The Direct Approach to Permanent Sobriety – Jay S.

Okay, so, you know, it says in our fifth tradition that every AA group ought to be a spiritual entity. So let's spend three minutes in silence just to bring us all back together. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference so my name's Jay Stennett and I am a historian of the spiritual antecedents of this movement that we call Alcoholics Anonymous and also a biographer of Bill Wilson and the current thing that I'm working on is a spiritual biography of him, and it's really been an amazing process. And how many people here have said, well, it really wasn't 100, it was only 78? Okay. the topic that we've got here excuse me, could you pass me the our schedule says how the first 78 came to be okay as in the first by inference there really weren't 100, there was only 78 when the big book came out and that's one of those pieces for some folks that are rather interesting It's part of this thing about, well, Bill was a promoter. He wasn't really, you know, he was fudging the numbers to make things work. And one of the reasons why I'm doing the biography that I'm doing is that I feel that he's pigeonholed into about a three to five-year period, being sober three to five years. And that's the only credit run that he really gets. and okay go ahead okay this is from the forward to the first edition evidently there's a lot of people aren't familiar with this but it says we have alcoholics anonymous are more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body that's the very first line and the preface of the first addition so the argument here is argument is that there really were not a hundred bill Wilson rounded it up by about a third from 75 or so to a hundred I think that this topic is not of that much interest to the group so we may make this really really quick okay since it's on here we'll just say that this was general weirdness by the folks who put this thing together and we'll go to go to some other topics but um one of the things that i've been fortunate enough to do is um i i created with my friend bill shaber from uh fairfield connecticut the symposium on aa history and starting in 2014 we uh we annually get together with people that are doing primary research into the history of Alcoholics Anonymous so we're not stuck with well my sponsor told me that when blah blah blah that we're working with people that are using primary documents and doing primary search and by that it's only you need two pieces of evidence that say exactly the same thing that are verifiable at the time. And so, anyway, a couple years ago we had our friend John Barton come out from New Jersey. He's an archivist in New Jersey and he actually went through and collated all the data and lo and behold it was much more than what it was that there was at least 100 people I've got the names, I've got their sobriety dates. They come from three separate lists of people. Doesn't seem to be something that's this big of a deal to this group but you know with the sobriete dates with all the different back and forth they were able to verify by name by name not numbers. By name the first hundred people that over 61 of them stayed sober from the gate and another 13 after having a few drinks here and there did indeed stay sober after that. So two out of three. And so just to let you know that those numbers are indeed... There was one thing that was... Another interesting thing that he said, and one of the documents that he uses is that Bill Wilson had a first edition book that he wrote the person's name and their sobriety date in and also on the back page other people that came in, and he listed them as ones, twos, and threes. One is people that come and stayed sober. Two was people that cam and had a couple of slips along the way, and three was what they called failures. So like Hank Parkhurst, the unbeliever in the first book who was really the driving force behind the writing of the book. I mean, he was a co-founder of AA Straight Forward, but he drank in 1939 and never sobered again, so he was a failure. But in this, Bill says that I've placed here as failures five who attended three or four meetings at most. So of this 100 people, he's counting as failures people who only attended a few meetings. these men I feel were exposed to our idea did not take the treatment if we leave those out who really if we include only those who really tried the program for three months or more our percentage of success climbs to 72.2 percent two out of three or three out of four excuse me now the thing that's interesting to me about that statement what does he say is really trying 90 days ago into meetings is that where 90 meetings and going to 90 meetings in 90 days started no because they didn't have 90 meetings but 90 days being a shot at really being exposed to the thing for 90 days was really trying not having a sponsor working this step blah blah you know all the wonderful things that I've said at different times this is what really trying means but anyway so that's a little thing on the first 78 anybody got questions yeah there was a hundred you want the names they're right here no no I mean that's it there were there were a hundred uh and um and if anybody's got a AA history question I don't mean to seem irritated about that but it's just one of those things that um that uh I'm sorry if if we're not using the time to be more more helpful to more people. What part in history did like more women start going in and more people that weren't at the challenge of getting drunk start being more openly coming in? Well, the explosion, so the question was when did Alcoholics Anonymous start to grow demographically? I would say that we could probably say about 1945 to 1948. 1948, after the Second World War, well, actually the most precise answer would be the movement only starts to grow after Jack Alexander's article in the Saturday Evening Post. And that blew the thing up nationwide. And it changed everything about the movement. But after the Second World War, you've got a huge – because a lot of people that were in the Army, they've gone back home. And then Alcoholics Anonymous is still getting into one or two major magazines a year. People are hearing more and more about it. The movie comes out – I don't know when the – I think the last weekend comes out until about 55 or 58 with Ray Milland. But anyway, but I'd say after the Second World War is when it really blew up. We're from an area in Southern California where in 1948 there's probably 200 meetings just in a small area around Los Angeles. I think the other thing you've got to consider too when you talk about when did it open up and it was more than just gutter drunks. the guys that founded this thing were not gutter drunks they were mostly white middle class professional guys that had drank their souls away but you're not talking about guys off the Bowery it was very middle class very white and they had a real struggle letting other people in we could get into some stories I think my esteemed historian friend here maybe the difference between Akron and New York in that is quite different than the folks that were coming in but yes sir I'm going to piggyback off what Brenda said there my knowledge I think we can start off with the oxygen out of that 100 that you mentioned one thing I do really like about Dr. Bob and Bill W is their open in this first hundred I don't I think we've got maybe three or four women I don't know there isn't any there isn t any notation about any beauty be an African American, but given the fact that it's 1939, I doubt that we've got any African American members coming in yet. How many people here ever listen to XA Radio? Or, I mean, xaspeakers.org? There's a website. It's called xa-speakers.com. There is a great treasure on there. there's a guy by the name of barry l the talks in montreal in 1980 and it's to the first gay and lesbian meeting at an international convention and in it he tells the story because he was the guy at the door when veronica which is they called him veronika because he is wearing the the blonde wig the african-american transsexual or not transsectoral but cross-dressing junkie alcoholic shows up and he's there and he tells the story about what that whole thing and how it came down and it's a lovely story and that but the punch line in it is they call bill up and then he goes through his lit you know it's kind he's like and bill says is he alcoholic and the guy says clearly he says that's the only question we can answer well then that's that's beauty of the traditions right and bill pushed very hard for the traditions and they didn't really weren't welcome because it was changing or but if you think about how we're all here today because the only requirement for aa is a desire to stop drinking you don't even have to stop drinking to be a member of alcoholics anonymous or a lot of us wouldn't be here because it took a while but that came from forged wisdom based on many mistakes like much of the traditions if you read why they're there it's because they tried the opposite and it didn't work i'm sorry there's a great story too about wilson went to a prison and out of that prison he there'sa couple of guy black guys there that he invited to the meeting they show up and the rest of the guys in the meeting didn't want them in there and they took a vote and voted not to have them be in the meeting. So Wilson in his brilliance goes back into the room, he takes the guys out puts them in the kitchen, goes back in the room and he says let's take another vote whether black people should have the program should they have the programme like we do and they all voted well of course and he goes great I'm going to bring them in as observers so they can carry it to their community and he brought him in I think I love that story. That's Wilson Yes sir You were talking about the third condition it talks about somebody who wants to join a group that absolutely, you know, it freaks everybody out. They say, no, we cannot have this person because this person is so afflicted that they would even bring us all down and all that. And I've heard different versions. I've read that it was maybe Marty Mann who was a lesbian and then I heard that there was a transvestite who worked for him. This one's in Akron also. This one is in Akran. Veronica is in New York. The reason I mentioned Veronica is that we've got a guy that was there telling the story about this type of thing the story that's in the 12 and 12 is from Akron and that's the one where Bob says and again it's he's a sex deviant homosexual not one that could pass I mean it's that bad and so well no I mean there's this whole thing in that there's there's a whole we just This past – it will be available on – it'll be available for you to download the whole conference, the 2016 conference, for $20. But we had a woman give a talk on the first LBTQ members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And she went through this very weird thing where they're talking about how the whole thing in those days was being able to pass. That's the only way you could survive. But there were some people that just couldn't. They couldn't pass. And this guy that showed up in Akron was somebody that couldn't past. And he said, Bob, I'm a sex deviant. and not only that, I'm a drug addict. And so they went through this thing, and they're going to have the vote, and Bob says, after everybody, it's really clear that they're gonna boot this guy out. And then Bob lays the line on him. Well, what would the master do? And everybody goes, well, let him in, of course. You know, so that's the... Yeah. Well, isn't it true they didn't want women in originally because the men would sleep with them? Well, no, that was Bob. It was Bob? Bob Smith is the guy who said, behind every skirt there's a slip. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and he didn't – he was not interested in it being open to women. And we all know that the truth is the men aren't safe because now there's women in here. Yeah. It's my experience. I have a question that I've always wanted to ask and I don't know who else to ask because I'd like to know if it's true or if it isn't but I read somewhere that Bill had gone to Ohio and had said, I think to Clarence Schneider and to Bob. He wanted to see why the program seemed to be, more people seem to be staying sober in Ohio than were staying soberly in New York. And what I read was that Clarence Snyder said to Bill, it's because in Ohio the program is trust God, clean house, help others and in New Europe the program was don't drink and go to meetings. And I have personal experience with a lot of don't Well, you know, I think that really if you take a look at it, everybody that comes in in Akron just about is going through a hospital with a doctor. It gives an entirely different credence than the guys that are doing stuff at Clinton Street. It's an entirely difference thing. They came up with a medical protocol. People are coming from all over for that. it's a medical deal in New York they don't have that and that's why the skew I mean the prince of the 12 steppers they showed up at his work for Christ sakes you know I mean we can get into all that structure of the meeting whether what that had to do with but I don't I don t the the primary documents that I have about the structure of meetings of what they were doing with people in new york in 1938 1939 they're getting them down on their knees there too you know but it's not that's not part of the popular thing you know it's this dr bob's been hijacked by a bunch of people that had an agenda and he was a much more open-minded person than uh than then he's given credit for but i think it's i think what's really medical protocol more than anything we had a patient man waiting here. Go ahead. This is an honest question. Is AA still growing? I tracked the published and of course their only estimate from the General Service Office of the inventories in the 90s in the early part of the century and the numbers were flat for at least 10 years or so, 2 million, and it stopped. And I wondered if that's your perception. Mr. The answer is absolutely. You, sir, appear to be part of a generation of people that came through. They had three generations of alcoholics that if they had insurance all got swept into AA simultaneously. It's a tsunami that will never, ever happen again. You will never have that kind of a peak. You won't have it, number one. Number two, personally my experience is, especially internationally, that Cocaine Anonymous is incredibly effective. And people that were coming to AA in the early and mid-80s, they've got their own separate fellowship now. So I mean, yeah, it's flat, but you've got another 15 maybe anonymous groups that have started up. Mr. In our home group, the Monday Night Men's Stag in Hermosa Beach, when I joined the home group The median age was, what, 40 maybe or 35? Yeah, 40. And it was 100 people roughly. Since I joined, a couple of groups have taken big chunks out of the meeting out of resentment, which we find perfectly fine and we will discuss later. But they go start their own meetings, and now the median age is in the 20s. Absolutely. Because we have teenagers. So that's how things grow, right? the youth and there was uh you know there's there's a lot of reasons that happened but these guys are carrying the message like nobody's business you know and you met one of them if you met josh when he was out here before he came in very young 18 came to our group with that influx of youth and uh they took over our damn meeting i'm just glad they let me still come We have to send him money sometimes we have to underwrite his seat I lost the war You know, the other thing that you have to consider when you're looking at the statistics that come out of New York you really have to look at how the census is compiled structurally, how do they actually do it and there's a great report recovery statistics that I'd be happy to send you if you're really that interested You can pour over it, and it's very enlightening. It's hard to get through because it's statistics, you know? What they did twice is they changed the basis for gathering the numbers. Well, as you know, as anybody that went to school knows, if you've changed it, you just start over now because you've change how it's compiled, and they've done that twice. You take that and you combine it with the number of 12-step programs depending upon what list you look at it's 150 200 maybe even 300 different 12-step programs now you look cocaine anonymous narcotics anonymous you know there's heroin anonymous now that's very big in Phoenix you know I spoke at their first their fundraiser for their first international convention they filled this hall remember that yeah I couldn't believe it and the reason for it is is a couple of guys from aa started this thing because they'd go into prisons they'd say the aa meetings here and nobody would come so one of them got a bright idea being creative as we are you know he walks in he goes uh we're heroin anonymous they filled the room these guys were 60 years old that started this yes over 30 35 years sober jan black's husband and another guy and uh they just i mean it just so they started having meetings on the outside but when these guys get out they could come to meetings right and you're not talking about the old line heroin addict the guy that's sleeved tattooed from head to toe and he's a biker and he's gangster these are kids these are children you know fun loving criminals yeah fun loving criminals with tattoos and you know but it's not it's not the same kind of heroin addict that i grew up with you know so we've addressed the marketplace now there would have been a time where all of these guys would be trying to assimilate into alcoholics anonymous so i think if you want to see the growth in recovery from addictive diseases you have to look at the entire thing if you you look at the entire thing it's gone through the roof the number of people that are in recovery well and i don't want to open this can of worms too wide but you know there's been some articles lately in psychology magazines about the effectiveness of alcoholics anonymous and you know i work in medicine and i work on clinical trials i study clinical trials for my job and the only thing i have to say about those articles is first of all they're written with the person who has the agenda, that therapy's more successful than AA. And secondly, how many people have been to a therapist only once and didn't do anything they said? So I wonder if they lumped them into the statistical group, right? So if we went around in the street and said, have you been to an AA meeting? Lots and lots of people might say yes. And they go, are you still sober? No. Okay. AA doesn't work. AA does not work. Well, did you stay for three months and get a sponsor and work all 12 steps? That's a different statistical analysis. Then do they include every single person that went to one therapy session, didn't do anything they said? I doubt it. I think they include somebody who went through that. So I think we don't get into that controversy. The proof that AA works is right here. Well, and I've got to lay another thing on this just because I have experience. Sorry. One of the things I do is I go to the international. When I go to the international, one of the things I do is I go to different meetings that have different things. And medicine and AA is always a fascinating, fascinating one. And at this latest one in Atlanta, they had Dr. Leonard Blumenthal give a presentation on the MATCH study. And the MATCh study has been going on now for 25 years. Statistically double-blind thing. and they have proven the 12-step recovery is superior to any other form of therapy, whatever. And we're talking about the high-priced analysis that only a few people can get. So, I mean, we've got the numbers, but as a membership, we're not aware of that. We just hear this stuff from the outside. They have no idea how many meetings there are, much less how many people are in AA. I'm telling you they have no idea when you study how they compile the census Was there at any time where they thought that they should maybe put a time limit on how long you spent on the steps? Okay, interesting question. The question is, is there any data that in the old days that people worked steps more quickly or any prescribed thing? No. not only that the guy who wrote the steps said the steps are only to be taken in whatever order and however many is between that man and his god i think he should be fired kick him out right now you're killing alcoholics can you say that i got the letter but that's always brings up whenever i hear somebody in an aa meeting say why work the steps i could do a lot of jail and prison work now right because i was trying to get connected i worked ed past tense the steps i immediately discount whatever comes out of their mouth next because i've read this literature and it costs and throughout the steps this is a lifetime job this is goes on forever this it is not like you work the steps the steps is a dynamic thing you we're still sitting here i'm going to do a fifth step with him on may 16th right it's in the books and we we these steps are if you want to evolve spiritually you don't stop you know following the map so that's the that's just my two cents about that i was getting kind of turned off by that yeah i was just wondering like in the beginning what they considered a failure would be like uh someone a dry drunk no no no it was somebody that that had left the meetings and they knew was drinking okay so there's one one was still sober we know where they are two was after a few slips had come back and stuck three was what they called the failure now also lumped in the failure of the of the hundred people there were 17 that were missing so they counted them as a failure because they weren't connected. Any other, Brent? I've got three different lists one from Bill wilson one from akron and dr bob's hand and the other one from chicago that pre-1940 that shows the names and the sobriety dates of the people you just wonder where the myth of the 78 oh certain a historians have been known to say it yeah yeah this is this is called making amends at a public level No, it's true. I mean, I can't tell you how much over the years that as I've gone further and further into the primary documents, I found out that some of the things that I was most vociferous about and that I was very, very clear about from the data that I could collect, none of which though was primary document that i i uh there's a another one that that's this thing about bill being a womanizer it's it's a canard there's nothing to it the man had a mistress do you know what a mistress is i didn't know because i'm a feminist i always thought it was a bad word it's a long-term love affair with somebody other than your spouse that is known by all parties this idea that when bill went out there was a old timers watch that watched him it's it comes from one guy and you can you can follow the evidence to find out where it came from. And it's just not true. You know, part of where the 78 came from is Bill and Bob sat down and made a list, a handwritten list, of people that they knew that were sober or questionable or the one, twos, and threes. And they came up with 45 names, and they got really excited by that like this thing is working now this was early on 1936 yeah and so from the 78 that you're asking the question where did that come from well a lot of people knew about that list i think probably just added a few more as time had gone on because they wrote that preface in 39 the first to the first edition you know so when he says that there was a hundred that just automatically took exception to that somebody came up said there weren't 100 i've heard 78 i've read 72 you know but i repeated it too for a long time you know i made kind of a joke out of it the bill was a promoter you know and when i heard that i was there at that presentation too and i talked to the guy for a long time afterwards he actually found that handwritten list by bill and bob in a box in somebody's attic you know he found the original list you should have seen how thrilled when he told the story he was like a little kid in a candy story he pulls out he goes oh my god here it is you know and then he didn't tell the guy whose box it was because he said oh this is interesting can i have a copy so you know i mean it just it came out of somebody pulled it out of their butt yeah yes sir broad question but i guess i i've always gotten a sense from people i've talked to that a the program changed a lot but I also hear from different people that people work the steps differently at the beginning whether that be very quickly or all in a day and I tend to get a sense that there used to be this very pure program and then we're ruining it every day since we have not grown in effectiveness and understanding since Clarence Snyder quit working with people in Cleveland he's kidding well that's what I'm sorry that's what this whole thing is about is about the difference in the way that we have we were given the program and how we've gone about more in a unified way sharing it, but each with our own flavor. But this is – I'm very much a third edition guy. I was given the program before the hospital programs were telling us what Alcoholics Anonymous was. I was there with the reaction to that. When we're in meetings staying sober and a guy comes in and says, I've been in this Hospital and they told me I got five years' worth of sobriety, information of sobriet. That's what they were sent out into the meetings with. But back to the people have worked the steps in a day. I took three weeks to get going. But it was a different time and a different era. We were busy working with drunks. We didn't have time to spend a lot of time on self-reflection. This whole idea of self-examination and the way we know it today was, I mean, a fifth step. I mean one of the reasons why the Catholic Church was very, very hesitant about supporting Alcoholics Anonymous was it was people hearing confession who were not qualified to hear it. Now this is pre-psychology. I mean psychology's out but it's not stuff that you're learning about in school and the like. People are talking about things that had never been spoken about openly in society. Well, and you know, the wisdom of the founders and the humility of this promoter we keep bagging on was we realize we know only a little, more will be revealed. That's wisdom because they had watched what happened and knew they weren't responsible for the whole thing. And Bob Bazant answered this question. Basically your question is has AA lost its edge? right and we addressed that last time we were here and if you didn't it was seven years ago get the tapes we talk a lot about that but one of the things that he said that i think is so perfect is he said you know beware of orthodoxy and alcoholics anonymous the thing that keeps alcoholics synonymous honest is alcohol as long as there are people dying of alcoholism there has to be some place to go to recover and we are all sitting in this room a long time after this program was founded and i can say without unequivocally i am in pure recovery right and i'm in and josh he's 20 years younger than me he's in pure discovery that's available because it's needed and and if you if you have that feeling that it's it's losing its edge be the change you want to see but we don't we go all over the world and believe me there are strong AA soldiers everywhere. And we can send you the statistical stuff about this. I mean, it's really... This guy has been... Oh, sorry. Yeah. What are the origins of the Akron manual and why is it not such a prominent piece of literature that readily available at like 12 and 12? Well, that's a... Okay. The question is, why is es that the Akran manual is not... Is this a plant, H-A-G, is not a readily available piece of literature, as like the 12 and 12 is or white. So how many people have heard of the Akron Manual? Uh-oh. Pull it out, big guy. I got it. Okay. Bill's going to do about five minutes. I'll do a little setup for you. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous comes out. Akron had nothing to do with the writing of the big book. How's that for a little controversy? It was a New York deal, and they didn't like those people. They didn't want any part of it. Any part ofit. The book comes out, Bob takes a look at it and says, it's not going to help the blue-collared man. We need something. So he gets his friend Ernie, his fishing buddy, to write a few things and they were called the akron manual and uh why don't you do that and i'll do um i'll use spiritual milestones okay so this is written this is the akran response to the big book and it's still available you can get it online from the akaron intergroup you can google it online but give money to the akram intergroup because they need it and they're really good people, okay? And so this is what they were doing as opposed to the big book. One of the things people ask about sponsorship, it's not in the book. It's because the book was designed for people that couldn't have sponsors. 1940, 1941, something like that. Okay, these are just excerpts in the record man. You might get a kick out of this but Yeah, thanks it says here Explain that we are not in the business of sobering up drunks merely to have them go on another bender Explain that our aim is total and permanent sobriety There's never any mention of one day at a time in this thing Definition of an alcoholic anonymous an alcoholic anonymous is an alcoholic who through application of and adherence to the rules laid down by the organization has completely forsworn the use of any and all alcoholic beverages the moment he wittingly takes a drink so much as a drop of beer, wine spirits or any other alcoholic drink he automatically loses all status as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous what about kombucha? a.a is not interested in sobering up drunks who are not sincere in their desire to remain completely sober at all time to the newcomer it is your life it is your choice if you are not completely convinced to your own satisfaction that you are an alcoholic that your life has become unmanageable if you're not ready to part with alcohol forever it would be better for all concerned if you discontinue reading this and give up the idea of becoming a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. You're out, loser. You'll love this, ladies. To the ladies. Which are very separate from the God and different kinds of alcoholics, evidently. If we seem to slight you in this booklet, it is not intentional. We merely use the masculine pronouns he and him for convenience. We fully realize that alcohol shows no partiality. It does not respect age, sex, nor estate. The millionaire drunk on the best scotch and the poor man drunk on the cheapest rock gut look like twin brothers when they are in a hospital bed or the gutter. The only difference between a female and male drunk is that the former is likely to be treated with a little more consideration and courtesy, although generally she does not deserve it. get in the car every word in this pamphlet applies to women as well as men a word to the sponsor you must fulfill all pledges you make to him either tangible or intangible if you cannot fulfill a promise do not make it you have in your hands the most valuable property in the world the future of a fellow man treat his life as carefully as you would your own, you are literally responsible for his life. That's pretty heavy. Alcoholics Anonymous is 100% effective for those who faithfully follow the rules. It is those who try to cut corners who find themselves back in their old drunken state. Before long, you will have a new thrill, the thrill of helping someone else. There is no greater satisfaction in the world than watching the progress of a new alcoholic anonymous. No whiskey in the world can give you this thrill. Above all, remember this, keep the rules in mind. As long as you follow them, you are on firm ground but the least deviation and you are vulnerable. Big about rules and structure. As a new member, remember that you are one of the most important cogs in the machinery of AA. Without the work of the new member AA could not have grown as it has. You will bring into this work a fresh enthusiasm, the zeal of a crusader. You will want everyone to share with you the blessings of this new life. You will be tireless in your efforts to help others and it is a splendid enthusiasm. Cherish it as long as you can. For you are ready to sponsor some other poor alcoholic who is desperately in need of help, both human and divine. So God bless you and keep you. I love this one. This next one is very, very good. You aren't very important in this world. If you lose your job, someone better will replace you. If you die, your wife will mourn briefly and then remarry. Your children will grow up and you will be but a memory. In the last analysis, you are the only one who benefits by your sobriety. Seek to cultivate humility. Remember that cockiness leads to a speedy fall. So you can tell they were already having trouble with this stuff. Medical men will tell you that alcoholics are all alike in at least one respect. They are emotionally immature. In other words, alcoholics have not learned to think like adults. at meetings don't criticize the leader he has his own problems and is doing his best to solve them help him along by standing up and saying a few words he will appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness don't criticise the methods of others strangely enough you may change your own ideas as you become older in sobriety remember there are a dozen roads from new York to Chicago, but they all land in Chicago. How soon you will be cured of a desire to drink is another matter. That depends entirely upon how quickly you can succeed in changing your fundamental outlook on life. For as your outlook changes for the better, desire will become less pronounced until it disappears almost entirely. It may be weeks, it may be months. Your sincerity and your capacity for working with others on the AA program will determine the length of time. so they don't say working the steps it's working with others that's what they were doing they weren't working steps like we do my father got sober in 1954 in los angeles and he never wrote an inventory he never made amends not like we duke that isn't what they are doing and it wasn't what they were doing when i came in yeah it wasn t until around that time in the 70s 80s where this whole emphasis on the books started these groups like the denver young people's group you know came out of denver and the primary purpose guys now and and a lot of these other groups you know i mean this is what it's all about even the pacific group they're not really big in steps you know I mean they do it they do the work but they're not thump book thumpers you know and what we have now is like really breaking this thing down and working it and i think for the most part it's better the 12 steps alcoholics anonymous is based on a set of laws known as the 12 step years of experience have definitely proved that those who live up to these rules remain sober those who gloss over or ignore any one rule are in constant danger of returning to a life of drunkenness thousands of words could be written on each rule lack of space prevents so they are merely listed here it is suggested that they be explained by a sponsor if he cannot explain them he should provide someone who can that's little excerpts from the akron manual so these guys are like this is not a vision for you you know this is not promises this is like work it and if you don't you're going to die and we don't really care because there will be another person in the chair and so this is the message that was coming from Akron but another thing along those lines is there's another part of these Diakron pamphlets. There's five of them. Two of them are blended here. There's another one on how to speak in a meeting. We never use that because it says, never talk over 20 minutes. So we never use the Diakrons. We've never used that pamphlet at all. We've grown past that. But there's one called Spiritual Milestones in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now again, this is the Akron response to the big book. and the entire pamphlet up until the end is really good mid-century, mid-19th century Christian consciousness because that's where these guys all came from. But at the end when they're finishing they're talking about that all ethical religions practice the same precepts that are in the 12 steps. Example and this is from Akron in 1940-1941 followers of Mohammed are taught to help the poor, give shelter to the homeless and the traveler and to conduct themselves with personal dignity consider the eight-part program laid down in buddhism right view right aim right speech right action right living right effort right mindedness and right contemplation the Buddhist philosophy as exemplified by these eight points could literally be adopted by AA as a substitute for or an addition to the twelve steps generosity, universal love and welfare of others rather than the considerations of self are what is important now if I would say that in my home group Hey, I just got done reading the Upanishads. I got done reading the Dhammapada and I think that the Eightfold Path could be a substitute for the 12 Steps to Alcoholics Anonymous. How quickly would they burn me at the stake? This is from Akron and this is from Dr. Bob and his four best friends, the oldest guys at the time. So when we think about, well it was a Christian program, that's not what Bob was doing he relied on the good book, but his son Smitty said that he was interested in all kinds of stuff and if you take a look at the library and the books that he Was reading, he was reading Oshpinsky, he Was Reading the Dhammapada, he Was reading all kinds Of stuff looking to get a spiritual experience like build head one more question and we're gonna move on next I'm not saying I agree with everything it seems to me when I hear like that direct approach I know I'm six years so When I hear the direct approach, it's more effective. And I say I agree with everything they're saying there. But I like that direct approach. I like the fact that this is my doomsday. It's death or life. And I think that's, to me, what is missing. No, it is not missing because you are carrying it. That's why the guys and gals between two and eight years sober are the best sponsors because that's the consciousness. Come on, man. We can do it. I'll tell you something about that, Eric. That's a good point. You know, one of the things that I take umbrage at is when I go to meetings and I hear people say my sponsor thumped me in the chest and called me stupid because I've read this book a number of times and it repeatedly tells you not to do that over and over again and it's because they tried it and people died. I tried it, and people died. So I want to counter that and tell you a little story because I'd rather give you my experience than my opinion. I had a guy that had to come live with me because he was dying of alcoholism. His liver was gone, and he had nowhere to go. He couldn't go back home because every couple weeks drug dealers came and beat him up until they gave him money for stuff he didn't get. And he lived in my trailer. And I'd go out there, and I'd read the book with him and do my morning meditation with him. And at night, I'd come and take him, put him in the car, and we'd go to meetings. and he started waking up a little, and getting brighter, and I thought, man, I'm really having an impact on this guy, huge impact onthis guy, and then one day, he's going to move out from my trailer in my driveway, and before we left, he goes, I need to talk to you, and okay, and he goes, hey, in the morning, it's important before you leave for work that you do the dishes, because Philippa can't do the dishe,s and I do the dish. In the afternoon, we vacuum, and mop, and sweep, and we make the beds and Phillip has only got one hand he may want to help her with that and sometimes she needs help chopping stuff up for dinner at night what was helping Mike was not me and all the bullshit coming out of my mouth but he became part of something where he could contribute and help him be loved and cared about and he wanted to live in it so I never thumped that guy on the chest and called him stupid and I mistakenly thought I was raising him from the dead and it was my wife saying mike mop mike can you cut the vegetables and you know i that's why we're here kind of because we don't want to tell you our experience at just three years and five years and six years this has never stopped revealing itself just we call each other all the time good dude you won't believe what just happened yeah we do and you won'T believe what we just found out I was wrong about right yeah sandy beach is big about that this is a constant revelation of what you're wrong about so you're perfect where you're supposed to be you are going to help people that we wouldn't help right now but i like that your your approach to the question was open-mindedness so we actually want to get into the fruits of sponsorship right you guys need a break yeah all right