Bob D. on Step 1, Dr. Silkworth, and the Chronic Alcoholic

Lord, help me to set aside everything I think I know about you. Everything I think i know about myself. Everything I know I think about others. And everything I know i think about my own recovery. All for a new experience in you, Lord. A new experience of myself. A new experiences in my fellows. And a much needed new experience on my recovery. Amen. I am delighted to be here. I see a lot of old friends, a lot of new faces that hopefully I'll get to know some of you or talk with some of your friends over this weekend. I am really excited to be doing this weekend with an old dear friend. I shouldn't use the word old when we get to ours. An old dear friend of mine, Polly who I have a lot of respect for and you're in for a treat. We're going to try to do tonight is we're going to try the cover between the two of us. We're gonna go about half hour, roughly give or take a couple minutes sessions. I'll probably talk for a half hour. Paula will talk for about a half an hour. We'll take about a 10 to 15 minute break because there's a spiritual principle that the mind can't absorb what the butt can't endure. So we'll take a little break every once in a while and we'll go until we're going to probably do two one-hour sessions tonight. We'll split two at one- hour sessions. What we're probably going to cover more than anything is a combination of what it says in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is coupled with the most powerful thing Alcoholics Anonymous has, and that's honest experience. In AA we don't tell anybody what to do. In AA there's no authorities in AlcoholicsAnonymous. If I'm an authority on anything, it's failure. But what the power comes is when one alcoholic talks about as honestly as they can about themselves and another alcoholic sits there and because they're not being talked to, their defenses are down and all of a sudden you start making those connections where you start to sit and go, wow, that's me. That's me and I am delighted to talk about the steps in the big book because I found myself in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was a lost guy and I found my way back and I find myself in AA. i want to talk a little bit about step one it's it's the foundation of alcoholics anonymous in the 12 by 12 they say it's only step that we have to work 100 percent the big book of alcoholics synonymous spends about maybe a little more than a third of the working text on step one when i say working text i mean just the parts of the book to talk about the steps if You take out to the wives, to the employers, et cetera. About a third of that is just designed to convince me of the most important thing I will ever be convinced of is that I have this illness, this abnormal condition of mind, body, and spirit because you can't treat something you ain't got. And until I started to connect the dots with having what they're talking about in here, really the rest of the program was kind of a moot point it was interesting but it didn't seem to apply to me precisely until i found myself in the problem and then when the i found myself in that solution started making a little sense in the doctor's opinion those of you that have books uh we're i'm working out of a fourth edition I didn't get sober on a fourth edition I got sober on second and third editions but I'm using a fourth addition because that's what most people have and there is some discrepancies in the pages so when I use page numbers I'm going to be talking about the fourth edition and the only real discrepiencies are in the doctor's opinion but in the doctors opinion of the fourth addition on page XXV III Dr. Silkworth who we owe a tremendous debt to this this little doctor who loved drunks who spent his whole life pretty much working with uh with guys like me in two hospitals in new york city and towns hospital and knickerbocker hospital little side note if you ever go to new yorke city there is actually it's not called towns hospital anymore it's a different deal but there's an AA meeting in that building. I went to it, it was kind of a weird feeling to be in a meeting where one time Bill Wilson got sober. But Silkworth on this page and actually in this whole section really starts to talk about what do we mean when we say we're powerless over alcohol? I remember coming to Alcoholics Anonymous and thinking that, well, that means I'm in trouble. That means that I'm in court. That means that I've lost another job. And then as relapses continued, I started to connect the dots with something inside me I don't think I wanted to connect the knots with. I really, I didn't want to be an alcoholic. I don' t want to be this powerlessness that they talk about. but I am anyway. Silkworth says in the first paragraph, he says we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy. Well, two things here that I've been able to understand as me is one is I'm a chronic alcoholic. Now what's that mean? Well, I'm not a doctor, but I know that there's chronic illnesses and there's acute illnesses. An example of an acute illness would be pneumonia. Pneumonia is a very serious condition. If you have pneumonia, it can kill you. But if you go to a hospital and they load you up with the right antibiotics, they knock that pneumonia off, you're good to go. You're over the pneumonia. But there are certain types of chronic illnesses, like I have friends that are diabetics. The stabilization of their blood sugar doesn't cure them. It's just the beginning of a lifelong regimented program of recovery. There are certain type of heart disease that are like that. Being stabilized in the cardiac care unit is not the end all. You're given a regimented programming recovery. to follow in alcoholisms like that. I used to want to be an alcoholic of the acute variety because there's people like that where they drink, oh, it's bad. Oh, they drink bad. A lot of trouble, a lot of travel. And then they kind of come to their senses one day and maybe their wife says, you know, I'm going to leave you or the boss says, You're out of here or the judge says one more time and they go, Man, I'll never do that again and they never do. I bet you most of you have known people like that. And they don't become weird. They don't need no meetings. They don'T become depressed. They don' t worry about what other people are thinking all the time. I mean, they're not real judgmental. It's just kind of okay. That would kind of be, in my mind, that'd be acute alcoholism. When the bottle is put behind them, they' re done. They' re good. They' r good to go. but i'm the other kind and he says that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy and now i know about allergies i i have a mild allergy to cats and when i get around cats after about 45 minutes visiting somebody that's got cats my eyes start to itch my nose starts to get stuffed up i start getting a little tightness in my chest that that's an allergic reaction to to cats i i know other friends that uh have allergic reactions certain types of food shellfish strawberries milk so when they when i hear people and alcoholics anonymous back in the 70s talking about this allergy i don't get it i mean i don'T see what it is what's the allergy and silkworth goes on to start he starts to describe it in in later paragraphs he he really nails it but in this paragraph he says he's he says the phenomenon of craving which is the symptom of the is what is how the allergy manifests itself in a phenomenon of grieving and it's limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. So what does that mean? That means that when I drink alcohol, I break out in a phenomenon of craving. And that's another thing I couldn't see. I don't think I have a craving. I mean, I get drunk a lot. But so do my friends. I mean... Of course, you know, it's funny how we don't drink a lot with social drinkers and they don't drink with us much either. I mean, there's only one advantage of drinking with a social drinker, and that's splitting a bottle with them because you will get most of it. I mean there's no other plus to drinking with the social drinkers. And they're aghast at the way we drink because they never have this reaction. my sister is not an alcoholic and my sister uh is i've watched my sister drink i've watched my brother drink like your dog will watch you eat a cheeseburger i mean i've watched my and my brother after about two drinks as she's starting to feel it she kind just goes, she pushes the drink aside. It is inconceivable to her to get knee-walking crybaby drunk. She just wouldn't do it. The idea of drinking to the point where she passed out and wet herself, she won't sign up for it. I've tried to get her to. She won't sign up for it but when she drinks alcohol she doesn't have the same reaction that i have um when i after about two drinks when i get to the same point that my sister gets to where she shuts her down when i start to feel the glow the allergic reaction is really i suspect to the effect is that i break out in this irresistible yearning and craving for more of that feeling and i've had that every single drink i i have not an out there i know that there are alcoholics who drink without that for a period of years and then all of a sudden cross over a line and they become alcoholic i was that way from the first drink once that feeling hit me something inside me just went, oh yeah. Oh, I could never get enough of that. I'd never had enough. I've never been drinking, partying anywhere for an hour or so. Get about half lit up. Have somebody say, Bob, you ready for another drink? I've ever sat there and thought, nah, this is just right. Never. It's always one more, one more. And that differentiates us. You know, my alcoholism was back in the 70s when if you were an alcoholic on the streets in the 70s and the gangs I ran around with, the people I ran along with, we also did a lot of drugs. And what was confusing to me is I would go to treatment centers and they would say something that almost killed me. They would talk about drug of choice. What's your drug of choice. And I'd sit there and I'd think, well, what do you got? I mean, I don't know. I mean I suppose alcohol but you know I'll go through your medicine cabinet too. You know I'm not picky really. In a pinch I'll drink vanilla extract. I means anything really. And so it confused me but you know something has nothing to do with with alcoholism if you have if you had a an allergic reaction to shelf to lobster and you drink you eat lobster and the reaction is so severe that you go into your you stop breathing and you end up in the emergency room and you're going to die because your shellfish allergy is so extreme it doesn't make any difference that trout is your fish of choice right it has nothing to do with it alcoholism of the one trait that is common with everybody who has this disease it's that allergic it's said when you have about two or three drinks and the effect starts to hit you light something up that you that no matter how much you swore to yourself you're only going to have two it's like all of a sudden you know two was the wrong number three and every drink uses my mind against me to make the next one seem like it's my idea it always seems like it's My Idea and I had that from day one and and Silkworth goes on to say that these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all I don't drink near beer. I don't eat foods that I know are cooked in alcohol. I did when I first got sober because I was a knucklehead and somebody had told me that the alcohol cooked off. Then I read a study where they proved that it didn't. I won't touch anything that's cooked in alcohol. Why would I do that? And if alcohol did to you what it did to me, that would be a pretty sane reaction wouldn't it really if you were restored to sanity wouldn't you want to go oh no i'm not i'mnot playing with this after what it did after what did to me i can't safely use alcohol in any form at all and and i canít take any medications that light me up i can't and i don't i'll tell you something i i know this is alcohol examen so we have a singleness of purpose but i think inherent in alcoholism is an inability to i don' t know any alcoholics that have been effective social heroin users or cocaine i i don''t know anything as a matter of fact of of the old timers in aa that have that were real alcoholics over the last 10 or 15 years that went out again that knew they couldn't drink. I'd say the majority of them started with something other than alcohol. We can't safely use anything that does something for me will do something to me because of the nature of this disease. So once having formed a habit and found they cannot break it And once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. And this is where alcoholism becomes, where it's so easy to become delusional and not be able to see what's killing you. What happens is the problems become so, the consequences of my active alcoholism become so overwhelming that I can't see what's really going on. And I remember the feeling of sitting in meetings as a recurring newcomer and the old timers in AA are trying to tell me that alcoholism should be the main priority, not drinking should be The main prayer that should be the center of your life a.a and all this stuff and and and you know it's i look at them like yeah you know i know what you're saying but i got i got relationship problems i got police problems i got employment problem i got weird emotional problems i don't know what's wrong with me but i get this roller coaster ride going on i got mental problems i got i this won't leave me alone it doesn't go away it just it's just at me all the time crazy stuff if i can straighten out all of this stuff then yeah what you're saying would be right then i'll make aa a priority yeah yeah i'll work your stairs i'll go to your meetings yeah But I got all this other stuff, and I don't see what's killing me. There are times when the sun and the moon are in the sky at the same time. And when that occurs, the moon, because of its proximity to the earth and the mass-distance relationship, actually has a stronger pull and influence on the earth and the tides than the sun does. But when the sun and the moon are in the sky at the same time, you can't even see the moon because the sun is so glaring. And I could never see what was killing me because the consequences were so glary. And I kept trying to treat the consequences and I didn't know what was happening and it kept getting worse and worse and worst and worse. I heard a story years ago and it's really... I this just was such a great analogy. There was a guy that I know whose best friend was pronounced terminally ill. He had stomach cancer and it was on and he was told it was unoperable, untreatable. And it was a very sad deal for my friend. And then after a couple months, he hears from another family member that they're going to operate. And he's a little he's he's uplifted, a little excited. Oh my God, they found a surgeon that can remove the cancer. This is good. And he goes over to the house to see his friend and talk to the family. He says, man, this is good. They're going to take the cancer out. And they say, no, they're not going to take the cancer out. Well, then why are they doing the surgery? And he was told that they're going to cut out sections of the intestine, parts of the stomach, and some of the internal organs to make room for the growth of the cancer so his last days are less painful and i thought that's exactly like alcoholism this the progressive nature of this disease is so powerful that if your job is in the way your job's going to get cut out of your life if your self-respect and your morals are in theway your morals and your self respect are going to get cut out of your life. If your family's in the way of the progression of the disease, they're going to go. Your kids, they're gonna go. There's nothing that alcoholism won't cut out of your Life, and it eventually kills you. But by the time alcoholism kills you, it's such a a long, tedious process. It's like being kicked to death by rabbits. It just goes on for years. By the time it's killed you, you've wished you were dead for a long time. I mean, by the time he kills you, everyone you've ever loved can't stand you. And it's cut away everything decent in your life. It's cut it out of your life until there's nothing left. And there you are. now if if this phenomenon of craving was all there was to alcoholism then then most treatment centers would educate you on this don't take the first drink that nancy reagan just say no thing would have worked good because you'd come to your senses and you just it's gone no don't drink and most of us can say no we could say no We're good at saying no. I can say no a lot. No, no, no. Not smoking nothing. No, not pills. No, nope, nope. No, I said no. No, thank you. Don't ask me again. No, well, a little bit. Just a little. And there's a yes in every barrel of nos if you're an alcoholic. And with untreated alcoholism, you don't know if it's at the bottom of the barrel. You don't if it is the day you get out of treatment or 10 or 11 months later. but with alcoholism untreated alcoholism it's an inevitability and why is that well silkworth starts to talk about the dynamic of relapse in the bottom of page xxviii so of course says something that's probably common to most people he says men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol and that's true my sister likes the effect. She just doesn't like a lot of it. She's like a little bit of occasionally. But she likes, that's why she doesn't drink near beer. She'll have one or two beers. Or she won't have, she'll have one or 2 margaritas. I'm waiting for near vodka. I think that would be a good thing. But they drink but I think alcoholics of my type it's more than it's more than that i think somewhere unconsciously i drink because i not just like the effect i need the effect there was a great i have a copy of anybody wants to see it in one of the breaks i havea copy of a letter that was written to bill wilson by carl young in the early 60s at the end of carl's career and it was in a response it was a response to a letter bill wrote him thanking him for his contribution to Alcoholics Anonymous. And Carl said something to Bill that the first time I read it, I just thought, oh my God, that's exactly right. It just resonated with my experience. He said that he suspected from working as a psychiatrist and working with many, many alcoholics like Roland Hazard, who's mentioned in our book, that the alcoholic's thirst for alcohol isn't really a thirst for alcohol it's a low level thirst of your being for unity for connectedness to be a part of or as may be expressed young said or maybe expressed in medieval religious terms as a union with god i drank because alcohol in the early days of my drinking connected me it's there were times in my early drinking where we're getting lit up was almost like a i never thought of it in these terms but looking back it was like a spiritual experience i could be in a party or a bar and have walked in there sober and i'm the lonely guy who doesn't fit anywhere that's overly obsessively self-conscious and four or five drinks man i was free i could i felt connected to those people like Like I could feel some kind of flow in the universe just kind of plug me in, man. Remember that consciousness that come to you after about nine drinks where you just think, oh, this is what Buddha saw. Oh, yeah. You know, it's spiritual, man, and you love everybody when you're like that. I just say, I love these people. I think I've always yearned to return To that from which I came And I think I came into this world From absolute perfect unity And I yearn to return I think the great loss The great vacancy of alcoholism Is the loss of connection And Silkworth goes on to say the sensation from the effect is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious and we all do that years before we get drunk before we gets over years we're sitting in a bar somewhere maybe maybe leaning over your toilet throwing up or you've all the times we say to ourself man i gotta cut this out this ain't no good we said that to ourselves some in some mornings Sometimes it's drinking. While we admit that it is injurious, that I cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false, to them their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. Well, what's that mean? Well, I think this is the first indication of what later on in the book they call self-delusion. It's a psychotic, wishful thinking I can't differentiate the true from the false. Okay, what's really true that I can not see? Here is what is really true. My drinking has turned on me. No matter what drugs I throw in the mix, no matter what I do, here is the truth. It is pathetic. I cannot get back to the good old days. If I could still drink like I drank when I was 18 years old and was lit up with my guys, it would be different. But at the end of my drinking, I feel sorry for myself. I don't bathe a lot because I don�t care. I've just trashed my life, everything of value in my life. Because once the fun has run out of the party, I pretty much don't care about nothing except oblivion. And this is the reality. This is not fun. This is pathetic, lonely, self-pitying drinking. Now that's the truth. what happens to me when i'm six months sober with untreated alcoholism i start imagining that i can drink like i drank when i was 18 years old and i'm playing in the bands and i'M ROCKING AND ROLLING AND LAUGHING WITH THE GUYS AND I WILL START IMAGINING THAT AND BELIEVING THAT THAT'S THE CASE IN THE FACE OF OVERWHELMING REALITY OF EVERY TIME I WENT out for the last couple years it's awful but see i don't want it to be awful so desperately that i will believe that something is not true is true because i yearn for that effect i can't imagine life without it actually and then here's silkworth says to them their alcoholic life seems the only normal one well that's always been my big secret and I can't even it doesn't make any sense I can't tell anybody this and I have a hard time telling myself because in the light of the damage I've done from my drinking and drug use, it doesn'T make sense but the truth is that I always felt closer to normal when I was lit up than I ever felt when Iwas straight and that's crazy in the light of what happens to me and the damage i do and the in the hearts i break and the it's crazy but it's true in here i always felt more normal lit up see abstinence is an awkward awkward position for me and silkworth goes on in the next line to talk about here's where he starts to nail what makes, I believe, what makes this a terminal illness. Some of you have asked yourself, I bet you, if you've been chronic relapsers, my God, after swearing to myself I'd never touch that stuff again and seven months later I'm back at it. What's that about? How does that happen? Here's how it happens. Now Silkworth here in this next two lines is talking about me once i stop drinking he's really starting to to give us a glimpse of what's really wrong this malady of my being and he says he says that when i'm sober i'm restless i am i'm irritable and i'm discontented unless i can again experience the sense of ease and comfort that I'd once found in taking a few drinks, drinks which I see others taking with impunity, without any consequences, without punishment. So what happens? From all practical purposes, my alcoholism starts where the bottle ends. I enter into a state of abstinence. I've made up my mind and I mean it for God's sakes. Look what happened to me. I'm never going to drink again. and I've been at this pot, and with all the sincerity a human being is capable of, tell myself I'm never going to touch that again. And then gradually these feelings of this restlessness, you know that feeling like wherever you are, some of you are probably feeling it right this moment sitting in this room, like this isn't really where you need to be. You don't know where it is you needと be. it's just not here. You know what I mean? It's that vague feeling wherever you go after being there about 10 minutes, it's like, yeah, this ain't it. Yeah, this Ain't it, you know, let's go over here. Okay. We're going over. Oh, this is, this could, this looks like it's it's this ain't that either. Yeah. Wrestling. You ever watch a dog circle a room trying to find a spot to lay down. I'm a dog that can't find its spot. The second symptom he talks about is irritability. I'm irritable. Well, I'm not irritable! Look, I can't help it if I can see so clearly how stupid people are. I'm Not Irritable. They just are out of line. They're just wrong, for God's sakes. If they'd straighten up, I wouldn't have to be so aggravated. I'm Irritible. I'm irritable, and I don't... Because I don't like irritable people, so I'm not irritable. I'm irritable, and I'm discontented. And this is, I think this goes right down to the core of the vacancy, this god hole, you could call it, a friend of mine calls it, is that no matter what I get in the crosshairs that I am absolutely convinced will make a difference experientially within me. Whatever I'm convinced will bring me to a place where I'll be happy and satisfied in my life, whether it's this relationship, this job, that house, that Mercedes, that Harley Davidson, playing with that band, doing this, doing that, whatever it is. i get it in the crosshairs and i become convinced that man if i get this going on have making that kind of money with that kind OF person being loved that kind OF way whatever it is i'll be there and the problem is is that i often get that stuff and there's something about me that the shine of it wears off very quickly and you know that disillusion feeling after three or four or five months into the thing that you knew was going to change your life. And it's like, ugh. I remember sitting in a treatment center watching some of these people in AA that were doing so good. And I remember one guy, he was always grateful for everything. Well, he had a big house and a wonderful car and I thought, well, I'd be grateful too. so i my my fantasy is is that if i had like maybe 20 million dollars enough money that i could arrange my life for into a non-stop series of self-gratification events that never stopped right just like maybe a new motorcycle every other day like a new sports car about once a week a new girlfriend every two weeks, you know, just like nonstop. But I'd probably be okay. And do you know the sad thing? There's a lot of people, alcoholics that are in that position and they ain't okay. That's why guys in $5 million homes blow their brains out. And those of us that have gone that route, we know a painful truth. No matter how good you get it out here, if it ain't no good in here, it ain't no good Chuck Chamberlain used to say for every alcoholic there will come a time no matter how fortunate you are where you can no longer put anything between you and you and boy those are desolate places when the shine is worn off of everything and everything that you believed was going to make a difference you believed was going to make you happy and satisfied and the shine wears off and there you are I'm back to me again and that's never been any good really I run from me I distract me from me and what happens the book says they'll succumb to the desire again as so many do the phenomenon of craving develops they pass through the well-known stages of a spree emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change, an entire, I think that's like more than half, an entire psychic change, there's very little hope of his recovery. Over and over. Isn't it odd? I'm a student of people who relapse with long-term sobriety, and I'm the student of those who relapsed with long term sobrietry. And I'm also a student of people who commit suicide with long term sobriete. And oddly enough, the people that I've seen that go south on us, they don't do it when they're struggling. They don't do it when their life is at a low spot. They usually do it at a time when they have everything, if they would have made a checklist when they got sober of the things they would have needed in their life to be full, happy, and satisfied. That's when they'll go south on us why would that be because nothing's changed really in here hi everybody my name is polly and i'm an alcoholic and i am so thrilled to be here i just i am honored when bob asked me to do this i was just so honored thank you so much he's someone who i really admire you know there's uh there's my husband calls it podium flash and there's people in alcoholics anonymous who have podium flash and then there are people who really walk like they talk and bob is one of those guys and i just sort of i just started i just don't like that you know it's just one of the things that of those guys, and I've been around watching him for a long time. I'd also like to say that I am not from Bellevue, Washington. I'm really a snob, and BellevUE, Washington is a very high-end part of Seattle where a lot of rich people live, but I want you guys to know I live in paradise, and I live two and a half hours north of Seattle right on the Canadian border and a place called birch bay washington and it's uh i live in hooterville and i came from southern california so i have loved enjoying the culture shock it's been wonderful i love just you know laying back somebody says well doesn't the rain bother you and i can't think of anything that's more relaxing than more spiritual than the rain it doesn't rain hard in the pacific Northwest. It just kind of rains, you know, it just kind of rains and just kind all the time and a fire going and a couple of eagles sitting out on a tree and I'm telling you it just didn't get better than that. So hang around, just hang around. That sounds dull, you're all pretty young, probably is, but to me it's wonderful. Thanks for the accommodations. Whoa, this is fabulous, absolutely fabulous. Um, I am just really thrilled to be here, to be doing these steps because I have, I'm one of these people. I know Bob and I were talking about it at dinner. I had a really wonderful childhood. I mean, there could not have been a child more loved than me. I am an only child. My parents wanted me they didn't have a lot of money but they worked and they sacrificed and I was a dancer as a little girl and a gymnast and my mother was a nurse and she just you know worked and made dance costumes and did everything that she could do to make me happy but whatever was wrong with me it's like from the shoot it was I was just this little girl standing there just with my hands on my hips wanting something else that somebody else had and and that's not because I was deprived in any way we were kind of talking about Clarence Snyder at dinner and there's a book out about his life so he's a really interesting character and it's called How It Worked and the author of this book says in the very first lines there appears to be two characteristics that cause alcoholism being loved too much are not enough so i mean you know it's an equal opportunity disease it can either get the hooker on the street or it can get a president's wife i mean that's that's the thing it's just an equal opportune illness i did not even know an alcoholic until i came into the rooms of alcoholics anonymous and i love bob said at dinner and i loved this he said i would have loved to had somebody to hang it on you know i sat in treatment i know a lot of times i'm 31 years sober my sobriety date's april the 11th of 1977 and uh i got sober in texas and i i know better when you get to the podium you give your sobriete date because in teXas they say if you don't give your subriete day just probably because you don' t have one so that's what we say down there anyway uh i got sober in a treatment center i promise you there was treatment 31 years ago bob just said he went to treatment he's almost 30 years sober so i don't know where all this comes from but there was treat and i was sitting at a treatment center i did not know what was wrong with me i could not believe i knew i drank too much I knew I took too many pills. I knew that something was wrong with me. I just couldn't figure, I just didn't understand it. I didn't know an alcoholic. And I was sitting in this treatment center and, you know, you sit around and you're in group. A lot of you have been through treatment and I'm sure it's the same way. You sit in group, talk about your feelings and I am listening to these people talk about these horrible things that have happened to little boys and girls And I'm sitting there thinking, well, I can see why you're an alcoholic. You know, because of all these horrible things that have happened to you. But I don't understand why I'm an alcoholic? I didn't understand the disease of alcoholism. And whether I have had a painful childhood or whether I have had abusive relationships, whatever has been happened to me in the past has absolutely nothing to do with whether i'm going to get cancer or not i'm either going to give it or i'm not and they say i can do some things that may help it and that may be you know eat right get plenty of rest and have a positive attitude but those are not any guarantees and i don't believe that the disease of alcoholism is any different for me the disease of alcoholism is a spiritual malady but that doesn't mean it's not a disease but it's a spiritual disease and whatever's whatever goes on inside of me before i came to the rooms of alcoholics anonymous and i couldn't understand is that i just whatever it is, it's just not enough. I can't do it right. And some of you, I'm sure, have children in here. Are there moms in here? So we've got a few moms. I am an alcoholic mother, and I have two sons, and I've taken those two sons and I drugged them through the disease of alcoholism i am a military wife my husband was gone most of our entire marriage so i was basically a single mom so i can't even lay it on him the children the boys were with me and i drugged them through the disease of alcoholismo and just because i'm an alcoholic And just because I'm sick with the disease doesn't mean I don't love these kids. And the disease of alcoholism, my son has a baseball game. I want to be there. I wantto be there and I can't get there. And what happens is we go to the next paragraph where Bob left off. On the other hand, and strange as it may seem to those who do not understand, once a psychic change has occurred, that same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol. The only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules. Okay, now that says we've got to follow some simple rules Okay, here's a mother who cannot show up at her child's baseball game Here is a mother Who for whatever reason Wants to there I don't understand why I can't do it i am that person that drinks no matter what my child has a baseball game my son is a musician and he's he's playing the guitar he's paying the trombone he's doing all these things and he said he's having these uh performances and i can't get there what's the problem i don't understand but what happens is is that phenomenal of craving grabs me but i walk into a treatment center after numerous times i was in treatment several times and i don't know what happens i don'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENS BECAUSE I DON'T GET IT AT FIRST I DONT UNDERSTAND IT I DON'LL UNDERSTAIN WHAT HAPPENED I DON''T UNDERSTAIN THE SURRENDER BUT I ENTER THIS TREATMENT CENTER And one day, I cannot, no matter what, I can't not, I can't NOT drink. I can show up for my children. I love my children, I CAN'T show up for them. When I'm restless, irritable and discontent, when I'm pulling off, when i'm sober, gosh, drinking's not my problem, sobriety is my problem. Sobriety crazy. I can't live in my own skin. I've got two little kids who have a mother that when she's drinking, she's passed out and she can't get up and she Can't function. And when she sober, she's so irritable, restless and discontent that I'm yelling my head off screaming at these kids and accusing them of whatever, you know, get out of my you're driving me crazy, get out of my face and this is the person i am and i enter a treatment center after numerous relapses third treatment center and something happens all of a sudden one day i can't drink no matter what and the next day i'm sober and what happens is is that psychic change that surrender I don't know how it happened. I don'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED THAT CAUSED THAT SURRENDER. BUT IT WAS SO STRANGE THAT I COULDN'T UNDERSTAND IT. HOW COME I DON'T CRAVE? HOW COMEI DON'T HAVE THAT FEELING? HOW COME RIGHT NOW, THIS MINUTE, I DONT NEED A DRINK? WHAT HAPPENED? ONE FEELS, SKIPPING ON DOWN A LITTLE BIT DOWN, feels that something more than human power is needed to produce the essential psychic change. I believe for me, and you can believe whatever you want to for you, but I believe that I truly, at some level, I wanted to show up for my kids. I wanted it to be the best mom I could be. I knew in my heart what I was doing to these children. I just couldn't stop doing it. I knew I didn't want to be the way I was. And what happened was I got stopped, just stopped, long enough. And it doesn't have to be in a treatment center. One of the things that I see that happen all the time, my husband showed up at Alcoholics Anonymous and he hasn't had a drink since. He never went to a treatment centre. He just showed up AT&T. But what happened was, whatever that willingness is, that willingness, that little tiny bit of willingness that allows me to walk through that door, even though I was court committed, it certainly wasn't voluntary. But even though i walked through that doer, that a little bit of the willingness was enough and I truly believe for me that that was a divine intervention. now you can call it whatever you want I just believe that whatever that willingness was that was enough to connect it and that's what Dr. Young wrote to Bill and what he told Roland Hazard I have never seen an alcoholic of your type recover unless they have had some kind of spiritual experience and maybe you need to go back to the you know back to ohio and find religion maybe that's what you need to do that's what he told roland hazard and one of the things i just got to hear clancy last weekend but my husband talks about it a lot too because he's a real history buff but what happened was is right then every all the little bricks that have been put in place and alcoholics synonymous. Every little single brick that's brought you and me together. One of the first bricks was, is that Roland Hazard was going to see Sigmund Freud. And Sigmud Freud was an atheist. And that's where he was going go because he had the disease of alcoholism so bad. But Sigmun freud couldn't see and in the meantime carl jung had separated his association with freud because he believed in the spiritual realm and freud did not and that what happened was is as clancy He says that your sobriety and my sobriery, our lives hung at that moment. That he went to Carl Jung because Carl Jung says you've got to go find a way to have a spiritual experience. One feels that something more than human power is needed to produce this essential psychic change. many types and one of the things a lot of us come in here here here the book says this now if you're brand new sober and uh you're going to need a psychic change and you start reading some of the thing that are in the big book the oxford group or you pick up aa comes of age and you start thinking my god i need religion i'm not going to get sober unless i get religion and i at this you know i've had this experience with god and this experience and i don't know what your experience with God is but i know what my experience with G-d was i was raised southern baptist i grew up in Texas right where they took the bible belt and gave it an extra pull and i just you know I heard Sunday morning after Sunday morning as i went to church and Sunday night these fire and brimstone you know get you know screaming off of the top of their lungs in the congregation you're born a sinner you're gonna die in hell all of this stuff and i'll tell you what god did not seem very approachable to me that did not seemed like something i was interested in a spiritual experience you know have you got something else i mean i need something else. A spiritual experience, talk about God, that seems really, really scary to me. And I don't think I can do that. Turn my, you know, all of the stuff that you just, you come into an AA meeting and you see these steps on the board. That's before we've gotten in the book. And I'm looking at this and I'm like, this cannot be the answer. First it sounds really lame and the other thing is I really can't do that so what happens is is I've got to begin to find a way in order to sit in an AA meeting long enough to be able to begin to have the willingness so that I can have this higher power well I don't know what you do when you come into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous or what you did but you're sitting here tonight and when you're standing here tonight I'm gonna assume that everybody's sitting here sober so if that's the case then something has happened something has this this psychic change has occurred because now you're sober we're not drinking and I'm a person who cannot drink no matter what I'm going to drink no matter what. So something has occurred. Maybe it's just a little tiny bit of willingness to show up at the meeting, but what happens for me is I go into a treatment center for me and for 30 days I hear people talk about the disease I have. And the next thing I know a man is presented to me. I've known him through the other two attempts at sobriety and this man had been a monsignor priest and he was a captain in the Navy and he wasn't a priest he was an only child and he had left the priesthood to marry a Taiwanese woman so he was no longer a priest he could not take the sacraments because he had laid down his priesthood yet he did not dislike or did he not I mean he still loved the Catholic Church now that doesn't make any sense to me you know I've got all these judgments about these preachers and you're going to burn in hell and they're telling me thou shalt not drink and I see good people and they are drinking and I don't understand it but what begins to happen is I begin to see this man and I begin do some things that he tells me to do and that is he asked me to follow some simple rules that's all he asked me to do and then i say well i don't know i i just believe god wants to kill me i believe that that's what god i mean that's they tell me in the church you know if you've done all those things that you're going to burn in hell so i how can god love me if i feel like all he wants to do is kill me and what frank says to me much like when we get into bill's story that ebby said to bill was choose a god of your own understanding and i didn't believe that i could do that but what happened was then is frank said if you can't come to find a god of your understanding then why don't you use mine why don'T you just believe that I believe So more or less, for what I did for just a little while is I put my faith in him and that he could help me and that He could show me a few simple rules and that way I could have a beginning to get sober. i wanted to just kind of go over uh just really quickly uh i don't know what time i started about 10 minutes one of the things that i that i want to talk about also is um a lot of times we come into the rooms of alcoholics anonymous and on the next page over build uh dr silkworth talks about some different types of alcoholics, and one of the things that I want to say is about an alcoholic of my type. I see a lot of people come into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it doesn't appear that they need to do the same things I need to doing to stay sober, and I know lots of people like that and all i can tell you is all i know for me is is that those people probably are not an alcoholic of my type i'm here to tell you that i can't i hear people say well i haven't been to a meeting in two weeks i can'T imagine going to a meet not going to a meeting for two weeks bob talked about pneumonia will kill you i had pneumonia some of you who have ever read uh i have the third edition uh that talks about uh acceptance as the answer in the fourth edition when dr paul talks about acceptance well you know you've read his story it's in the big book i mean i knew when i got sober the everything people talk about if you were having problems, go read page 449. Go read page 449 because I got sober on the third edition and I mean but I want to tell you about Dr. Paul. I had pneumonia and I had known Dr. Saul. I'd gone down to Laguna to his meeting. I heard him speak but I didn't know Dr. Powell and I got pneumonia and what I found out about Dr Paul is for his entire sobriety, and this was about 10 or 11 years ago, for his entire sobrietty he had been taking meetings to people who were shut in on a Thursday night. And for three weeks he brought me a meeting. That's why does Paul need to do that? And why does somebody else not need to do that because paul is an alcoholic of my time i can't not do those things and i see people test the waters all the time and what he's saying about people who have lots of sobriety i mean we're watching people fall with 30 years plus of sobrietty and what happens is is i don't know when my husband calls it igor you know just sits there you know and just waits alcoholism is really patient because i can feel it i mean you ever you know all of a sudden it's like oh gosh this is really a good movie on i don' t really think i want to go to that meeting i really don't want to do that i just you know gosh i've been talking on the phone to all these sponsees all day long i don't wanna do that and then all of a sudden i remember darn it i'm supposed to meet such and such as that meeting so one of the things that i was told early on some simple rules get a commitment get a commitment have a reason to show up at that meeting because i don't know about you you may get this book you may have a little bit of sobriety you may have a lot of sobrietty i'm not a good memorizer i don' t know i can't call pages and stuff like that i sponsor a woman who can she just knows a big book like that but i don''t but i know this book i know and love this book and what i know is is that i am not going to get sober unless i take some action and what happens is is when i first come into the rooms of alcoholics anonymous i don't have a lot i'm you know i'm i'm right on that edge of restless irritable and discontent i'm not sitting reading too good but i tell you what i can do i can show up at a meeting i can pick up the cups i can empty the ashtrays i can start to take some actions and what i want to read because of saying that is uh i want to quickly just kind of move over to bill's story and he can go back to the doctor's opinion if he wants to but what happened is is bill didn't have this book, okay, when he got sober. So I want he wrote it at three years of sobriety. I believe that it is divinely inspired. I don't know anybody in here at three years could have wrote this book. I just can't imagine it happening. But at the bottom of Bill's story in the third edition it's on page 14. My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles and all my affairs this is this is before the book this is just getting sober particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me faith without works was dead and he said and how appallingly true for the alcoholic for in an if or if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead if he did not work he would surely drink again and if he drank he would truly die then faith would be dead indeed with us it's just like that so almost even before we even do anything with step one i think we have to get into action because what happened for me is just to go to the meeting and i can tell you for me step one was just get in the car. Just get in a car. Get in the car, get to a meeting. Get to a meeting. I was told if I had 15 minutes more than that newcomer to share that 15 minutes. Absolutely do something because I'm restless, irritable and discontent. And if I allow this head to run away with me and I don't begin to take some actions, I am going to surely drink again.