Physical Allergy and Mental Obsession – Sober for Keeps Workshop – Part 1 of 4

Yes. Okay. You do that. Welcome. 9 o'clock, 10 past nine on a Saturday morning and a beautiful day. Terrific. Well done. Thank you very much for coming. And again I'll say what I said last night was thank you for the folks who invited us. We had a wonderful flight over. It was just an amazing thing. It's like 11 hours from London to Los Angeles but we had a couple of hours before that, three hours before that from Stockholm to London and we made our connections and it was all alright. It's just wonderful. Okay, we're going to rattle through the steps as they're laid out in the big book and we're going to hopefully we might actually come across some stuff that you haven't considered before. The layside prayer that we used at the beginning of this thing. It's not actually in the big book, but it's referenced. And what I have is some sheets that have got the references from the big books. I'll leave them out there at lunchtime. You can pick them up, whatever. Okay, so I'd better introduce myself. My name is Peter Misson. I am a recovered alcoholic. Hi, Peter. I was born in the island of Jersey, which is somewhere between France and England. 70,000 alcoholics clinging to a rock in the middle of the English Channel. I was one of those 70, 000 alcoholics. My sober date is December 11th, 1981, which was a heck of a long time ago. I stayed sober through a period in my in my sobriety 15 years 16 years ago now not by any power of me there was something keeping me sober left to me I'd be drunk I started to look at this big book and see what was really in it and since then I've been trying to live by whatever says this book says. I've read it and reread it, it's the only book in my life that I've ever reread and rereared and every time I reread it I see something new. Seriously, I go through this book about three or four times a year on Skype meetings, I keep seeing something new every time I'm reading it, I'm going I never saw that, I didn't say it out loud but I say I've never seen that before because it speaks to my heart and not my head and it speaks through our experience not not our intellect and if anything that we get this weekend is that don't let us read the big book for you get your own experience of what this big book says because that's what it was based on was the experience of the first 100 who wrote it and it's meant to produce the experience in us so that we have our own experience with whatever is written in here we are going to share our experience. It may be different to yours, but we say follow these directions and you will have a personal experience with what I call recovery, well we call it recovery, but you will get to a place where you are recovered. That's the first promise in the book. So what we're going to start is, we're gonna start off, Margarita you better introduce yourself. Yes thank you my name is Margarit and I'm a a recovered alcoholic and i had that moment of clarity that i talked about yesterday and i had nothing to do with that and that was the gift of desperation that god gave me so that i became willing to search for a solution and i found the solution in this book and these steps this is like you said karen it's a life-changing program it's the plan for recovery from alcoholism is a plan to come from point a to point b and i did that and i recovered and after 40 years of drinking and being so sick so sick you know this this program is just amazing and it was written for us yeah so that we are going to start with the to read from a vision for you because that was uh what happened to peter when he read that and it spoke to his heart and he knew this is me and that was what happened to me when i picked up this book at my last treatment center and i read this and i knew that this is me so we're gonna start reading that and i will read if i can find it chapter 11 a vision for you for most normal folks drinking means conviviality companionship and colorful imagination it means release from care boredom boredom and worry it is joyous intimacy with friends and the feeling that life is good but not so with us in those last days of heavy drinking the old pleasures were gone they were but memories never could we recapture the great moments of the past there was an intro insistent journeying to enjoy life as we once did and a heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control would enable us to do to do it there was always one more attempt and one more failure ask yourself is that you is that you? Is that me? The less people tolerated us, the more we withdrew from society, from life itself. As we became subjects of King Alcohol, shivering denizens of his mad realm, the chilling vapor that is loneliness settled down. It thickened ever becoming blacker. Some of us sought out sordid places hoping to find understanding companionship and approval momentarily we did then would come oblivion and the awful awakening to face the hideous for horsemen terror wildermen bewilderment frustration despair unhappy drinkers who read this page will understand. You understand? I understood the moment I heard it. Now and then, a serious drinker being dry at the moment says, I don't miss it at all. Feel better, work better, having a better time. As ex-problem drinkers, we smile at such a Sally. We know our friend is like a boy whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits he fools himself inwardly he would give anything to take a half a dozen of drinks and get away with them he will presently try the old game again for he isn't happy about his sobriety he cannot picture life without alcohol Someday he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it Then he will know loneliness such as few do He will be at the jumping off place He will wish for the end That was my experience too That was where I was as well That was when I heard that We have shown how we got out from under and you say, yes, I am willing but am I to be consigned to a life where I shall be stupid, boring and glum like some righteous people I see I know I must get along without liquor but how can I? Have you a sufficient substitute? Yes, there is a substitute and it is basically more than that It's a fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous And when they wrote that, there was no fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. There was no scholarship called AlcoholicsAnonymous when they write that. They're talking about the fellowship of people who are living in this book. That's what they were talking about when they read that. Not the fellowship as we understand today, but the fellowship for people who were living by the directions in this Book. after this book was published it was six months before there was a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and so one of my favourite books is Lord of the Rings and it's a fellowship of the ring they had a purpose and I think it was the same with the guys in this book, they had an idea they had purpose there you will find release from care, boredom and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Thus we find the fellowship, and so will you. How is that to come about, you ask? Where am I to find these people? You are going to meet these new friends in your own community. Near you, alcoholics are dying helplessly like people in a sinking ship. If you live in a large place, there are hundreds, high and low, rich and poor. These are the future fellows of Alcoholics Anonymous. Among them you will make lifelong friends. You will be bound to them with new and wonderful ties for you will escape disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey. Then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life. You will learn the full meaning of love thy neighbor as thyself. Notice it says then, after you've found these people and they're not talking about finding people in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous they're talking about going out and finding alcoholics who need who need and want to recover it says then you'll know what it means that's when we start to that's step 12, we're right at the end here that's where we get the joy It may seem incredible that these men are to become happy respected and useful once more How can they rise out of such misery, bad repute and hopelessness? The practical answer is that since these things have happened among us, they can happen with you. Now there is two conditions. There are always conditions in this book. Nothing comes for free. We have two conditions now. Condition one. Should you wish them above all else? All. else and be willing to make use of your experience our experience of our experience sorry we are sure they will come the age of miracles is still with us our own recovery proves that okay so i've got to be open-minded enough to listen to what these people have got to say this book was written by the first 100 started off in the first 40 and it was their collective experience i've got to be open-minded enough to read the black parts of this book that describe their experience and not put my experience in into the white white spaces in between the black parts that's what the laicite prayer is all about laicide what i think i know further this book, it says that the main problem the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than his body. I have a mind that interprets what I see in here. I've got to lay that aside and read the black part. Our hope is that when this chip of a book is launched on the world tide of alcoholism, defeated drinkers will seize upon it to follow its suggestions. And that's grabbing it like a drowning person. They've talked about a ship sinking. There's another part in the book where they talk about people drowning from a ship sinking. I'm drowning in a sea of alcoholism. I'm grabbing this book with both hands like a drowning person, and I was taught life-saving when I was a kid, and I Was told that a person who is drowning and you're trying to save them in the water can drown you with their desperation not to drown. So, you may have to render them unconscious in order to save their lives or push them under until they stop breathing and drag them out and then give them mouth-to-mouth or whatever. So, that's what they're talking about. This isn't something that we do casually. Our life depends upon following the directions in this book. You'll see where we go into step one. We'll find out how much our lives depend upon this. And also I have to ask myself, am I defeated? Defeated drinkers will seize upon it. Many, we are sure, will rise to their feet and march on. They will approach still other sick ones and fellowships of Alcoholics Anonymous may spring up in each city and hamlet. havens for those who must find a way out is that me must i find a way out is my situation so intolerable that i need to find a way out no matter what and again it's about living in the book it's about following the directions in the book fellowships more than one fellowships of our colleagues none of us little groups of threes fives and six of us following the directions in the book. Not one big, huge fellowship, little fellowships. It's interesting. If you read the black part and it's interesting, you get to see it in a new way. Okay, we're going to go. You look at table of contents? Now it's laid out. Page Roman numeral V5. It's a very interesting book, this. I think this book is like a workshop manual. I used to repair old motorcycles and every time I got a new motorcycle, I would go out and I'd buy a workshop manual that told me how to tear it down and how to put it back together again so it ran. It showed me how to tune it up and how to make it run really well and that's exactly what this book is about. This book is about tearing down an alcoholic and putting him back together again so he runs without alcohol it's a workshop manual it's not a holy book it's an inspired book but it's like it's no scripture this is a very practical book it's going to tear me down it's gonna put me back together again so i run without alcohol okay do you want to do that well if you go to the contents it's um we have We have four chapters about the problem. That means I have to know what's wrong with me. You know, Bill and the others spent how many pages? 52 pages to explain what is wrong with us. Because if I don't know what the problem is, I can't do anything about it. And if I do not know what's wrong with me, I cannot teach it. And I am useless if I dont know what is wrong withme. So we have four chapters that are describing the problem and that is the doctor's opinion. Dr. Silkworth, a non-alcoholic doctor who was the first one to understand that we had this allergy. And he describes that in the book and the mental obsession as well. And Bill's story where Bill tells us the progression of alcoholism and how he was, what happened. It's a 12-step call really. Bill's story is a 12-step call. I was told to read Bill's story, the first half of Bill's Story, the first eight pages of Bill's Stories underline everywhere where I thought like Bill, where I drank like Bill, where I felt like Bill. The second half of Bill's stories is about his recovery and I was called to read through that and underline everything in that part of the eight pages that I had resistance to, that I didn't want to do because Bill describes in great detail what he did to recover and I've got and there was some stuff there I didn't want to do that I had resistance to but it's a great way of looking at it okay do I think I'm as hopeless as Bill by underlining the parts in Bill's story where I drank like Bill felt like Bill and thought like Bill I'm identifying with Bill I am a real alcoholic now he does certain things to recover am I willing to go am I will to do what he did to recover and then there is chapter there is a solution that tells us about the common solution but also tells us more even more about alcoholism and then we have more, even more about alcoholismo we don't get it yet we go some more see we don' t hear we can' t here when we come to Alcoholics Anonymous I can't hear what you're saying. You've got to talk very slowly and very loudly to me because I don't hear. I translate what you are saying. I don' t hear what your saying. It's the same when I read. I sort of put my spin on what I'm reading. I've got try to lay that aside. Am I desperate enough to actually listen to what you say? and in this book you will find that when they say something in italics it's like a neon okay so there's something in this because in italic sits neon if they say it to you twice in this book they are saying very slowly and loudly if they save it three times they yelling at you yeah listen dummy I don't hear I've got to be told again and again what is my experience because I donno know what the hell's going on okay the solution the next chapter is the solution we agnostics and then we have three chapters how it works interaction and working with others that describe the program of Alcoholics Anonymous how many pages between that page 58 and 89 30 pages from step 3 to step 12 that's not very much this is a big old book but but they spend almost as much time telling us what's wrong with this as they describe the program. It's only 30 pages. 30 pages, 58 to 88. And we're through. We can do this real quick. But we've got to linger first and find out exactly what's right. What's wrong? Let's go to step one. Let me read step one first because it's interesting. Go to page 59. and we read step one. This is the best kept secret in Alcoholics Anonymous, page 58 and 59, you know, and halfway down page 60. Best kept secret in Alcoholic Anonymous those three pages because most meetings of AlcoholicsAnonymous read this out at the beginning of the meeting and do you know that they even put it on a laminated piece of paper that they've taken it out of the big book and they've laminated it so that someone can read from, make it easy for them to read. It goes on a double-sided A4 sheet terrific great but there are people in our colleagues anonymous that don't know that that chapter comes from this book and is actually chapter five in this book and not chapter one they think it's just something you read at the beginning of a meeting they don't even hear it because they're thinking about what they're going to say once the meeting starts and that was exactly how we was at my meetings now it's my turn me me me me me every meeting they read this from a plastic pamphlet and nobody knew where it came from and I didn't because nobody used the big book really don't like laminations you know for some of us when I first came to AA we had we had the big book and everybody's reading the big book and there was these old Glaswegian gangsters that said, you can read anything you like out of the big book as long as it's chapter 3, 5 or 11. And at my second meeting I heard chapter 11 and I was exactly as it described. Perfect for me. Step one. It's got two bits. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol. That's the easy bit. What am I doing in Alcoholics Anonymous unless I'm powerless over alcohol. If you're powerless over something else, what are you doing in Alcoholics Anonymous? We can point you in the right direction. We have a single list of purposes here also. This is Alcoholics Anonymous. If you've got someone else, we can show you where to go. There are wonderful fellowships out there. That's part of what we do. But we are... You see, if you read the long form of the Third Tradition, it doesn't say the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking it actually says our membership order includes all those who suffer from alcoholism that's as it was originally written we will see very shortly that the only requirement for mentorship is no good you can be a member of the fellowship and they can do anything for your sobriety there's a dash we admit we're powerless over alcohol, there's a dash that means new idea Two ideas in the first step. The second idea in this first step is my life has become unmanageable. I like to try and read everything in the big book in the first person. We're going to use later on when we're looking at the steps, we're going to look at the original manuscript which talks to me directly. You see every time they say we in this book, they say we enough in this book, I start to think it's about them and not about me. It's about them, it's about the folks who wrote the book. They and wrote the book in 1939 that's a long time ago nothing do me so I admitted I was powerless over alcohol I didn't know what that meant we're going to find out and that my life had become unmanageable I thought that was the goofy stuff I did when I was drinking let's see yeah well this is William D. Silkworth um bill and the others asked him to write about his opinion about alcoholism and he said well i will do that but i will i will call it doctor's opinion because that was his opinion at that time he didn't have any scientific evidence for that this was true at that times but today we know this is true and he didn't even want to sign his name in the beginning because of his reputation and his work but later on he said now you can put my name there and he writes about this allergy he could see the alcoholics come and go come and go to this hospital, town's hospital, where he was. And he could see that some people came and they were there and they went home and they didn't come back. There's sufficient reason that they could stop drinking. But there was some people that came back over and over and again. again and he understood that is it's something else with these people it's not that they that they want to drink it's that they they cannot um hold the decision not to drink again you know when they went home they they had vitamins they had good food and he said you know don't drink now when you come home oh no i won't i i feel so okay now and three weeks later they were there again what happened what happened and this doctor he understood that is something with the body it's not only a lack of willpower it's something with their bodies that is different from other people and this is what he writes about that we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on this chronic alcoholics that chronix means that it's it happens over and over and over again this is page xxviii by the way yeah he's 28 in the roman numerals xxv it used to be now this is the other thing is in the first edition in the first edition it was step it was page one in the in the arabic numerals it was p1 and in the second edition they put it into the forwards and we stop reading it and this page is crucial. This page is one of the most crucial pages in the big book because it tells me what's wrong with me from somebody that ain't an alcoholic, that has looked at us and said there's something wrong with these people they are unusual. Yes the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is the manifestation of an allergy and manifestation is that it shows up as an allergy in medical terms means abnormal reaction to it doesn't mean specifically you break out in spots it's an abnormal reaction to them and what the doctor is doing he is writing not just for us but And he's writing for other doctors, so the doctors will understand what he's saying. And that's why he uses some very strange words in here. But he's not just writing for us, he's also writing for others, particularly for other doctors. Because once we know about the allergy it makes sense to us. But he is trying to talk to other doctors as well. An allergy all doctors understand is an abnormal reaction too. Yes. But an allergy for me, when I heard that the first time, I thought how can I be allergic to alcohol? I drink so much. I drink huge amounts of alcohol. How can I allergic to alchohol? But it was explained to me that it doesn't show up like spots in my throat or anything. I can just feel it. It's a craving for more. The allergy is a physical craving for more. My body craves more alcohol when I put alcohol into my body. It is not the alcohol in itself, it is that I have a body that reacts different, that creates a physical craving for more. I mean my twin sister doesn't have that. I have a different body that as soon as I put alcohol into it my body craves more but I think that if it comes us as a thought that I want more as soon as I have put alcohol in to my body and I heard many people say oh I'm I'm craving alcohol today I feel like I'm, I want to drink you know and that's that That is not the allergy. That is the mental obsession that I am thinking of, I'm longing for. I can only have the craving when I have put alcohol into my body. Then my body craves more and it doesn't show, I can just feel it. I want more. I have to have more. The craving translating itself into a thought is very like if you hold your breath for a long period of time. Your body starts to crave oxygen. It will transmit itself into the thought in your brain, breathe dummy. You can't commit suicide by holding your breath and an alcoholic cannot live without drinking. It's sort of the same thing, that I'm going to drink no matter what. You know, we sometimes hear this is the obsession will take me back to a drink. Once I'm drinking, the allergy is like breathing, that my body is craving alcohol like I crave bread. It's a chemical thing. I'm not going to go into the details of it, but we metabolize alcohol differently from other people. We don't do it as fast as other folks. it hangs around in our bodies, our bodies react by doing a couple of things. One of the things is that it produces a codeine-like substance that makes us feel good. I think different from... I don't have an experience of being a normal drinker but I think us alcoholics we have a different reaction to alcohol. I mean like Margaretha describes her twin sister after three drinks she wants to go to sleep. Margareta wants to party. I'm the same. It's a different reaction, both physically but also beforehand mentally. The doctor continues. That the phenomena, and phenomena is something that you can see but you cannot explain, isn't that so? That is so. I suffer from, and I showed somebody this morning when I came in and I started to do do some stuff. I have something called Raynaud's phenomenon and that means that the blood drains out of my fingers, that they go white. Now Dr. Raynau saw it, said, oh, that's peculiar. I wonder how that happens. Couldn't figure it out but had observed it. So he knows it's true but cannot explain it. And that's exactly what Dr. Silkworth is saying to the other doctors, I have seen this but I can't explain it. Now they know why Raynaud's phenomenon works now, they also know how the allergy works. I'm not an expert, I'm no a scientist, I'm just an old drunk. I am not going to go into detail with that because I might get it wrong, but you can do some research if you want to find out. What my sponsor said to me, it doesn't matter whether or how you get the the allergy except did you get it my experience told me i got it accept that we've got to accept a lot of stuff i don't have to explain everything which is the other thing that my mind wants me to do let's explain everything if i can accept that i have an allergy to alcohol it explains many things which i otherwise could not explain how come fred went home my buddy fred went home after two drinks and i was still there at midnight when they threw me out i wanted to go home as much as fred did something was keeping me there the phenomenon of craving i was drinking yeah and the phenomena of claiming craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker never never never now i'm I'm going to jump forward. I'm gonna jump forward to another page. Chapter three, page 30. Halfway down page 30, we're talking about the phenomenon of craving and the mental obsession. Halfway it says, we learned by our sponsor telling us. My sponsor Billy told me I had an allergy to alcohol. He backed it up with a doctor's opinion, page 28 in the Roman numerals. He also said that I had a disease and I had obsession when I wasn't drinking about alcohol. I could identify with that too because that's all I ever thought about. when I was going to get it, did I have enough money to buy it, where was I going to go I couldn't go to the same place twice in the same day when I went into the supermarket to buy alcohol I always bought a loaf of bread so I wasn't just buying alcohol I would buy something to eat I see people doing it all the time I know, I know what you're doing great big bottle of vodka bag of bagels I know what you are doing we learned we had to fully concede to our innermost selves lay aside everything you think you know what's wrong with you fully concede to our inmost selves at a gut level in the marrow of my bones that I'm an alcoholic I have an allergy to alcohol I have and allergy to some dairy products too I don't drink, I don' t eat those particular dairy products. I sometimes do by mistake but not on purpose. However, the mental obsession took me back to alcohol every time. We'll get into that. But there it says, this is the first step in recovery. So we take the first steps by fully conceiving to our innermost selves that we're alcoholic. We're going to look a little bit more about why we're alcoholic. But then it says the delusion. And this is one of them, again another very important statement in this big book the delusion that we are like other people now the doctor just said that we aren't different from other people the delusional that we're like other just because i'm not drinking down like everybody else unknown i'm alcoholic that means that i do things different from normal people it says that the illusion in my mind delusion It's in your brain. It looks like I'm like other people, but I'm not. My head will tell me that I'm like other People, but i'm not all the evidence proves that I'm standing in my shower in the morning showering My mind is telling me stuff that bears absolutely no relationship to my life whatsoever I understand I'm different It says here or presently maybe which means sometime soon okay so I'm not like other people right now but maybe in a few weeks I'll stay sober a few weeks I will be uh-uh presently maybe or soon maybe has to be smashed not broken not put aside smashed if you drop a cup and it breaks in two pieces you can glue it back together again get some of that super glue stuff back together don't put anything too hot in there though because it will fall apart again but but you can glue it back together if you smash a cup get a hammer and smash a cut into little pieces you won't be able to put it back to go with you that's what they're telling us they're tell us that we've got to believe that we are alcoholic at such a level that it cannot be reconstructed and they spend this 52 pages telling us what's wrong with us so that we get it okay so we're talking about the allergy the doctors get the allergy yes and i have to ask myself is this me do i have this allergy and i have to look at my experience those times where i didn't want to get drunk but i got drunk anyway. You know, do I have this allergy? It's very important that I understand that I am an alcoholic or not. Do I have these allergies or not? And I was thinking about so many times when I didn't, I just wanted to drink a little, but I got drunk. And one example was I was trying to be sober. I was restless, irritable and discontent. And my daughter called me and she said, why don't you come and see me? And I took the train down to Stockholm because I thought that will make me feel better. So I went there and she phoned me and said, I can't be home just when you come, but I will come in a few hours. and I was alone and I thought I've gone all this way and she's not even home and I came in there and she just met a new boyfriend and there were bottles everywhere there were blue ones, green ones I don't know and that insane thought took over and I just had a little I just take a little bit of that blue stuff. They won't notice that, you know. And I started to drink and I couldn't stop, you know? And a few hours later when she came home, I was in the bed, passed out with, we call it 75, 75 centiliters of pure alcohol in my hand passed out and her boyfriend asked how but why did your mother have to drink the best grand he'd been he's a musician and he's abroad and he buys very expensive alcohol and i had taken that when the other stuff didn't work you know so and he said why did she have to drink the the most expensive brand that i had and my daughter said to him well you see pete tommy he's called tommi that my mother she doesn't care about the brand because she is after the effect and when she starts to drink she cannot stop she knew more about alcoholism than I did and that was you know how the allergy that was not my intention I was going to go there and have a nice time with my daughter my intention was to have a few drinks to take the edge off that was my intention. I didn't like to wake up I can tell you that that's the problem we always wake up don't we and the interesting thing is that Margaret his daughter knew that explanation of Margaretha was not because she'd read it in a book no it's because she had observed it in Margareta okay now where I am doing that as well and I don't see it in me but everybody else does and I'm deluded that unlike other people that it's all okay delusion so I have to ask myself is this me does my experience show that I have this allergy because it's very very important because if I can control my drinking what am i doing here then I would be home and control my drinking and these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all okay two little words never think about that bill but never and then it says in any formal I'm very very I read labels I'm I'm very careful what I use. I read labels because any form of alcohol in any form at all, ingested and I have drunk aftershave when I was drinking. I have drank aftershaves, there was nothing else. It's about 70 proof. Old Spice and Coca-Cola tastes awful but it hits the spot there's nothing else. I use aftershave but I don't have a compulsion to mix it with coca-cola anymore, all right that's been removed okay. But think about never they talk about never in here a lot there's little words in here which which are incredible we can just zoom over it's the little words that we need to watch in this book okay yes and i have i it's my responsibility what to watch for that yeah because if i have an abnormal reaction to alcohol my body doesn't feel the difference from different kinds of alcohol You know, I have an abnormal reaction to alcohol, and I have to watch for that. Like when you are cooking wine, do you use wine? I thought that the wine was boiled away, but I've heard it's not. After an hour of cooking, or actually after three hours of cooking coq au vin, which is a chicken that's cooked in red wine, there is nearly 80% of the alcohol still left after three hours it doesn't burn off when you flamb� something it doesn'T burn off it's only the aromatics that burn off the alcohol is still there so any form at all I live in a country where they use wine and food all the time they don'T even you ask them if they put alcohol in this and they DON'T say oh no, no, just a couple of glasses just a little bit of red wine Wine is not alcohol in France. It's a beverage that they use with the food. No, seriously, we laugh at that, but it is seriously, culturally, it's something you have with your meal. It's perfectly normal. In France, they don't have more alcoholism than they have in America. Worldwide, we are 8 to 10% of the population. Wherever we go, wherever we go. We're different. We're born this way, we're different. There are some people maybe acquire this but we're different. Yes. Let's quickly move on to... We got 10 minutes to finish before Jeff unplugged us. 10 minutes yeah that's right. We better move on, we gotta accelerate here. Yes okay. Finish that first paragraph though because it's important. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all and that includes pills as well solid alcohol yes okay and solid alcohol yes it is yes it and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it once having lost their self-confidence their reliance upon things human their problems pile up on them and become astonishing astonishingly difficult to solve and these are the consequences of my drinking and i thought that's what they meant by the unmanageability of my life in that first step the consequences of my drink my problems that i drank more because my problems were piling up on me i couldn't face my problem so i drank some more i had more problems and I thought that's what they meant by the unmanageability of my life the last paragraph on that page men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol everybody they're not talking specifically about alcoholics here they're talking about everybody everybody enjoys alcohol the sensation is so elusive now they're taking it away they're just talking about alcoholcs What does that mean? What's elusive mean? Elusive means I can't always pin it down. It's like I was saying last night, that I'm walking back from the shop after buying a bottle of wine, I haven't taken a drink yet but I feel okay. Yet another time I'll drink all night and I won't feel like that. It says that while they admit it's injurious, this is doing me harm, it's hurting me, they cannot after a while differentiate the true from the false. Where do I differentiate the truth from the force in my mind? I can't see what's right, what's true and I can see what is false. I can not see it, I don't have a sense of proportion. Margaretta's daughter could see it. Margaretta couldn't see it I couldn't see it. My father could see it to them. Their alcoholic life becomes the only normal one. What have I sacrificed of normal life in order to drink? For me, it was a career at sea. It was a marriage. It was relationships. It was jobs. It was money. Everything so that I could drink. I changed through my drinking from being someone that looked kind of like fairly normal to this I was a freak hair beards dairy eyes not that I say that's a that's that's wrong I mean I would quite like the idea having quite long hair and a long beard but but I look like I was weird I hung out with people who were strange and they said they I've found them they say we thought you were really weird. Now it says they are restless, illiterate and discontent. What does that mean? Restless. You know I had the leg thing going. The leg going up and down. I can still sort of do it. I've got to tell it to do it though. That was going all the time. I was tapping the table all the same. I was scratching. I was shifting. I wasn't staying in relationships. I wasn'T staying in jobs. I wasn't staying in places where I lived. I was moving around, restless, can't sit still, can't stay in one place, irritable. Irritable means that I'm quick to anger. I used to get ballistic. You'd walk past me and wouldn't say hello. I'd carry that around with me for the next week, get angry at you very quick. I would fall into depressions walking down the street. the sun would go behind a building I knew you were talking behind my back I knew you were talking about me and what you were saying wasn't good I never thought good thoughts and I was ambushed by this stuff and discontent discontant means occasionally it's no good, it's everything is not quite good enough you know sunny day oh it's too hot you know new car wrong colour wrong wheels wrong tyre whatever the same thing happened with relationships everything everything was not quite good enough that's what it said unless unless I can again experience a sense of ease and comfort that comes out once from taking a few drinks. Then it's okay. Then the car's fine. I don't care what you're thinking. I'll go find a new girlfriend. Where I live is okay as long as I've got the booze in the cupboard. It's okay." So, what the doctor just said was that alcohol is now my solution to my life and it doesn't matter what happens in my life as long as I have my solution it's all okay my alcoholic life becomes the only normal one for me not for the other people they look at me like this guy's crazy but for me it's normal and I will accept everything as long As I can keep drinking I will except everything that happens to me it's when I'm not drinking that I'm irritable restless and discontent and the obsession is that I can remember what it was like taking a few drinks those early drinks that I took where I started to breathe for the first time in my life normal drinkers don't get that they kind of just relax and they get goofy and they go oh yeah I had enough now but I go oh I'm ready you know that's different chemical that's a chemical reaction within my body that does that set off by the breakdown of alcohol in my body but when it's not in my buddy I'm obsessing about I need something to take the edge we're going to run out of time we're going to get to the doctors we're gonna have to we're gona we're gunna do couple of sessions on step one because some more stuff to look at in the book we're We're going to take a 15 minute break, is it Jeff? 15 minutes cigarette break now. We're gonna look at the two chapters. Next we're gonna quickly zoom through the two chapters and then we're going to get into the solution. Because by the time you've had another 40 minutes on what's wrong with you, you've got enough now, you should have enough. But there's no hope in these papers. Okay, 50 minute break. Thank you for listening.