Physical Allergy and Mental Obsession – S. and Charlie P. – Springtime in the Ozarks Big Book Study – Eureka Springs, AR – Part 1 of 5 – Chris S. and Erika – Chris Schroeder and Erika

Good morning, everybody. My name is Chris and I am an alcoholic. It is it's an honor to be here in Arkansas, and it's a special honor for me having the opportunity to participate in a big book workshop in Arkansas. And, you know, there's there's a there's a reason for that in my own personal experience. I truly believe that my life was saved by getting a hold of a set of tapes by a couple of people that lived in Arkansas back in 1991. And it changed the whole way I believed and the whole way I participated in my recovery. And so it's a special treat for me to be here today. And I want to thank anyone and everyone that was involved in making that crazy decision to ask me to come down here. Hi, everybody. I'm Charlie Parker. I'm a grateful, recovered alcoholic. I'm glad to be here. I'm happy to be with you. I'm so glad to have you here with Chris. It's been interesting. Chris and I have done, Katie and I, have done some big book study workshops around them And we've done a couple with Chris, but I've never done one where he and I were doing the – usually it was me and Katie, and then Chris was giving talks on the nature of the disease. So I'm really looking forward to this. I was originally slated to do this with my sponsor, Mark Houston, who passed away suddenly two months ago. For any of you that knew Mark, you know the kind of loss we're talking about. And it was a real blow to us and to the AA community because he was only 62 years old and had a stomach aneurysm. And I'd never even heard of one before, but apparently when it happens, you've got about an hour to get your affairs in order, and that was the case. But he went out without a lot of fear, and the report I got was that he turned to his girlfriend and said, well, this is not the way we wanted this weekend to go, is it? And that was about the end of it. So that's the way this thing took. Originally it was going to be Mark, and then Mark asked me to do it with him, and then Marc passed, so I got to do It With Chris. I'm very much looking forward to it. Chris, a lot of my learning, just like Chris was talking about, has come by way of CDs and workshops and listening to workshops and getting different people's takes on stuff. And I've spent a lot of time listening to Chris. And it was funny because we know each other pretty well, and we talk on the phone a lot, and I've listened to him on CDs a lot. And I was talking to him in the parking lot yesterday, and while he was talking, I remember thinking, you sound a lot like Chris Schroeder. You know, but it's nice to be here talking. And Chris is from New Jersey, but he wanted me to tell you that half of his family is from North Carolina. So it feels like that gives him some street cred down here. He's not full-blown Yankee, you know. So go easy on him. What we're going to attempt to do is just go through the book and the steps out of the book and working a program out of the book with some of our observations. My experience has been a lot. Katie is going to be speaking Saturday night, I believe, here at the hotel. Her experience is like mine, and we've had varying levels of involvement and understanding in AA. My sobriety day is March 22nd of 1985. I am truly grateful for that. I just picked up a 25-year chip a few weeks ago. and during that period I've had varying levels of understanding and involvement with the big book and with AA and with what I thought AA meant. I've talked many times. I got to speak here last year and was able to talk a little bit about how there was a period of time where I didn't really understand that there was a level of AA going on out there that I didn'T even know about and that there Was a lot more available in this fellowship than I knew about, So that's what we hope to talk about. One of the things I like to do, if you guys don't mind indulging me, I like To start off with a three-minute meditation, and then we'll start off With the set-aside prayer. So get comfortable. I want to reiterate, this is when we all join in brotherly and harmonious action, turning off our cell phones. So if your phone rings after this, there's a $1.46 fine, and Melissa will be collecting the fines and she doesn't make change. So, all right, here we go. Three minutes. Let's just pause the CD. Please help us set aside everything I think I know about the steps, the big book, the fellowship, and even you, God. Help me be available for a new experience. Please help me to see the truth. Amen. That's a little set-aside prayer that we work with a lot of times because sometimes, especially if you've been in this work for a while, sometimes what I think I know can stand in the way of the truth. I'll pick up my book and go, oh yeah, oh yeah. Okay, yeah, sure. I like to read things and look for things that I agree with and then just kind of shine on the rest of it. But when I come across something I agree with, I go, oh, yeah. See, I got that underlined and highlighted in my book. you can't tell me anything about that and and i think sometime ahead i don't know about you guys but it seems like there's a lot of new stuff in that fourth edition you know um they say they didn't change anything but i've been seeing a lot of new staff in there and sometimes working with the set aside prayer really helps me see that new stuff do you have anything before we get rolling We're going to start off with step one. And we're going to bounce back and forth a little bit between the two of us, but you know, before we go any further, I just want to acknowledge the people that put this thing on. If you've been around the country a little bit, you know that not every conference is like this one. There's something really special going on here. And the people that work to put this thing on, I know there's a lot of work that goes into putting a deal like this together and if it's like the fellowship where we come from there's also a lot of people that don't do a darn thing that have a lot ideas about how it could have been done just a little bit better and they wanted me to tell you there's some committee positions available for next year but I want to thank our host that picked us up at the airport we've just had a great time really looking forward to this whole weekend I was here last year, and we just, this is a really special place. Well, Katie and I were very much looking forward to coming back here, and I'm going to wait until Katie gets back in the room to say anything sweet about her. The big deal that happened when AA hit the ground was three, a combination of three things, the way I see it. It was an understanding of the problem, and understanding of the solution and a program of action that would bring about that solution. And we've got a lot of examples of what happens when you have the program of reaction and the solution, but you don't understand the problem, or what happens if you understand the program and the problem and the solutions, but you do not have a program or action that will bring about the solution. Page 26 and 27 talks about that a lot with Carl Jung where he said, But, you know, I've been trying to create this spiritual experience in a guy like you. But the big deal about AA was that we had all three things. And, you Know, it's beautifully laid out in our book, this understanding of the problem, the solution, and the program of action. And we're going to try to talk a lot about our own experience this weekend. And before I go any further, if some of you have heard this joke before, Well, I'm going to go ahead and tell it because it's a good joke, and I like the way I tell it. But when we talk about coming from our own experience, it always reminds me, did I tell you last year about the guy with the talking dog for sale? This guy is driving along an old farm road, and he sees a sign that says talking dog. Talking dog for sell. And he can't stand it. He goes up to the door, and he goes, you got a talking dog or sale? The guy says, yeah, he's around back. And he goes around back, and his hound dog is laying there, And he goes, so you can talk? The dog says, well, I certainly can. And he says, how did that happen? He said, well I started developing it when I was young and as I've gotten older I've picked up more and more of the nuances of the language and he said, I've got to tell you it's led to a fabulous life for me. He said I've had an 18 year career with the Drug Enforcement Administration and I was able to infiltrate some sites that no human agent could have ever gotten into and beyond that I've stayed in some of the finest hotels in the world. I've eaten in some of the world's finest restaurants And even further, some of my pups have developed into international diplomats. They're multi-language pups. But all in all, it's just been a fabulous life for me. The guy goes back up to the front of the farmhouse and he goes, before he leaves he tells the dog, he goes it's been amazing talking to you. He goes back out front and he says how much do you want for a dog like that? And the farmer goes, I don't know, 40 bucks? And he goes, why would you sell a fabulous dog like that for 40 bucks? And the farmer goes, none of that crap he told you is true. You know? So in AA, when we talk about coming out of our own experience, Sometimes it doesn't really matter how good the story is if it's not my experience. We hope to not get up and say, well, I don't have any experience with this step, but the way I've heard it described is, you know, I should get going. That's what we talk about, though. When it says for a message to interest and hold an alcoholic, it has to have depth and weight. That's a beautiful thing that happens in AA is that identification takes place when one alcoholic talks to another one. And on page 18 it says, until such an identification takes place, little or nothing can be accomplished. It talks about, it lends some importance to that identification that takes place when one drunk talks to another. But all this problem-solution program of action is beautifully laid out in our book. What I'm going to try to talk about tonight, first of all, or today, first off, is the problem. And the problem in alcoholism, you know, the nature of the disease of alcoholism and what we mean in step one. Because I spent a long time sitting in AA meetings raising my hand saying, My name's Charlie. I'm an alcoholic. And I really didn't know what it meant. And I've stolen a lot of lines from Chris over the years. And one of the ones that I've used a lot is he said, When I got here, I was in a lot more trouble than I thought I was in and they had a lot bigger answer than i was giving them credit for you know when i got here i thought i was just in a little bit of trouble had to run a bad luck and if i could just heal up for about 30 days that'd probably be long enough to get a key to the back door of my mother's house again and you know that would solve everything well on page 20 and i'm going to do a lot of big book quotes but i'm gonna be hitting on them pretty quickly but on page 20, it says, doubtless you are curious to discover how and why, in the face of expert opinion to the contrary, we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body. When we talk about being a recovered alcoholic, I don't mean to sound arrogant. It's just the book uses the word recovered about 17 times. And it says it's not being immune from alcohol, it's having recovered from this hopeless condition of mind and body so it might be interesting to talk about what that is you know my job when i sit down with a new guy and i love working with new guys i love sponsoring people more than anything my first job when i sat down with the new guy that's coming into aa is to give him what i call a fatal dose of alcoholism i need to sit down avec this guy and let him understand that it's not just about liking the party you know that what we're talking about is a serious fatal malady and and the book um the book does it um beautifully but you know in fred's story up on page 42 there's a part where it says they came to see him after a relapse and he says they laid out they laid off the problem for him what he says is they cited dozens of cases out of their own experience then this this process snuffed out the last flicker of conviction that I could do the job myself. That's what I'm trying to do with a new guy, is have what I like to call, I want to see this guy have what I call a step one experience. There's something that happens when a guy all of a sudden goes, or a person all of a suddenly goes, my God, what you're saying makes a lot of sense and explains a lot of stuff I've never been able to describe, you know, to explain before. What if I'm just a garden variety drunk? You know, Clancy likes to say that if he gave us all a flag the way when we come in here, everybody's flag would say the same thing. It would say, you don't understand, my case is different. You know? And because we all have such complicated, complex stories, but there's something that happens when the person goes, my God, what if I am a garden-variety alcoholic? because then this common solution becomes available for us. Well, the reason I say that is some of the – I like to go out to a treatment center and they're kind enough to let me come out every Monday and talk to these guys about step one. Some of the stuff you hear in treatment centers gets me a little worked up. And, of course, you know, I judge no man. But, you Know, it's one of the things I heard a counselor say one time was that you worked step one getting here, or you worked the first three steps getting here. And that wasn't my experience. It wasn't Dr. Bob's experience. It wasn'Thred's experience or Jim's experience I mean over and over in the book it talks about them having to lay out because we get here knowing we're in trouble. And when you get here knowing that most of us don't show up here on a winning streak. But I didn't get here fully understanding what it meant to be alcoholic. you know in the forward to the second edition with dr bob says he had repeatedly tried spiritual means to resolve his alcoholic dilemma but had failed he'd been in the oxford movement for two years so he kind of understood the solution he had the idea that he needed a spiritual answer to this thing and even had a program of action but he didn't understand the problem and this guy was a medical doctor but he didn't understand what we're dealing with when we're talking about alcoholism and you know back in the forwards it says when the broker gave him dr silkworth's description of alcoholism the physician began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with the willingness he'd never been able to muster he sobered never to drink again up to the moment of his death in 1950 this seemed to prove that one alcoholic could affect another alcoholic as no non-alcoholic could. This identification that takes place of one drunk working with another one is really significant, and we don't have a lot of time to get into singleness of purpose, but AA believes, and I believe in AA's singleness of purpose. And when I came in, I walked into a club that was having a big controversy over drug addicts and alcoholics and that sort of thing, and And, you know, it's not that we're trying to exclude anybody. This identification is so important that we are desperate that this person find a fellowship that they are going to identify in like I do when I'm in a room full of alcoholics. Because if this guy never drank and his counselor tells him just go to AA and tell him you've got a desire to stop drinking, he's never going to identity like I did in a group of people. room full of drunks and without that identification he may not be willing to take the the uh directions and stuff that he may or may not yet believe in but i like to tell stories um you know when i liketo talk about what happens when that identification is not there and when i was in treatment one time i was i went through a treatment center and it was christmas time and this woman came this it was christmas day now i'm a big boy now i was even bigger when i sobered up but uh it was Christmas day and they had this they had turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes and gravy and rolls and oh and and i got this plate of food and i swear to god i'm just sitting into my chair and the door swings open and in walks about five or six do-gooders from one of the local churches that had come to sing to us, heathen alcoholics. And you can imagine my excitement, right? And this woman, I see this woman and she's going along and she says something to this guy and then she leans over to this lady and she said something and then She leans over and she say something to This guy and I'm kind of watching her and she comes around to me And she says, are you a patient here? I said, yes, I am. She said, I know exactly what you're going through. And I said really? She said yes, I was once addicted to caffeine. And I say, oh ain't that a bitch? You know, I mean. Let me ask you something. Did you ever pawn your mom's sterling silver to get a can of Folgers? You know I mean I mean bless her heart she was trying to identify but he just wasn't there you know i mean and you know so sometimes it's easier to see the identification when it's not there but you know if silk horse definition of alcoholism was so important when they explained it to bob and so let's take a look at what silk horse said you know first of all i like to talk about what does it mean to be alcoholic. And does it mean, I thought I was alcoholic because I'd been to jail, I'd had DWIs, I'd have relationships blow up, I've been moved out of places I wasn't quite yet ready to move out of. You know, and all the things that happen to people that drink a lot, but it doesn't make me alcoholic. You Know, I mean, i like to say that there's probably somebody that was at a party last night had a few drinks got pulled over on the way home is it possible that they could do that and get arrested for driving while intoxicated and and not be alcoholic well if that's possible then it implies that getting dwis doesn't necessarily make me an alcoholic it just that's just what happens somebody drinks a lot my sister's not alcoholic i could pour enough vodka in here to get her a dwi i could you know but at the end of the deal she would not be one of us because she doesn't have the two things that i have i got two i like to say i got two problems with alcohol one happens to me when i drink it one happens to be when i don't drink it other than that i got a pretty good handle on this alcohol thing what happens to me when I drink it is this physical allergy you know I like to go about I like to break down the book Roman numeral 28 I say that because it's easier than saying XXVIII but it's a heavy page if you're doing a lot of work with new guys and treatment centers this needs a page where we spend some time Roman XXVII in the doctor's opinion I believe it's XXVI in the third edition but he says We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics... So we're talking about chronic alcoholcs, not little disco drunks. It says that the reaction of alcohols on these chronical alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy. That the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class. What class? This class of chronic alcoholic. right so it's saying that this craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker so if i've experienced this craving there's one definition of alcoholism it's seeing it doesn't happen to regular folk and you know but i like to break down what they said because a lot of this is strange language i mean i don't know about you guys but in the Bars I was drinking in, we never used words like manifestation and phenomenon and that sort of chronic, you know, that sort OF thing. But, you Know, so really for manifestation, it just means the way something shows up. The book uses manifestation several times. The way something presents itself is this manifestation. An allergy, for our purposes here, is just an abnormal physical reaction. If nine out of ten people take something and nothing happens, and that tenth person has a big reaction to it, that's an abnormal physical reaction. It's an allergic reaction. And then phenomenon just means beyond ordinary conception. Well, in the doctor's opinion, he says in this statement, we wrote back, it says in his statement, he confirms what we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe, that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. It did not set, because we'd been kind of coming in thinking it was all kind of a mental moral issue. And Silky was the first one to come up with the idea that we had a strange physical reaction to booze. And he says it didn't satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life, that we were in full flight from reality, or were outright mental defectives. that's my people yeah you know but it says this this this thing about an allergy interests us it explains many things that we haven't been able to explain up to now you know because if you drink like i do and had been for a while you know i grew up under the burden of potential i don't know about anybody else but i was told my whole life about all this potential i had and my mother was a first grade school teacher so I did real well in first grade but kind of petered out after that but I was told all this time about all this potential I had and one thing I'll report is 12 years of heavy drinking and use of outside issues will significantly lower people's expectations of you but by the time I got here They were just like, just get a job, Charlie. You know, we don't care about an education or a career anymore. Just get off the couch for God's sake. But if you drink like I do, you're used to people talking to you about your drinking. I've had a lot of people that want to talk to me about my drinking. And, you know, they were – but it was never people that drank like I did. And it was Never People That Understood. AA was the first place I'd been around where people were talking to me about my drinking that understood the way i drank and that knew because i think part of the reason we get here thinking we're moral screw-ups a lot of times is because i would always twist off at exactly the wrong time right when it looked like everything might be coming together you know and then just and the next day people would say you know why did you do that again you know why did you start drinking again? And I had the only answer any of us have when we get here, which is what? I don't know. I don' t know. I don''t know. That's just what I do, you know. I just drink, you kno. I mean, well, that's what they're talking about when they say it explains a lot of things we haven't been able to explain up to now because now, I understand, it doesn't really help a lot, you kow, if you relapse. It doesn't realy help to go, well mom, it's like this. You know, I have a spiritual malady, you know, that has triggered a mental obsession. But let's describe this allergy we're talking about. Because, you Know, I like to talk about poison ivy. Anybody else allergic to poison ivY? Me too. You know. And so how does my allergy to poison IVY manifest? Well, it manifests in a rash and it itches like crazy. And if you scratch here and then you scratch somewhere else, you got it somewhere else and it inches like crazy and that's, well, that's the manifestation of my allergy to poison ivy. Well, in alcohol, the way this allergy, my allergy at alcohol manifests is in a craving. In a craving, you know, and how many stories have you heard where, because we drunks make some good plans. I mean, good Lord, we can make a brilliant plan. And most of them work right up to the point that they stop working. But, you know, I mean how many plans have you heard that start off with I'm just going to have a couple of drinks? And I used to think that I'd changed my mind. You know,I'd go in a bar and I'd go, I've changed my mine, I'm going to blow my whole paycheck in my savings account. You know? But what had happened was I had triggered this phenomenon of craving. And they call it a phenomenon because they don't really understand why it happens. They just know that it does. So when I go in and I have a couple of drinks, all of a sudden, no matter what my plan was going in, I'm all about drinking. And we'll drink through my paycheck and yours if you're in a good mood. Because what's happened is when I had a couple OF drinks, it triggers a craving that's bigger than I am that I cannot overcome on my own power, this craving. Well, in the doctor's opinion again, he says men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. He says, I think that's a little understated. He says the sensation, the state of excitement is so elusive that while I admit it's injurious, You know, because when it's elusive, you know, when you get further down the road with this disease, the quantities and the qualities of alcohol start to move around a little bit. You know? I mean, it doesn't always do the same thing for me that it did last week. You know. And, you ever just have a few drinks and look up and you're falling down and you go, my God, man, get up. People are going to think you're drunk. You know, I can't always predict what's going to happen when I'm drinking. But it says after a while, I Can't Differentiate the Truth from the False. Part of the way I can differentiate the truth from the false is I'm the guy sitting in my sixth treatment center and I'm thinking in my mind that I'm fixing, you know, it's not like it looks. I know it looks like I'm alcoholic, but I've just been on a bad run And that snitch and that girlfriend are my real problem. But I'm sitting in my sixth treatment center thinking that I'm fixing to get a handle on this deal, even though there's nothing to indicate from my history or anything in the past ten years that I'M fixing to GET A HANDLE ON IT. Y'all say fix in here, don't you? Okay, all right. We just talked in Vermont a couple of weeks ago, and I had to go, that means I'M PREPARING TO. Not repairing, preparing. Fixed doesn't mean to repair. It's to prepare. Well, but I mean when I can't tell the truth from the false, some of that is I usually don't see how far down the scale I've gone because it happens in little ticks. I don't go from the way I was when I was 20 to the way I was and I got in here. It goes tick, tick,ick, tick downhill over a period of time And over a period of time, I start compromising my values a little more and I start doing things that I didn't think I'd do before. And by the end of the deal, though, yesterday, today looks a lot like yesterday and yesterday looks a Lot Like Last Week and it just seems like I'm doing what I've got to do to get by. But when it says my alcoholic life seems the only normal one, I love that one because when we talk about our alcoholic life being seemingly like the only normally, One of the things, one of the comparisons that came to me one day is, here's a weird one. Did you know that most people live their entire lives without ever going to jail? Pretty strange. Is that strange? I mean, if I was to call up my mother and say, oh mom, I've got to go take a UA for my P.O. because I've got a D.U.I., she would have no idea what I was talking about. For us, that's just, oh yeah, that bitch, man. But when it says my alcoholic life seems like the only normal one, by the time I get here, I just don't hang with people that don't drink like I do. And the other thing is, they don't hung with us. A normal drinker only drinks with one of us one time. you know i mean because we horrify them you know they're just you're gonna drink the whole bottle you know it's like yeah if you'll hand it over well we're talking a lot about this physical allergy but here's where it gets tricky on page 23 uh first new paragraph on page 33 the book has been talking up to now about the physical reaction to alcohol and the allergic reaction, the phenomenon of craving and that sort of thing. But he says these observations would be academic and pointless. And I like to translate academic and pointless to wouldn't mean squat. And at the treatment center, I don't always say squat. These observations wouldn't means anything if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem in the alcoholic center is in his mind rather than in his body. Why and how? You know, this physical allergy, this part of the disease, it's this one hand, is a big problem. It's a big problems what happens to me when I drink vodka, but it's not my biggest problem because if what happens to me when I drink vodka was my biggest problem, what would be my solution? Don't drink vodka. I mean, you know, Nancy Reagan's little Just Say No program would have worked great, you know. But for me, you go back to that Roman numeral 28 again, Dr. Silkworth says that I am restless, restless irritable and discontented unless i can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks drinks that i see other people take them with impunity you know what impunity means it means they don't get punished for it you know they get to have a couple of drinks it doesn't cost them their car and their job and their wife and their house and their dignity and their self-respect and all the values they grew up with they just get to have a couple of drinks and when i get that uncomfortable sober i start wanting to know where's mine you know i get this i see there's other people having a couple drinks i say i need some relief man you know because and i started going how come they get one and i don't you know when it says drinks i see other people taking with impunity that's a big deal you know That sense of ease and relief is the feeling. I like to say it's the sensation that happens when this horrible psychic pain is leaving the body, you know? And that pain that I'm in happens stone cold sober. This restless, irritable, and discontent is not talking about when I'm drinking. It's talking about what happens when I stop. So now we're getting into the second part of this deal. My first problem with alcohol is what happens when I drink it, this phenomenon of craving. But when I don't drink it I'm even in more trouble. Because when I stop drinking my problems don't go away. It feels like somebody turns the heat up on me. And after a while, because I like to say that my main problem wasn't that I couldn't stop drinking. I couldn'T stop starting. Every time I would stop drinking, I would eventually start drinking again. And if you had a 100,000-foot view of me, you'd be able to predict within a day or two when Charlie's about to twist off. You know, just by watching, you know, where all of a sudden, you're restless, irritable. You know? If I'm following somebody three miles past the exit to my house so I can tell them they're number one, that's not a good sign, you now. And, you know, because, you know, it was news for a lot of the guys in treatment and a lot of new guys when I say, you know, do you ever think about this? Every time I ever took that first drink that triggered that phenomenon of craving, I was stone cold sober. I make the craziest decision in my life, stone cold sober. The decision to try to take another run at it, knowing that there's catastrophic results ahead of me. I make, I get so uncomfortable sober that eventually that doesn't even seem like I'm doing something crazy when I do it. When I finally make that decision to take that first drink, I'm in so much pain that it seems like a good idea. It may not even feel like I'M doing something crazy because by now my mind is gone. Come on, Charlie, it's not going to be like it was last time. And really, if you think about it, last time wasn't even really that bad. You know, I don't know why you checked yourself into that detox center. That was really hasty, you know, and that sort of thing. So, you Know, what we're talking about is the second part of alcoholism, the mental obsession. The difference between my allergy to poison ivy and my allergy zu alcohol is I have never one time in my 53-year life been out in the woods walking along and looked over and gone ho ho ho I think that's poison ivy and off comes my shirt and just roll around in that poison ivY because I don't have a mental obsession with poison ivy, in fact if you show me what it looks like I'll stay away from it but it ain't like that with alcohol You know, because it says on page 24, the fact is that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure have lost the power of choice and drink. I love in the I don't have written down in my notes, but in a paragraph above that, it says most of us reach a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. you know and most of us know you know the short form of the third tradition the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking it'll get me a front row seat in an aa meeting i desire to start drinking but right there on page 24 it tells me it won't do a darn thing to keep me sober there's a thing where it says the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail if you're a real alcoholic like i am it doesn't matter how bad i want to stop eventually i'm going to start drinking again it says our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent i am unable this is key at certain times to bring into my consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of a week or a month ago and it doesn't matter whether that's my suffering and humiliation or my family's suffering and humiliation or anybody else is suffering in humiliation it says i will not be able to call it to mind i'm without defense against the first drink we have lost the choice the power of choice and control there's a point in my drinking where i cross an invisible line somewhere where i've lost the powerof choice and control i can't choose whether i'm going to drink or not and once i start drinking i can control how much i'm gonna drink i don't know when i cross that line i think that's why they call it an invisible line but somewhere along the line i crossed this line and uh i uh i'm not going to tell them i usually tell the pawn shop story when i talk about losing the power of choice and control but the the long the short version of the pawn shop story was that i used to love to pawn stuff and and um usually stuff that didn't belong to me And one of my plans was you had 90 days to get it all back out. And one day, you know, I got the money to get It All Out, and I went on a five-day blackout. And I came out, and I hadn't gotten anything out of the pawn shop. And I had to go to my father and say, Dad, if we act now, I can get you a pretty reasonable deal on most of your stuff. You know, but, you know, and the point of the story is it wasn't just going to the pawn shop. This was in Dallas. I live in Austin now, but we'd get in the car and we'd have to drive all over Dallas, you know, Buckner Boulevard, Beltline Road, East Grand, you know, out to Oak Cliff, you know, because stuff was scattered all over. And that whole time I'd be riding with my dad who was a good man. I mean, my dad was a solid guy. And I would have to say, Dad, I swear to God, I will never do this again. And, you know, a lot of us have had those days. If I was lying to that man, I didn't know it because it felt like I meant it with every fiber of my being that I will ever do this thing again. do this again. But what I didn't understand was that I didn�t have the power to make good on that promise. When we talk about, as far as I'm concerned, in the first step, as far unmanageability, I like to talk more about general unmanagability in the third step. But in the 1st step, we can stop with just can you manage the decision to stop drinking? you or can you not manage the decision to stop drinking? Because AA is not for people that get in trouble and can make up their mind to stop drinkin' and pull it off. If you're a person that can say, by God, I have got to stop, and this time I'm in business, and pull that off, you don't even belong in Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is for people like me that swear to God I'll never do this again, and then I do it again. And I do it again, and I do it again and I do it over and over and over and that's what gets me getting here thinking that I'm a screw up and I don't know about any of y'all but when I first got here, I remember when they were talking about a disease and I was like, it's not a disease, I'm just a screw-up, you know, and if you don't believe me, ask my dad. But this is starting to explain a lot of it. I could not manage the decision. to stop drinking. When I was promising him I'll never do this again, I might as well have promised him that I was going to stand up on his table and flap my arms and fly to the back of the room because I did not have the power on my own to make good on that decision. Well, let's go back to my life had become unmanageable at that point. Back to the doctor's opinion on Roman numeral 29. It says after they have succumbed to the desire again as so many do and the phenomenon of craving develops. So the mental obsession kicks in makes me powerless over whether or not i'm going to take that first drink and then what happens when i take the first drink the physical craving kicks in and that makes me powerless over taking the second drink and the third drink and a fourth drink and the fifth and the next fifth and what we're talking about is what the book describes as a terrible cycle it says and the phenomenon craving develops i pass through the well-known stages of a spree emerging remorseful with a firm resolution never to drink again this is repeated over and over and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there's very little hope of his recovery we're talking about this terrible cycle here what i get into is i get in a place if this is fully established the physical allergy and the mental obsession i'm going to drink until i have to stop and then i'm gonna stop until i haveと drink that's the terrible cycle we're talking about is i can't i get to a point where i can' t stop drinking i mean i can'T keep drinking the way i'm drinking but when i try to stop i can''t handle the pain of that either and i have to drink again and that'sthe terrible cycle that the book describes and it can go on for a long time if you you know i mean well this is the first place in the book where it mentions the solution it says unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there's very little hope of his recovery this is what we're talking about this terrible cycle when we talk about a hopeless condition of mind and body it's those two things working together that make me alcoholic and then And if I really believe in here that I've really got that deal, then this solution gets really interesting. You know, he talks about the psychic change. You know. To close on step one. In my mind, step one drives everything. My step one experience drives me through the rest of my work, through the entire process. Twenty-five years later, I'm still driven by my step one experiment. you know and because we get in this place where like do i really believe that taking inventory has anything to do with whether i drink or not do i Really believe that meditation has anything to do With Whether I Drink Or Not Do I Really Believe That Making These Amends Has Anything To Do With Whether A Guy Like Me Drinks Or Not And It Drives Me Through The Rest Of The Work There's A Thing That Happens When A Guy Has What I Call A Step One Experience Where You See You see it happen, where all of a sudden they go, my God, I think I've got it exactly the way you're describing it. And when it says it explains a lot of things that we haven't been able to account for, that's a big deal to that new guy. When I say my first job is to give this guy a fatal dose of alcoholism, there's no good news at the end of step one. I mean, you know, this would be a really sucky program if we brought a guy in and said, okay, here's the deal. Jay, you've got a body that doesn't react regularly to alcohol. And when you start drinking it, you're not going to have any control over what happens. I mean that's awful, but that's not the worst part. You've also got a brain that's going to get you drunk every time, every time. Every time. Really sorry. try to have a nice day. You know, I mean, but the book talks about the reason we can laugh about it is because we offer a solution. You know there's no reason to lay out to a guy how hopeless his condition is if I can't give him a solution but you know so what's happening here is we rolled from an understanding of the problem now we're rolling into the solution but the thing about that step one experience is why would i give a flip about this power you're talking about if i still believe my power is going to get the job done that's why it's so important to qualify this guy to make to talk to him about what it means to be an alcoholic and let him understand that he's got no shot on his own power You know, on my own power, I got no chance. Trying to stop the disease of alcoholism with willpower and self-knowledge is like trying to stop a freight train like Chris is. It's like trying TO STOP A FREIGHT TRAIN WITH A BUTTERFLY NET. It just, it's woefully inadequate, you know? So that's why the book, it'S interesting that, you KNOW, out of, all this is is the first 164 pages of a large print big book that a friend of mine gave me. And while I'm thinking about it, back in 93 they took out the Circle and Triangle out of the title page of the book. Nobody asked me my opinion about it at the time, but I wish it was still in there. And if you want, over the weekend, I've got a little rubber stamp here with the circle and triangle on it. I'm getting proactive here. You know, if you'll bring your big book up here, I'd be happy to stamp that in there for you. One book at a time, you know. But, you Know, back to what, out of the 164 pages of the big book, you know, really the bulk of the recovery part of the book is in the first 103 pages and in the doctor's opinion. And then you've got the family afterwards, the chapter to wives, to employers, the vision for you. But out of that first 103 pages, the book spends about 50 pages talking about the problem because if you're a guy like me, you've Got to come at me from every possible avenue of escape. I can't have any wiggle room. And then finally when I'm nailed down and I go, on my own power, I got no shot. I got absolutely no shot, then this other power gets real interesting. You know, and the book talks about it in a variety of different ways. It calls it a psychic change, spiritual experience, a change of heart at one point. It calls it a spiritual awakening, calls it A personality change sufficient To overcome drinking But what they're saying is that something big Has to happen to a guy like me To remove this mental Obsession I don't believe that I'm recovered from the phenomenon Of craving I love you guys but I'm not going to perform the experiment But if I was to drink four ounces Of vodka up here I think it would trigger The craving in me just like It would anybody else But I have certainly recovered from the mental obsession to get loaded. I don't spend my days worrying about a pint of vodka jumping down my throat, you know, but I've got to stay in this work. You know, we're just getting into the solution and, you Know, back one more time to Dr. Bob's story. It says, although he was painfully aware of being somehow abnormal, the man did not fully realize what it meant to be alcoholic. That's what a big deal it can be. When it talks about being an ex-problem drinker who's found this solution, who's properly armed with the facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of a new man in a matter of hours, having an understanding of this deal can really help a lot when you're talking to one of us. You know, taking the time. We're going to talk a lot about the chapter working with others and that sort of thing. But it's not going to be interesting to me if I still think that my power will get the job done. But when I'm convinced, it gets really interesting. That's why it says they snuffed out Fred's last flicker of hope that he could do the job himself. so that leads us into step two and the rest of the work um you know he just because on page 24 again it says when this sort of thinking is fully established in a person with alcoholic tendencies he's probably placed himself beyond human aid so that's what we're going to roll into in step two. I don't know, do we just roll on into it or do we take a little break? Why don't we take a break in about a half an hour. Can you all make another half hour before we take a break? Chris is going to roll on into two and three and for you smokers, I understand if you've got to step outside but we've only got so much time to deal with this stuff so I'm going to turn the mic, I appreciate y'all listening so much I'm gonna turn it over to Chris now, thanks. Thank you, Charlie. Step one is very, very difficult to fully concede to our innermost selves that we're alcoholic really is. It's biting off a big chunk. In the mid-'80s, I had recognized that alcohol was a big problem in my life. I recognized that it was causing a lot of trouble. I had many DUIs, many car accidents, families leaving, friends saying they never wanted to be in my company again ever after last night and all these other things. And I recognized that alcohol was a problem, but I only could recognize the tip of the iceberg. I couldn't fully concede to my innermost self that I was powerless over alcohol. I really thought that there were still choices available in my life. And just for me to share a little bit of my own experience and then move into step two, I want to just talk about a typical day somewhere in the late 80s, a typical Chris day. I would come to in the morning with the clothes that I was wearing the night before. I usually passed out on the floor. And the alarm would be going off. It's like 7.30, I have to be at work at 8. I'd struggle up and go into the bathroom and do my vomiting calisthenics, throw some water on my face and struggle out to the car. As I'm getting in the car, if I would have been pulled over driving to work, I would've blown the breathalyzer and I hadn't had a drink in like 12 hours. I drank so hard and so heavy, I'd usually be passed out completely by 8 o'clock at night. I'd get to work and I would be swearing I'm never ever going to drink again today is the day I'm not going to do it I'm ever ever going to touch this stuff again I can't stand feeling this bad and if you would hook me up with a polygraph expert was there and hooked me up to a lie detector and you would ask me Chris are you ever going to drink again no it would register that I'm telling the truth because I really really was telling the truth but what would happen is about halfway through the day, I'd get some, you know, I rehydrate a little bit, get about a half a gallon of liquid down, eat maybe half a sandwich. And as quitting time was coming, I would start to think, you Know that decision I made earlier today about never ever drinking again? You know, that's a that's, that'S a pretty strong position to take. That's, that might even be an overreaction. I may have to modify that a little bit and you know never ever drink again as a matter of fact you know i should probably stop at the liquor store on the way home and and that's what i would do i would stop at the liquor store On The Way Home and buy another uh another fifth or another quart of vodka or whiskey or whatever you know I was drinking at that point in time and I and I would start drinking and I would get blackout drunk again and this is the terrible cycle that that uh uh uh that Charlie was talking about it's a cycle that some of us can't break out of some of us don't even know we're in it some of us are giving ourselves credit for decisions that we're really not making you know what i mean when it talks about in step two it's it talks about restored to sanity now the interesting thing is is insanity if you follow uh if you study the root origin of insanity. You won't find it in the psychological or psychiatric, the mental illness. You'll find it in the legal. In the early, like 400 years ago in England, they came up with the insanity defense basically because what was happening were people who didn't have the mental capabilities of making the decisions based on right and wrong, good or bad, were doing illegal things and then being put in front of the judge. And there were some real serious sentences that some of these people were being given. And the judges just couldn't, in good conscience, continue to do this because they could recognize that these people weren't capable of making the right decision. So the insanity defense was developed. And what it means is, it means you're not responsible because you can't make a decision based on sound judgment. And that's what happens with the alcoholic. They can't makes a decision based on some judgment because they don't have it because they've got the obsession of the mind. And what that does is that that looks like you're changing your mind and this whole not drinking thing is an overreaction. But it's bigger than that. It's bigger then that. An obsession is actually a thought system that goes to the top of the list. It goes tothe top of it. So if you have a thought system that says, I really shouldn't drink and, you know, get another DWI today. The thought that, well, I really should go to the liquor store and get some booze is going to go to the topof the list because it's an obsession. Now, almost invariably, alcoholics died except in a few instances in our history. There's been a couple of times where there's been types of solutions. There was the Washingtonians, but even more significant than the Washingtonian were the Oxford Group, the Emanuel Movement, the Jacobi Club. There were a number of these institutions around the turn of the century. And what they had in common basically was they were very evangelical in their operation. They were very fellowship-based. They were all about getting you involved and doing something every day, not just like going to church on Sunday morning. I mean, they really had you involved in community activities and prayer and Bible studies and just constant activity. Now, a lot of these groups, like the Oxford group, what would happen is if an alcoholic would stumble into one of these groups and get involved in whatever they were asked to become involved in, and really started to participate, they would sober up. And independently of each other, Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson were both going to the Oxford group before they even met each other. Dr. Bob for several years, Bill for about, I guess, about a year before they met. Now, the difference between these two was bill wilson was sober dr bob really wasn't and if you look at history you'll see that he came late he left early he didn't share and he didn'T want to get involved okay what what does that sound like anybody in here sponsor you know and he wasn't he wasn'T staying sober now bill wilSON was a nut he was up on the soap boxes witnessing you know out on Park Avenue. I mean, he was running around to the meetings dragging drunks off bar stools trying to drag them in. I mean he was busy. He was active. And he was staying sober. So these are some of the things that they learned early on. Now some ofthe people some oftheteachers at Alcoholics Anonymous