Beginners Class Workshop – Part 1 of 2 – 2025 – Frank M.

It's a privilege to introduce our speaker this morning, and I can only say never underestimate the power of a cassette tape. When I was very new in the program, I was given a tape from my sponsor, and that person on the tape was the person who was going to lead the workshop this morning. Frank M. from the Lamont Oaks Group in Chicago. Thank you. My name is Frank, and I'm an alcoholic. Glad to be here. My sobriety date is November 3rd, 1971. That means that since that date in 1971, I have not had the grace to stand you. To stand me. To stand where I live. Where I work. To react to disappointment. To celebrate good forces. That's what I'll call a synonymous. What we're going to do is I'm going to ask you to relax. I didn't come here to preach to you or teach you anything. I want you to understand that I'm here as a volunteer. I don't get paid for this. I don' t get anything. I get a little embarrassed sometimes when I hear these announcements about these tapes. It sounds, people that don't know think that there's some kind of a commercialism. That's not the case. I'm not associated with that, nor do I get anything from that, okay? So if your defense mechanism is built up, who the hell is this guy? I'm going to tell you, I'm nobody. I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. You don't have to pay any attention to anything I say. What I say is not the truth. What I see is what I perceive, what I've learned and what I'm observed for over 20 years of continuous sobriety. I'm here to share that with you. If you walk out of here saying, I don't like that guy, that's perfectly okay. Because if I was new, I probably wouldn't like me either. Have you stick around, you'll really like this. I've made certain discoveries. I want to share those discoveries with you. What you learn here today may be the difference, or be part of the difference. At least it's going to be partof the puzzle of what the hell alcohol synonymous is about and what you're supposed to do. And that's all this is, so I want you to participate and I wantyou to relax. This is not going to be a long, tedious day. We're going to do it easy and we're going to take breaks and you're going to ask the questions you want to ask and we are not going play any games, we are no going to have any masks, we are going to try to impress anybody. That's not what this is about. We are not goign to measure anybody by their questions or their comments. That's now what this was about. Alcoholics and alcoholics we don't measure people. We are no goign convince anybody not to drink either. Because whether you drink or not, I really don't care. This is not a treatment center. And Alcoholics Anonymous is a little different sometimes because sometimes people think in AlcoholicsAnonymous our function is to convince you not to drink. It's impossible to convince somebody not to Drink. If you want to drink, you're going to drink it. The greatest drinkers in the world aren't going to keep you from drinking if you want to drink them. A little bit of alcohol synonymous is to share the experience with people who've not thought they never could stop drinking and did, without to share that with other people who want to do that and don't know how. Now, there's a big difference. There's not a scare tactic. And if you recover from alcoholism or not doesn't matter to me because there's nothing in it for me. That's one of the most wonderful things about alcohol synonymus. and you go to alcoholics and amethyst beings, you're going to find that you can trust those people because there's nothing in it for them. If your life gets better for you, how does that improve their life? All my life, people told me what to do, but they had a motive. And I knew they didn't understand, so I never listened to them. There's no motive here. If you make it or don't make it, our lives, those people's lives, are not improved. The only catch to Alcoholics Anonymous is if something special happens to you as a result of your participation in Alcoholics Anonymous, and if your life has improved as a result of that, it won't keep happening unless you offer to others. Now that's the catch. Alcoholics anonymous says the catch. If you got it, you want to keep it, you've got to be willing to give it away. Now you can't give away something you don't have. So if you don't have it, don't worry about it. You're not supposed to have it. If you're new, you're not opposed to having it. If you are new, you're not supposed even understand a lot of the things about alcohol synonyms. But you're going to understand everything we talk about here today. I'm going to tell you, I want to thank you for taking your hat off. I know you, I like hats too. I'm kind of an outdoors guy, so I spend all my time that I can out in the woods or fields hunting and fishing. And I always wear a hat. You know why I don't wear a have today means out of a sense of dignity. I won't wear a hat in church. This is my church. This is our religion. Religion is a system of belief. That's what Alcoholics Anonymous is. So, I take my hat off when I come to an Alcoholics and Anonymous meeting because it sends the acknowledgement of dignity of the place that I'm at. Well, I appreciate that you said that. It's not a matter of defiance. It' s not a matter of your right. There's no more important place for me to be in than a meeting of alcoholics and honest. It's more important for me here than it is to be here in the White House, and I never sit down with the President of the United States with my hat on. Right? Matter of courtesy. I acknowledge by that surrender that I want to fit in. I don't want to be different. I do not want to demand my right to do what I want do. Because as long as I And as long as I did that, I was doing the dream. I'll tell you the reason I'm here. The reason I am here, one of the reasons I am here, of course the real reason is because I have to give it away and keep it, and I've got it. I mean, what I've gotten is that I've got a recovery that I never thought possible. It doesn't mean I'm a wonderful person and my life is just without any difficulty. That's not what it means at all. But I'll say it again. I'll show you what's happened here. I'm not the same person that I used to be. And I didn't think that would ever be possible. I thought I was going to be doomed to live as me for the rest of my life. The me that I knew back in November 1971. But I'm not that same person. And if the person that came in here on November 3, 1971 was standing up here and then on this side was the me that's standing here today, you wouldn't even see. You'd say, those are two different people. That's what Alcoholics Anonymous offers to you and it offers to me and it offered to a lot of people. One of the motivators so that I'm here, I think, is that something changed in my life about five years ago. Although I've been doing this for I don't know how long but for about ten years, Joe. I think the classes 81 and 82 was our first beginner's class. And where I come from we do this. We have a beginner's course. And the purpose of it is to give you information that you might be able to use to help yourself. And we do it on a regular basis, and my hats are off to you guys for coming here. Because if you come here, just by being here, you're ahead of the game. Your presence here means that you think it's important enough to take time out of your busy life to sit on a chair in a room and hear somebody you don't know and you're sure it's going to bore you. But you're willing to take that risk. That's an important surrender. But about five years ago, Alcoholics Anonymous published its survey. Every five years, AlcoholicsAnonymous, World Service Organization, publishes a survey of its membership. And what they do is they send out survey forms like any other census and they sent them all over the world to groups. And what those groups do is they fill out that form. I meant to bring that survey here and I forgot to do it. But I wanted to show it to you because I wanted you to understand why it's so important that we're going to do what we're doing here today. You're going have to take my word for what it says but I tell you what I say it says it really says and if you have any doubt I'll send it to you but if you don't believe me then we're going to make a little bet because if it says what I see what I stay it says you have to send some money to your central office and if it doesn't I'll sends the money to your Central Office it really says what it said so I called back there and I said read the census to me because I want to be able to tell them exactly what it says. Now, there's going to be a new census done in Alcoholics Anonymous and published shortly. It won't be much different than this because this was not much different from the one before. It may change by a percentage or two. Here's what the census of AlcoholicsAnonymous last reported. the survey concluded as a result of all of the answering of the questions by the groups that 33% of all the membership of Alcoholics Anonymous present then in Alcoholics Anonymous was less than one year sober. 33%. 38% was one to five years sober. Okay? 29% were sober more than five years. That means that 71% of all the people in Alcoholics Anonymous had less than five year of continuous sobriety. And then to top it off, they did an average. The average of all membership was 52 months. and I read that and I was frightened because I said to myself that's nuts we've had 57 years to accumulate people in Alcoholics Anonymous that census should be 71% of the people have more than 10 years that's what it should say or 5 years It's upside down That's fair It doesn't even conform to society Where are you from, Don? Here Where are your friends from? Where are they from, hon? Boca Grande I don't know anything about Boca Grand Is it a village, a town? It's an island How big is it? 7 miles long. How many people are there? 2,000. How many babies? Babies. I want to think all the people in Boca Grande, is it? We divide them up. We have more babies? Older people? Well, forget areas that may be slanted because of retirement type. If you go to Wichita, Kansas Billings, Montana where people don't generally go to retire just the typical place that people live and sort them out anywhere in the world you do this and sort him out. People over 30 over here and 10 over here and from 10 to babies here Who's your biggest group? Of course, by far. That's reality. So it's supposed to be. Because Wichita Candidate has been there a long time. So has AA. So I said to myself, either AA doesn't work or something's wrong. Now by this time, I'm sober a lot of years when I read that survey. And I say to myself think about that. And I did think about it. When I came into Alcoholics Anonymous in 1971, every room was full. Every room was filled with people. I'm not so nuts and self-centered to think that when I came in, all of a sudden that was the beginning of AlcoholicsAnonymous. It was full of people. Every room. Meetings everywhere. Everywhere there were people that were meeting. When this was a sleepy little village in April, Florida, I was here. There were meetings at Alcoholicsanonymous. And it was a sleepy little village. Wherever there were people, there were meetings of alcoholics and amethysts and those meetings were full. And I thought back to myself, geez, in the first year I came, there were a lot of guys and gals that came in with me and they're all gone. It's all gone! Oh, there's one here and one there, but for the most part, they're are gone. And you know, in 1972 when I had a year of sobriety, a lot people came in, guys and girls, and they are all gone, Most of them are all gone. Seventy-three, we're really in our missionary stage. You'll get in that. That's when you have very little knowledge and you can't wait to share it with somebody. Oh, God. But I think we do a lot of good in our missionaries. You know why? Because we have enthusiasm. We have enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm is contagious. But a lot of people came into Alcoholics Anonymous, and most of them are gone. So I said to myself, now wait a minute, either this doesn't work or something's wrong. And I'm going to tell you something, I believe it works. I believe It Works because I'm still here and a lot other people are still here, so it has to work. But what's wrong then? Maybe it's the way we tell people what it is. Maybe since 1935 and 1939 when the book Alcoholics Anonymous was printed, maybe we started to water this thing down. Trying to get people to accept it. Maybe we're trying to sell this thing. So that if you don't like its taste, we water it down so it tastes good to you. Maybe it's the idea we're so anxious to make you accept it that we sell it out. I tell you, if you put some whiskey in a glass and you add some water, and you have some more water. And you add more water and you had some more water, you have to more water If you've got enough water, you won't drink it Just throw it out Because it doesn't work You put enough water on that whiskey It doesn't make any sense It doesn' t work and you're not going to drink it You just won't drinking Because it's not going work A shot of whiskey in a pint of water Give me a break So we've done the Alcoholics Anonymous some places, and it happened where I live. I don't know if it happened here. So what we're going to do is I'm going to tell you what I think is the real fact and maybe give you those tools that you can build something out of. This is a program about change. You changing you. this has very little to do with drinking. There are two kinds of alcoholics, I think. I think, remember, you don't have to believe anything I say. I think I observe. First kind, wonderful person, never had any real problems, loves who they are, gets along with everybody, just thinks so much, gets in a lot of trouble, stops drinking and becomes again a wonderful person without a lot problems. She just gets along with everybody. I don't know anything about that kind of alcoholic. Then there's another alcoholic who can hardly ever remember being happy, who hardly has any sense of self-image. who's carrying secrets around all her life, dirty secrets, shameful secrets, feels weak, scared, different, rebellious, sorry, mad, subject to depression, haunted by anxiety, visited by financial and every other insecurity, and who when they drank, those things improved. And like the effect of alcohol and drink to have those things improve. I know a lot about that kind of alcoholic. If you're one of those, this is going to make sense to you. If you are the first kind, you're a finished product. I stand before you as part of that second group, and I'm not a finished product. I'm a constant evolving, learning, trying to be a better guy. Who knows things now after being sober 20 years that they didn't know when I was 10 years sober? When I was 2 years sober, I had a lot of opinions about Alcoholics Anonymous. I thought I knew a lot. I knew all the answers. When I Was 5 Years Sober, I was embarrassed by what I publicly had said when I was two years sober. When I was ten years sober, I realized how sick I was when I were five years sober When I celebrated my 20th day anniversary, I knew that I knew the question. and do the questions. The answers are going to do the questions. You can't get the answer unless you know the questions. I know the questions, I think. And the answers will always elude me. And that's what I'll do for the rest of my life, trying to find the answers. And that is an adventure in living. That's not a chore. that's not a punishment, that's painful. It's an exciting adventure. Where I come from, sometime about ten years ago or thereabouts, I don't know, I did an experiment with the people who are new to Alcoholics Anonymous in the beginners gathering and I challenged them to use their imagination. Some of you know about this and maybe have heard it on a tape or something but I'm going to do it today. I asked him what an alcoholic was. See, we use a lot of words around here. I don't know if you know what the hell we're talking about. What's an alcoholic? Well, how long are you sober? What's your name? Carolyn, how long are you sober? A little over a month. I want you to do something for me. Play this game with me, okay? Trust me, Carolyn. Okay, kid. Leon, close your eyes. Picture an alcoholic. What did you picture, Caroline? Tell us what you pictured. Okay. You pictured someone at a bar thinking that they are having a good time. Do you know how most people picture when they do that? Dirty old man. Most beginners is putting their... Now, that was very tough for her because part of that experiment is they're wondering, well, what should I say? Do I have the right answer? But if we had enough time to just cool down and be out of the defense mechanism and we just relaxed and somebody said, okay, now we're ready. Close your eyes. What do you think? Most people will picture a dirty old man. Right? You agree, don't you, young lady? Well, that makes me crazy. You know why? Because I wish you would have pictured a dirty old woman. Okay. Do you want me to stand this side of the mic? That's an alcoholic. Woke you up, huh, Joe? How about in front? Well, it's all right in front. Why don't we turn this off and so I can move around and make these... I want to do this for these people and not for those people. Let's see if we can do that, okay? That may work. Okay. Most people picture a dirty old man because most people when they come into Alcoholics Anonymous picture Skid Row. Dealing. Failure. Loser. Okay You work on it Okay And that was my perception when I came here It wasn't me I was too young I was 34 years old By the time I left I got here Now, I've been kind of creeping up on coming from the time I was about 30, okay? And to me, 30 was young. Now, it doesn't seem so young to some of you people who are younger. It's a terrible thing that happened to me. Excuse me. What do you want me to do with this thing? Is that better for you? Oh, if it's better for me, if it is for you, I will do it. No, no, I just... Okay, fine. Whatever is better for you. It's not better for me. I want to sing doing it my way, you know? I was giving a talk somewhere this last year. I don't know what state. I think it was in Minnesota. And a guy walked up to me and said, There's a guy in Salt Lake City who would just love to have an autographed copy of one of your tapes. He's a very special guy because he's got something in common with you. Your sobriety date is very important to him. You know, being an alcoholic. He said that he was born the day you got sober. And I thought, Jesus. And I just thought I'd get old. I hope to get a lot older. When I was 30, I thought that was awful young to be an alcoholic. And I pictured a skid or a bum. and when I got into Alcoholics Anonymous and people started to talk about alcoholics I didn't know what they were talking about I knew what they was saying what's an alcoholic so I look in the book Alcoholics Anonymous and you know what it doesn't say in the books Alcoholics Anonymous what an alcoholic is it doesn' t say that at all there's no definition of alcoholic there's description, there's not definition I look on 12 and 12 there's now definition of alcoholic, there' s nowhere anywhere in the or any of the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous that says what an alcoholic is. How do I know if what I say in Alcoholics you are seeing and thinking are the same thing? How doI know that? Wouldn't it be a cruel hoax when you use the term I'm thinking about something else? We're not communicating. So I asked that group back in 1980 or whenever it was to do an experiment. I asked them to make an alcoholic. I asked him to go into their minds and the laboratory, the pre-ten-ding. It's a pretend. Now alcoholics and I must... Alcoholics know how to do that. Right? Let me give you a different word. Fantasize. Okay? Let's do that Let's go into that laboratory. Let's pretend. Let's fantasize. Let's picture ourselves in a laboratory and let's make an alcoholic. Whether you find in a laboratory, you find a mad scientist, that'll be me. I'll play that part, okay? There are all kinds of goofy-looking equipment. And there's always test tubes. So I'm going to stand before you as the mad scientist and I'm gonna hold up a test tube and you're gonna make an alcoholic, I said to this group. I said, Make an alcoholic. So I held up an invisible, make-believe test tube. And I asked those people who were brand new like you, months sober, make an alcoholic. Because the idea is if we can see what it is, we'll know what we're talking about. Fair enough? Makes sense. So I had that tube up, that test tube, and I asked them to make an alcohol. And after a while, the first person that volunteered was a young girl. Very young girl, younger than you. She said put in fear. Somebody else said put in anger. Somebody else said put it in depression. Somebody else had put it in anxiety. Someone else had put in perfectionism. Someone else had put in guilt. next person said put in some more guilt that must have been an Irish Catholic there are three kinds of guilt Irish guilt Catholic guilt and Irish Catholic guilt Protestants don't know as much about guilt as Catholics do. Longer list. Superiority. Inferiority. Remorse. Negative self-image. self-hatred denial that's what they wanted to put in and that's the that's that they put into the test tube when they were making their alcoholic and they put in a lot of other things that maybe you thought of or think about right now and they didn't put in what I thought they'd put in first alcohol they didn't put it in and I said to him are you missing something he looked at me somebody said yeah, put in some alcohol so we did in this imaginary setting and guess what happened if you're in that setting right now you see what happened I had the test tube They put in the ingredients, and now I'm going to pour alcohol in that test tube. Something is happening. You see it. Do you really see it? Gradually, just a little bit of alcohol, just a Little More Alcohol, and what do you see? Alcohol makes fear go away. Alcohol makes loneliness dilute. just enough alcohol and anger subsides just enough alcohol and we are and feel like we want to be and look I know ladies who admit that when they drink just enough alcohol, they are prettier they feel prettier you're guilty right and I know men who feel the same way I know men who observe while other people drink too they get prettier there's a man or two in this audience that walk into a bar look around oh god had for a drink looked back and said, holy Christ. Just a little alcohol removes cowardice and gives us courage. And when that works for alcoholics like me, why should I want it to stop? Why should I want to stop drinking? I won't, ever! Because drinking and me equals good. Drinking and me equal comfort, joy. Non-dancers dance after they have a few drinks and feel... Now I know I'm going to age myself. Like, don't stare. Do you have any idea who that is? Stop. Why would you want to stop? You've been worse like that. You know, I'm a user. He wants me to try this. How does it sound? Can you hear back there? It's not going to work, friend. It's just a little patient. We're going to do this. Okay, I don't want to do that, but we're going to do it because it's for you. Okay, now listen. I don' t want to stop here because I don''t want you to lose this thought. it's important you understand if you're an alcoholic of that type that's why I drink because I am the test tube I've always been the test tube. Why when I was that test tube didn't say oh I'm a test tube and I'm full of fear and anxiety and negative self image. I just was me and that last person I ever wanted to be with and I hoped to lose him but I didn't like him I found no peace with him. I found no dignity with him and if you would have said to me change I'd let you be somebody else I would have said who would you let me be because I want to be somebody else but when I'm drinking I don't want to be anybody else I'm just fine I can walk into a bar and be a truck driver and walk out an airline pilot and it's wonderful and that's why I drink sorry we continued the experiment and we continued to put more and more alcohol in the test tube you know what we observed that at some point the alcohol no longer diluted it stopped working what did you do when alcohol stopped working did you stop drinking did you say to yourself what's your name man John Johnny what did you say when alcohol stopped working oh well It stopped working. I think I'll quit. No, I want to throw him out. You didn't hear him. You didn' t miss a thing. More. If just enough alcohol doesn't work, I know what to do. Put in more. Why? to destroy myself, to get crazy, to feel depression or anxiety or negative self-image or loneliness or have remorse or guilt? No. To have it do what it did early on. Remove those things. Let me be happy. Happy. That's all I ever wanted to be. That's how you ever wanted to be Think about it. Take all the crap out of your life, all the intellectual processes. And if I say, I give you one wish, one thing you could do, one thing that you could you can feel. Here's my gift on the good theory. God, I'm careful when I say that. I hope you don't misinterpret that. You would choose to be happy because every human being desperately wants that as the beginning and end of their existence. A feeling of comfortable. That's all we want. Okay? When drinking, stop working. People like me drink and if that doesn't work, some of us do other things as an extension of that search for relief from me and my inability to relate to you out there. Okay? if you keep drinking after it stops working instead of diluting the test tube do you know what's going to happen? Everything in that test tube if that's you is going to be intensified. You think you know loneliness you act and drink after you know it no longer works then you will find a new meaning you will find a deeper understanding of the word loneliness fear will take on new dimension not only justified fears non-existent fears those are the wonderful ones where you wake up in the morning after a wonderful day and you just wake up and you know it's doomsday. And you don't know why, but you know you're guilty. And you know what's going to happen and you don' t know what' s going to hap pen. Kind of like when the phone rings and you kno w they are on the other side. And your friend says, What are you afraid of? Who are they? You say, I don' T know, but I don't answer it. It' s alcoholics of my type. That's what we're dealing here with. Now, if we're in that laboratory, folks, and we say, okay, I've seen the experiment and I understand how it works. Alcohol for some people works and then stops working. And if those people continue to use it, it will destroy their mind long before it destroys their bodies. The curse of alcoholism is not that it'll kill you. It won't! I came down here to find out my dad has cancer. And Monday they're going to take him, and tomorrow he's going to go in the hospital in Naples, Florida, and they're gonna get him ready, and Monday morning at 7 o'clock they're operate on him. if he has a serious cancer if he does I don't know that he does one of the merciful things about that is that he will soon die there's nothing merciful about alcoholism see, if you got it and you don't treat it you might have to live with it for 30 or 40 or 50 years doing a hard time being as angry as you are thinking as little about yourself as you do keeping your secrets and accumulating more being more and more separated from society with a smaller and smaller group of people who will be defiant like you that's what I was faced with when I got here Now, in that laboratory, if you picture that experiment and that happened in your life, let's take the alcohol out of the test tube totally and all the other things you put in afterwards trying to supplement the alcohol. And you know what? People think that drugs are the things that people put in. I'll tell you there's a lot of things people put it in trying to complement it. Some people put them in gambling. A lot of people put in pornography. You don't hear that talked a lot about in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's like the big secret. We're not going to have any secrets here today. Pornography as a way to escape and dream and fantasize a secret. It's really true. Really true. Not just drugs. Put a lot of things in there. But let's take that alcohol out of that test tube in this laboratory. Yes, we got the test tube full of the same things we had before we put the alcohol in. And we're going to take a break now. And the next thing we're going to talk about is what do we do with what we got in that test tube. Now, any time, at any time we're talking, if you ever feel like you have to get up and go somewhere, just feel free to do that. Washroom or... I don't take any offense to people moving around. I don' t demand your uninvited constant attention. And if I feel like I have to go, I'm just going to go. Come on, ladies. Good. I feel better now. Joe told me he's not leaving. I woke Joe up and... God, that mention in pornography does it all the time. no it wasn't at that point okay Joe don't leave no don't okay you can hear me back there alright okay anytime that you can't because I'm not you know used to this just raise your hand and then we'll make the adjustment okay remember I talked about the survey it's my opinion that a lot of people leave here because we don't give them the tools to stay. That we water it down so bad, wanting them to like it, that we don'T give them the tools. And I want the newcomers to have the tools as I think the tools exist now. Again, remember, I'm nobody. Nobody appointed me. I don't speak for Alcoholics Anonymous. I don'T speak for my home group. I DON'T speak for a committee these are just my opinions and you can reject them and it's okay but maybe if you just keep an open mind when you're finished here today you're going to be better off than you were when you came and in your own private times in your home private moments you're gonna know that these things do work and apply and you'll have the tools I'm gonna tell you that it's tough to stay sober. It's not easy. And it doesn't just get better and better and better and that's a lie. It gets to be life. And life doesn't just get bette,r and better, and better. You get older and sicker and the people around you get older, and sick. You have good fortune and bad fortune. You might stay sober 10 years and then lose your job, and then be overqualified to ever work again. That really happens. That REALLY happens! You might be sober 15 years and then get a divorce, and you might be heartbroken over that turn of events. Doesn't mean A doesn't work. It doesn't mean you haven't recovered or are recovering from alcoholism, it means that you're in life. Sometimes we hear people tell newcomers