The Obsession of the Mind Is Stronger Than the Will – Joe M.

Hello everyone, my name is Joe and I'm an alcoholic. And it's truly by God's grace and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, the program of Alcoholic Anonymous I found in a book called Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm sober today and for that I'm very, very thankful. And I want to thank Maisie for her comments tonight. She and I have a special relationship. My sister used to have a telephone conversation with her quite often and stayed sober for a while and unfortunately she didn't stay sober forever but about five years ago she got a hold of some bad stuff in a low-income area and someone cut it with battery acid or something I don't know what the hell they cut it would have killed her overdose or some stuff but anyhow thank you Maisie appreciate it you know we're all kind of together and I'll call it synonymous I was up at Albany here a while back in Albany, New York and I learned that Abby Thatcher was buried there. I thought he was down in Texas but he was buried in Albanya and I went out there to the grave to see him and finally found him. He's in the Albany Rural Cemetery lot 56 plot 24 if anybody's interested and when I got there the weeds were way up over my head without Abbey there's no AA forgotten man and I'll call it synonymous unless Bill gets a message from Abbey you're not sitting here today our friend over there in Norm Alpe talks about seconds and inches on his tape and Bill wrote about slender threads and I will call it anonymous such slender threats and certainly that AA was built on that. Later on, I was there in Akron and I was in the hotel where Bill made that phone call and it's a nursing home now, but the telephone booth is still there and the directory is still here. Someone's stolen their telephone a number of times over the years. But I'm walking up and down that hall where Bill had made his decision. and he said, I'm going to go in that bar and have a drink, or do I go use that telephone and find me a drunk to work with? Seconds and inches. If he makes the wrong decision, you're not here today. And that's why we don't ever want to forget our history in Alcoholics Anonymous. I love the history of AA. Seconds an inches is all we've got to talk about, really. And I'm glad to be here tonight. I've met an awful lot of you guys and gals, and you've got a lot of good AA going on here. Thank God. And a lot of enthusiasm for staying sober and helping other people achieve sobriety. And I like to see that. It doesn't happen every place in the country. I can tell you that. And thank God it's happening here. Got a better chance of staying sober here than most places. But anyhow, enough of that. Enough about that. I want to read a little bit out of this book if you don't mind because this book saved my life and the words that are in it. Dr. Jung told Roland Hazard ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were the guiding force of the lives of these people were suddenly cast to one side. Ideas, emotions and attitudes. He said when the spiritual malady is overcome. The word malady means illness, by the way. When the spiritual illness is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. And I look back in my life and on page 18, the top of that one paragraph tells my whole story. It says an illness of this sort, we've come to believe it an illness, involves those who bow in a way no other human sickness can. If a person has cancer, all is sorry for him and no one is angry or hurt. But not so with the alcoholic illness, for with it goes annihilation of all things worthwhile in life. It engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferers, being misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers warp lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents, and anyone can increase the list. In other words, alcoholism is a family illness. And if you live with one of us very long, you're going to be affected by it. And as I look back in my life, I realize today that my dad was an alcoholic. He had an obsession to drink. My mother had an obsession to see that he didn't drink. It seemed like every time my dad took a drink, my mother had a personality change. And I grew up in that. And we know that alcohol is a progressive illness. It gets worse over a period of time, and when I was about seven years old, my dad's drinking was getting really, really bad, and he used to threaten my brothers and I and tell us that he's going to take our mom out that weekend and kill her, and I'm sitting at home, and i'm wondering if he's gonna do that or not, and they were gone all weekend, and And I used to eat my fingernails clear down to the quick, worried about those things. I was affected by it emotionally. Eventually my dad's drinking got to be so bad that my mother had to have him committed. In 1949 in Oklahoma we didn't have any alcohol treatment facilities but what we did have was a criminally insane ward and Al and I were talking about that earlier beneath Oklahoma My dad was committed there, and he was an alcoholic. Went to the Kremlin Insane Ward. And he was to stay there until he got well. Think about that. Some of us could be there for a while. And my dad was there for three years and seven months and 13 days. Some of the most formidable years of my young life. my brother Sam and I used to hitchhike up there and take him a couple of dollars in the carton of cigarettes from time to time we went in on building 3 5th floor to the rear that's where the Cremley and Sayward was and I saw things back in there that you're not supposed to see and I'm 7 years old and I grew up in this and I use to hitch hike back and forth up there to take those cartons of cigarettes and a couple of dollars. And I began to get a bunch of ideas, emotions, and attitudes which to become the guiding force of my life. And nobody taught me these things. I just learned them by myself or taught myself, I guess. But one of the thoughts came to me one day was like this. If God, you know, you're going to blame it on somebody, you know when you're seven years old. If God is going to do this to me and to us and to hell with God, I'll not be talking to him anymore. And if I ever get big enough they can't catch me, I'm not going no more either to church. And I got big enough they couldn't catch and I didn't go. That was one thought that came to me. Another thought came to me one day like this. If it hurts this much to love people I'm going to quit loving people. It hurts too bad. So I began to push people out of my life. And another thought came to me one time was anything good's going to happen in my life going to happen because I made it that way. I was totally self-sufficient. I didn't need God, nothing or nobody. And I thought those were very brave attitudes on my part for many a day. Come to find out the most fearful attitudes anyone could have but I thought they were brave and I lived up to those things. Tried to. Not very good coping skills by the way. They divorce you for those kind of skills. They put you in jail for those kind of skills. They did that for me. I was sentenced out here in Arizona one time and finally got an out-of-state relief when I was 15 years old. That old boy died. You'd have a new speaker here tonight. But they told me not to ever come back over there, and I haven't been back over here but twice since then. but anyhow i didn't need nothing didn't need god nothing or nobody not very good coping skills that i acquired you know the book says that when the spiritual malady is overcome we're straightened out mentally and physically spiritual not only means my relationship with god it means my own internal moral fiber that's what was messed my own internal, moral fiber. Like I said, that word malady means illness. I was spiritually sick and didn't know it. I got to be about 12 years old when my dad had gotten out of the nuthouse on the out-of-state release and he was to go to California. Fit in real good out there. Fresh out of a nuthous. i joke about that that's just a joke but uh i got to thinking about sex a lot i mean a lot almost gave me brain damage thinking about it i went to my mom and i said when my dad's gone so i went to my mama i said mom i've been thinking about six and she jumped back oh my god Benny Joel, it's not a very good thing to think about. In fact, it is a dirty, filthy, rotten thing to think about and you ought to save it for the one you love. That's what she said. Somehow I didn't believe that. We had such education when I went to school too. Called it recess. but the corner of 21st and Quanah in Tulsa Oklahoma there was a little place called the Jenkins Cafe and in front of the Jenkins Cafe there was a bunch of wise intelligent experienced men and women of about 15 or 16 years old and they knew everything there was to know about sex and more than glad to share it with us young fellas. And some of the things they told me what they were doing, my eyes got that big around. And how often with so many women a night they said, and my eyes got...that's what I wanted, see? Try to live up to those ideals, could never could. I got to be in AA a couple years before I figured out they were lying to me. Well, I hope they were lying to me! What I'm trying to tell you, do you think I didn't need inventory? I didn t know what was right or what was wrong about anything. A couple of places in our book it talks about back of them is a world of misunderstanding and ignorance. On page 570 it talks keeping man in everlasting ignorance, that's contempt prior to investigation. Some people today would have us to believe that we're into denial. I have never been into denial, but I'll tell you what I have been into. I've been into ignorance most of my life. Totally, totally ignorant. I didn't know that I didn'T know. Who was going to tell me? My dad was in the nuthouse. He went to California. My mother was busy letting five kids get bigger, who was going to tell me? Nobody. I ran outside anyhow. That's what I did. Everything I learned, I learned off the streets. You think I didn't need inventory by the time I got to Alcott's Anonymous? For sure. Best thing I ever did for myself was take an inventory of me. And I'm not going to get into taking inventory, but I just want to say that's the best thing that ever happened to me, was taking inventory of meat. Trying to find out what is right and what is wrong for the first time in my life. Over here on page, she told me to quit about 823. I've already learned one thing here tonight. When speakers look at their watch, you know what that means? Nothing. but I'll be out of here the chapter we agnostics probably the most absolutely the best chapter that's ever written for we alcoholics we had a good friend and I'm sure Bob knew him his name was Father Bill Wilson lived over in La Jolla California exceptional man and father bill was a exceptional student at the age of 15 in ireland and they took him to the university of rome at the edge of 15 and he was to study there for next 30 years he read a lot lots of spiritual information in those 30 years and one of the things he told me was he said joe that's the chapter we agnostic the greatest piece of spiritual information that he had ever read quite a statement coming from a man like him and he said this chapter we agnostic is not in here to prove to us there's any particular type of god or any particular kind of religion he said he said there's no such thing as a particular type of religion he said his chapter we have not seen it in here to open up our mind to a point that God might prove to us that there's a God. And on page 55 at the bottom of the deal, it said we'll do these things and question and wonder what they mean to me and the conscious of my belief would sure to come to me. And that's exactly what happened. On page 29 of this book, if you don't mind I'll read this real quick. each individual in his own personal story describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with God that's what I'm going to try to do here tonight and on page 44 chapter we agnostics said in the preceding chapters, you've learned something about alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, that's because of the obsession of the mind. Obsession of the mine is an idea that overpowers all other ideas. Very strong. Or if when drinking you have little control of the amount you take, that is because of allergy of the body. you were probably alcoholic. Two little simple questions. That's all we need is those two. Now I think if you look in your literature, right, you've got 44 questions. See how we complicate things? There's a question in the 44 questions that says you drink alone. Well, if I'm buying yes, if you're buying no. and he said if that be the case you may be serving from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer only spiritual experience would conquer the doctor's opinion another great piece of literature in this book first 16 printings The Doctor's Opinion was on page one. 1955, whenever they revised it for the first time, they put the Doctor's opinion in Roman numeral sections. And we in Alcoholics Anonymous don't read the Roman numera sections, do we? Let's skip over those babies. Used to be on page 1. Very good piece of information. Doctor's Openion, I believe that everybody ought to read the Doctor'S Opinions and study it where they know it by heart. Because the rest of this book is going to tell us how to recover from the condition of the body and mind that the doctor explained. And if we don't know what's wrong with us, what are we going to recover from? That's a good question, isn't it? I was in a place one time and this guy asked me to, oh I was reading something out of the doctor's opinion and he came up to me after the meeting, and he said, what were you reading? I said, well, I was reading The Doctor's Opinion. He said, What book did you get it out of? I says, Well, the big book. I showed it to him. He turned around and left. The next day, he come up to me and said, Joe, and started crying before he got to me. He said Joe, I've been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for 39 years. And I didn't know that was in that book. it was he was having trouble with that idea he said but i'm when i get home i'm going to i'm gonna read and study the doctor's opinion which he called me a few months later and had a big book study in his group and he in his home and he's doing a great doing real good 39 years he said after they have succumbed to desire again as so many do we're not drinking this is what we are when we're not drinking and then the phenomenon craving develops the phenomenon craving develops after we take a drink not before that's what happens when we have an allergy to alcohol it's a phenomenon of craving which I won't go into in great detail that sense of a craving beyond our mental control they pass through the well known stage of a spree emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again how many people here besides me ever said i'll never take another drink as long as i live and i hope and pray to god if it kills me if i do promise my daughter promise my wife promise me promise my mother i'm never going to drink no more i meant that you know i meant it i wasn't kidding i meant but you see there's something i didn't know and i think it's very important information. And when an alcoholic says they're through drinking, they mean that. And we pull out the most useful tool that we have at our disposal and it's called willpower. And we say sick and well we're through with that drinking. Anybody ever use your willpower on your drinking? I got lots of willpower, never have used much of it but I got it. Alcoholics have lots of willpower. Don't ever let them tell you that it's junk, because we do. Those non-drinkers, you know, they think four or five drinks and they throw up and they quit drinking. But not us. We hang in there, don't we? We've got lots of will power. Now the reason that our will power don't work, and I needed to know this, was because of the obsession of the mind. An obsession of the mind is an idea that overpowers all other ideas. It's stronger than my willpower. That's why the willpower doesn't work, because the obsession of the mind is stronger than the will. Now what is stronger than the obsession with the mind? Only one thing. We may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. There's only one thing stronger than the obsession of the mind and that's he who made it, which is God as we understand him. Now by the time I realized that I had a heck of a problem because I'd been staying sober going to meetings, a lot of meetings I stayed sober on the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous you can do that for quite a while and I did that for quiet a while we're on page 17 of this book it tells us that alone is not sufficient I'll read that and then we'll move on he says the feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element of powerful semen which binds us but that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined lots of power in the fellowship we recommend to people to go to as many meetings as they can I don't ever tell anybody to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I say, go to as many meetings as you can. Sometimes they can't do that because of work or job or wife or something. If they can'T make the meeting, they feel guilty because they can'T make the meetiNG. Go to as mini meetings as yoU caN. 120 meetings in nOny daYs is okay. You know? That's okay. But, you know, you don't have to go 120 meetings nOnty daYS. Go toas many meetings aS yOU caN the fellowship is very very important so it supported me for a long time and then the book says the tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution we have a way out in which you can absolutely agree in which we can join in brotherly and harmonious action this is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism not the news of the fellowship but the news of the common solution and the common solutions are 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous which practice of a way of life will expel the obsession to drink you see and make the practicer happily and usefully whole and that's what I wanted so the fellowship alone is good but it's not good enough but you take the power of the fellowship and the power of the common solution, put them together, then you have a solution, a real solution. My little friend George, he and I were in the Army together. He was a little black guy, looked like Samuel Davis Jr., remember him? Great guy. If you knew him, you loved him, you couldn't help it george and i was the first force gump and bubba i guess because we met on the bus going to the army i was 17 years old and he come down the bus i said you can sit down here with me if you want to and he did and we became friends just like that well i buried him about four years ago he become my first a sponsor loved him better than her brother and uh george I called him up one Sunday morning see I don't do this I come to on Sunday morning the floor where I've been drinking and that's where I drink in the later days of my drinking I drink for oblivion and I didn't start on the couch I used to start on the couch but I'd fall off the couch and be on the floor when I woke up so I just started on the floor save that trip you know and i can't i woke up that sunday morning and for some unknown reason i didn't ask for it but i did two things that morning i don't do one was i said god if you'll help me find a way to stay sober i'll do what i can for you from this day forward i made a deal a couple hours later looked like God wasn't going to help me and I remember my friend George he told me five years beforehand he was going to AA so I called George and I said George are you going to AAA and he said he was I said Georgia I need help two things I don't do I don' t ask God for help and I don''t ask nobody else for help either you see I don´t need nothing God nothing or nobody you see but i did two things that morning i don't do and george came over to my house and stayed with me the next three days sobered me up i weighed about 130 pounds you can tell i've been somewhere for a while love me back to health is what he did wiping the sweat off my brow and cold towels and trying to get something to eat down there and just being with me but the best AA has to offer one drunk helping another see I didn't know that then he took me my first AA meeting on November 3rd 1973 and I haven't had a drink since that Sunday morning thank God but it wasn't long after a while George said you're having a hard time of this guy out there aren't you I said George I'm having a terrible time because you see i told myself if i get big enough they can't catch me i'm not going and when i got to alcoholics anonymous i had the spiritual knowledge of a seven-year-old boy you could imagine what that was i could see on those steps turn my will in my life over to the care of god as i understood it i understood him like you would a seven year old boy i couldn't do it when i was seven i couldn'T DO IT ANOTHER TIME OR TWO OR THREE AS MY LIFE WENT BY AND BY the time I got to Al-Qasr Anonymous, I sure couldn't do it. To turn it over as I understood it, you see? So George gave me a little something to do which helped me. He said, Joe, if you'll go home tonight and get you a pencil and a piece of paper and forget all those old ideas that you have. Those are called prejudices in this book. Don't let any prejudice you may have against God deter you. But lay aside all those old ideas that you have. And if you could make God, what would you want it to be? You see, I didn't know you could do that. Out there in Oklahoma in the Southern Baptist Belt, you'd go to hell for doing that. You still will go to heaven for doing it. But George gave me permission and I guess I needed that permission. Never thought about it that way. So I went home that night and got me a pencil and piece of paper and I said, I'm forget all that stuff I think I know. And if I could, what would I want God to be? And I wrote down some things and I showed them to George and he said, that's good. You can start there. See, I didn't know you could do that. It's almost the same thing Abby did to Bill. Remember in Bill's story, Abby brought him the message. and I think Ebby said to Bill why don't you choose your own conception and I don't think he did that out of any spiritual knowledge on his part I'll tell you why Ebby did that Bill's there about half drunk Ebby's trying to give him spiritual information and you know how we are when we're talking to drunks and talking about God I've had those same conversations and Ebby finally said oh, hell, Bill, believe whatever you want to. I don't. And Bill took that to mean that you could have a God of your own understanding. That you could choose what you wanted it to be. Today I know why that works so well, don't you? I've never had any problem with my idea about anything. Have you? If it's my idea, it's got to be good, right? And it says here, yes, we have agnostic temperament to have these thoughts and experiences. Let us make haste to reassure you. We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice over ideas and express even a willingness to believe in the power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results. Even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that power which is God. And that little note deal was the beginning for me. Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and effect a contact with him. You see, that's always been my problem. I was trying to consider somebody else, somebody else's conception. I remember one time when I was married to that other gal. What's her name? she was going to church trying to put up with me i guess because i was the kind of drunk that when i got drunk i went places and i didn't come home right away either and sometimes i was gone an overnight or a day or two or a week or a month sometimes i go three or four months and when i get back home it's just like i went down store to get a loaf of bread. No more thought of it than that. You see, I didn't care much about the situation that I was in. You can see I was very selfish. The last time I went over there though, I went up there to visit. I was sitting on the bar stool one night and I got to thinking. I think I'll go visit. You don't want to know what I mean by visit? Anybody know what I mean but visit? Okay. I'm going to go over there and visit. And I went over and knocked on my door, and she kind of peeked out. I just broke in there is what I did. There sat an old boy in my recliner, watching my TV with my house. And you know, what are you going to do? Well, I did, I jumped on that old boy, and he'd like to beat me to death on my own living room floor. Threw me out in the yard and told me not to come back. You think I didn't live on that one for a long time. That's, that's another story. But I threw a little sober spell and went to church. We do that, you know, trying to get back home. And I went in to see her preacher and he sat me down across the table from me. He looked me right in the eye. He said, well, Joe, what seems to be your problem? Well, I don't know what my problem Liz. Hadn't been to AA yet. So I told him what I thought it was, and it was her. And if you live with her, you'd drink too, I told her. Now he gave me a solution. If you go talk with one of them, they'll give you a solution, and he said, you must, and boy, he emphasized that word must, you must have faith in these things, he told me, and I just looked at him. how can you have faith in something that you don't even believe he's asking me to have faith I didn't even believe what he was saying thank God for the second step so we could come to believe you see I needed that I needed to come to believe and that was a process for me to do that I've never had any trouble with the idea about God I've had trouble with somebody else's idea about God and they were trying to put it on me and I never could accept that you see and it says our own conception however inadequate was sufficient to make the approach and effective contact with him as soon as we admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence a spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction provided we took other simple steps We found that God does not make too hard of terms with those who seek him. To us, the realm of spirit is broad-rooming, all-inclusive, never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. And I said, George, you mean I got to find God? And George said, Joe, God's not lost. He said it's not in the finding, it's in the seeking. You hear me? It's not in the finding, it's in the seeking. Our book just said that. God does not make too hard of terms with those who earnestly seek. To us, the realm of spirit is broad, roomy, all-inclusive, never exclusive or fitting to those who honestly seek. It's inthe seeking, it' s not inthe finding. So I began to start seeking God into my life. and that's been 30 years or more than 30 years ago now i've been seeking god a time or two i thought i knew who he was but i continue to seek because i don't ever want to get to a point in life that i can tell you that god is that and nothing more than that God is everything or else he's nothing God is more than anything I could ever think about more than my little pea brain could understand so I don't even try to understand anymore, I just continue to seek and our book says if we'll do that we will seek with an open mind we will question this chapter we agnostics as Father Bill asked me to do and when I see something and wonder about it think about it what does that mean to me if anything does it mean anything to me what does it mean question and to wonder what these things mean to be he said if i'll do that with an open mind then god will prove to me that there is a god and when that happens he said nobody but nobody but nobody could improve upon that idea not even him or the pope that's what he told me And I chose to believe it. And I think that's what has happened to me. The only other question I needed to... Three more minutes here. The only question that I need to know is that I know that I'm powerless over alcohol. I can boil that all the way down to one word, powerless. If powerless is the problem, then obviously the solution has to be within power. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. That's the solution to the powerless condition that we have. The only one other thing I need to know now, where and how am I to find this power? Well, that's exactly what this book is about. That's exactly why I'm here today. Exactly what AA is about is to help me to find a power greater than myself which will solve my problem it didn't say would help me solve it i'm to find the power and the power will solve the problem i need to look now where is this power and our book says over here on page 55 actually we were fooling ourselves for deep down in every man woman child is a fundamental idea of god it may be obscured by calamity by pomp, by worship of other things but in some form or other it's there for faith and the power greater than ourselves and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives are facts as old as man himself it's just always been there no matter how much I try to deny it it's still there we finally saw that faith in some kind of a God was a part of our makeup just as much as the feelings we have for a friend sometimes we had to search fearlessly but he was there he was much a fact as we were we found the great reality deep down within us in the last analysis only there he may be found and it was so with us now i don't know about you but i remember looking back in my life from time to time i'm getting ready to do something that little voice within me would say joe if i was you i wouldn't do that have you ever heard that little voice I won't pay any attention to that little voice anyhow right go ahead and get into an awful lot of trouble and that same little voice would say Joe see I told you not to do that that to me that is God deep down inside of every man woman child is a fundamental idea of God may be obscured by worship of other things that's why the inventory and the making of the amends to clear away the wreckage of the past so that we can commune more with God one-on-one. I know that in my home group, we know each other pretty well. You guys know your people in your home group pretty well and how did we learn so much about our people? Through talking and listening to them, right? If that would work with you and me, wouldn't that work with me and God? Talking and listening, prayer and meditation, a whole lot more listening than talking you see and our book goes on to say and this sums up this whole chapter we can only clear the ground a bit if our testimony helps sweep away prejudice those old ideas enables you to think honestly encourages you to search diligently within yourself then if you wish you can join us on the broad highway with this attitude you cannot fail now get this the consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you in other words you'll have a god of your own understanding that nobody but nobody but somebody could improve upon thank you for having me here tonight