Physical Allergy and Phenomenon of Craving – Big Book Is Alive Workshop – Part 3 of 7 – Local AA Speakers

Hi, I'm a recovered alcoholic. My name is Mike Chase. And I'm the recovered alcoholic, my name is Joe. So our spiritual duty is to put newcomers' hands in God's hands as quickly as possible. We found this to be the most effective by doing our part to make The Big Book come alive. So as a disclaimer, we're not experts. We are just a couple of recovered alcoholics that love the Big Book. However, we have made our utmost spiritual errand to become as familiar with the history and facts as we can so that we may transmit only the pure message of God to the next untreated alcoholic. In other words, if you see us reading from the Big Books, that means that we're sharing with you what we believe to be the divine solution for alcoholism. If we look up and talk, it means that мы sharing an opinion, an observation or an experience. and feel free to, if what we say up here makes you investigate the history of AA and go out and learn and investigate more then we're certainly doing what we're supposed to do So can anybody hear us good in the back and around stuff like that? Good, thank you so much Some helpful information has already been given in the format to those who may be unaccustomed to workshop style study We hope to educate, challenge, and invigorate your current experience with God We'd like to encourage our audience to participate as much as possible. Tonight, we're going to start with the forward to the second edition and we aim to jump into the doctor's opinion. But we thank the group for giving us spiritual consent to allow God to lead us. So let's do that after through meditation. Go. Whenever we're moved to study the big book, we usually move into it by starting off with a meditation to allow us to get unhooked from our mind and get a connection with God. So please join us in a two-minute meditation. don't worry we have a timer for those of you that aren't accustomed to meditation it will seem like 10 minutes but it's actually going to be 2 minutes and what we're going to ask you to do is sit up straight get comfortable, concentrate on your breathing and for the next 2 minutes try to get a really good connection with God so when we come out of this we're focused on what we'll be talking and studying about tonight Joe, want to start the timer we'll see you guys in 2 minutes close your eyes, make yourself comfortable concentrate on your breathing and enjoy this moment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. and if you'd like to listen to joe god let me lay aside everything i think i know about the big book the 12 steps a.a my disease and you god for an open mind and a new experience welcome everybody who was here last week wow that's nice to see good um who doesn't have highlighters who wants to have a highlighter, a ruler and a pen because this is a workshop and we're going to be actively asking you guys to participate so anybody who doesn' t have a highlighter raise your hand good, we're all set on that area we're gonna tee up a little bit last week was our first opportunity to bring our style of big book sponsorship to you guys and we start out like we normally do what we do is we have a prayer we have meditation which gets us centered and quieted, and then we always break into prayer. And then we go into just a quick overall of what the book is about. Last week we discussed about the forward to the first, and started to get into the forward to the second. We talked about the great information that they brought to the world in the forward to the first edition. We have Alcoholics Anonymous from more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics precisely Alright. You got it. To show others alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. So that's a great announcement to the world, the introduction of the program, the Introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous to the World. Sixteen years later we had the forward to the second edition which was sixteen years later. Did we bomb or were we successful? Well we started off with two alcoholics, three meetings. Sixtteen years later we have 6,000 groups and 150,000 recovered alcoholics. I think we've done pretty good in that time space. We talked a little bit about the early program before we had Alcoholics Anonymous and they were all involved in the Oxford style movement and recovery process and the basic text of that was Bill had mentioned that he was convinced of the need for moral inventory, confession of personal defects, restitution of those harmed, helpfulness to others and necessity and belief in dependence upon God. That was the basis that these guys were working on. We're going to find out later on how Bill was able to expand upon that as they like to say close the loopholes that we could have found to not get that specific vital experience that would be necessary for us. We're going to go to page XIX and why don't we start as we discovered the principles. What we're doing is, we talked about the program, we talk about the solution. This is the Alcoholics Anonymous' opportunity to give a little bit of correction of what AA is and they slowly touch on the traditions here. So page XIX forward to the second edition. As we discovered the principles by which the individual alcoholic could live, so we had to evolve principles by the AA groups and AA as a whole could survive and function effectively. It was thought that no alcoholic man or woman could be excluded from our society, that our leaders might serve but never govern, that each group was to be autonomous and there was to no professional class of therapy. This is where we start actually touching on what the traditions are. There'll be no dues or fees. Our expenses were to be met by our own voluntary contributions. And in case you guys don't know the difference between a donation and a contribution, I was taught that a donation is here's some money, go away. A contribution is I've got $10 now, what are we going to do with it? That would be part of the solution and part ofthe program. There was to be the least possible organization even in our service centers. Our public relations were tobe based on attraction rather than promotion. It was decided that all members ought to be anonymous at the level of press, radio, TV, and films. And in no circumstances should we give endorsements, make alliances, or enter into public controversy. They had seen what previous organizations had shot themselves in the foot by getting involved in everything from women's suffrage to the temperance drinking. We had found a solution for alcoholism and we were going to stick to that. That was going to be our one thing and we got good at it. This was a substance of AA's 12 traditions, which are stated in full on page 561 of this book. Though none of these principles had the force of rules or laws, they've become so widely accepted by 1950 that they were confirmed by our first international conference held at Cleveland. Today, the remarkable unity of AA is one of the greatest assets that our society has. I talked briefly last week about when you're sponsoring guys and you get them through the book and they've got this great relationship with God and they're on fire and they get that adolescent phase of recovery where they think they know everything and the sponsor sort of becomes like dumb and I know what to do, I'll leave you alone. Imagine what 100,000 alcoholics would be like with no traditions and nobody telling us how to behave. It got pretty crazy. While the internal difficulties of our adolescent period were being ironed out, Public acceptance of AA grew by leaps and bounds. For this, there were two principal reasons. The large numbers of recoveries and reunited homes. These made their impressions everywhere. Of alcoholics who came to AA and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way. 25% sobered up after some relapses. And among the remainder, those who stayed on with AA showed improvement. Now, the specific statistics they're talking about are taken from the Cleveland groups where Clarence Snyder was doing big book sponsorship. He had taken the book and was actually just reading the book with sponsees. And the sponsee, even before they got through the steps, they had such an influx of new people coming to AA that they were reading the book with new sponseees. Well, they didn't call them sponseeses back then, newcomers. And they were letting the book do all the work. And the success rates when all they had was the big book, one alcoholic, one recovered alcoholic working with an unrecovered alcoholic and God. The success rates were amazing and the press was amazed with us we were kicking butt, we were doing really good So we're looking at a 75% success rate and we also mentioned last time that around forward 1 and 2 the fellowship used to resemble the program it was solution based fellowship that used to put emphasis on God and helping others and we've already heard so many references to that even in the Roman numerals as we start to see this textbook, which is going to be our teaching tool. As others came to AA to a few meetings and first decided they didn't want the program, but great numbers of these, about two out of three began to return as time passed. They come to AA, they're not ready, they'RE not interested, it's just a little too much for them. They'll be back. You know, hopefully they'll be able to make it back. Another reason for the wide acceptance of AA was the misadministration of friends, friends in medicine, religion, and the press, together with innumerable others who became our able and persistent advocates. Without such support, AA could have only made the lowest progress. Some of the recommendations of AA's early medical and religious friends can be found further in the back of the book. In other words, the book is not controversial about matters medical and religious. It wants to stay out of that controversy. Later on we see that the authors say they've done their utmost to achieve that ideal. So people are getting a little misunderstood of what Alcoholics Anonymous was at this time. We were sort of like this secret organization There wasn't much information about us out there. They just saw sort of like meeting and disappearing and coming out and says right here, Alcoholics Anonymous is not a religious organization. You know, a lot of people are getting the misconception that we were going to be this religious organization and we're not. We're just a spiritual-based organization that tells our guys to get involved in any religion that they're currently involved in. You know? We are not a religion. Neither does AA take any particular medical point of view. Though we cooperate widely with the men of medicine as well as with the men of religion. Alcohol being no respecter of persons, we are an accurate cross-section of America in distant lands. By the same democratic evening, our process is now going on by personal religious affiliation. We include Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, and a sprinkling of Muslims and Buddhists. More than 15% of us are women. I think it's a little better today. I look around the room. At present, our membership is pyramiding at the rate of about 20% a year. 20% to you? I think they're having more than one sponsee at a time back in those days. They were growing a lot faster. So far, upon the total problem of several million actual and potential alcoholics in the world, we have made only a scratch. In all probability, we shall never be able to touch more than a fair fraction of the alcohol problem in all its ramifications. Upon therapy for the alcoholic himself, we surely have no monopoly. Yet it is our great hope that all those who have as yet found no answer may begin to find one in the pages of this book and will presently join us on the high road to a new day. Mike, can you just turn this down a tad? I'm getting a little echo in the air. Appreciate that. So that was what we happened. 16 years later, we're rocking. We have success rates through the roof, getting people happy, joyous, and free, getting connected to God. And we go into the third edition. Basically, what they're going to talk about there is we've added some stories. We've moved some stories around. We changed some names to the stories. that's cool stuff forward to the fourth edition more general service information we've added some more stories what they're trying to do is make the stories in the back more relatable to the general population of today the guys back in the 40s aren't really like what we have today in the 80s and the 90s when the book got revised a little bit so that's just basically housekeeping of general service saying what they've been up to keeping busy, fixing the book up a little before us are we ready? I think we're set good, so we got this information in the 4 to the 1st about these guys that stumbled accidentally onto this solution for alcoholism, one of mankind's greatest problems. Just stumbled upon it by certain situations that made it lead up. In the 4th and 2nd edition, we learned that we had some great success. I hear people say that back in those days, the alcoholics were sort of fanatics. They were out there really just beating down the bars trying to get people sober. It really wasn't like that. There was drunks everywhere who were needing help. they had this urgency to get out there and help people because they knew that it was a serious disease. So we're leaving the first and forward to the second with this little idea that, boy, these guys are just a little fanatic. Well, we're going to get in the doctor's opinion and find out why they're a little fnatic. This isn't a little drinking problem we have. I remember this one guy who was this raging alcoholic, and his mom would say, oh, he's just got a little drink problem. He's drinking himself to death. She just never really got it. So we'RE going to go into the doctors and find out what this disease is. we just told the world that we've had 160,000 recovered alcoholics in the first, forward to the first we told how we've stumbled across the solution for this, we're just a bunch of drunks tooting our own horn we needed to get a doctor by the way a really renowned doctor to give us some backing, to give it some street credit as it is said today so we're going to jump into, the things that I get from the doctor's opinion, first of all I'm going to find out that it's a three-fold disease I'm gonna learn that the first fold of the disease the spiritual malady, which to me is a disconnection from God. The second fold is the obsession of the mind, which is the insanity from a stone sober brain, I'm going to pick up a drink even though I know what it's going to do to me. And that phenomenon of craving that kicks in, if you're a real alcoholic, you're the only person who's going to know what that's like. A non-alcoholic will never understand that phenomenon of craving that we go through, which Is why they look at us like we're aliens. So carrying through some context that we were going through in our last session, we've got these alcoholics in time before this solution was available would either die or go permanently insane and become locked up. Alcoholism dates back about 3,000 years on record that we know about so imagine in the wave of all what was happening people dying and going insane and being locked up and there being no solution. This is the first time in written history that we know of that the physical factor is documented. We saw from the forwards that when we got problem, solution, and program of action, these key components to the table of contents that we were enlarging upon, there were two consecutive successes. So we saw the importance of the information in the correct order. Now we're going to get into a little bit more about the phenomenon of craving and the problem, the definition of the problem of what we suffer from. Go for it. Thank you. We of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now when you see we in the Bay Book, especially in this first part of the book, when you see the word we, it's not referring to all of us and this wonderful fellowship we have. We're referring to the first 42, 67, whatever the first hundred number actually is of alcoholics, their experience, their knowledge and what they went through. So we at Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the reader will be interested in the medical estimate of the plan of recovery described in this book convincing testimony must surely come from medical men who have had experience with the sufferings of our members and have witnessed our return to health a well-known doctor chief physician at a nationally prominent hospital specializing in alcoholic and drug addiction gave alcoholics anonymous this letter this is this is basically a letter of endorsement this has come coming from dr silkworth when the first when the book first came out it was his opinion and he wasn't really sure about this and he didn't let us use his name in the first few printings because he didn'T want to lose the business that he had and get discredited by the community. After a few printings, he said, yeah, put my name back in. This is good. We're going to go with this. This is where I usually make my sponsees come up with some unusual accent to make it a little bit more exciting and fun to read. We're not going to do that tonight. Unless there's somebody with a really good Brooklyn accent. Nah? Okay. To whom it may concern, I have specialized in the treatment of alcoholism for many years. In late 1934, I attended a patient Although he had been a competent businessman of great learning capacity, yellow underline, I love this part, was an alcoholic of the type I had come to regard as hopeless. Just like today, he was treating alcoholics, heavy drinkers, problem drinkers and he was starting to notice a little bit of difference with these chronic alcoholics and these other alcoholics. He really wasn't able to draw the line yet. I think we can do a little more of that today. And Dr. Silkworth is a guy that works with over 40,000 of our type, and like Mike Chase just said, we see the difference in certain people getting sober and others not, and he focuses in on this type that really, whatever he tried, they couldn't get it. It sets him up really well, a well-known doctor, chief physician at a nationally prominent hospital specializing in alcoholic and drug addiction. Kind of difficult to argue with a title like that. This guy knows his stuff. So, continuing on, in the course of his third treatment, he acquired certain ideas concerning a possible means of recovery. Now, the guy he's talking about is Bill W. Bill W had been in his hospital. He was a four-time return guy, which would have been a four‑time white chipper. Imagine if we had AA back then. He probably had a few of those too. As part of his rehabilitation ‑‑ now, I like this part because this is setting up a theme that's going to be recurring throughout the book. as part of his rehabilitation he commenced to present his conceptions to other alcoholics i.e. he got sober through the Oxford group through Ebby Thatcher and he realized that in order for him to stay sober I have to go do the same thing to other alcoolics who are still struggling as part of his rehabilitation he commensed to present his conception to other alcoholics impressing upon them they must do likewise with still others so he's bringing them through those Oxford things we talked about here. He was convinced of the need for moral inventory, confession of personal defects, restitution of those harmed, helpfulness to others and necessity of belief and dependence upon God. That's what Bill was bringing to patients. And when he first got there, he's saying, Doc, can I work with your guys? And he's like, I don't know. You probably can deal with my charity cases, but my patients that are paying bills, why don't you leave those? Don't touch them yet. This has become the basis of a rapidly growing fellowship of these men and their families. So, who knows what the basis of that rapidly growing fellowship was back then? Anybody want to guess? Hands? What was it? God. God, yeah. But it was also impressive that part of his real invitation was to commence the President's Conception to other alcoholics. They had to use the Oxford style to get people to have a sufficient spiritual awakening and get that relationship with God. and that was going to be what you're going to be doing for a long time as a recovered alcoholic. So it wasn't like, let's get sober and get on with our lives. It was like, now that you've got sobered, bring it to somebody who's still suffering. This man and over 100 others appear to have recovered. Once again, there's that word that I just love to highlight and underline, have recovered. They're not promising us one day of struggling. This is a recovered I'm recovered today. I haven't obsessed or thought about drinking in the little over seven years. Sort of amazing. I personally know scores of cases who were of the type with whom other methods had failed completely now mind you, before we came along what they did is you checked into Dr. Silke's hospital and they would do all types of therapy and nutrition lots of stuff and they were there months, years, however long it took and all of a sudden we come along with this spiritual experience thing that they were getting done in a weekend, so he's been working on these guys for years, right? And we come and we take him away for the weekend and we come back on Monday and he's changed and he has recovered and the doc is just like wow. What did you guys do to this guy? These facts appear to be of extreme medical importance because of the extraordinary possibilities of rapid growth inherent in this group. Has anybody ever taken a book of matches spread them out a little bit and lit the first match and how you notice how it just bursts across? Imagine that's what the doctor was seeing. He gets one alcoholic sober. That alcoholic goes and gets two more alcoholics sober. Those two alcoholics get four alcoholics over. It's not months and years of therapy. It is a weekend of this thing of getting connected to God. He loved it because it was a simple solution. And he has actually seen people get sober. They may mark a new epoch in the annals of alcoholism. These men may well have a remedy for thousands of such situations. You may rely absolutely on anything they say about themselves. I like that. Say about them themselves. They're not doctors, they're not psychiatrists, they are not therapists. We share our experience when I'm speaking to guys, my experience. That's the importance of one alcoholic working to another. I don't pretend I'm a therapist. No speculation. Right. The physician at our request gave us this letter and has been kind enough to enlarge on the views which later follows. In his statement he confirms we who have suffered the alcoholic torture must believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal the mind yeah my mind was out there you know I'm out there with this obsession that it's going to be different this time with all the information and all the facts show me it's not gonna be and then I take that one drink and I'm just off to the races to definitely this back then it was a behavioral problem they thought you know it did not 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. Who can relate to that statement? Oh, we got some honesty. I love it tonight. These things were true to some extent but in fact a considerable spent with some of us. But we are sure that our bodies were sickened as well. Our belief, I like this part, in our belief any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out the physical factor is incomplete. I heard somebody once say you know they went into therapy or they went into rehab and they're getting checked in and the person across the desk looks at him and says, you're not a bad person. You're a sick person. We're going to get you well. And then they spent the next 30 days dealing with his behaviors rather than his actual alcoholism. Sort of confused the guy a little bit. I got this underlined in green and underlined also. The doctor's theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us. As laymen, our opinion as to its soundness may of course mean little. But as ex-problem drinkers, we can say that his explanation makes good sense. It explains many things for which we cannot otherwise account. Though we work out our solution on a spiritual as well as an altruistic plane. Who wants to be the dictionist tonight? Who wants a read from the dictionary? Great. Look up altruistically, okay? Does anybody else want to do this? Thanks. altruistic I thought I didn't know what that word meant I thought he knew what it meant and then I read this things like wow that was not me when I wasn't out there drinking and using who thinks they know what the spiritual thing is just out the top of your head. I got it. Yeah. All that's your way is to help any other who's showing concern for the welfare of others. Yeah. Was that you before you got sober? No. No, absolutely not. Now this is, there's about two or three times in the book where it actually says, whoa, slow down. Don't go so fast. You know, these guys, they don't hurry through this and this is one of those times. It's actually where we talk detox and for those of you who are just getting into sponsorship, I highly recommend you take your guys to a detox. We don't want people detoxing on your couch. The paperwork would be a mess. We favor hospitalization for the alcoholic who's still jittery or fogged. We're not doctors. Do you think you might be able to break somebody through detox? If you can get somebody in a medical facility, do. That was Dr. Bob's greatest asset. He got these guys into the hospital, detoxed them properly, and got them through the process early on. More often than not, it is imperative that a man's brain be cleared before his approach as he has then a better chance of understanding and accepting what we have to offer that's got to be taking a little bit of grain of salt you know because bill w he was on a pretty good three or four day drunk when evie showed up to him he planted the seed was he in a position to go through the process and through step absolutely not as a matter of fact roland hazard suggested that bill go through detox because he kept showing up to the oxford group drunk and it wasn't working we're not talking 60 90 two months three months as soon as they're able to hold a conversation, that's when you can start bringing the solution to these guys. And by reading the book with them, that pretty much is a good way to gauge where they're at, how they're picking this stuff up and taking something from it. So we've got this great letter of endorsement. Now the doctor is going to enlarge upon what he said in the previous letter. And the doctor writes, the subject presented in this book seems to me to be of paramount importance to those afflicted with alcoholic addiction. Paramount importance. That sounds really important to me. Sounds like an emphasis. I say this after many years' experience as a mental director of one of the oldest hospitals in the country treating alcohol and drug addiction. Some people like to refer to it, probably it was like Barak, other people say it was a lot like Hazleton. It was just a really successful place. The town's hospital is for the guys with money. You didn't go there, really, if you were poor. But he did do some of that, I guess, apparently, too. There was therefore a sense of real Let's get this What's going on here Dr. Silkwood has been working years On us right with no success The occasional problem heavy Drinker you know they wouldn't return But those chronic us kept coming back And coming back it was a revolving door It was a death sentence once he realized Somebody was a real alcoholic It was just a slow show To watch these guys die And it had to rip them apart emotionally So There was therefore a sense of real satisfaction when I was asked to contribute a few words on a subject which is covered in such masterly detail in these pages. I just love that, masterly details on these pages, everything you need to get somebody to have a sufficient spiritual experience can be found in this book. we doctors have realized for a long time that some form of moral psychology was of urgent importance to alcoholics but its application presents difficulties beyond our conception now mind you this is 1935 and for those of you that took alcohol through the veins and stuff imagine what the size of the needles were back then, imagine the technology they had back then they didn't have the stuff that we have the saws and the ether so this guy is sort of This is actually sort of a humorous paragraph here. What with our ultra-modern standards and scientific approach to everything. Now this I got underlined, and this is one of those things that stand out. We are perhaps not well equipped to apply the powers of good which lie outside our synthetic knowledge. What humility. When I'm working with a newcomer and we're reading through the book, and we've been, this is our second set, and we'RE out about five hours now sitting reading the books, two or three sit-downs, and it's like, you're not going to get your doctor to do this. your therapist isn't going to sit here for hours and stuff, is it? Now, for some reason, one alcoholic has got the ability to bring God that a doctor or a therapist is not capable of doing. They can try their best, but that's the key to Alcoholics Anonymous, that one alcoholic bringing God to another alcoholic. Many years ago, one of the leading contributors to this book came under our care in this hospital, and while here he acquired some ideas which he put into practical application at once. I thought you had to have a year not true practical application at once in order for a real alcoholic to stay sober you have to actively be working with unrecovered alcoholics to help your relationship with God grow and to give you that fourth dimension they talk about get off the sidelines and start working with people because that's how they had success rates back in the old days they weren't sitting around waiting they got through the steps rapidly and thoroughly got connected to God and then got to work. Later he requested the privilege of being allowed to tell his story to other patients here, and with some misgiving we consented. The cases we have followed through have been most interesting. In fact, many of them are amazing. So a lot of times people like to say remember the 24 hours before you got sober. I want you to go back like a week, well the whole time before you got sober And think of the lying, cheating, stealing, low-life self-centered, inconsiderate, self-serving, backstabbing person I was that you might have been similar to. We weren't getting awards for greatness. We weren'T really wonderful people. So for him to see those people coming in and out, in andout, alcoholics in his cups is an unlovely creature. Look how he describes his first interaction with recovered alcoholics. The unselfishness of these men if we have come to know them the entire absence of profit motive and their community spirit is indeed inspiring to one who has labored long and wearily in this alcoholic field They believe in themselves and still more in the power which pulls chronic alcoholics backs from the gates of death That's one of my first highlight boxes and we call that the God box Therapy couldn't do that for me I had to have the power of God come in and make that drastic change for me. Once again, he tells us to slow down a little bit. Of course, an alcoholic ought to be freed from his physical craving for liquor, and this often requires a definite hospital procedure before psychological measures can be of maximum benefit. Let's face it. When you've got the cravings and you're kicking in, you don't really pay attention to anything. As a matter of fact, Joe, let's do a little experiment here. I'm going to be in the throes of craving. The phenomenon is just in me, And I want you to throw me some of your best AA spiritual lines. And this is what's going on in the little guy's head. You need to surrender. Gotta drink, gotta drink, gotta drink-drink-drank, gotta drink gotta drink gotta drink drink drink gotta drink gotta drink It's like talking to a wall. Maybe he's gonna say something that sneaks in the corner, but come on, it's like gotta cop, gotta cop gotta cop cop cop You know, it' s like That's the remix. Who's, who's seriously who's done a 12 step call and tried to talk to somebody on the way to Barker or onto a detox you know right it's just like even the first couple visits you know let them dry out a little bit you know doesn't mean you can't try look at Bill W great example of that right but I think the reason Bill was so willing to listen to everyone he showed up is he realized he wasn't drinking his booze and he could sit and drink with somebody. You know, he's happy. But he picked up some information there. Now this whole paragraph I got boxed because this is extremely major information. Joe? We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy. That the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. So I got this friend, her name's Susie. She is hypoallergic to peanuts. She comes to my house and I've been making peanut butter sandwiches. She walks in the house and she gets close to the kitchen. Immediately her esophagus starts to close. And she looks at me like, why didn't you tell me? And she's on the floor pounding her heart. We got the EpiPen and we're getting her to the hospital trying to get her. She's extremely allergic to alcohol. I have another friend, Bob. He's allergic to peanuts also. But he can roll them around. He can put them in his ears. He an eat one or two without any problem. He has a few too many. And he's on The Floor with Susie choking because he is not as allergic But he's still allergic to this So If you I'm just thinking about this So if you want to order If you wantto order Vodka pasta It cooks out Okay it doesn't cook out White wine It's going to cook out The waiters Oh don't worry It's gonna cook out Oh thank you You know So If If you're allergic to alcohol which will cause you, you're going to have like 10 years of kick butt connected to God recovery, right? And somebody slips you some vodka pasta with some vodka paste in it, right. And let's say you're allergic to alcohol like Susie was allergic to peanuts, her phenomenon your phenomenon of craving and you're out getting drunk, you know. If you're Bob maybe you, but I'm not going to risk it you know, I'm não vou arriscar ter qualquer alcoólo no meu corpo porque eu não quero que esse fenômeno de craving se atingir, porque uma vez que ele atingiu, eu sou desesperado, eu estou fora da porta. Então a melhor way to tell if alcohol has been cooked out of your sauce, the pan has to be completely dry. Which means you're not going to be eating any sauce. But seriously, if we're allergic... So you get the idea. Don't risk it. You know, you can have a wonderful program, be highly connected to God and if your phenomenon of craving kicks in accidentally, you're a mess. So we're looking at this word allergy here. And if we look up allergy and define it, it simply means It's an abnormal reaction to a food, a beverage, or a substance. Doesn't make you a less than normal person. That's right. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form. And we're not talking about marijuana and other drugs. We're talking alcohol in every form. Another thing, you guys with that alcohol sanitizer you're doing at meetings, you don't know how sensitive some guy who's just coming in off the street, he gets a little whiff of that and all of a sudden he gets a psychosomatic phenomenon craving kick in. don't bring that stuff into meetings please because you don't want to risk somebody else's recovery he may have gotten 48 hours sober when he's shaking all of a sudden he smells that stuff and he's like whoa out the door treat this stuff seriously these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form and once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it and once Having lost their self confidence their reliance on things human their problems pile up and they become astonishingly difficult to solve, the unmanageability of alcoholism, the two-fold unmanagability. Unmanageably, I'd be able to make a decision around alcohol, whether it's in me or not in me, and then the management of life just building up, and that emotional I gotta get drunk, look at my life. Frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices. So get to know the book, right? What does that look like? That means like, well, who's been yelled at by partners and wives and gets sober, I'm gonna leave you, you know? Which is why we're sort of obsessed with getting to know the book. So when you're talking to the guy, you have a solution, a bumper sticker, right? Yeah. That stuff doesn't work to an alcoholic, you know? You want to have some information this guy's going to snap onto. Frothy emotional appeal is just not going to work. The message which could interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. Where do you find that? From our story and our solution. Absolutely. In nearly all cases their ideas must be grounded in a power greater than themselves if they are to recreate their lives. Once again we're touching to the God aspect of this. If any feel that as psychiatrists directing a hospital for alcoholics we appear somewhat sentimental, let them stand with us a while on the firing line. See the tragedies, the despairing wives, the little children. Let the solving of these problems become a part of their daily work and even of their sleeping moments. And the most cynical will not wonder that we have accepted and encouraged this movement. That is like the longest Ron sentence so far, isn't it? It was. Now, mind you, you're reading this. You know, you are not an alcoholic. You may be an employer. You are a wife. and you're trying to understand these alcoholics things and you think about this, come on doc, you're just getting soft these guys, they got you, they're junking you you've softened to these guys but no, he has seen the misery first hand, what we bring to people the families, the wives, the death he understands it we feel after many years of experience that we have found nothing which has contributed more to the rehabilitation of these men than the altruistic movement now growing up among them highlight and repeat that Joe we feel after many years of experience that we have found nothing which has contributed more to the rehabilitation of these men than the altruistic movement now growing up among them it was god back then it wasn't social psychoanalysis process groups and feelings it was like let's let you connect it to god underlined men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol if they don't like the affect what don't they do they can take it or leave it they don't drink. This is where he's not talking about pure alcoholics. He's just talking about people in general. People drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. That, ah. And when they start getting a little dizzy, they stop. The sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. That's where he is talking about us, the real alcoholics, you know. It's like we see the damage but we have this delusion and say, ah, it's not that bad. And then we start hanging out with people the same like and, you know, oh, my friends drink like this. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. Get ready. They are restless, irritable, discontented unless they can again experience the ease of sense and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks. We're not thinking about what alcohol did to us. We're thinking about what alcohol is going to do to us I went to my garage three or four times with the intention of suicide, you know, because my life was miserable. You can't kill yourself without a nice strong drink and some good music, so I got The Carpenters playing and I'm sipping on my drink just, oh, that whole misery thing going on. In the insanity of that first drink, we can only access what it did for us in other words, not what it didn't do to us. So luckily the phenomenon of craving kicks in and I turn the car off roll the window back up and go out in the house and get myself drunk. Alcohol worked for me so don't tell me alcohol doesn't work for me early on it did. Drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, and let's get clear, the desire here in this context is talking about the obsession of a mind. If I'm going through an urge, a thought, a feeling, it's separate from the phenomenon of craving that we're talking about here. Alcohol has to be present in our system for us to experience this phenomenon of craving that the doctor is talking About. So we give into the obsession craving develops, they pause through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is one of those parts where Alcoholics Anonymous does not get involved in the medical aspect of the allergy, the metabolism, the process, but what we can talk about is the fact that we come out of a run just like, oh my God, I'm never doing it again, remorsefully, never going to pick up, never going do that stuff again and I'm getting by a day or two and then I start getting restless, irritable discontent. life starts showing up the bills are showing up I'm getting really emotionally unstable but I'm not going to drink because I promised not to drink and I'm going on to maybe some different other sprees but what eventually happens is that emotional barometer busts and I say, I'm gonna get a drink so I'll just have one this time I'm goin' out with these people they're not my problem, I'll jut have one drink and the phenomenon of craving kicks in after we drink This is repeated over and over And unless this person can experience an entire psychic change, there is very little hope of his recovery. This is repeated over and over, and unless the person can experienced an entire psychic change there's very little hope of this recovery. That's the solution, the entire psychic change that's brought about by a relationship with God. That the greatest thing about the Oxford Group and what they've been able to put together in the book, it's not a casual relationship with God. It's not finding my inner child and experiencing my feelings. It is this vital experience that shocks you into a relationship with God I don't know if shocks is the greatest word but that happened to me And this is a medical professional bearing witness to that great fact And later on he is going to talk about he doesn't have a faintest idea of what we did and how it worked. He just sees the results drunk and then they come back from a weekend with us and he's like, hi, can I go work with one of the guys? It's like hey. He is like wow. On the other hand, and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand, once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol. Disclaimer, the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules. So we're all going to say yeah Those are the steps. Well, we didn't have the steps back then, did we? This was the Oxford group. The Oxford group had the four absolutes as guideposts of ways to live your life. You implement the four absolutes in your life, which is absolute love, absolute purity, absolute honesty, and absolute selfishness. It's really hard to be a dork, you know? That's the way that's going to keep you spiritually fit by implementing those in a relationship with God. Men have cried out to me in sincere and despairing appeal. Doctor, I cannot go on like this. I have everything to live for. I must stop, but I cannot. You must help me. Wow. Faced with this problem, if a doctor is honest with himself, he must sometimes feel his own inadequacy, although he gives all that is in him and it's often not enough. Yellow underline. This is a great part. Read that. One feels that something more than human power is needed to produce the essential psychic change. He saw the results that we were doing and it changed his opinion. a repeatable solution that he stood behind and again, imagine the humility if a doctor feels, if he's honest with himself he must sometimes feel his own inadequacy and doctors have got bigger egos than pilots, right? So this is monumental Right. And he was a psychiatrist right? This is, we're not talking about some GP or general practice type guy. This guy was a specialist in the brain, you know, and he saw that he was incapable of that certain chronic punch. Imagine he's got ten guys in his hospital, right? Eight or nine of them, the therapy, the nutrition, the life coach, that seems to work with these guys and they don't come back. Two or three of the guys they keep returning no matter what he's doing it doesn't work. Though the aggregate of recoveries resulting from psychiatric effort is considerable, non-alcoholics we physicians must admit we have made little impression upon the problem as a whole. many types alcoholics real alcoholics do not respond to the ordinary psychological approach we come out better you know obviously we get some therapy we get nutrition we get life coaching we find some information we're going to come out of rehab really good they weren't able to do the God thing they didn't have guys going into this place with big books taking those guys through the steps it was just therapy and nothing else I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control my mom did my dad did when my roommate called up my boss and said we're having a re-intervention for Mike next week you want to participate he comes to me the next I show up to work that next morning he points his finger at me and he says you get your together it's like okay what do I do he thought I could just pull myself together from it I had many men who had for example worked a period of months on some problem or business deal, which should be settled on a certain date favorably to them. I love this part. So here's the deal. You're an alcoholic. You haven't got sober yet. You're out there drinking. All of a sudden this guy who has this yacht, who's been staying on his parents' yacht and his parents are coming on Friday so he's got to de-party the yacht and this guy's rolling the money. He tells Joyce, I'll give you $15,000 to clean this boat up because if my parents find the slightest thing here, I'm kicked out of the family. So you're like, okay, I can handle that. You know, $15000. So he shows up on Thursday, and Joe's just chugging along. This thing's looking great. And he says, Joe, this is amazing. As a matter of fact, I'm giving you $20,000. But here's the deal. Tomorrow, I've got to catch an airplane at 945. So from the hotel on the way to the airport, I'm going to stop here at 920 for a five-minute window. And I'm just going to give your money and off. And if you're not there, hey, I'll see you in a year when I come back to town. You go, OK, you'll be there, right? Absolutely. So he goes home, right, telling his buddies, Dude, on top of that, I'm getting $20,000. This is great, you know? And they go, well, good. Let's go buy you some beer. He says, no, because he senses. Not a good idea. Better not go out and get drunk because I might miss the five-minute window. Come on, one beer. Come on. You got money. Oh, it's okay. I'll have one beer." Where were you tomorrow morning at 9.20? Not there. Not there? Was it because he had a fear of completion? No. No. Was he scared of losing the intimacy of his friendship? No. The phenomenon of craving kicked in. It had nothing to do with our intentions. It was like that physical allergy that causes everything that we want to do to just get out of the way, and we got a drink? Got a drink. So back to the book. They took a drink a day or so prior to the date, and then the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount to all other interests so that the important appointment was not met. Yellow underlined. These men are not drinking to escape. They were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control. we cannot stop now we're driving up and down Fort Lauderdale we see the guys on the corners day in, day out we know they're real alcoholics they're drinking themselves to death they got the little signs please feed me and then they flip it over and say why lie, I need a beer these guys are chronic alcoholics in the final days of chronic alcoholism it's sad they never have an opportunity to break that phenomenon of craving and cycle they may go into jail for a day or two but most times the cops just pick them up and take them to another part of the city. So they are in that 24-7 phenomenon of craving. They're going to drink themselves to death. That was a very powerful line for me. These men were not drinking to escape. I thought I was drinking to escaped, but until I read this line, they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control. That held some power with me. That was essentially when I was receiving the definition of what was truly wrong with me There are many situations which arise out of the phenomenon of crave which caused men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight that supreme sacrifice is death drinking ourselves to death no one steps in we don't have a loving father or mother or someone's going to pull us aside you know and help us get help they just die on the side of the road drink themselves to death death is the final result of active alcoholism and it's not like this evil spirit that wants to come and destroy us because we've done bad things it's just a chemical reaction that causes our brain to go into this phenomenon craving that's unstoppable. And that's the true definition of step one. I'm powerless over alcohol because when I put it in me, I can't stop. And my life is unmanageable because I'm unable to manage my decision not to drink. So he's going to show us some information about some classic types of alcoholics. The guy who's reading this, you know, the guy in Broken Tone, New Mexico who's read this book trying to figure out if he's an alcoholic or not, he's gonna just give us five generalities of what some basic alcoholics are like. So for the non-alcoholic, Remember, this book was read by people who weren't alcoholic too. So he's talking to me, the alcoholic. He's also talking to the non-alcoholics, trying to inform the world of what it is to be alcoholic and what alcoholism is because like today there was a lot of misunderstanding of alcoholism so he's trying to put some facts out to everybody. So the classification of alcoholics seems most difficult and in such detail outside the scope of this book. So he is going to talk about type 1 now. If you guys want to put slashes or numbers on the side, that's cool. Want to read type 1? There are, of course, the psychopaths who are emotionally unstable We are all familiar with this type They are always going on the wagon for keeps They are over-remorseful and make many resolutions but never a decision Type 1. Type 2 There is a type of man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink He plans various ways of drinking He changes his brand or his environment It's my friends. I need new friends I need no booze. I shouldn't drink tequila I should only drink rum Type 3 There is a type who always believes That after being entirely free from alcohol For a period of time He can take a drink without danger We call those ice fishermen back in Minnesota They go the whole summer without drinking And they just drink themselves all through winter In an ice house There is the manic depressive type Who is perhaps the least understood by his friends And about a whole chapter could be written And we've got everyone in the room Is type 5 right Then there are the types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect alcohol has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people. I was one of those people at different stages of my alcoholism. You know, I started out as... Yeah, I popped around a lot, depending on what day it was, I guess. Next paragraph. If you guys want to highlight underlying boxes, this has got some cool stuff in here. All these and many others have one symptom in common. All these, many others, have one symptoms. One symptom in comment. They cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. So imagine I've got spiritual, well, I had spiritual disconnect, spiritual malady, I have this obsession that my dad's not alcoholic, right? But he works hard and he comes home and he has to have his martini every day. When my dad doesn't get his martinis, he gets a little cranky. Now that's not an obsession, that's a habit, you know? Matter of fact, he won't go to a restaurant, he won'T even finish that one martini, but he's got to have that one. That doesn't make him an alcoholic. what makes someone an alcoholic is when that phenomenon of craving kicks in and you just drink yourself to the races this phenomenon as we have suggested may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people and sets them apart as a distinct entity it has never been by any treatment with which we are familiar permanently eradicated the only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence thank you Nancy Reagan don't pick up just don't drink Mike Chase and everything's going to be fine but here's the deal instead of what Nancy Reagan offered us which is just don' t pick up don't do the first one he's going actually follow up with a solution to it sure I won't drink next thing you know I'm drinking they're going to touch on that later on but that's the cool thing unusual thing about alcoholism this immediately precipitates us into a seething cauldron of debate much has been written pro and con But among physicians, the general opinion seems to be that most chronic alcoholics are doomed. Most chronic alcoholists are doomed, and there's a couple other words to describe that one. There was no solution back in those days, you know? So he's watching what's going on. He's seeing these guys grab his sickest of patients, right, and doing this reading with them and this praying and this... What's going On? He's busy doing his rounds and stuff like that. We're taking his best and worst out, and they're coming back like, hi, guys, nice to see you. He's like, wow, what's going on here? What is the solution? Perhaps I can best answer this by relating one of my experiences. See, he's not gonna sit down and tell us what the solution is. He's not capable of that. He's an outsider. He's a man of his word. He's going to tell us what he saw in a general way. He's gonna show us the miracle in his eyes of how great that is. So the first guy we're gonna talk about is Hank P. he's the guy who helped Bill get the stocks and get the whole big book process started if it wasn't for him we might not be sitting here right now, or maybe somebody else would have come on and we'd still be sitting there, you never know about a year prior to this experience a man was brought to me to be treated for chronic alcoholism he had but partially recovered from gastric hemorrhage and seemed to be a case of pathological mental deterioration that's a problem That's the way I was When I brought him to Fort Lauderdale Hospital He had lost everything worthwhile in life And was only living One might say to dread He frankly admitted and believed That for him there was no hope Following the elimination of alcohol There was found to be no permanent brain injury So they did their thing They washed and waxed Got him cleaned up, got him healthy And then turned him over to us Now this is he accepted the plan outlined in this book it's not like well I think I'll do some more no this is a guy who did exactly what they were telling him to back in the Oxford group you know get connected to God and then take this message to other sick and suffering alcoholics and you too can stay sober so he accepted the plan outlined in thisbook I highlight and underline that because it's going to tell us later on those who do not recover people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program he did for many years he stayed sober One year later, he called to see me. I experienced a strange sensation. I knew the man by name and partially recognized his features, but they are all resemblance ended. Has anybody ever like spoken of a detox and a few months later or a year later some guy comes up to you and says, hey, you spoke of my detox I was in and you don't have a faintest idea who this person is? It's because they've had that spiritual experience. They've recovered. Imagine this. From a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck had emerged a man brimming over in self-reliance and contentment. I underline that from a trembling despairing nervous wreck had emerged a man brimming over with reliance self-reliance and contentment that's evidence of that psychic change that we were talking about before the entire psychic change that Dr. Silkworth was previously referring to a spiritual experience a spiritual awakening when somebody walks into the room you can spot somebody we're going to wrap up on that one golly do read really quick No, that's fine. We're just fine. I talked with him for a while, but he was not able to bring himself to feel that I'd known him before. He is but a stranger, and so he left. A long time has passed with no return to alcohol. Let's talk about Hank Parkers. Now we're going to wrap up this one. This guy's amazing. This is Fritz Mayo. He's also the southern friend. You can find him in the back of the book. This is the doctor again talking. When I need a mental uplift, I often think of another case brought in by a physician prominent in New York. The patient had made his own diagnosis, which is I'm going to drink and die, so I may as well. And deciding the situation, hopeless, had hidden in a deserted barn, determined to die. He was rescued by a searching party in desperate condition, brought to me. Following the physical rehabilitation, he had a talk with me, which he frankly stated he thought this treatment a waste of time. Unless I could assure him, which no one ever had, that in the future, he would have the willpower to resist the impulse to drink. And you guys might want to highlight that one. That's an important part in this process. His alcoholic problem was so complex and his depression so great that we felt his only hope would be through what we then called moral psychology. Which was the new stuff kicking off at that time. That was the New Modern stuff going on. And we doubted if even that would have any effect. When I first heard that moral psychology thing, I was thinking, oh, he's talking about the stuff we do. I researched it. It's not. That was The Trendy Therapeutic stuff at the time. However, he did become sold on the ideas contained in this book. He has not had a drink for a great many years. I see him now and then, and he is as fine a specimen of manhood as one could wish to meet. I earnestly advise every alcoholic to read the book through, and though perhaps you came to scoff, he may remain to pray. William is that. Yeah, William D. Silkworth. A doctor prescribing prayer. Doctor prescribing... A doctor proscribing us. I love that. Okay, now we go back to the questions. Next week, Bill's story. Woo-hoo!