Charlie – Big Book Study – The Doctor’s Opinion and the Psychic Change – 1986

Number one, Alcoholics Anonymous is a textbook called Alcoholics Anonymous. And then this group of people took their name off the book and called themselves Alcoholics Anonymous. So we have two Alcoholics Anonymous. We have a book and a society. And in 1939, quite naturally, when this book was published, the group, the people in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous practiced the same program that was in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, because that's where it came from. And as time went by, you know, we people, we tend to change. And thank God the big book, the book Alcoholics Anonymous has not been changed, but the fellowship has changed. You know, we add to and delete and learn and apply and improve on things into where they don't even recognize what they were when they started. Man has a way of doing it. They're doing that. So the program in the fellowship has changed. You know, we can just say, go to meetings and don't drink and you'll be all right. We've added so many things to the fellowship until sometimes, you know, we'll get like those people on Sunday mornings in those big buildings around town. You can go into one of their meetings and if you, if you listen to their meetings and then read their book, you won't know what kind of meeting they're having. Yeah. They have gotten so far away from their book. And I thank God that I'm very blessed to live in a time and to be an alcoholic where you can still recognize, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous in Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's what we're all about. We'll be talking about this week, not the program in the fellowship Alcoholics Anonymous. We'll be talking about the program in the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. Every once in a while you get into a meeting that's supposed to be in a meeting and sometimes you can't read it. You can't read the detail, what kind of meeting it is. Some of the stuff that's said and goes on. And again, we realize that each group is autonomous. They have the right to have the kind of meetings they want to. Joe and I went to a meeting not long ago and we sat there for about 15 or 20 minutes and finally I turned to Joe and I said, Joe, what kind of meeting is this anyhow? And he said, beats hell out of me. He said, maybe it's BB. And I said, BB, what's that? And he said, I don't know, but it's not AA. And I said, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. J MAY META You don't know. I don't know. J MAY META A lot of people, the Lord of thehills can't know. J MAY META I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. J MAY META I don't know. J MAY META I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. J MAY META ARCHIVE On Roman numeral 20, we want to look at one more idea and then we're just dying to get into the doctor's opinion. At the top of Roman numeral 20 it says, public acceptance of AA grew by leaps and bounds. For this, there were two principal reasons. the large numbers of recoveries and reunited homes. These made their impressions everywhere. Of alcoholics who came to AA and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way. 25% sobered up after some relapses. And among the remainder, those who stayed on with AA showed improvement. And I think it's quite easy to see that back in the beginning, when the fellowship program and the book program were exactly the same, that they had a minimum recovery rate of 75%. I wonder what it is today. I wonder if it's 50% today. I wonder if it's 25%. I wonder if it's 15%. I don't think any of us really know, but I'm quite sure it's not 75%. I almost got to believe that if our fellowship could move back into their own book and back into their own program, that surely, surely, surely, we could see a growth. We could see a greater percentage of alcoholics recover who do come to the Fellowship Alcoholics Anonymous. I think one of the great tragedies we see going on today is many, many new people. Many young people are coming to the fellowship. They hang around in fellowship for two or three months. And then after a while, they get bored and they leave and they say, AA's not for me. It doesn't work for me. And I think the reason is maybe we're not showing them the program Alcoholics Anonymous as contained in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. And I believe if we could start doing that again, maybe we could increase these numbers. Maybe not back to 75%. You know, I'm sure some of the people come to us today, they aren't really ready to sober up. I'm sure some are sent to us that aren't ready to sober up, and that would certainly lower that percentage some. But I've almost got to believe that part of the reason is, is we're getting so far away from our own program that we're really not showing new people what's necessary for them to recover. And I believe that's our responsibility. I don't think it's anybody else's but ours to show the newcomer what's in this book and the steps and how to work them and apply them according to the big book. Let's go with the doctor's opinion. Joe? Okay, the doctor's opinion. As we begin the doctor's opinion, we have to look back prior to the writing of the big book and think how blessed we are. We live in a time when this information is available. But before 1939, before... Dr. Silkworth, no one understood the problem of alcoholism. This is where the world was at that time. And when you don't understand the problem, there is really nothing you can do. You try a lot of solutions that don't work. Now, no one understood the problem of alcoholism, but many people were trying since the beginning of time to find out what... Since the beginning of time, as people begin to use alcohol, certain people had a good time, a good time with alcohol, and a minority of people had problems from drinking, right from the beginning. And we can go back through history and the oldest history of mankind and examine, you know, mankind has always been trying to find out what was the problem. Now, it's very peculiar that the people that were trying to find out the problem were the people who didn't drink or who didn't have a problem. The opinions of... The... The... The... The images of the alcoholic were created by the non-alcoholic. It was the non-alcoholics who said we were weak, who said we were bums, who said we were tramps, who said we were sinful. It wasn't the alcoholic. He didn't care what the problem was. He just kept on drinking. So the images of the alcoholic were created by the non-alcoholic. They didn't know what the problem was. And we can go back to the book of books. And one of my favorites is in Solomon. Solomon's book. Solomon was a social worker of his time. You know, people came to him with all kinds of problems. And he had great insight into human problems. Someone, as it goes, I don't know what they called it, but someone that probably asked him about one of us in Proverbs 23, 29 to the end, in the big, big book. And he said, you know, he described some mannerisms of people with problems with alcohol. He said, beware of the wine. That's all they had in those days. Everybody was a wino. You know, beer came later and then distilled beverages. But he said, beware of the wine as it moves its right in its cup. It's pretty and it's red, but it lies just by like a serpent and it stings like an adder. And then he went on to describe some of the mannerisms of people with problems. He said, you will be as one who lies down in the midst of a sea. You know, you sway around a lot. Or sleep with it at the top of a mast. You know how the mast of a ship sways around. He went on to say, you will say they have beaten me and I felt it not. You know, the next morning you feel like somebody was beating on you. And he sure knew some of us fellows because he said, thine eyes shall behold strange women. And thy heart shall utter perverse things. You'll say a lot of things you don't want to say. But then his conclusion was really that he didn't understand. It was a man of wisdom that could admit that he didn't know. Because of course, he was a man of wisdom. Because the way he closed it out, he said, but it's still yet. They will rise in the morning and they will seek it yet again. You know, that's great wisdom. That description would fit the alcoholics of 1986. But he didn't understand the problem. No one understood the problem. So they treated it as a sin. They treated it as a weakness. They treated it every other way. And it all began with Dr. Silkworth. Sometimes we always talk about everybody else. But it all began in the town with Dr. Silkworth. When Dr. Silkworth went there to work. And he went there. He didn't go there to do this. But he went there because he couldn't find a job. And he got a job at the town for $40 a week. And he saw no one recover during those early years. From 1930 until the time he met Bill. When he began to discern, he said, he came up with the idea, the beginning in his mind. That, you know, there was some driving force. Even though everybody said these people were weak and sinful. He began to discern some force within these people that was driving them to destruction. He began to accumulate this idea over a period of time. And he was able to take this force and divide it into two areas. He said part of it is a physical and part of it is a mental. And he would accumulate this idea as he was on the firing line every day. And he shared this with Bill. And, you know, I don't know if he talked to anybody else. But actually, you know, as he accumulated these ideas and gave it to Bill. And Bill gave it to Dr. Bob. Dr. Bob gave it to Bill Dodson. And they gave it to the first 100. And they have given it to us. It's the foundation for our recovery. Because the world now understands that alcoholism is a disease. It was right in his mind that he conceived of this. And Bill was probably the first alcoholic in the history of the world that ever knew exactly what his problem was. And he has passed this on to us. So it all began with Dr. Silkworth. And this is where it started. This was the beginning of the recovery process in the mind of Dr. Silkworth at the Towns Hospital. And that's just why this is in the very front of our book. The foundation of the book is the doctor's opinion. Because it is in the doctor's opinion that describes what is the problem. The solution and the recovery plan in this book is based on the doctor's opinion. And the doctor's opinion is the foundation of the textbook. On Roman numeral page... On Roman numeral page 24. It says, The physician who at our request gave us this letter has been kind enough to enlarge upon his views in another statement which follows. In this statement he confirms that we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. Now for the first time we begin to see a reference to the fact that the body of the alcoholic is different also. Now all those people that had tried to identify the problem before dealt with the mind. Now they said it's willpower. Or they said it's moral character. Or they said it's sin. None of them ever really looked at the body. And for the first time we're beginning to see a reference to the fact that the body is quite as abnormal as his mind. It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life. That we were in full flight from reality. Or were outright mental defectees. These things were true to some extent. In fact to a considerable extent with some of us. But we are sure that our bodies were sickened as well. In our belief any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete. The doctor's theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us. As laymen our opinion as to its soundness may of course mean little. But as ex-problem drinkers we can say that his explanation makes good sense. It explains many things. For which we cannot otherwise account. And now we begin to see the reference to the fact that we are allergic to alcohol. Or the doctor's theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us. And as we know an allergy primarily deals with the body rather than with the mind. Let's go over on Roman numeral 26 for just a moment. Read one paragraph and then we're going to talk about that word allergy a little bit. Go ahead and read it and we'll talk about it. We believe as those who judge. Yesterday a few years ago. That the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholic is a manifestation of the allergy. That the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class. And never occurs in the average temperate drinker. Now we're going to be talking about these words. And I think that you know what changes our lives is ideas. And ideas of the first 100 were placed in the big book. And on the way to exchange an idea. For one human being to the other is through a word. Written or spoken. So to receive the same ideas we would have to have the exact same meaning of the words. And if we have different meanings of the words we missed the idea. So we have to be very careful. That we understand words exactly as they intend to use them. Now you're discussing in this paragraph this allergy. To alcohol or the manifestation of an allergy. Now I thought before coming to AA that I understood perfectly clear what an allergy was. And I thought that it was always something that you would be able to see. Some visible physical manifestation. That in some form or other you could tell what it is. For instance if you're allergic to strawberries. And you eat them you normally break out in a rash. And you're allergic to a plant. And you're allergic to a plant. You normally have a bad case of a rash. If you're allergic to milk and you drink it. You normally have a bad case of dysentery. If you're allergic to ragweeds and you get around them. Your eyes will itch. Your nose will itch. They'll begin to water and you'll begin to sneeze. Visible manifestations. Visible indicators of an allergy. Now I came to AA and they said Charlie you got an allergy to alcohol. And you can't ever drink again. And I said what do you mean I've got an allergy to alcohol. How in the hell can I have an allergy to alcohol. Because I've been drinking a quart a day for the last ten years. How can you be allergic to something and drink that much of it every day. And be allergic at the same time. And I said alcohol doesn't make me break out in a rash. Alcohol doesn't give me a bad case of dysentery. Oh once in a while it would depending on what I've been drinking. But normally it didn't. And alcohol didn't necessarily make my eyes and nose itch, water and make me sneeze. I said I don't know. I said I don't understand how I'm allergic to alcohol. And they said you just don't need to understand. Just don't drink and you'll be okay. Well that was alright for a little while. But again with my keen intellectual alcoholic mind. I had to have a little better understanding of this deal before I could be satisfied with it. And one day I went to the dictionary. And this started for me a chain that I've never broken since. When I find a word in the big book I don't understand I go to the dictionary. And I went to the dictionary and I looked up the word allergy. And I found a definition that I think fits me just exactly right. It says an allergy is an abnormal reaction to any food, beverage, substance of any kind. An abnormal reaction. And I began to look back through my life and try to see where I'm abnormal when it comes to alcohol. And I found that there's no way I could see where I was abnormal to alcohol. Because I didn't know anything about normal. To me the way I drank and the way everybody around me drank that was normal drinking. Now I find out today that isn't normal at all. The way I drank and the way people around me drank was abnormal. And in order for me to understand that and see that I had to go talk to normal social drinkers. And I had to get them to describe to me how they feel whenever they take a drink of alcohol. And most of them tell me something like this. They say, well Charlie, we can have one, two or three drinks. And we get a slightly tipsy, out of control, nauseous feeling. And they say we don't particularly like that feeling. And after one, two or three drinks we certainly don't want to drink enough to go to sleep or vomit. So we just stop drinking. We don't want anymore to drink. And that is absolutely amazing to me. Laughter. I always thought all my life. That they used will power to stop after one, two or three drinks. Today I understand they don't have to. Because one, two or three drinks is all they want to drink. And if that's all you want to drink then you don't have to use will power to not drink anymore. They also told me, they said, we can go home from work and we can be all tired, tense and wrought up from the day's work. And we can have a drink or two before dinner and we get a warm, comfortable, relaxing feeling. And we may or may not have another drink before dinner. But we'll go ahead and eat dinner and probably that's all we're going to drink that evening. Well now, I don't understand that either. You see, when I take a drink of alcohol I react entirely different than they do. Whenever I take a drink of alcohol is it passes over my lips. My lips get a hot, tingling, exciting feeling. And it hits my teeth and my teeth begin to chatter up and down. It strikes my tongue and my tongue begins to swell and grow. And it hits my cheeks and my cheeks go in and out. And I can feel it going up through my sinus cavities into my forehead. And I get a feeling up here in my forehead which is absolutely, indescribably wonderful. Now I haven't even swallowed the damn stuff yet. I just got it in my mouth. And when I swallow that stuff I can feel it going down through my esophagus. And as it does, some great things begin to happen. My chest begins to grow and expand and get bigger and bigger and bigger. And it hits my stomach and it explodes like a bomb. And I can feel it racing up through my arms and my arms get longer and longer. And it hits my hands and my fingers and they begin to tingle and vibrate. And at the same time it's racing through my legs and my legs are getting longer and longer. And I'm getting taller and taller. And it hits the bottom of my feet and my feet get hot and excited. And they want to get up and go somewhere and do something. I don't understand a warm, comfortable, relaxing feeling. Laughter. Laughter. Hell, if I felt the way they did, I wouldn't want but one, two, three drinks either. The normal reaction to a poison for the body is to want to get rid of that poison, to become nauseous and vomit it up. Alcohol is a toxic substance to the body. It is a poison to the body. Consumed in large enough quantities in a short enough period of time, it can actually kill like any other poison. Now, the normal reaction after one, two, or three drinks is to want to vomit that stuff up. I never had that reaction. If I ever did, I just had to vomit two or three times and I went right on through that. Alcohol made me feel so good. And it triggered within me a craving for more of the same. And the craving seemed to be a physical craving that after I had... I never had one, two, or three drinks instead of wanting to vomit it up. I craved and wanted and had to have another drink and another drink and another drink and another drink. And I've been that way all my life. I drank alcohol for 26 years. I can never remember taking one drink of anything that had alcohol in it. Never had one beer. Never had one shot of whiskey. Never had one drink of wine. Anytime I ever took one, it triggered this physical craving and it demanded I have more and more and more and more and my mind could not control the amount I would drink. I would drink a lot. I would drink a lot. I would drink a lot. I would consume after I had taken the first one, two, or three drinks. And this is abnormal. The only difference between normal and abnormal is what do the majority of the people do. Nine people out of ten drink it that safe way. One person out of ten drinks it the way I do and those people like me are considered to be abnormal to alcohol and therefore we are considered to be allergic to alcohol. The manifestation of our allergy is the craving that is produced physically after we have had one drink of alcohol. had one, two, or three drinks. And the doctor refers to this as the phenomenon of craving. And the only reason he uses the word phenomenon is he said, I don't understand why this happens. I just know that it happens. And he said, therefore, I'm going to call it the phenomenon of craving. A craving that is produced in the body after one, two, or three drinks that is beyond my ability to understand. Therefore, it is the phenomenon of craving. That's the manifestation of the allergy. It's not a rash. It's not dysentery. It's not itchy, watery, sneezy eyes. You know, it is the phenomenon of craving. He also talked in that paragraph about chronic alcoholics. And many of us were upset by the word chronic. You know, I've been called every other kind of alcoholic. I got to the big book. It said chronic alcoholic. Didn't understand what that meant either. And one day I went to the dictionary and looked it up and it simply said, if you do it more than once, you're chronic. If we repeat it over and over, we're chronic. We certainly did that. Okay. These allergy types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. Once having found their habit, they finally cannot break it. Once they have lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon human things, their problems pile up upon them and they become extraordinarily difficult to solve. Now he's going to go deeper into this analogy. Okay. We're going over here to Roman numerals 28. The craving, the physical craving is beyond the mental control. Yeah. In the context of the big book is we use the word craving. Now we're dealing with the physical side of the disease. Now many people say I came to AA and I craved alcohol for two or three years. And really that's a misuse of this particular term in the context of the big book. I think what they're really saying is I desired alcohol or I had an obsession of the mind with alcohol. Craving occurs purely a physical thing only after we have taken one, two or three drinks. Always dealing with the physical side of the disease. Okay. Now he's going to start out over here. Well, I'm going to move to Roman numeral 28. And we're talking about the classifications to further bring out this craving. He's going to go further with it. He's going to talk about the different classifications of alcoholics. Describe some, not all of them. The classification of alcoholics seems the most difficult and in much detail is outside the scope of this book. Now we're not going to get into classifying all of them. But he's going to give us, he's going to give us five different classifications. There are of course the type one. There are of course the psychopaths who are emotionally unstable. We are familiar with this type. They are always going on the water wagon for keeps. They are over remorseful, make many resolutions, but never a decision. Now that's type one. Now here's type two. They're the type of man who's unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink. He plans various ways of drinking. He changes his brand of his environment. Type three. They're the type who always believe that to be entirely free from alcohol for a period of time he can take a drink without danger. Type four. There is a manic depressive type who is perhaps at least understood by his friends and about whom a whole chapter could be written. Now here's type five. Charlie thinks he's a type five. He really does. There are nine types entirely non-physical. There's a man who's not a man. There's a man who's not a man. There's a man who's not a man. They're say types 5 and basic. These are the types of men we don't normally ever expect, except the The easiest type of effect alcohol has upon them. They are often able, intelligent friendly people We have described five different types of alcoholics. Now he's going to make a summation of all of these. All these and many others have one symptom in common. They don't have but one thing in common. They can not start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. Sweet friends jail is the way they drink been drinking責欠俺 craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of the allergy which differentiates these people and sets them apart in a distinct entity. It is never by any treatment of which we are familiar permanently eradicated. The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence. Now all of us are alcoholics. We may act differently when we drink, but there is but one thing we all have in common. We all experience the craving of alcohol once we take a drink. Now if all we alcoholics in this room tonight should take a drink, God forbid that happen. But if we did, we would not all necessarily do exactly the same thing. Now in just a short period of time, one of us would be over in a corner and we'd go to crying in our beer. Oh boo hoo hoo, the world doesn't treat me right. And a little bit in another, we'd be right out in the middle of the floor, right up on top of a table, just dancing, and hooping, and hollering, and cutting up, having a hell of a good time. 30 minutes later over in that corner, there'll be two in a fight just sure as anything. Give us another 10 minutes, there'll be two over in this corner, one of them putting the make on the other. We do that also, you know. We would not all do exactly the same thing, but there is one thing we would all do. As soon as we got that first drink down, we would start looking around for a second drink, and then a third drink, and then a fourth drink, and then a fifth drink, and on and on and on until we're drunk, sick, and all kinds. I know that's true, because if that wasn't true with each of us as alcoholics, we wouldn't be sitting in this room tonight. We would be out there somewhere safely drinking alcohol. Now the one thing we have in common is the phenomenon of craving that develops after we have that first one, two, or three drinks, and it doesn't make any difference whether we had it from the first drink we ever took, or whether we drank five years, 10 years, 15, or 20 with relative safety, somewhere down the line, each of us have reached that stage that when we take a drink, we cannot control the amount we will consume after we've had that first one, two, or three drinks. Nor does it make any difference how long it's going to take us to get drunk. Now some of us, this thing is so pronounced that if I, with me, if I take a drink right now, by 11 o'clock tonight, I've done found a cop, and I'm locked up in jail somewhere. Some of you guys might have one or two drinks tonight. You might have three or four tomorrow night, and five or six the next night, and it may take you a week or 10 days to get back to a fifth a day, but sooner or later you reach that point, and it's triggered by the drink we take tonight. That is the thing we have in common. So many times in AA, we sit around and we try to unidentify. You know, this fellow says I've been in jail 24 times. I say, I'm not like him. I just made it 13. This lady says I've been married and divorced five times. We say, oh, we're not like her. We just had three. But the thing we have in common is the phenomenon of craving that is developed after we take that first drink. This is the manifestation of the allergy. This is what Dr. Silkworth gave to the world. This is what all successful treatment programs are based on today. Every successful treatment program in the world today dealing with alcoholism is based upon the idea that the alcoholic is allergic, is different, and we cannot safely drink alcohol. Every time we try it, we end up in all kinds of trouble. Now in 1939, this was the Great Doctor's Opinion. In fact, he gave it to Bill in 1933, and he put it in the book in 1939. Today, the medical profession has pretty well proven the doctor's opinion, and we won't talk about it for just a moment. But before talking about it, we'll say first, this is not AA information. AA doesn't care why we're allergic to alcohol. AA is not about to get involved in that bag of worms and that controversy. But there's been some information come out within the last few years that he wasn't allergic to alcohol. He wasn't allergic to alcohol. He wasn't allergic to so interesting regarding this thing that I think we would be remiss if we didn't share it. So let's talk about it just a little bit. On your handout sheet, you have a chart called the disease concept of alcoholism. Joe's going to go to the blackboard, and he's going to kind of draw this on the board as we go along through this thing. I know some bladders are getting full. Just stay with us. We're going to be through in just a few minutes. We'd rather do that than take a break. Yeah, we're at a university. Surely there's some chalk somewhere around there. No chalk? Anybody got any chalk in their pocket? Okay, let's just go ahead and look at it then. I think somebody's looking for chalk now, and probably they'll come in here with a big piece in a minute. Okay. Back in the 30s, they knew a little bit about metabolism of food, various different things we put in our body, but they really didn't understand why it worked and how it worked. Over this period of years since then, the medical profession has pretty well found out what goes on when we put something in our system or in our body. For instance, if we would eat a piece of beefsteak, the mind and body being the marvelous mechanisms they are can sense almost immediately what that is that we've put in our stomach. And the mind will signal certain organs of the body to start what is called enzyme production. And the enzymes are produced, and the enzymes attack that piece of beefsteak. And they actually break it down into usable and unusable items. The things that we can use, such as the carbohydrates, such as the calories, such as the amino acids, such as the vitamins, the body will retain them, and use them. The things we cannot use, the body will dissipate normally through the urinary and the intestinal tract. And this is the way we metabolize things that we put into the system. And the body can do this with almost anything that's put in it, given time. Of course, there are some poisons that are so deadly, the body doesn't have time to metabolize before everything's shut down. But normally, what's put in there, this is what happens to it. Same things take place with alcohol. If we would look at this center line, on the chart, the nine drink safely, they are at ease. These are the so-called normal social drinkers. They take a drink of alcohol, put it into the system, the mind and body recognizes what it is, the mind signals organs of the body to start the enzyme production, the enzymes attack the alcohol and begin to metabolize it, just like it would this beefsteak. It is first broken down into a material called acetaldehyde. Then after a period of time, the diacetic acid. Then after a period of time, the acetone. And then after a period of time, to a simple carbohydrate, which is made up of water, sugar and carbon dioxide. The sugar can be used by the body. That's calories, that's energy. And it will use and burn what it needs to. It will store the excesses fat to burn at a future date. Interesting enough, those happen to be empty calories. There's none of them. There's no amino acids in there. There's none of the vitamins necessary for their life. But it is calories and it is energy. The water will be dissipated through the urinary and intestinal tract and the carbon dioxide will be dissipated through the lungs. In the normal social drinker, the average metabolic rate is one ounce per hour of alcohol. If the normal social drinker never drinks more than one ounce per hour, they're never going to get drunk. So their body can metabolize it, dissipate it, and get rid of it. Now, if they try to drink more than that, they get that nauseous feeling, which is a normal feeling for a poison. And the next thing you know, they upchuck. And they get rid of it in that manner. Now, we alcoholics, we don't seem to have that thing that triggers that nauseous feeling. We don't get that upchuck feeling that they do. Let's look at the one on the left. The one who does not drink safely, or the one who is at disease. And this is all the word disease means, something that separates you from the norm. We alcoholics take a drink and we put it into the system. The mind and body senses what it is. The enzyme production begins. The enzymes attack the alcohol and break it down to acetaldehyde, diacetic acid, and then the acetone. But it seems as though in the body of the alcoholic, the enzyme is necessary to break it from acetone, to the simple carbohydrate, are not there in the same qualities and quantities as they are in the body of the non-alcoholic. Therefore, the breakdown rate from acetone to the simple carbohydrate occurs at a much slower pace. In the body of the alcoholic, maybe we metabolize it at the rate of three quarters of an ounce per hour. Maybe a half an ounce, maybe a quarter of an ounce, maybe a tenth of an ounce, depending upon the actual enzyme production and the ability of the body to metabolize. And that's what we do. We metabolize it. It is a well-known medical fact today that acetone ingested into the human body that remains there for an appreciable period of time will produce an actual physical craving for more of the same. In the body of the non-alcoholic, it passes through that acetone stage so rapidly that the craving is never produced. But in the body of the alcoholic, it lays there for a much longer period of time. The actual craving is produced. And that craving then demands a second drink. How we doing, Joe? Now we're just about ready to go through one of our little drinking escapades. Let's say that we go home from work one day. We're on the way home. And we've promised the spouse that we're going to cut the grass, or paint the house, or whatever it is that we need to do. Now, I've been after us for a long time to do it, and we've been putting it off, and we're going to do it this time. But we decide on the way home we're going to run in here and have one drink before we go home. Now, the mind causes that. Now, the mind says, let's get in this place, let's have a drink, and then we're going to go home and cut the grass. So we go in this place, and we get a drink, and we're sitting there drinking on that drink, and we're talking to the guy next to us. And the mind says, we need to get up and go home and cut the grass. Well, this craving has already been produced by that drink. And the body says to the mind, well, let's don't be in too big a hurry. It says, well, we could surely have one more before we go. So the mind agrees with it, and we order a second drink. Now, we drink the second drink, and here's what takes place. Most of the acetone from the first drink is still there. That caused one unit of craving. Now then, we have poured in the second drink, and all the acetone from the second drink is there. You might say that creates two units of craving. We crave harder after the second drink than we did after the first drink. And the mind says, we've got to get up and go home and cut the grass. And the body says, I told you I wasn't in any big hurry. We're going to have one more before we go. And we order a third drink, and we put it in. Now, we got most of the first, nearly all the second, and now we've got all of the third. And the acetone level becomes higher. And the higher the acetone level, the harder the craving. And the mind says, I've got to get up and go home and cut the grass, and the body says, the hell you say. And we put a fourth drink in there. Now we've got most of the first, nearly all the second, most of the third, and now all the fourth. And the craving becomes harder yet. And the mind says, I've got to get up and go home and cut the grass. And the body says, forget it. We'll do that next week. At midnight, everybody else has already gone home. And we're sitting there still pouring it down, and we're craving it harder at midnight than we were after we took the first drink or two way back there at 6 o'clock in the evening. We finally get up, we stagger outside, we fall in a ditch, we break our leg, somebody comes over and says, can I help you out? And we say, my God, yes, give me another drink. We never get all we want to drink. The normal social drinker gets all they want to drink every time they drink. We never get all we want to drink. We get more than we need. But never all we want to drink. Now, this inability to control leads us to the well-known stages of a spree. Every time we try to drink, we end up drunk, sick, and in all kinds of trouble. You know, we've looked at all kinds of statistics on this. We've looked at several different studies. We've looked at all different things they have done with this. And every one leads us right back to this same fact. We were allergic to alcohol. We're different. The wording might change a little bit from one study to the next study, but they all bring it down to this. It brings it down to the inability to metabolize alcohol like normal social drinkers. That produces the phenomenon of craving. This is abnormal. Therefore, we are considered to be allergic to alcohol. Joe? According to the conclusion of this physical, if you have this physical, this is allergy to alcohol. He summed it up, then, we cannot, we can't drink. We can't drink. We can't drink without triggering this phenomenon of craving. And just like any other allergy, the only thing we suggest is an entire abstinence. And that's real simple. If you never take the first drink, you will never experience the craving of alcohol. That's what the doctor said. The only relief we have to offer is entire abstinence. No drinking of alcohol in any form whatsoever. Now, that's simple, isn't it? If I never take a drink, I will never trigger the allergy. And if I never trigger the allergy, I can't end up getting drunk and sick and in all kinds of trouble. But you know, that's not all my problem. I know a fellow who is allergic to, of all things, fish. Every time he eats fish, his throat swells up and he almost chokes to death. And it's another trip back to the hospital every time. Now, if this guy never ate fish, his throat wouldn't swell up and he wouldn't go to the hospital. So it's obvious the answer to his problem is don't eat fish. But you know, that sucker's got another problem too. Every once in a while his mind tells him it's okay to eat fish. And I'll bet you it always starts with, I haven't had any in 90 days and surely two pieces wouldn't hurt me now. Or it's that lousy old crappie I ate. This time I'm going to eat bass, nothing but bass. It's those people I've been eating fish with. I'm going to change the people. And his mind gives him permission to eat fish. And he eats the fish and back into the hospital he goes, and I'm just exactly like him. If I never took a drink, I couldn't trigger the allergy. But from time to time my mind tells me that it's okay to drink. And I take the drink and then I trigger the allergy. You know, you cannot take action without some thought preceding that action. Action always follows the thought process. My mind has got to tell me to drink before I can drink. I know sometimes I do things and it seems like it's automatic, but it really isn't. My body cannot do anything. My body cannot do anything unless my mind tells it to do it. And I can't take the action necessary to take a drink unless my mind has given my body approval to take that drink. Dr. Stealthworth identifies the other half of our problem at the bottom of Roman numeral 26. We've got to back up a page again. He said, men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. And many people are highly offended when you say that. They say, oh, that isn't the reason I drink. They say, no, the reason I drink is because I love the taste of good old bourbon whiskey or whatever it might be. And I wouldn't argue with anybody about whether they love the taste of alcohol or not. I love the taste of cold beer. I always have all my life. I also love the taste of cold mountain spring water. I have never sat down and drank a case of cold mountain spring water. Alcohol does something to me that it does not do to normal social drinkers. They get the slightly tipsy, out of control, nauseous feeling. I don't get that feeling. I get that hot, intense, exciting, burning feeling. I don't get that nauseous feeling. Alcohol lets me do things I cannot otherwise do. You know, when I was a kid growing up, I was always on the outside of the crowd looking in. I always wanted to be a part of, but knew I could not be. I always knew that whatever I said, whatever I did, would be wrong. They would laugh at me. I would be embarrassed. And one night, somebody gave me a drink of alcohol. And boy, that great feeling came over me. That feeling came to my lips and my tongue and my cheeks and my forehead and my esophagus and my stomach. And it exploded and it ran through me like a bomb. And I got taller and taller. My facial features changed. And all of a sudden, I found something I never had before. I found courage. Alcohol removed the fear and gave me courage instead. And I was allowed to walk straight up to a girl and ask her to dance with her. And I was allowed to dance with her on the dance floor. And I was allowed to take her home from the dance and get her in the back seat of a 36 Chevrolet and do a little kissing and a hugging on the way home. And I've never been able to do that before. Alcohol did for me what I could not do for myself. It immediately became a power greater than I have. Every time I felt bad, every time I wanted to change the way I felt, I knew I could take a drink and by golly, it would change. And it did for years and years and years. I loved what it did for me. I drank essentially because I liked the effect produced by alcohol. The doctor said the sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. By the time I had gotten to the point where alcohol was giving me trouble, getting me drunk, getting me sick, putting me in jail, putting me in divorce courts, making me do the things I was always afraid I would do before I ever drank alcohol, by that time, my mind had become so obsessed with the idea of drinking it, I could no longer differentiate the true from the false. Everybody around me could see that I couldn't drink. But I thought I could drink. I believed a lie. An obsession of the mind is nothing more than an idea that overcomes all other ideas. And it is so strong that it will make you believe a lie every time. And everybody knew I couldn't drink, but I thought I could drink. And then one day I woke up and I said, Charlie, I don't believe you can drink. And I said, I'm going to quit drinking. And that day I could see the truth about alcohol. I could see what it was doing to me and destroying my life. And I made a decision to quit. But in a week, or ten days, or two weeks, my mind began to become obsessed with the idea of drinking. I said, Charlie, it wasn't that bad. Charlie, I believe this time you could have one or two and it would be okay. I think if you'll just drink the truth, you'll be okay. If you'll just drink the right thing, it'll be all right. And suddenly I believed I could drink again. The obsession that I could drink overcame the idea I could not drink. I believed a lie. I thought I could. I took a drink. And that drink triggered the allergy. And then I couldn't stop. The doctor describes me perfectly in about three sentences. In about three sentences. He says they are restless, irritable, and discontented. My God, I remember when I was sober how I felt. I didn't feel good. Didn't feel good. Always restless. Always irritable. Always discontented. And as a practicing alcoholic, even though I would be sober, I would be filled with shame, fear, guilt, and remorse over the things I'd been doing while I was drinking. And I wanted to feel better. And I didn't know any way to feel better except to drink. And I saw other people drinking with impunity. And after a while I'd begin to think, well, I could drink also. And the doctor said, they are restless, irritable, and discontented unless they can again experience that sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks. Drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and 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 he's telling you my life story right here within this one paragraph. We were also on this little chart, and Joe's going to draw this on the board also, what leads up to this first drink? What is this obsession of the mind? What is this thing we're talking about? Why can't we see the truth about alcohol? Joe? Because of the body we can't drink safely. Later on our book says that this is academic, this is true, and it always... But the main problem of the alcoholic centers is in the mind rather than the body. We've got to understand this. But the main problem is in the mind. As Charlie says, you know, each and every one of us, and we indicate this as our little emotional barometer, every human being, we all have a very complex emotional life, just like we have a complex chemical life. We are God's greatest creation. There's nothing on the face of this earth as fantastic as we human beings. We are God's greatest creation. We have... We're going to get in deeper in the fourth step, but we all have always had... We have a very complex set of instincts, our emotions. And they cause all people problems. You know, we alcoholics don't have any corner on emotional problems. A lot of people have problems with their emotion. No one is immune from this. They act it out in all sort of human behavior and human problems. In fact, all human problems are rooted in our basic instincts. In our development stages, we have build-ups on these, and we feel uncomfortable or shy and inadequate in certain situations. Sometimes, while having one of these emotional problems, someone offers us, or it becomes occasion, and we have a few drinks. And we notice that when we have a few drinks, the few drinks come over, and depress us. And depress... Alcohol is a downer. And it depresses our emotions. So, we have a problem, and a few drinks, once we have the few drinks, which produces a sense of ease and comfort, which comes at once by taking a few drinks of alcohol, alcohol becomes a solution. And the human mind, once the human being has a problem, and he finds a solution, he has another part of his mind, he has a memory bank. And the memory bank will record that solution. So, the next time you have the problem, it can refeed you your old solution. You know, the chances are today, if your TV broke, and you were new here in town, and you didn't know anything about it, repair person, you would probably ask a friend, or get in the Yellow Pages at night, hunting for someone to fix your TV. Problem is the TV. And someone would give you somebody's name, you would call him up, and this repairman would come over, and do a good job on your TV. So, you found a solution to your problem. Six months from now, when your TV broke, you would not go back in the Yellow Pages, you would not call your friend, you would remember who fixed it the last time. That's a part of the human process. It's not... Everyone has that process of remembering success. And we add these two things together. Addiction in the mind, not mentally, but... Everyone uses addiction. It's a member of repeating success. And the next time we build up to that point, and each and every one of us has a unique pattern, we're all unique individuals in what we build up on, this is why we're going to do our own inventory, no two of us have the same patterns, no two of us have the same tolerance level, but once we reach that level, we trigger this line, which is an idea to drink. All action has to be born in thought. And we trigger the idea to drink. We become restless, nervous, and discontent, and we remember that relief. At the time that we have the idea to drink, the idea of that relief, blocks out all the pain that we had before. And this thought makes us reach over and take the first few drinks. And once the alcohol is placed into the system, it switches from a mental problem to a physical problem. Because once we put the alcohol into the system, it triggers the phenomenal craving, which is physical. And the craving produces a feeling, produces a second drink, and a third drink, and a fourth drink. And we go through the well-known spree, and emerge in remorseful down here after we quit drinking, we alcoholics repeat our national anthem. I ain't never going to do that again as long as I live. As long as I live. And we slowly start another buildup. We become restless, nervous, and discontent, reach our tolerance point again, trigger the idea to drink, reach over and take the first few drinks, and they set off the craving in the body. Dr. Silkworth said this was repeated over and over again. The mind making us take the first drink. And the more we put alcohol in our system, the chemical deficiency gets worse. The enzymes get less and less over the period of years. Therefore, the craving gets harder. As the craving gets harder, the drinking gets harder. And as the drinking periods of sprees gets harder, the more problems we got on this side, they re-trigger it over again. So, he's going to sum this up in two factors. We said because of the physical allergy, we can't drink safely. And if we have this condition in the mind, if we're playing this little game, the strange mental quirk, as doctors they called it, then the problem over here is we can't quit drinking. You know, sometimes I look at that differently. I used to say maybe my problem wasn't that I could always drink. My problem was not, I could quit too. If I got sick enough, I could quit. But my problem wasn't quitting, it was starting. I couldn't stop starting. So, well, some of these two, if you can't drink alcohol, if you can't drink safely because of the allergy, and you can't quit because of the mind, then you are powerless over alcohol. You are powerless over alcohol. That's the exact nature of the problem. Now, for many years, you know, I didn't understand this allergy. I tried, I don't know if anybody else did this, but I could try to control my alcoholism. I tried to control my drinking while drinking. I don't know if any of y'all did that. You know, I said I'm just going to have six and then stop, or three. I never was able to do that. Very often I failed miserably because the craving got me, now that I understand it. And after many years of trying to drink, the last couple of years, I said, I didn't know anything about this. But I did. I said, well, I can't drink, so I'm going to just quit. I'm going to go over here. And I went over on this side. I didn't do anything about my life. But when the alcoholic gets ready to, really means business, he gets out his number one weapon, and he will put old Will in here. Boy, when he gets Will out, he means business. So I called on Will, and I put Will in there and blocked out that obsession to drink. This, I'm going to quit. I was restless in the urban discontent. The obsessions come at me constantly, but I blocked them with Will. And finally one day, one of them little devils got through it. I was gone again. But once we understand the problem, there is a solution. There is a solution. And the solution is within the mind. Now, if we could, we're talking about through this power greater than ourselves, this vital spiritual experience. If we could make some personality changes, gradual, small, sufficient. If we could live below this line somewhere, we would never get to the tolerance point. We would never trigger the obsession. We would never take the first drink. We would never set off the allergy of the body. I think the solution is within the, this changes within our mind. Within our personality. Certain changes sufficient to recover. This is what we're going to propose as a solution once we understand the problem. I thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous and for Dr. Silkworth and for the earlier people because they gave the world, they gave us the information. And so we, we as alcoholics can know the exact nature of our problem. On Roman numeral 27, the last sentence, the top paragraph. The doctor said this is repeated over and over. And unless this person can experience an entire psychic change, there is very little hope of his recovery. And when he used the word psychic, he left the body, he went to the mind. Now if we can change in our mind, if we can change in our mental attitudes, where we can live below that emotional level that demands we take a drink, then we'll be able to live without drinking. If we can find a way to live where we can be sober and not be restless, not be irritable, not be discontented, not be filled with shame, fear, guilt and remorse, then probably we could be sober and be happy at the same time. Have peace of mind and serenity. Have a sense of ease and comfort without taking a drink to get that sense of ease and comfort. This is what the doctor gave to us. He gave us not only the problem, he gave us the solution. He called it a psychic change. Now he didn't know how to bring it about at all. And that's all he ever said about it. Later on we're going to see how to bring it about. I think two other little pieces here that's so interesting. The medical profession today also knows that acetone ingested into the human body over an appreciable length of time is really a destroyer of human tissue. And as the alcoholic drinks, and as the acetone destroys the tissue of the body, it seems as though the first two organs that it normally attacks happen to be the liver and the pancreas. Today they have proven that the enzymes necessary to metabolize alcohol come from the liver and the pancreas. And as we drink and as we damage the liver and the pancreas, the enzyme production becomes less and less and less. The ability to metabolize the acetone becomes less and less and less. The craving becomes harder and harder and harder. We are in the grips of a provisional, progressive disease. It never gets any better. It always gets worse as we drink. Also we know today that everything that the human body produces, as time goes by, it becomes less and less and less. And I wish that wasn't true, but it does happen to be true. And my ability to metabolize alcohol, perhaps when I was 20, is different than it is today when I'm 57 years old. If I'd take a drink today, I wouldn't start where I left off, I'd be a little older. I'd be a little older than I was 20 years ago. The enzyme production is less due to the aging factor, and I would crave harder and I would drink harder than I did when I quit before. I am in the grips of a progressive disease. It never, never gets any better, always gets worse. Today this has absolutely been proven. This thing isn't too hard to understand. Take the obsession of the mind. Many people are obsessed with many different things. Some people don't feel good, and they eat certain foods, and that makes them feel better. And their mind becomes obsessed with the idea of eating the food. And after a while it begins to destroy their life. And everybody around them sees they can't do that, and tells them so, but they believe they can't. And then after a period of time they see they can't do that, and they quit eating that food, but after a while the mind says, it's okay this time, you know, cut out them damn cupcakes, and eat nothing but Twinkies, and you'll be alright. That's the idea. So the obsession of the mind is identical. Some people are obsessed with the idea of gambling. Some people get such a thrill, and I believe it's actually a physical thing as well as a mental from gambling, that they love that feeling so well, that their mind becomes obsessed with the idea of gambling. And they literally destroy their life. And everybody around them sees they can't do it, but they believe they can. And after a while they see they can't, and they quit. But then after a week or two or three, the mind says, we'll just bet two dollars this time. We won't bet twenty, we'll just bet two. Or some people are even obsessed with the idea of stopping alcoholics from drinking. I don't know what it is they get out of it, but they believe they can stop us from drinking. And they try, and they try, and they try, and they try, and everybody sees it's not going to work. But they can't see that. After a period of time they see it won't work, and they quit trying, but then the mind begins to say, I believe here's one trick you haven't tried yet. Obsession of the mind is not too difficult, I'm sure. I understand. It makes you believe a lie. Whatever it is you're obsessed with, anybody that's doing anything today, compulsively, that is actually destroying their lives, are operating under an obsession of the mind to do that thing, whatever it might be. We thank you all for being here tonight. We hope you'll be here in the morning. We're going to close with the Lord's Prayer. What time do we start in the morning? We're supposed to start at nine o'clock in the morning. Registration at eight. Registration at eight o'clock. Any other announcements? Take one or two leaders, please. Lord God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Amen. Tomorrow we'll be taking some breaks. This is the longest session we'll have tonight.