Big Book Workshop – Don P. – AUG.14th – 1999

I've got to hook you up. Did you ever have somebody hover? You may already have asked yourself why it is that all of us became so very open drinking. Doubtless you're curious to discover how and why in the face of expert opinion to the contrary, we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body. There was a time when I used this book to validate my experience. It's a natural thing. I must tell you that today my experience validates this book. I am one of we. I have done what they said, the way they said, and had the experience they had. I am one of we. I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. We have recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body. It's not even a seemingly hopeless thing anymore. He just kind of led you down the path there for a while. He gave you an out. All the way through here there are outs. Have you noticed that? You can jump off any time until you get to the third step. Once you do that, you can't get off. So there's lots of outs between now and then. If you're an alcoholic who wants to get over it, you may already be asking, What do I have to do? It is the purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically. we shall tell you what we have done I'm being taught how to sponsor again if you want to know what to do I can just show you what I have done don't you have to be smart for that I just have to show you I have to have a reasonable memory and a willingness to embellish whenever necessary well yeah I'm over on page 20 I'm sorry every time I get in the heart of a bunch of big book fanatics I just assume you all know then he describes the three different kind of drinkers these first 52 pages are pretty redundant keep hitting the same information over and over and over because we are slick devils and we don't want to miss anybody so here it comes again we're going to look for those of you who are clinically minded let's take a look at the three kinds of alcoholics or three kinds of drinkers not alcoholics modern drinkers have little trouble in giving up liquor entirely if they have a good reason for it they can take it or leave it alone is that me no no that's not me I'm not a modern drinker if that's what defines it that's not me I can't take it or leave it alone I can't stop for any kind of good reason I've had many good reasons along the way meaningless so I'm not a modern drinker good then we have a certain type of hard drinker you may have a habit badly enough to gradually impair him physically and mentally it may cause him to die a few years before his time if a sufficiently strong reason such as ill health falling in love change of environment the warning of a doctor becomes operative this man can also stop or moderate although he might find it difficult and troublesome and may even need medical attention is that me all those and more have been brought to my attention and I didn't do it so I must not be a certain kind of hard drinker what's that leave real alcoholic how's he described may start off as a modern drinker may or may not become a continuous hard drinker but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption once he starts to drink that's me that's the doctor's opinion put in a different set of words begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption once he starts to drink is that me yes so if I have that intellectual defense built that slides me is that you I know it's not you he made the mistake of asking me for help he's gonna get it and then they go on to describe it in more detail but let's keep it simple if that fits you are you a moderate drinker are you a hard drinker or do you lose control of your liquor consumption once you start to drink if you do that's alcoholic real alcoholic it has nothing to do with drama circumstance behavior nothing I made some other ideas but I don't have anything to share that did not describe me on any given day but along the way I have been each of those things he describes here and I particularly have a strong memory of the fellow who goes to bed so intoxicated he ought to sleep the clock around I can remember a horrible night we drank at the lighthouse bar until about 2 then they closed it and I wasn't finished There was a horror around me because I knew whatever it was I was looking for that night, it was too late. It wasn't going to happen. And I had to keep drinking, and I was already too drunk. So I went home to my chicken coop. I had converted a chicken coop into a pretty fine little place to stay. It wasn't all that bad. I was at that stage of drunkenness where I knew from experience if I laid down, it would trigger the bed, which would spin rapidly and fling me onto the floor, where I would puke all over my rug. And I really didn't want to do that. I also knew from experience that if I would continue drinking just a little longer, I would pass out, go into a coma, go unconscious, which was a far better deal than being flung out of my own bed. And I had no choice. I had no choice anyway, so I did. Now, at that stage of drunkenness, this must have been around 3 or so. The bar closed at 2, 3, 3.30. I drank myself into oblivion. Should have slept for a long, long time. That's a lot of Saturday. And just shortly after 6, I'm up and awake and looking for a drink because I still need a drink. So I have a memory to fit this. Do you have one? Somewhere along the way that fits there? I haven't met a moderate drinker yet. I want my daughter at God's level. My wife is a joy, but she's got compassion where she ought to have tough. Our oldest daughter came home one night truly gloriously bombed. And the only way we knew that is we could hear her retching in the bathroom. And Jackie said, help me get her to bed. I said, don't do that to the child. You're going to put her to bed. And in a couple minutes, she's going to have to puke again, and she won't make it down the hall. You're going to embarrass her. Let's get her a pill and put her in the bathroom with her, which we did. That child retched all night. She was 16 or 17, child. She has not done that since. She likes a little beer now and then, a little wine now and then. She hasn't done that since. You're all laughing. You're all laughing. What a strange child, huh? Belongs to your family? Yeah, so we have memories we can bring to them. Thank you. We know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drinking, I'm on page 22 now, Clay. Don't want you to miss a word. Down at the bottom. Starts with we. We know. I'm sorry. The devil gets to me now. We know that while the alcoholic, keeps away from drink, as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other men. We're equally positive that once he takes any alcohol, whatever, into his system, something happens, both in the bodily and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this. My friend David, we did battle here. He said I went in to have a couple beers. I just changed my mind. And we battled until he finally heard what he said. And this helped. His mind was changed after a couple beers. He didn't change it. His mind was changed. So he was right. But that helped define his alcoholism for him. It changes after a couple beers. I change mentally and physically. I change mentally and physically. These observations, it would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink. Thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Good morning. How are you? Now you can hear me. Good. Where were you before? You can't hear me over there. Yeah, I'm glad you're here. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than his body. It's a strong statement. All of this horror we've been talking about will not happen if I don't take the first drink. What is it that causes me to take a drink after this has happened more than once? My problem center is in my mind. If you ask him why I started on the last bender, the chances are he will offer you any one of a hundred alibis. Of course. You've already convinced me. I've got to give you something to get you off my back. Why did you do that? I don't know. Yes, you do. You must know. You did it. OK. Here's my little kit of tools. Which one pleases you today? Now leave me the hell alone while I try to figure out what's going on here. Remorse, promises, I'll never do that again. I did, I did, I did, I did, I did. Sometimes the excuses have a certain purpose. Sometimes the excuses have a certain plausibility. But none of them really make sense in light of the havoc an alcoholic's drinking about creates. I was tense and tired. Now I've shared that with my entire family and my boss. Now they're all tense and tired. We're unified. They sound like the philosophy of the man who, having a headache, beats himself on the head with a hammer so he can't feel the ache. Once in a while, I'll tell you a story. I'll tell you a story. I'll tell you a story. Once in a while, he may tell the truth. And the truth, strange to say, is that usually he has no more idea why he took the first drink that you had. Boy, do I need to remember that. If I get caught up in all the reasons I drank and eliminate those behaviors, the main reason I drank is still there. No reason at all. So there's no treatment for that either, apparently. We get a whole bunch of stories here of men who tried treatment all the way to Carl Young's patients and Bill and numerous others. Knew everything about their minds and the springs and the triggers. I'm in the business. I have to laugh at all the shit we have to present. It's meaningless. Triggers. You like triggers? I drink because I'm an alcoholic, unless something changes that. The tragic truth is that if a man be a real alcoholic, the happy day may not arrive, meaning that he'll raise himself from his lethargy and start over. He's lost control. At a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, he passes into a state with the most powerful desire to stop drinking. It's an absolute. No avail. Somebody finally understands. I really didn't want to do what I just did. In my heart, I really didn't. So why did I do it? I don't know. But the strongest desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail after a certain point. So in the fellowship, we have a desire to stop drinking as the only requirement for membership. But it's not. The desire to stop drinking will not keep me sober. If that's all there is there, it won't keep me sober. They've got the truth there. Somebody finally understands. The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drinking. It's gone. That's the best news I ever got. I have lost the power of choice. I have not gotten it back. I have no more choice. I've lost the power of choice in the world that I drink today than I did when I stopped 31 years ago. Thank God. Every time I had the choice, I made the wrong one. I don't have any choice anymore. Left to my own devices, I will drink again. I'm just as sure of that as I am that I'm breathing today. Left to my own devices, I'll drink again. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. We are unable at certain times. To bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. Man, that's good news. I can quit fighting this thing. I don't have an adequate defense in my mind. I can't think my way out of this deal. Oh, that's good news. I've been trying for years. Have you tried to think your way out of this? What are your results? Struck speechless. Failure? Failure? Is that what happened to you once? More than once. That's alcoholic insanity. Once is a little nutty. Twice is a little psychotic. Fifty times, that's stark raving mad. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's nothing wrong with being stark raving mad. That's the truth. You can't hear me? We're in trouble. I can't talk any louder without yelling. Let me hover once again. Okay, Mom. Is that better? Yeah. Until I turn over here. Okay, I'll try to remember this. I don't have one of these at home. I'm not allowed. I'm not allowed. The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If that's true, then remembering my last drunk, while it's a good idea, will not keep me sober. So I can just trash that idea when I hear it. Remembering my last drunk may help you get sober, but it won't keep me sober. Because at the time I need it, the chances are the information won't show up. That's all he's saying. I've got a filter that's built out of things like it really wasn't that bad. Memory has to get through that. It was bad chili. It got to me to a point where it was, you know, with Zambia it was the same thing. It was the same thing. I was expecting different results. I knew what the result was going to be, but I was powerless. I mean, I knew I was going to have to have a lot of it. It was going to be hard. It was going to be hell. It was like I had to get some relief. I knew the results. It's like I didn't know the results would be the right one. I was going to have to spread it to 100% and do the bad, dangerous stuff. But I didn't anyway. I had to help while it was going to be bad. And then there's the stage where it doesn't bring the relief and you do it anyway. That's where this leads. Yeah. Lordy. I remember most of the time, I remember specifically doing this with my parents when I wasn't sober. And I remember knowing that it was just, they were like the last, the whole last people that would go to their home. And it was very important that I not go and do, I knew what would happen to my friend at this point. And I did end up getting, you know, as with most people, more or less insanely drunk there. I don't remember the thought, gee, it would be nice to have a drink. I just remember finding myself drinking, you know. And, you know, what am I doing here? I didn't have the thought of, boy, this bad stuff is going to happen. This is what I do. When I started drinking, I was just starting to drink. There wasn't any big thought process. Yep. That's an alcoholic mind. Why should it be noticeable? It's natural. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yeah. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Does that happen to you? You're described in this book. Yeah, me too. No thought at all. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yeah, but you won't. You might as well. Yeah, I agree. That's the second level of filter right there. I'm wasting my time anyway. I'm going to lose this one. Yeah. We have lost the ability to make a choice. That's what he's saying. There comes a point where it goes. It's gone. I've lost the ability to choose. And I really don't want it back. That's my ego. If these thoughts occur, they're hazy and readily supplanted by the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves as other people. That one always weirded me out because I picked the kind of people who were just like me. Okay. They handled themselves the same way. There's a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove. Yeah. It just isn't there. That's real powerlessness. I've got a body that will kick up if I give it alcohol and a mind that gives it alcohol and insists on it. That's the way it is. The alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way, it won't burn me this time, so here's how. Or perhaps he doesn't think at all. Just heard about that. How often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant? And after the third or fourth, pounded on the bar and said to ourselves, for God's sake, how did I ever get started again? Only to have that thought supplanted by the, well, I'll stop at a six drink or my favorite, what's the use anyhow? What's the use? Now, let me tell you the effect that it has on the world around us. I learned a great deal from that psychiatrist. He told me that any competent psychiatrist dealing with alcoholics, particularly in their first six months, would almost have to declare them manic depressive because that's what we look like. That's the symptom we present. What's the use anyhow? That's depression. And so they medicate us. That's their job. Here's what the system. The system looks like. And here's what we do to treat that. So I can't be mad at them for that. I'm giving it to them. Okay. What's the use anyhow? Isn't that wonderful? It's like a warm cloak. Oh. Now, I don't say that at home because they just slap me around. But if you and I are in a bar together, you're now my ally. Yeah. But if you and I are in a bar together, you're now my ally. And if you and I are in a bar together, you're now my ally. Why don't you go home? What's the use anyhow? I mean, there's a whole range I can play with that, particularly the drinking. You know what that says to me? I've already known the truth. If I take one and say, what's the use anyhow, I know where it's headed. I'm deluding myself that I don't. I know. I know. And I almost welcomed it after a while. When this sort of thinking is fully established in an individual with alcoholic tendencies, he's pussyfooting again, by the way. He'll stop doing that pretty soon. He's probably placed himself beyond human aid. And unless locked up and may die or go permanently insane. I mean, that hit my terror button. My great terror was that I would end up in a mental institution and I would be there forever because they would catch me during one of my insane times and lock me away. And then I would get sober and I would be sane. Now I'm in real trouble. Because if you're in a mental institution and you tell them you're sane, they keep you. They know you're not. It's not until you admit you're nuts that they let you go. And I just knew that. I already knew about this shift in personalities. It's below the level of consciousness. It's below the level of articulation. But it frightened me because I knew that's when they'd get me. And to be locked up with a bunch of crazy people is frightening. I'll run with them. I'll play with them. But I don't be locked up with them. There is a solution. And this is kind of doom and gloom stuff. If you've got this, you're doomed. There's no treatment for it. We're beyond human aid. There's nothing we can do. You got it? You got it. You may, unless locked up, may die or go permanently insane. That's the best news I've got for you this morning. But there is a solution. Almost none of us like the self-searching, the leveling of pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for successful consummation. I heard one time in early sobriety at some meeting somewhere that there are no musts in AA. I'm sorry. Requires, kind of sounds like a long form of must to me. And I was told very clearly by my sponsors, there's some things you must do or you're going to die. Now, you don't have to do them. If you don't, you're going to die an ugly, ugly death. So what is it I'm going to have to do? If we're looking toward an experience here, what are we going to have to do? Self-searching. Leveling of pride. Confession of shortcomings. These are the requirements if I'm going to have this thing go to its full end. I've got to tell you, from observing over the years, most of the people we lose, we being those of us who take people through the big book, we lose at the eighth step. That's where we're losing. Those who make it to permanence. Those who are in sobriety have an experience at the eighth step that sets them free. The whole thing is about willingness. Now, some people will say that I got stuck at the eighth or ninth step. No. You get stuck at the first step. It's the only place you ever get stuck. The confession of shortcomings is not just the fifth step. It includes. The eighth and ninth step. And the continuing. I've got to come to the people I've harmed and confess my wrongdoing to them. That's how I make amends. The whole thing becomes a flow. And that's where we lose people. And I worry about that. Because it means somewhere along the way I missed a signal. When you're doing your fourth step and your fifth step. And when we work together on the sixth and seventh step. Or at the third step. One of the things I started doing. And I lose fewer people now, by the way. When you're ready to take the third step. I send you home. I won't let you do it. It says in the big book to think well before taking this step. So I send you home to think well first. Really think about this. Because if you take this step. You're then going to have the power to finish up. And if you don't finish up. You're in trouble. Because the power will still be there. And it will just run right over you. It's a good warning. Once you're on the path you can't get off. Unless you go drink. It's fun to watch somebody who's decided to ask God for help. And try to finish up. And if you don't finish up. You're in trouble. Because the power will still be there. And it will just run right over you. And if you don't finish up. And if you don't finish up. Then you're in trouble. Once you're on the path. You're not finished. Unless you drink. It's fun to watch somebody who's decided to ask God for help. Then try to finish up. Once you're on the path. Then you're in trouble. You're not finished. Once you're on the path. That's hard to admit. I can admit my gross wrongs. It's really hard to admit. I just didn't measure up here. I knew the difference between right and wrong, and I did the wrong thing. If we're willing to do that, then we can proceed. We saw that work for others. And we had come to believe that the hopeless and futility of life is what we've been living in. Oh, I love those words. Hopeless and futile. What's the use anyhow? It's futile. Nothing I do works. Nothing I do seems to make me happy or useful or productive. God, what a wonderful place. Utter depression. Go to your sponsor. Don't worry. Don't worry. Don't go to the doctor, please. Because the doctor will fix you at that point. He will take that feeling away from you, and you won't get to finish it. You have to go back and do it again someday. There's a time for doctors, and there's a time for sponsors. Go to a sponsor and get a mean one. One that came from the mean sponsor school is going to look you right in the eye and say, Yeah, I know. But you ain't seen nothing yet. You're going to start. I'm not talking about suffering. Here. I'll just help you right to the edge of the cliff and then kick you off. That's what we did. Look at the truth. It will set you free. So there's nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. Important for me as a sponsor to remember that's the way to do it. I do not take out the spiritual tools. The spiritual tools I have and work them on you. I present this same kit of tools that I was given and put them at your feet, and it's up to you to pick them up and go with them. There's no auton-autons or robots here. It's all freedom. I'll show you how to use that wrench. You can't use my wrench. You've got to use your own. You can't have my experience. You've got to have your own. That's what they said. I can't even share God with you, Bruce said. I can just tell you about my relationship with him, but you're going to have to have your own experience. That's good because I quit trying to chase his and began looking for my own. The great fact is just this and nothing less. God, I love this piece. This is Alcoholics Anonymous. Nothing less than this is acceptable to me. We have had deep and effective spiritual experiences, which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows, and toward God's universe. The central fact of our lives today is that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us, which we can never do by ourselves. That can also be read, entered into our hearts and lives. It's up to you. It's up to you. It's up to you. It's up to you. It's up to you. It's up to you. It's up to you. It's up to you. It's up to you. It's up to you. It's up to you. And I think that's a very important thing because currently it comes out of me and lives because God's very much alive. What a wondrous deal! Now, there's a message with depth and weight. Anything less than that and I probably wouldn't have stayed here. The very thought of having to fight my alcoholism for the rest of my life would have driven me away. I've got no fight left. Deep and effective spiritual experiences. I've had spiritual experiences, but they weren't effective because I stole them. Here's one I can have. I've really missed my alcoholism. I've got my alcoholism. when God will come alive. That's what they're saying. That's what I'm saying to you. And that's what you say to the people you sponsor. I know some of you do. Nothing less than this. Good. It doesn't mean you have to have it this afternoon. Just know it's available. Okay? If you're as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there's no middle-of-the-road solution. Half measures of ill is nothing. Half measures don't get 50% results. You're either drinking or you're not. You're either awake or you're asleep. Half measures of ill is nothing. Good, because I'm that kind of person anyway. If I'm going to go do something, I do it all. Whatever that may be. It's just my nature. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible. And if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives. One was to go to the better end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could, and the other to accept spiritual help. Can you imagine the ego in that? I mean... I mean... I mean... I mean... I mean... I'm completely rock-bottomed out. And I still have enough arrogance to wonder, should I or should I not? There's no question that I'm a lunatic. Anybody with any kind of disease offered any kind of solution. It wouldn't take 10 seconds to say, let's do it. Not me. Spiritual help? Let me think about that for a while. Oh, we're wonderful. I know I feel bad, but it'll be better tomorrow. God. Because this is a book of great mercy, all the way through it are a number of little merciful things. There are descriptions of what a spiritual awakening looks like, because I'm so self-absorbed, I'm so self-absorbed, even when I have one, I don't know what's happened. I wouldn't recognize it if it came by, and they come by all the time. There are checklists all the way through here. If you've done the actions the way they're presented here, certain things will happen, and it describes what that looks like, so you don't think you're going nuts. See, every time I have a new awakening, the first thought that comes to mind is, oops, I just lost my mind. It's because I did. Whatever I was using is gone. I'm not familiar yet with the new one. So it's described, because it'll scare the hell out of you when you've been totally self-absorbed for years to suddenly find yourself interested in somebody else. It's a scary thing when it first happens. And on page 27, Carl Jung describes a vital spiritual experience. This comes as a result of Roland Hazard, who was the one who essentially 12-stepped heavy, had spent a year with Carl Jung trying to stop drinking, learned everything he could possibly learn from the greatest psychiatrist in the world, a very spiritual man. He didn't even get home when he was drunk. I came back to him and said, is there nothing? The doctor says, you have the mind of a chronic alcoholic, and I've never seen one. I've never seen a single case recover. Well, that state of mind existed to the extent it does in you. And I'm reading this at a time when I have gone through this, and I'm identifying with him all the way. I am he. Not one single case exists and recovered where it exists like it does in you. Our friend fell as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang. He said to the doctor, is there no exceptions? Yes, replied the doctor, there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, now and then, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me, these occurrences are phenomenal. They actually happen. They're describable. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces in the lives of these men are suddenly cast aside, and they are no longer there. They are cast to one side, and a completely new set of conception and motives begin to subdominate them. In fact, he says, I've been trying to produce some such emotional rearrangement within you. With many individuals, the methods I've employed are successful, but I've never been successful with an alcoholic of your description. First of all, that's what happened to me when I had my first drink. That's precisely what happened. Huge emotional displacement. Ideas and conceptions that used to rule me. The things that I do in my life were cast to one side, and a whole new set of motives began to dominate me. I had a spiritual experience, or it seemed like one. No wonder I went back again. I've been looking for that forever. If I'm working with people and we look at this, I've got to remember what an order. I just want to get sober, right? we're talking about a transformation here this sounds like I can't go through with this that's scary but that's what will happen here and that's really what I want anyway but there it is nothing less a vital spiritual experience I've had one in fact I've had several they're scary every time they do not make you necessarily Mr. or Ms. Wonderful sometimes spiritual people are a real pain in the ass have you noticed that? on page 28 they go on to say that if what we've learned and felt and seen means anything at all it means that all of us whatever our race, creed or color are the children of a living creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms with whom we may form a relationship as soon as we're willing and honest enough to try it kind of modifies Dr. Young's if that's the experience and it gentles down to this I'll go for it what this book promises me is a relationship with my creator on simple and understandable terms and that's good because at the time I needed that there wasn't anything left up here we had an old timer in Colorado I used to put him so simply I never we heard him talk from time to time he never said anything but this I can't he can I'll let him the old bastard was forty some odd years sober when he died never had any profound stuff to say at all so I'm a child of a living creator can I accept that attitude? okay if you accept that attitude what happens? you have to start smiling well yeah what are children supposed to do most of the time? play have fun laugh a lot lighten up it's only life or death and isn't that what we bring with us if we're alive inside that's what we bring with us that's what we bring with us that's what we bring with us new people see. I mean, it's a little scary sometimes. My first look at AA people were three convicts with numbers on their chests in their own environment, and they had a smile. And the smile said, we know something you don't know. And if you don't get it first time out, you're probably going to die. But they were smiling. If new people couldn't see the fun and the laughter, I wouldn't stay. If I'm coming off the streets and I'm dirty and every third word is a curse word, and I'm confused and I'm unhappy and I'm miserable and I can't work and all those things, and I come to a meeting and what I hear are curse words from dirty, uncomfortable people who can't work and can't get along their wives, why the hell would I stay here? I can do that by myself and not have anywhere near the hassle. I really needed to hear people who said, you don't have to be this way anymore. Listen to this. This is weird. And then let me talk weird. And then they laughed at me and taught me how to laugh at myself. It's only life or death. I'm not going to get out of it alive anyway. I can live with that conception. Am I willing and honest enough to try? The only thing I brought here was willingness, utter, absolute, total willingness. And I believe that is the power of God as it's demonstrated through people. Honesty, I didn't know. I was really afraid when we got to reading about the kind of honesty that it takes. I was afraid I was one of those people who was constitutionally incapable of being honest. I've been living so many lives that I've begun to believe them and I really didn't know the difference between the true and the false. I went to Phil with that one and he laughed. I told him I was afraid I was constitutionally incapable. He laughed because he knows I'm full of drama. He said that's probably the first honest statement you've ever made. But you made it. You're capable. It was kind of like, no, quit bothering me. Get on with it. Where are you at with all that? What's your experience with all that? Where are you at with what we just read? What's your experience with it, Dustin? Have you had that experience? Where are you at with what we just read? Would you like a solution to that? You think you're willing and honest enough to try? See, that was hard. I had a word. Everybody was telling, it seemed like everybody was telling me I was hopeless. I was a weekend AA. And I just laughed at them because I was already going to meetings. I felt like I already found the answer. Y'all are sitting here telling me I'm hopeless. I already found an answer, a solution. And I didn't say nothing back. I just looked at them and I laughed. Like, you're wrong. You're wrong about me. For the first time I felt like I knew something about myself that they didn't, that they were wrong. It was because I already found out about it. We've got some really new people here. Before I jump on because I'm getting ready to. Are you okay with what we've done so far? Do you have some grasp of the physical allergy and the mental obsession? And the lack of power and the lack of choice? Because if you get that, the rest of this is easy. It looks hard, but it's really easy from that point on. I don't want to leave anybody back. I don't want to leave anybody back. I don't want to leave anybody back. I don't want to leave anybody back. I don't want to leave anybody back. I don't want to leave anybody back on the path. Everybody got it? I got it. Will not be able to stop based on self-knowledge. That, by the way, is my first tip that the self-searching that's coming up is not about finding out who I am. It's about finding out who I'm not. Well, I'll explore that a little bit. On page 43, he wraps this up. Bill didn't do much preaching, but when he does, he really hits it once more. At certain times, the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a higher power. Do you believe that? That's the only question you have to answer. Do you believe that? We can move on. If you don't believe that, then we're going to fool around some more. And just to be sure, he starts it over again and repeats himself again. Page 44. If one of you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely. Or if one drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you're probably an alcoholic. I think he just said that. And I think he just said that before that. And before that. Tells me something about alcoholics. We don't hear too good, do we? Lack of power, that was our dilemma. I may have intentions, I may have dreams, I may even have integrity and character and will. Lack of power is my dilemma. If I drink because I don't have any choice, knowing full well there will be consequences. That's lack of power. That's my dilemma. Where am I going to find the power? I had to find a power by which we could live and it had to be a power greater than ourselves, obviously. But where and how are we to find this power? That's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. And I'm drawn to the fact that it does not have an S at the end of problem. It's a singular. It changes the way I'm going to work the steps. What's the problem? Lack of power. What's the answer? Power. At which point it's time to get a little bit frightened. We're going to acquire power here and with power comes responsibility. And we can take off on a whole tangent on that but we won't. Let's take a little break and then we'll come back in because what we're going to do is really, really important. You all comfortable at this point? We're just kind of moving along here. Ten minutes? Fifteen? What do you want? I have a ten. Do I hear a lay? Ten. Ten.