come in and this happens with most my sponsees they have this panicked really terrified look in their eyes and it's a you know it's it's i i feel them soul to soul heart to heart because they're looking at me they're going pat i still have this obsession i've never ever been able to beat it and i still have it how how am i not gonna drink as i'm going through this work and we have that feeling some of you are being you know i think some of it you know maybe some of us else haven't we're not gonna raise our hand but that's a that's a really a scary place to be and here's the deal i could just tell you this from experience of sponsoring lots and lots and lots of folks over the years it's also my experience of listening to other people who have sponsored effectively lots and Lots and lots of people over the year God does something for each of us before we even know what's going on that stands between you in the drink me in the drug between you and the drug before I ever even understand what God is doing for me so if you're in here tonight and your heart's desire is so help me god i never want to drink again and i want relief then you're in a great space god will stand between you and the drink that's my experience for nine months going into spriety i had the only way i could describe it is nails on a chalkboard, mental obsession, morning, noon, and night. And I talked to my sponsor every freaking day about it. I'm going through the work the way we are going through the work, and it was freaking killing me. And every time I'd call him up, he'd say, go serve somebody, go help another alcoholic. He did not tell me, go to a damn meeting. He didn't tell me think the drink through. He didn'T try to rationalize away my feeling. He said, get out of yourself. Go serve somebody right now. I had a Chevy Suburban that was on its last legs and I was known as the moving guy for the first nine months. I moved people three and four and five times a week because it was so bad. And I said, just please anybody just call me. Let me help you. So if you're having that obsession while we're going through this work and you're freaking out find somebody in your house find somebody your neighborhood find somebody in the rooms to help serve them and keep doing this work all right you're in a safe protected place i don't want to leave you in the lurch that's really important all right okay so these questions uh there's four there's three questions tonight do i have the experience of the jaywalker that's one do i think that self-knowledge is going to pull it off for me that's number two and number three is this is a humble admission do i believe sincerely that without spiritual help however you want to define it or not even define it tonight don't worry about it this isn't about having this great conception of god But without something bigger than us, without spiritual help, will the time and place come where I will drink or use again no matter how much I wanted to stay sober? So as you guys come up tonight, you can talk about any one of those. I'm going to leave it open for you, okay? One's on the jaywalker. Second one's on self-knowledge. Third one is accepting spiritual help. Okay? So let's open up for questions. or comments. We've got plenty of time. Who wants to start this off? Matt, get up here. I'm sorry, did I volunteer you? What am I doing? Yeah. I'm going to pick 38. Yeah, tell everybody what you're doing. I'm Matt. I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict. Matt. So 38 says, do you believe you could stay stopped on the basis of self knowledge, applying all these things you have learned about yourself and your disease up to this point i wrote a big hell no um and i've tried um over the years and learned a lot about myself through um through going through the steps multiple times i've learned a law about myself therapy for years childhood trauma ptsd um you know family of origin i know a lot about myself and how i grew up um books i have bookshelves spiritual books um all of the ones that you know recommended i've read tons of books talk to lots of different people and i know beyond a shadow of a doubt that knowing all this stuff about myself is not going to keep me sober i know that's helpful but um i need to have an experience with god along with all that stuff to stay sober and continue staying sober. So, yeah, that's about it for that question. That's cool. Yeah, just pick one question. Good job. My name's Eric, and I'm an alcoholic and an addict. Hey! Let me tell you, I haven't been around cats in years, and I know I'm allergic to cats, but, you know, I figured I haven'T been around cats in yearS, and there's this great cat that came down to my back door, so I thought I'd be bringing it in my house for the last couple days and look at me the allergy insanity the insanity okay yeah so things are really becoming very evident to me like through this process like it's serious i'm serious like wow really yeah like it'S INSANE but um you know this also brings to mind like Eckhart Tolle the power of now like i need dope now that was my problem so Eckhart tolle did nothing for me um so 38 um 38 yeah i'd like to do 38 also do you believe you can stay stopped on the basis of self-knowledge applying all these things you have learned about yourself and your disease up to this point no i have had self- knowledge for the last 20 plus years yet i only have four and a half months of sobriety slash clean time for many years i have said and have been quoted as saying i know the reasons why in many areas of my life that i struggle such as my anger drug abuse depression low self-esteem even my lack of wealth what i don't know is how to overcome them i now know that the dilemma was powerlessness and the answer is the power that can only come from god my name is michelle i'm a alcoholic heroin addict and a meth addict um I did 38 and 39 together I'm going to start with um well the time and the place come where you drink or use again the time came I don't know if you guys remember I told the story I'm in sobriety I'm living this over living you know and then something happened suddenly and then I was in the car and I was driving and little teeny me was like don't do it you can turn around it's okay it's not too late and it was like tiny me mini me over there smaller than mini me it was the tiniest and um it i had no depth and weight like at all so um like i really am starting to get into this powerlessness thing and like really i really like think i like got know what it is now like i figured it out after the last couple weeks because we used to struggle with that mike and i used to talk about what's this powerless one all right um so i've determined that self-knowledge at this point that all i've learned you know i've done all the things that homeboy was talking about over there you know self-known stuff um my willpower i did all those things too it's cool um and my will power right all i'm doing is i'm going to do everything in my own will is not powerful enough to keep me clean i am powerless i finally figured that out what that really means that's what i wrote i am beyond human aid but i trust in what these recovered fellows are saying and that there is a power to be found here in the work which is as of now elusive in that tangible sense but i do feel it i feel it coming from you guys when when you speak um and uh and i'm starting to feel it to myself i'm i'm trying to connect with that and i feel It in my heart and it's pretty cool stuff so my name is steven i'm an addict and uh 39 is it obvious to you that without spiritual help the time place will come and you will drink and or use again no matter how much you want to stay sober today and I would have to say yes uh my experience is that there was a time about nine and a half years that I didn't do any meth but I would have a little bit of social drink or smoke and my neighbor was a meth dealer and he'd be showing that shit to me all the time and then just one day was like yeah whatever give me 20 bucks worth and so now i have over 10 years and i can compare how i was and where i'm at and say yeah what's holding me together today is definitely the spiritual help spiritual aspect of this program without that you know i have experienced that personally and said, you know what? I won't stay clean today unless I have something different than what I was doing. So thank you for having this workshop. Patrick, I'm already behind you. Oh, come on. Is that Angelica, alcoholic addict? hi I am going to answer 38 did you believe that you could stay stopped on the basis of self-knowledge to me I've been around since 2011 and alcohol and crystal meth was my drug of choice and um and i have 58 days today um i had four days four years six months and it's 58 days today and um the hardest one was to give up was um crystal meth that one was really just had me by the hair and it had me so much by the hair that I chopped it up and cut it really short so that you know so that the monster would let go of it it's growing out I know I pulled a Britney Spears I think and my knowledge did not equal my high and it just that's the way i mean i read books on it watched dvds um i just educated i mean found out the ingredients what it did to my brain and you know my insides and um and yet my knowledge did not equal my high and um what I have learned about myself is that I procrastinated and I willingly did not want to work the steps um I thought that I could stay clean and sober with just going to meetings and one day just you know I'll never forget um this is in east la and blast had just been released from jail do you have any and that was it like just just like that you know and i was off to the races and um the chronic relapsing began and um so um i i'm working the steps now yeah and i have 58 days and i am a marvelous lady who's my sponsor and a lot of great friends i really enjoyed this um book study wait yeah workshop workshop okay thank you Hi, I'm Danelle. I'm an alcoholic addict. Hi, Danelle! I chose 37. Did you read the Jay Walker story? And if it applies to your drinking and or using career, does it fit exactly? Yeah, I do after... I started out having DUIs when I was 19, then I had one when I was 20 and then a week later when I was 21 and they were in different parts of the state. And then I kept getting pulled over for DUIs but they would let me go. And I wrecked a lot of cars. I think I wrecked like seven of my parents' cars and yeah. But I always seemed to, they kept giving me more cars. So I finally bought my own car and then I wreck that one and that was drinking as well. They were always drinking. Then I started blacking out and I had many concussions then. And then I fractured ribs. I just kept doing it and doing it, doing it. So then I started doing drugs so I could do it better. But then I would hide bottles and then I didn't realize how many bottles I was drinking so that didn't work anymore. And then thank God, God was always with me though. He was always working and he constantly was showing me spiritually He would just, he would show me, you know, the progression of my disease. You know, the progression of my cocaine disease, the progression of my alcoholism, the progression of, because I was, I was truly, truly, I, why I could not see this, I have no idea that I thought that DUIs, that I thought my DUIs were from speeding, I have no idea that that, I mean, that why was that I am not I really am not that stupid but truly I really thought that and and I am just truly blessed that that when I came into this program he completely relieved the obsession of alcohol and drugs for me And I've been sober now for 16 and a half months. I'm Brooke, I'm an alcoholic. So I'm going to do 37 too. Did you read the jaywalker story? And if you apply it to your drinking or using career, does it fit exactly? I put yes, it fits perfectly. And I like rewrote out the jayswalking story and personalized it. So my writing is really small, so bear with me. My behavior is as absurd and incomprehensible with respect to the first drink as that of an individual with a passion, say, for drinking and using. I get a thrill out of drinking and use at home alone, because I was a loner, loser, complicated wreck. I enjoy myself for a few years in spite of friendly warnings. Up to this point, you would say i was as foolishly and sick as a foolishly insane person having strange and absurd ideas of fun um lack the see i can't read my writing oh i'm off on another bender several times in succession i would expect myself if i was normal to cut it out presently i get drunk and high again and this time and i end up with a mental and or medical complication such as comas within a couple of days of leaving the hospital i am at the liquor store again buying alcohol and pills to go drink and use at home i tell myself i promise others and myself to stop drinking and using forever but within a few weeks i am drinking andusing again on through the years my conduct continues accompanied by my continual promises to cut back completely and stay off drugs and alcohol altogether. Finally, I can no longer work, go to school, function. My friends stop talking to me and cut off ties, and my boyfriend threatens to leave me. I am held up to ridicule. I try every known means to get the constant drinking and using ideas out of my head. I shut myself up in rehab or a psych ward, hoping to mend my ways. But the day I get out, I race to the liquor store or call my psychiatrist again for pills, which sets off another spree of insanity. Such a woman would be crazy, wouldn't she? Thank you. I'm Jenna, I'm an alcoholic I'm going to do 39 Is it obvious to you that without spiritual help the time and place will come and you will drink and reuse again no matter how much you want to stay sober today Yes. I have wanted to stay sober for a long time and had ultimatums and drank many times, and I wrote, yes, I need to be vigilant about feeding my spiritual program and having a personal relationship with God because temptation is always going to be there. nothing else will keep me sober I need to stay strong and need to have a conscious contact with God meaning ongoing conversations and check-ins with God listening to God I need the strength I need to be God reliant not self-reliant self-reliance always fails me I'm Heather, alcoholic I'm gonna go with 38 so but I think I kind of read it in a different way so it says do you believe you could stay stopped on the basis of self-knowledge applying all these things you have learned about yourself and your disease up to this point so it's been a while for me and so I'll say by now yes because part of my self- knowledge is knowing that I must rely on a higher power to stay sober. Also, the things that I've learned about myself and my disease up to this point makes it abundantly clear to me that I need to do the work to maintain my spiritual condition and enlarge my spiritual life in order to have a daily reprieve to stay stopped. I feel like I have recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body with respect to alcohol, but I know you know I've got other issues and I'm still working on that like I can see it in my food and you know and that to me is just showing me how I still have work to do in my spiritual life and how I need to continue to do that because it could easily be a drink I you know that's clear to me so my name is Mary I'm an alcoholic addict I wanted to do 38 and 39 do you believe you could stay stopped on the basis of self-knowledge applying all these things you have learned about yourself and your disease up to this point no I strongly believe that I need a strong support group to be able to stay clean and sober I know I I can't do it alone. Sometimes I want to, but it never works that way for me. I know that I need Jesus. 39, is it obvious to you that without spiritual help, the time and place will come and you will drink and or use again no matter how much you want to stay sober today? It is obvious, but I know this is why I need to attend more meetings, get a bigger support group of women, and understand that just because we are in recovery, we are not perfect people. We have to accept people the way that we are. I'm Bill, I'm an alcoholic, well, doping. Well, you know, I started on Ripple Wine so So, and I had my first blackout back then, 12 years old. 37. Do you read the Jay Walker story? Did you read it? Well, you guys know what the question is. I don't have my glasses here with me. Okay, so look, I really liked what Leanne started out with because she said something that was so ridiculous. Well, when I first read the J. Walker story years ago, I've read the book a few times and uh I thought I thought that was a real story yeah I thought it was like a real guy you know I didn't realize it was just an example of you know like an analogy okay so uh you know that's just it you know it's like you know i didn't get this one on the first go around so the deal is is yes time and time again i used without concern for the consequences you know i started uh all i know is that i've been like through every detox from here to la and uh programs and everything else and and then they finally had graduated to prison you And then a couple of those, you know what I mean? So the consequences, one time I blew a vein. The ambulance came and got me. The veins were popping out of my skin and I thought I had worms. And so they got me in the hospital for the fireman. They said, where's your outfit? And it was over there in the bathroom. So they went and took all that stuff. So I'm in the house, but I'm just sitting there, calming down off this coke you know it's like okay now I gotta go back there I still got that dope over there right so but they got the rig so I'm going through the cabinets at the hospital you know I don't even have any discharge yet I'm already getting rigs you know to head back over there so you know you know picking up some I'm scoring in Santa Ana you know and the guy puts a gun in my face and takes my money and I just ran back to the car got some more money and ran around the building down to the next guy you know that's the kind of stuff that I do and so yeah and it's just progressive and uh and yeah so yeah good beer okay last one all right i'm mad i'm an alcoholic and uh don't feel too alone you're lonely drinking i hated drinking with people and um yeah so 37 that i read the jaywalker story initially i said yes this is a stupid analogy and then it gets the you get past that and it starts to say we substitute or if you substitute alcoholism for jaywalking the illustration would have fit us exactly and I was like no I'm not going back through that and then when you transcribe it's like shit it does damn it yeah and you don't want to admit it like over and over again because you're like this is the dumbass analogy again but when you go back through and read it And it's like, shit, it all fits. It's like you didn't want the circle to line up with the circle hole, and it's, like, peg went in there. And then so I just said it fits very appropriately with my drinking career and many of ours. So 39, is it obvious that without spiritual help basically I'll drink again? I said, yes, it's very obvious. I've never been able to stay sober on my own. The program of AA and the big book helps, but ultimately I require a solid spiritual relationship with God. Thanks. Alex, alcoholic. 37, the Jay Walker. I mean, I said I did it, I did over and over. It's even boring to even share specifically about any of them. So it was ridiculous, but that's how it went. 38, I don't believe that today. I mean, you know, I did the self-knowledge thing for a while and I have it underlined. It did not work. Today I know that I'm sober by divine intervention. I take no credit for my sobriety today. and the last one is a scare okay so they said obviously that without spiritual health it's as scary as it is for me to think about me being in that I can't stop drinking state which is the scariest thing I've experienced because you don't know what's gonna happen and that's really scary without spiritual help God I won't stay sober and drink again so that's you know I got to do the work and I just realized today this I just wrote here my first two rodeos in a I had to stop drinking and I had six and a half years and then I had two and a have years so and and but here's the thing I don't know what happened today but you guys were sharing and you know all of this And so I realized that those two times I had to stop drinking, but I never had the desire to stop Man good stuff tonight guys everybody really really solid. We're gonna pass the Pan around the bedpan Pass a bedpan around and Put in a little bit extra if you can for the food and for rent and all that kind of stuff. I cannot thank you guys enough for being honest and willing to share. Really, it's good stuff. Let's look at our assignment for next week just for a second, okay? Assignment number nine. So let's see here. Yeah. So you're going to read three pages, 44, 45, and 52 in the big book, and you're going to put in your big book the writing from the BBA pages 37 to the top of page 41. And then in the Idiot's Guide, you're doing a lot of writing You're going do... This is a really... Make sure you give yourself some time on this, okay? This is A Big One. We're going into the spiritual malady. It's like, the spiritual what? What are we talking about here? We're gonna be talking about the spiritual Malady next week And this has nothing to do with the DUI. It has nothing TO DO with the divorce. It has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BANKRUPTCY. It has notHING to do with the continuous fights that you have with people. That's outside. The spiritual mountain that we're talking about next week is inside. And the book is going to make it extremely clear. That's what we're going to go over, okay? So do the assignment number nine and if there's any questions come up and see us after you'll be doing the questions 40 to 45 on pages 14 through 17 of Idiot's Guide give yourself some time alright let's circle up and pray it out oh and help clean it up yep oh and also who wants to bring food for next week we got a volunteer you can do it okay cool that'd be great come up and see us right after okay that'd be great yeah prime rib works yeah or bone-in ribeyes and when we all get circle up, we'll close it out with a serenity prayer. Alright. God. God, grant me the serenety to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen. Stay. Alrighty. That's good to see you, man. I really needed to do this assignment, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Come on, I'm both of us. You know when they... When it feels like you're being spoken to the whole meeting? Like that's why I was getting one of those things. I really need it today. Tell you what, we all do. We're all in the same boat. It's a good thing. Yep. You know, every time I take people through their journey, first step, I get up close and personal again with the physicality, the mental accession, spirituality. It just takes me right back down to the ground. Scrubs off all of the shit that I think and gets me reality. It's really good. You know what's something that I realized today? There's something like, I mean spiritual but even bigger than that. Like, you know what, because I mean, I'm not necessarily just a sponsor, but I'm kind of a guy, and to see, to see like, not only his words change, but his actions, it's like, it's just like something, it is, it feels spiritual. It's like wow, you don't think? So yeah, I am proud of you guys. Thank you. Sorry, sorry for the work man. That's what we're saying, this stuff starts happening to us before we even realize it. All right, man. Thanks for this date. I'll have to back up for Leanne. Got it? Yeah. Like the dude. Thank you. Sure. I like that. Right there. I don't even know what it is. I'm all saved and... Okay, watch. Okay, let's check this out. Is that the red button?