Destruction of Self-Centeredness – Big Book Workshop – Eufaula, AL – Part 5 of 11 – Jim P.

whom I felt resentment. Step four, I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals admitting my wrongs. Step eight, never was I to be critical of them. I was to write all such matters to the utmost of my ability. Step nine, I was attest my thinking by the new God consciousness within. That's step ten. Common sense would thus become uncommon sense. I had to sit quietly when in doubt asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as he would have me. Step 11. So right there in those three paragraphs, he's already talking about 3 through 11 and the steps haven't even been written yet. Never was I to pray for myself except as my request bore on usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive, but that would be in great measures. My friend promised when these things were done, now that word done is important because that's doing all 12 steps. He promised when things were Done, I would enter upon a new relationship with my Creator, a spiritual experience, that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems. All right, right there Bill's saying what Evie's telling him. They're not just talking about alcohol. Okay? all my problems that has an S on that end it means all of them every problem you can have can be solved by the big book in Alcoholics Anonymous now I can tell you if you have legal problems I advise you to get a lawyer if you had medical problems I advise your to get doctor if you got financial problems you're tough luck go see a financial advisor if you've alcohol problems and you're real alcoholic read this book implement these principles in your life and I guarantee you your life can change when you do them. Belief in the power of God plus enough willingness, honesty, and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things were essential requirements. Do you remember we talked about this being a program where there were no rules and it was suggested we're going to see over 100 months we're gonna talk about requirements and I told you before there's gonna be a demand so right there it says these the new order of things were the essential requirements simple but not easy a price had to be paid it meant destruction of self-centeredness ok now self-centeredness is really my ego and I'm gonna have to have ego deflation at depth it tells me I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all. Now, this happened on December 14th, 1934. Now, these were revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them, the effect was electric. There was a sense of victory followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never known. There was utter confidence. I felt lifted up as though a great clean wind of the mountaintop blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, but his impact on me was sudden and profound. Now stop right there. We're going to see that again later on in the book, but I just want you to know that this is as Bill sees it. And I think he wrote this in 67, something like that. And he describes what he just talked about briefly right there, he describes the detail. He says, My depression deepened unbearably and finally it seemed to me as though I were at the very bottom of the pit. For the moment, the last vestige of my proud obscenity was crushed. All at once I found myself crying out, Here's an alcoholic prayer for you. Ready? If there is a God, let him show himself. I'm ready to do anything, anything. Suddenly the room lit up with a great white light. It seemed to be in the mind's eye that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air, but of spirit was blowing. And then it burst upon me that I was a free man. Slowly the ecstasy subsided. I lay on the bed, but now for a time I was in another world, a new world of consciousness. All about me and through me was a wonderful feeling of presence and I thought to myself, so this is the God of the preachers. And that's how Bill explains it later on in the book. That's what happened to him. He had an immediate spiritual experience. An immediate one. Now, how are you going to keep it? Right? For the moment I was alarmed. I called my friend the doctor and asked him if I was still sane. He listened in wonder as I talked. Finally he shook his head saying something has happened to you Bill. I don't understand. But you had better hang on to it because anything is better than the way you were. You know, the way he was was just a raging drunk and all of a sudden he had something that the doctor didn't even know about it. Dr. Young had told somebody about it, and we'll read about that in a minute. But Dr. Silkworth knew about the obsession and the allergy. The good doctor now sees many men who have had such experience. He knows that they are real. Now this is going to be another step right here in this paragraph coming in later on. While I lay in the hospital, the thought came that there were thousands of hopeless alcoholics who might be glad to have what had been so freely given to me. Perhaps I could help some of them. They, in turn, might work with others. What are we calling that? Step 12, right there. My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affair. Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. Faith without works was dead, he said, and how appallingly true for the alcoholic. And this comes in, this next sentence comes in real heavy because a lot of people say, well, this is why I went to drink. This is why drank. You know, I stopped going to meetings. For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through the work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials at low spots ahead. Okay? So unless he enlarges and tries to perfect his spiritual life through self-sacrifice for others and work, he's not going to survive certain trials and low spots ahead. So Bill's telling us everything ain't going to be rosy. He's telling me that things are going to get bad somewhere along the line and that if we're not working and sacrificing our personal ambitions for others, we probably are not going make it. And if he did not work, he would surely drink again. He's tellin' us what he saw in those first four years, and if he drank, he would surely die. Then faith would be dead indeed. With us, it is just like that. Now, Bill is going to hammer over and over about self-sacrifice for others and when we get to page 61 and 62, we're really going to talk about the root of our problem because it's not going to be alcohol. It's going to selfish and self-centeredness. And we have to get rid of it by doing things for others. That's the whole program. That'sthewhole solution to my alcoholism is helping other people. That's why I'm here today, you know? I'm doing this for me as much as I'm doing it for anybody else. And then it goes on in the next paragraph that Lois and he started helping other alcoholics to the solution of their problems. He didn't have much work for about a year and a half. And Bill had a lot of this over time and some of it at the very beginning. He was not too well at the time and it was played by waves of self-pity and resentment. And self-pitty and resentment will lead an alcoholic to drink faster than just about anything else. This sometimes nearly drove me back to drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with other alcoholics would save the day. Now, Bob talks about it in another part of the book where he talks about intensive work with alcoholics. all right and that's in one of the steps and we'll get to that later on but that's exactly what it is that when i when i work with another alcoholic i'm not thinking about myself i'm not thinking my petty problems i'm nicht thinking about my self-centeredness or self-pity and it's a design for living that works in rough going okay now the rest of that paragraph talks about making friends it talks about the fellowship and i can guarantee you there are a lot of people and Alcoholics Anonymous, I know a lot of them who think being sober and being in the fellowship is all it takes. And I can tell you it takes a solution and the solution is the 12 steps. It takes the action of the program sobriety of the mind and sobrietry of the body is not enough. I have to have sobriiety of my spirit too. So I haveと have the spiritual awakening. Alright, I'm going to jump over to the next page. It's talking about how the informal gatherings may often see 50 to 200 persons. And there's one of those snowflakes. So we call it an asterisk, but okay. And so we go right to where it says it. Down at the bottom it says in 2007, AA was comprised of over 114,000 groups. Or is that 2007? 2007. Okay. And that was the last time they had done it. When they printed that book, that was the last time they'd done a survey of how many groups were actually registered. Now there's lots of meetings out there but they're not groups. But in 2007, there's over 114,000. I do not believe Bill and Bob thought this thing was going to catch on like it did. Especially with the slow book sales the first year and a half. You know? I just don't believe they did it. But this next sentence and it is absolutely true. An alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature. our struggles with them are variously strenuous comic and tragic one poor chap committed suicide in my home I had that happen with me not in my own life but one of my sponsees did that and it tells us the two kind of people that it's going to tell us how it works that are not going to get this program he could not or would not see our way of life and in how it worked it says there are those who cannot and will not completely give themselves to this simple program there is however a vast amount of fun about it all I suppose some would be shocked at our seemingly worldliness and levity but just underneath there is a deadly earnestness faith has to work 24 hours a day in and through us or we perish and I can't hammer enough and I will the deadliness of alcoholism you know it is a killer disease and I am doomed if I don't do something about it I am doomed to drink myself to death. My little brother did it, and I've seen a lot of people do it. This real alcoholism is deadly, and we're going to see that throughout the book. Okay, we're gonna finish right there with that, and we'RE gonna jump over, and we'Re gonna start chapter two. All right? And it starts off with, We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, know that thousands of men and women who were once just as hopeless as Bill Nearly all of them have recovered. That's the fifth time I think they've used that word already. They have solved the drink problem. Now, it goes on to say we are average Americans, all sections of this country, and many of its occupations are represented as well as many political, economic, social, and religious backgrounds. We are people who normally would not mix. And it's true. I've been in rooms all over the United States, It's not every state, but all over I go. And when I walk in a room, I look at people and I go, I wouldn't mix with them. I wouldn'T mix with her. And they're probably saying the same thing about me. But we have the common problem and we're looking for the common solution. Okay? And he goes on to explain what he means by wouldn'T normally mix. But there exists among us a fellowship of friendliness and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful. and he's going to describe people who don't normally mix back in 1939 most travel was done by ships and he goes on to say we are like passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from a shipwreck when the camaraderie, joyousness and democracy pervaded the vessel from steerage to captain's table now I had to have that most of this book explained to me but that part right there I wasn't really clear about steerage to captain table and how Bill was writing this. But what he's saying is that in a liner, an ocean liner, the steerage is the lowermost level. So if you're traveling and you're poor, you're travelling down in the steerish section. It's hot, it's where the noise is from the engine and then as you have more economic clout, more money, you move up a little bit in the ship you come above the water line you come to state room you come a little higher then you get up all the way to the top of the ship and you have these beautiful state rooms and there's a captain's table there and it's got fine china and everything else and what he's saying is we as alcoholics when we all at one time crash when we come together we're people that would not normally mix say from jail to Yale from the bottom of the ship to the captain's table all become alcoholics and we all get the solution and we also all get sober through this program of recovery unlike the feelings of the ships passenger however our joy and escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways the feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us but that in a in a in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined the tremendous fact that's a fact the tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution the 12-step message we have a way out on which we can absolutely agree and upon which we Can join in brotherly and harmonious actions this is the great news this book carries to those who suffer from alcoholism. Right there on the first page of the solution, it's telling them about the great news that this book carries. That we have a common solution. Alright, the next page. We have an illness of this sort and an illness of this short, and we've come to believe it is an illness. Dr. Silkworth explained it to us. It involves those about us in a way no other human sickness can. and then it talks about somebody with cancer but what our illness does jump down 5 or 6, 7 lines it brings misunderstanding and this is in our lives and it will go off all those lives touched by all whose lives touch the sufferers so everybody around us it brings misunderstandings fierce resentments financial insecurity disgusted friends and employers warped lives of blameless children alright we warp the lives of children because they see our alcoholism and they didn't do anything to deserve what we do then the sad wives of parents and anyone can increase that list he goes on to say we hope this volume this book will inform and comfort those who are or may be affected and there are many now it goes on to talk about You know, highly competent psychiatrists have to deal with us. And the wives, parents, intimate friends usually find us even more unapproachable to do this. And the reason is I've been taught. Now, I didn't go into therapy, and I've told you before I haven't been to rehab or treatment. But my understanding from those people who go to therapists is when they go to a therapist before they come to Alcoholics Anonymous, they pay somebody to talk about themselves, and they lie. I mean, they don't ever tell the psychiatrist the truth. Do you have a drinking problem? Oh, no. No. Just one or two small ones every now and then. It's my wife. It's just nagging back. It's not my job. It's all these things, but it's never the truth, all right? You know, I talked to my sponsor at first just like that too, and he was the only one who ever, you know, held up a sign that said bullshit, you don't want to strike me out. Mm-hmm. Yeah, right. And that's... Yeah, and I do too. I'm not very tolerant sometimes when they start running off on that. I can see the lie coming. All right, in italics, he's talking about recovered alcoholics. But the ex-problem drinker who has found this solution, this solution not a solution, this solution who is properly armed with the facts about himself can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours unless such an understanding is reached little or nothing can be accomplished alright so either I know about my problem I know about my solution I've done something about my solution and then when I'm carrying the message to another alcoholic I can look at him and I understand him he doesn't even have to talk I understand what he's thinking you know because I am an ex-problem drinker I'm an alcoholic that the man who's making the approach has had the same difficulty that he obviously knows what he is talking about. That is, his whole deportment shouts at the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer. That he has no attitude of holier than thou, nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful. There are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured. These are the conditions we have found most effective. After such an approach many have taken up their beds and walked so when i'm talking with another alcoholic they understand when you're talking to a psychiatrist who's not an alcoholic he's got no clue you know most wives or husbands who aren't alcoholic do not understand us i have a friend over where i live um who asked me one day he knows that i that i come over here he used to be the fire chief over there and he said can you explain to me why you want to feel like that and i sat there and went no i can't explain to you what i wanted to kill myself drinking i can explain that to you he had one drink in his entire life he never drank and he never got high he never did drugs and he asked me can i explain to him and the answer was you won't get it but if i'm talking to him or her or her, you get it. If you're a real alcoholic, you get what another alcoholic is saying. And he goes on to say that none of us makes a sole vocation of this work, nor do we think its effectiveness would be increased if we did. So they don't make it their job. Very few people make it leur job. And we're not talking about people working as counselors at treatment centers. We're talking about carrying a 12-step message free because some carried it to you free. I'm not down on anybody who gets a counseling degree and works in a treatment center. I have no problem with that. I love the treatment centers best when they hand them a big book and a meeting guide and say, there's a sponsor right over there when you're done detoxing. I think treatment centers have a real place. They never took me there. They always took me to jail and juvenile homes. So I never got to go to the treatment center. They just bypassed all that. We feel that the elimination of our drinking is but a beginning, okay? The elimination of Our Drinking is But a Beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principle lies before us in our respective homes, occupations, and affairs. And that's the twelfth step right there, is practicing the spiritual principles in all our affairs. And when we get to how it works, I will give you, if you haven't already figured them out, there are 12 spiritual principles for each one of those steps. There's one for each One of the Steps and they're usually one word. But that right there is what Bill was talking about right before he died when he talked about Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 steps are not just to be worked, they're to be lived in our lives every day, in our homes, in Our jobs, everywhere we go, in AA especially and a guy talks about so it's not so important what I do between the serenity prayer and the Lord's prayer what's really important is what am I doing between the Lord'S prayer and the serentity prayer what am i doing for those other 23 hours of the day am I practicing these principles in my home in my occupation with my loved ones ok next paragraph If we keep on the way we're going, there's little doubt that much good will result. But the surface of the problem will hardly be scratched. Those of us who live in large cities are overcome by the reflection that close by hundreds are dropping into oblivion every day. Many could recover if they had the opportunity we have enjoyed. How then shall we present that which has been so freely given us? What's Bill talking about doing? We're talking about writing the book, the next sentence. So we have concluded to publish an anonymous volume setting forth the problem as we see it. We shall bring to task our combined experiences of those first 80 plus or minus, first 100, and knowledge. This should suggest a useful program for anyone concerned with a drinking problem. All right? So what they've done is they just said this is why we're reading, this is why we're publishing this book and I told you last week there's a purpose, an object in this book the purpose of the book it's on page 20 and we're just about to get there so I'm going to wait jumping ahead of my nose. The next paragraph talks about that they're going to have to talk about moral, psychiatric, social, religious and they'd like nothing to do than to write a book that didn't have anybody that would argue with them and they tried not to have anybody argue with him. Before they printed this book, I think over 300 copies of the manuscript were mailed out to doctors and to judges and to religious professionals and they wanted their input because they didn't want to offend anybody and that's what we wound up getting is a book that really offends nobody except for the person that comes in and we'll read that in a minute. It's got belligerent denial. On page 20, and I just put my, but the word is our. Our very lives as ex-problem drinkers depend on our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs. Okay? I am selfish and self-centered to the core. all right so my my very life depends my very life it says depends on constant thought of others and how i can help meet their needs all right and i'm not going to say you're right all right very much but i did then um you may have already asked yourself why it is that all of us have become so very ill from drinking doubtless you're curious to discover how and why in the face of expert opinion to the contrary we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body if you are an alcoholic who wants to get over it you may already be asking what do i have to do all right and i told you there's a purpose and an object of the book it is the purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically all right not generally but specifically we shall tell you what we have done not what we've thought not what were thinking what we had done ok that's the second time before going into detailed discussion it may be well to summarize some points as we see them now I'm going to read this next paragraph and I want you to see if you can tell me what this is and I'll even give you a hint on where it is how many times people have said to us I can take it or leave it alone why can't he Why don't you drink like a gentleman or quit? That fellow can't handle his liquor. Why don'T you try beer and wine? Lay off the hard stuff. His willpower must be weak. He could stop if he wanted to. She's such a sweet girl. I think he'd stop for her sake. The doctor told him that if he ever drank again, it would kill him. But there he is, all lit up again. What is that entire paragraph? It comes from the doctor's opinion. if you read that paragraph that is frothy emotional appeal please stop for the children oh he would stop for that girl she's such a nice girl no I would not stop for that girl no I did not stop for the child some of it I said to myself yeah alright now these are commonplace observations on drinkers which we hear all the time back back of them is a world of ignorance and misunderstanding we see that these expressions refer to people's reactions are very different from ours. So we're going to talk about a couple of drinkers here real quick that aren't me. You know, I've talked about chronic. I've spoken about I am a real alcoholic. And the first one says moderate drinkers have little trouble giving up liquor entirely if they have a good reason for it. They can take it or leave it alone. If they have good reasons they just quit drinking. I had a million good reasons. I could not quit drinking. Then there's a certain type of hard drinker. He may have the habit badly enough to gradually impair him physically and mentally. It may cause him to die in a few years before his time. And here it is. If a sufficiently strong reason, ill health, falling in love, change of environment, or the warning of a doctor becomes operative, this man can also stop or moderate. Although he may find it difficult and troublesome, and may even need medical attention, treatment. So this is a hard drinker. We talked about a moderate drinker, a hard drinking. Now they're going to talk about me. But what about the real alcoholic? You may start off as a moderate drinking. I really didn't. I started drinking alcoholically from the start, but other people drink gradually. He may or may not become a continuous hard drinkers, but at some stage of his drinking career, he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption once he starts to drink and that's if he doesn't drink he doesn' t have a problem but once I drink I lose all control over everything including bodily functions the next paragraph talks about being a Jekyll and Hyde you know he seldom mildly intoxicated he's either more or less insanely drunk or he's not drinking at all but he's never mildly intoxicated his disposition while drinking resembles his normal nature but little he may be one of the finest fellows in the world, me yet let him drink for a day and he frequently becomes disgustingly and even dangerously antisocial me again and he has a positive genius for getting tight, drunk at exactly the wrong moment, particularly when some important decision must be made or an engagement kept. He is often perfectly sensible and well-balanced concerning everything except liquor. Now I said for a long time that one of the reasons that I went in and out of the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous was because of step two. Because I read it as I have to be restored to sanity. That means that you're telling me I'm insane and I have a great job. I have house on the lake. I have two cars. I have dog. I don't have a wife anymore. I don't have a child anymore because I gave them away. But you're telling me I'm insane. And there's different definitions for insanity, okay? And what they're going to talk about throughout the book about being insane is the insanity that precedes the first drink. And for addicts it's the insanity that precedES the first pill or whatever you take, okay. It's thinking it's going to be different this time, the obsession. He often possesses special abilities, skills, and aptitudes. He has a promising career ahead of him. And he uses these gifts to build up a bright outlook for his family and himself and then pulls the structure down on his head by a senseless series of sprees. This is me here too. He's a fellow who goes to bed so intoxicated he ought to sleep the clock around. Yet, the next morning he searches madly for the bottle he missed the night before. If he can afford it, he may have liquor concealed all over his house. I didn't have to hide it. I knew where my liquor was. My liquor was right next to me and I always had plenty of it. In the early days, it was somebody else's liquor that I stole. In the later days, I was making money so I could keep as much as I wanted around. But there were alcoholics back then that if they left it around the house, their wife would get it and they would throw it down the waste pipe is what they called it. The waste pipe was a toilet. and as matters grow worse he begins to use a combination of high powered sedative and liquor to quiet his nerves so he can go to work alright talking about using sedatives there then comes the day when he simply cannot make it at all and he gets drunk all over again perhaps he goes to a doctor who gives him morphine they were pretty liberal back there in 1939 you know I've got a drinking problem here have morphine you know I don't know. Perhaps he goes in. Then he begins to appear at the hospital and sanitariums, okay? And it says, This is by no means a comprehensive picture of the true alcoholic as our behavior patterns vary, but this description should identify him roughly. So you need to be able to identify with that guy roughly by now. And I've got a friend who does these things. He got me started. He's doing one down in Orlando right now. I'll see you when I go down there. And he has another way of saying, they just described three different types of alcoholics. He says, you know how you can really tell an alcoholic? You jump down to the middle of page 23. Once in a while, he may tell the truth. That's a real alcoholic. Once in awhile, I may tell him the truth when I'm drinking. Why does he behave like this if hundreds of experiences have shown him that one drink means another debacle with all its attending suffering and humiliation? Why is it he takes that one drank? Why can't he stay on the water again? What has become the common sense and willpower that he still sometimes displays with respect to other matters? He's got an obsession. opinions vary considerably as to why the alcoholic reacts differently from normal people i'm an abnormal drinker i react differently we're not sure why once a certain point is reached little can be done for him they can't answer the riddle we know that while the alcoholic keeps away from a drink as he may do for months or years he reacts like other men so as he stays away from alcohol he can become a normal person except he still has that obsession he still hasn't had that spiritual malady cleared and I use the example of my little brother didn't drink for over a year and the minute he had all these tumors for cancer and they gave him six months to two years to live the first thing he wanted to do because he was being monitored for his sweat glands is he wanted to take one glass of wine and I thought it was a bad idea And on the way home, he wanted to buy a bottle of wine. And I thought it was a real bad idea. And instead of having six months to two years, he died within three weeks because of alcoholism, active alcoholism. He was right back where he was a year and three months before. Right back where we are now. That's where he is in a matter of three weeks. And it didn't take him three weeks, it took him three months to blow out an ulcer. And it goes on right here, we are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol, whatever, into his system something happens both in the body and mental sense which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. The experience of any alcoholic will abundantly confirm this. For me I confirm that. That's what happens to me. And it says these observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than his body. We're back to that mental and spiritual malady because if we don't take the drink, we don'T set off the phenomenon of craving. You can ask him why he started it and most of the time he doesn't know. He goes on to say they sound like a philosophy of a man who having a headache beats himself on the head with a hammer so that he can't feel the ache. It's just BS is what he's doing. Why did you start drinking? Well, the wife could be asked. You started drinking, you're an alcoholic, you've got an obsession of the mind, and then once you start drinkin', you can't stop because you have a compulsion of the body. Once in a while he may tell the truth, and the truth strange to say is usually that he has no more idea why he took that first drink than you have. Some drinkers have excuses which they are satisfied part of the time, but in their hearts they really do not know why they do it. Once this malady has a real hold, They are a baffled lot. There is the obsession that somehow, someday, they will beat the game. The great obsession that somewhere, someday I can control and enjoy my drinking is the great obsession of every alcoholic. But they often suspect that they're down for the count. It says how true this is. Few realize in a vague way that their families and friends sense that these drinkers are abnormal but everybody hopefully awaits the day when the sufferer will rouse himself from his lethargy and assert his power of will. Yeah, I don't get it. I don' t have that willpower and I am not going to rouse myself up. I've got to have something else. And the tragic death truth is that if the man may be a real alcoholic the happy day may not arrive. he has lost control and at certain points in drinking a very alcoholic one on top of page 24 he passes into the state where most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail the tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it's suspected so before I ever came to Alcoholics Anonymous I was an alcoholic and didn't know when I came to Alcoholic Anonymous And I tried to stop drinking, and I couldn't do it. Then I understood I was an alcoholic because I can't, and I could not, andI could not. And I came into a meeting every day and cried, and I coudn't stop drinking. I just could not . And I swore I wasn't going to drink. I swored all the way home. I swor I wasn' t going to dink, and then I drank. You know? All right. Now remember there are certain things, The squiggly lines and things like facts, musts, and requirements. The fact, and here we are in italics, the fact is that most alcoholics for reasons obscure have lost the power of choice in drink. You ever heard anybody in a meeting say, I'm going to choose not to drink today? It's telling me right here, I've lost that. I've already lost the choice. you know I don't have a choice unless I do something about it unless I implement the solution I have lost my choice in drink our so called willpower which if I had none becomes practically non-existent we are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago we are without defense against the first drink and so if they stopped right there and we didn't have any other solution I'm doomed I'm going to die because it's telling me right there I am without a defense against the first drink and I'm not going to get ahead of myself but they're going to talk about how we get that defense Bill is going to give a couple examples really in the beginning I just thought How stupid to say something like that. But then I went and did it, and I realized what he was saying. And one example down there about when you start drinking again is the alcoholic may say that there is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove. Anybody ever put their hand on an hot stove? Anybody ever puts their hand on a pot stove the second time on purpose? Negative. Okay, so y'all aren't crazy. Okay? Just alcoholics. but the alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way it won't burn me this time so here's how and then he puts his hand on the stove again or perhaps he doesn't think at all how often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way and after the third or fourth pounded on the bar said to herself for God's sake how did I ever get started again I think every one of us right anyone that's relapsed has I know that because AA will screw up your drinking only have the thought supplemented by well, I'll stop with the sixth drink or my case was well, what's the use? I'm just going to get drunk. I'll start drinking and I'll end up when I pass out. And when this sort of thinking the last paragraph on page 24 when this short of thinking is fully established in an individual with alcohol tendencies he has probably placed himself beyond human aid. Alright? So I'm beyond human aide on page way before page 24 but there he's saying I have probably placed myself beyond human aid and unless I'm locked up which I was quite a bit I may die or go permanently insane. Wet brain. Okay? Unless I do something. These are stark and ugly facts that have been confirmed by legion of alcoholics throughout history but for the grace of God there will be thousands more convincing demonstrations so many want to stop but they cannot. All right, and what I'm going to do right now, I'm gonna stop for a 10-minute break. God, I love being in charge. I love, I like being in charge. I am not in charge! I am not in charge. Oh, she needs to get off that phone. All right. The reason I stopped where I did was because Bill's been talking about the problem all the way up to here. and he's been talking about what we're going to have to do. And this chapter is called There is a Solution and on top of page 25, I'm going to read a couple of paragraphs and it's the program of action in these couple of paragraph. It's steps four through nine. There is solution. Almost none of us like the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confessions of our shortcoming, which the process requires for a successful consummation. Okay? The self-searching, four. Leveling of our pride, that's one, three. Confessions of shortcomings, five, six, seven, eight, and nine. But we saw that it really worked in others and we come to believe the hopelessness and futility of life as we've been living it. When therefore we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. we have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed the fourth dimension of existence I am told is time there are three dimensions and the fourth dimensional is time it goes on to say remember on the other page I talked about when they either have squiggly lines snowflakes or say facts it says the great fact is just this and nothing less that we have had this is what they're telling you that we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences asterisk so we stop right there and we look down it says fully explained appendix 2 alright we're going to go there in a minute because when you see an asterik and it says fully explained on appendix two they're wanting you to go read that they're want you to go read that Bill's already described and he'll describe it later on about the great white light feeling like he's on a mountaintop the spiritual experience he had when he was at the hospital. And it says, The deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude towards life, towards our fellows, and towards God's universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty, absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has convinced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves so that right there is telling me that there is a solution that what the solution is is that what these people have is a deep and effective spiritual experience it goes on to say if you were seriously as alcoholic as we were we believe there is no middle of the road solution what happens when you stand in the middle of the rode you get run over ok we are in a position where life is becoming impossible and if we passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid if we pass into the region from which there is not no return through human aid we have but two alternatives one was to go under the bitter end blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could and the other was to accept spiritual help alright one or the other there's not a a C. There's door A, there's door B. You drink and die or you accept spiritual help. Okay? We're not going to raise the spiritual experience. Were you in here when I said we were going to get to that in a minute? Sorry. This we did on the next page, 26. This we didn't do because we honestly wanted to and we were willing to make the effort. Alright? Now, the next part of this page I went over during the history section is when Roland H. from the Northeast State, very rich man, went over to Switzerland and spent a year with Carl Jung, Dr. Carl Jung. And Dr. Karl Jung treated him as best he could and he stayed sober for that entire year. By the time he got towards getting back to the boat in England to come home, he was drunk. And he went back to Dr. Jung. And so it says on the second paragraph down there, So when he returned to the doctor to whom he admired and asked him point blank why he could not recover, he wished above all things to regain self-control. He seemed quite rational and well balanced with respect to other problems, yet he had no control whatever over alcohol. Why was this? And the doctor pretty much gives him a doom and gloom. He says he's utterly hopeless. He'll never regain his position in society, and he's either going to place himself under lock and key or hire a bodyguard to keep him away from alcohol. And that was the great physician's opinion, Dr. Young. But today, Roland was a free man, and he still is. He was one of the two that went to 12-step Ebby when Ebby was getting ready to go to jail. So Roland got something, right? And what he got was on the next page. It says right there, some of our alcoholic readers may think they can do without spiritual help. Let us tell you the rest of the conversation our friend had with the doctor. The doctor said, You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I've never seen one single case recover where that state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you. Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed in on him with a clang. He said to the doctor, Is there no exception? Now Dr. Young is studying a different type of psychiatry over in Switzerland. One of the three famous doctors. Dr. Silkworth is studying alcoholism and alcoholics in the real hospital, real drunks, not rich drunks who Young's talking to. So when he says, is there no exception? Young has the answer. Dr. silkworth didn't have the answer, he had what the problem was, the obsession and the allergy. But he didn't know what the answer is, Young had the answer It took Bill being able to put all three of them together to get the solution. Yes, the doctor replied, there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics who've had what are called vital, that's life-giving, spiritual experiences. To me, these occurrences are phenomenon. You know what phenomenon means? You can't explain it. It's unexplainable. You know, it just happens. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding force of the lives of the men are suddenly cast to one side and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. In fact, I have been trying to produce some emotional rearrangement within you. With many individuals, the methods which I employ are successful but I have never been successful with an alcoholic of your description. oh there's another snowflake another asterisk and it says this is two pages later for amplification see appendix 2 so the first time it says fully explain appendix2 now it's saying for amplication see appendex2 so why don't we do like Catherine said and why don' t we turn back to where it is in the back of the book and where it isn't the back to the book is on page 567 and we're going to read this entire thing because this was put in in the second edition in the first edition I told you before the doctor's opinion started on page one in the third edition in the 2nd edition they moved a non-alcoholic the doctor to the Roman numerals and started the book with an alcoholic Bill story on page 1 all that time between 39 when the book was printed and 55 when the second edition was printed, I believe. People were thinking they had to have this bright white light experience for them to get this program. And Bill realized by reading this book that we're going to talk about that wasn't necessarily the case. As a matter of fact, most people did not have a bright white life experience. Spiritual appearance. The terms spiritual experience and spiritual awakening are used many times in this book, which upon careful reading shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms. Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes or religious experiences must be in the nature of a sudden and spectacular upheaval. Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous. In the first few chapters, a number of sudden revolutionary changes are described. Though it was not our intention to create such an impression, many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover, they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming God consciousness followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of alcoholics, such transformations, though frequent, they're not rare, they're frequent, but they're Not All the Time, are by no means the rule. Most of our experience are what the psychologist William James calls the educational variety because they develop slowly over a period of time. I did not have a bright white light experience. I came to believe by doing this program, implementing these steps into my life, I came TO BELIEVE that this power was there. I came To BELieve in the spiritual awakening in my life and when I got to step 12, I knew I had had a spiritual experience. Mine was the educational variety. and that comes from the book Varieties of Religious Experience Varieties or Religious Experience, I think that's what it's called I'm hoping that's where it's called quite often friends of a newcomer are aware of the differences long before he is himself and this has happened many times to me, I don't know if it's happened to you. Has anybody ever come up to you when you're in the program, you're doing the program and say, God, you look so much better today? I've had somebody close to me come up to me and say I can't even get you to fight no more. Yeah. Before I even knew it myself, people were coming up to me saying, man, you're really changing. And I was like, am I? My actions were changing and I wasn't even aware of them. He finally realizes that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life. That such a change, again, change, change, chance, change five times on that one page could hardly have been brought about by himself alone. What often takes place in a few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline. Alright? So what they're saying is once they develop even an educational variety once this is developed what often takes places in a couple of months We couldn't do years of self-discipline. I couldn't discipline myself at all. But some people could try, but it would take years and they still didn't get this spiritual experience. With few exceptions, our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a power greater than themselves. most of us think this awareness of a power greater than ourselves is the essence of a spiritual experience our more religious members call it God consciousness and this last little bit here is really important most emphatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts all spiritual concepts so I've got members of my home group who are Buddhists, I've Got members of my homegroup who are Islamics I've GOT members of our home group who are Christian and I've Got some that are Muslim they all believe in a different God but they all believes the same thing they all believed that their God even though they say their God is the way they believe in Alcoholics Anonymous that they can recover because they don't close their mind to all spiritual concepts. And I told you earlier, you can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial. Attitude of intolerant or belligrant denial. There's no way God's going to help me. And I can tell you for a fact I really believe this truly. Had I walked into the rooms as Alcoholics Anonymous with no religious experience, I wasn't raised in the church or anything else and I walked up there and I saw Jesus you got to believe in Jesus I'd have walked out of the room and I probably would have been dead by now but these guys back in 1939 when they wrote this they realized they had to leave it open to my own personal understanding my own choice of a God I didn't want the Baptist fire and brimstone God I didn' t want the Catholic God even though I didn't know what the cat of God was. He had a pointed hat, I think. I'm not sure. But I can tell you this. What I wanted was a loving, forgiving, caring God. And that's who I have in my life right now. A loving, caring, and forgiving God. We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program, which is the program. Willingness, honesty, and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery. Essentials of recovery But these are indispensable Essentials Of recoveries are things that are Absolutely necessary for recovery And indispensable Means that it cannot be done without So but these Things are indispensable And then they go on to quote This guy There is a principle which is a bar against all Information Which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in ever-loving ignorance. And that principle is contempt prior to investigation, okay? So I come in here with an attitude of belligerent denial and I look up there and I go, There's no way, all right? That's contempt priortoinvestigation because I haven't even picked up the book. I've already said this program is not going to work for me, you know? I'm already saying I'm not goingto even try. And that's exactly what that is. And what that keeps me is ever-loving ignorance. I did that in 79, but I have to go back out to 35 more years and create a lot more. Yeah, a lot of us have done it more than one time. All right, so we're going to jump back. That's the second time we've seen that little snowflake, which is really an asterisk. Okay. upon hearing this back on page 27 our friend was somewhat relieved he reflected that after all he was a good church member ok, I go to church you know I've got a vital spiritual experience no, you go to Church I mean that's what he's doing he's going to Church he is a good Church member and then Dr. Young says well this hope however was destroyed by the doctors telling him that while his religious convictions were very good, in his case they did not spell the necessary vital spiritual experience. Twice on that page he talks about vital spiritual experience. Vital is life giving. Page 28. Here was a terrible dilemma in which our friend found himself when he had the extraordinary experience which we have already told you made him a free man. So we, in turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men. We, in our turn, sought the sameness of all the desperate of drowning man. You've heard me say it in here. You've hear other people say it. If you're not desperate for this program, you probably haven't had your last drink. If you have not reached the end of your rope, you probably aren't there yet. and you might take it to the bitter end. You don't have to, but you might. What seemed at first a flimsy read has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God. A new life has been given to us, or if you prefer, a design for living that really works. The program of Alcoholics Anonymous is a design-for-living that really works for alcoholics that are willing to do it. All right? And it goes on to talk about who we just talked about. Here it is, Varieties of Religious Experience. The distinguished American psychologist William James in his book Varieties and Religious Experiences indicates a multitude of ways in which men have discovered God. We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired. if what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all it means that all of us whatever our race creed or color are the children of a living creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try you know that honest was real tough for me in the beginning it was real tough and I'm glad they took that out of the third tradition when they first wrote the traditions it was supposed to be an honest desire to stop drinking you know once I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I had a desire to start drinking I just didn't have the capability until I did something until I read what this book said I didn't had the capability alright those having religious affiliations will find here nothing disturbing to their beliefs so there's nothing being written in this book that's going to upset the monks the buddhists the hindus the christians nothing beingwritten in thisbook is going to offset any of them alright there is no friction among us over such matters we think it no concern of ours what religious bodies our members identify themselves with as individuals alright let's stop right there we think it no concerned of ours what religious bodies our members identify themselves with. When I work with guys and I tell them that they've got to find a power greater than themselves, and we'll get to that in a couple of chapters, that that's the only way that they're going to be able to get out from underneath this obsession and this compulsion, is to find a God of their understanding. In the past 11 plus years, I've never once asked them, what's your God? I've never once asked them. Have I bumped into them in a church occasionally? Yeah. Do I ask them, do they go to church? No. Because this is my church. AA is my Church. So this is where I come for my spiritual relief. I have gone to some churches just to see what they're like. They're interesting. I like them. I love it when the pastor's up there talking about AA and he doesn't know it. There are a lot of sermons that come out that way. But the next sentence tells me why I don't ask them. It says, this should be an entirely personal affair which each one decides for himself in the light of his past association or his present choice. I had no past associations so I had to choose a God of my understanding. One couldn't be forced on me. I just wouldn't have taken it. Not all of us join religious bodies but most of us favor such memberships. Because I don't go to church all the time does not mean I don' t like church. It doesn't mean that at all. Or that I have something against religious bodies. I do not. You know, I think they're great. But if churches turned out sober members of alcoholics, wouldn't everybody coming out of church be sober? You know how many thousands of priests, nuns, pastors, are in Alcoholics Anonymous to find spirituality? Thousands. Thousands. Alright? in the following chapter there appears an explanation of alcoholism as we understand it then a chapter addressed to the agnostic many who were once in this class are now among our members surprisingly enough we find such convictions no great obstacle to spiritual experience further on and here it is again I talked about a couple different things And here's one of them. Further on, clear-cut directions are given showing how we recovered. All right. That is, I'm going to stop counting at this one, but that's the sixth time they've used the word recovered from the title page to page 29. Clear-cut direction. They're not going to give you general directions. They're Not Going To Give You, Well, Maybe Do This Way, Maybe do That Way. They're going to give you clear-cut directions on how to work these steps into your life to get that vital spiritual experience and then what you need to do with that. Each individual in their personal stories These are followed by 42 personal experiences. Each individual in their own personal stories describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he establishes his relationship with God. He'd give a fair cross-section of our membership and a clear-cut idea on what has actually happened in their lives. Now, in the forwards that we went through in the very beginning, a couple weeks ago, each time they wrote a new book, they changed some stories in the back of the book. I wasn't there, and I'm always told if I wasn'T there, then I can't say it's true. but what from the first edition to the second edition some of the first stories in the back of the book those people got drunk alright then the second edition tothe third edition they wanted to bring stories a little more up to date to include a wider variety of people and now I'm looking at all the good looking women in the room saying that's what they were doing they were trying to encourage that women were alcoholics I don't know if y'all were here when I talked about Dr. Bob really didn't want women in Alcoholics Anonymous. He was scared to death. He didn't think women were alcoholics. They just maybe drank too much. But he was scared of death and let women come into AlcoholicsAnonymous because he was afraid that, number one, they were going to be disruptive in the room. The men weren't going to stare at the women. And number two, the wives of the men that were there at the time wouldn't bring their men back if there were hookers or fallen women or drunk women in the row. And so he was almost adamantly opposed to it. And for a while, like I said, Ann and Lois and some of the women of the first 40 or 50 were the ones that were carrying the message to the women alcoholics until they actually were allowed to come in and get sober. And as soon as they got sober, I use the example of Lady Barty Mann up in New York. As soon as she demanded to be able to be let into Bill's group, and she got sober and stayed sober, every woman that came in for the next 18 months, she was the sponsor. So she sponsored the first women for 18 months up there in that one. And it goes on to say, and a lot of people tell me, you know, they're just stories in the back of the book. And you all know that my sponsor and I host a website that's got 25,000 plus speakers on it. Each one of those stories is a speaker in print. Each one does the same thing almost all the speakers do. They share their experience, strength and hope and they all talk about how they found their way to the god of their understanding so they're much more than just other just stories in the back of the book i don't encourage my guys to read those stories inthebackofthebook until we get to certain points in the book okay there's a story about acceptance is the key i do want that read before i'm through the 12 steps because somewhere along the line acceptance is going to have to be put into your life and it's usually write about the third step. But I don't want to say don't read the stories, I just want to says do the steps first and then read how other people found their way to God. What's your website? I'll give you a card after the meeting. And it says each individual and personal story is described in its own language and from its own point of view the way he establishes his relationship with God his or her. These give a fair cross section of our membership and a clear-cut idea of what actually happened in their lives. We hope that no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women desperately in need will see these pages and believe that only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that they will be persuaded to say, yes, I am one of them too, I must have that thing. remember this book was being mailed out there was only three meetings one in Cleveland one in Akron one in New York and so when the Saturday Evening Post came around when the Cleveland dealer I guess it was called Cleveland dealer ran some articles they got flooded with requests for the book and so they were mailing the book all over the country and people were reading the book implementing the 12 steps into their life getting a vital spiritual experience and they were being recovered without meetings, without the fellowship. The book came first. The fellowship was there but the book really set the fellowship on fire. The fellowship was Cleveland, New York, Akron but once the word got out then the program really took off and the book was the original 12-step call. I've said that before. That's originally what the 12-step call was, was mailing this $3.50 big book. I'm going to go ahead and start on more about alcoholism in Chapter 3. And I'm not going to get into it or go very far into it. I told you before we might end a little bit early. We might end up a little late. But I wanted to get to this right here. if I was to ask you what is the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous what's the first step I'm powerless over alcohol and my life is manageable no that's step one there's a difference between the first step in recovery and step one those are all condensations they're all just smaller of what the wider picture is ok more about alcoholism most of us have been Unwilling to admit we're real alcoholics. No person likes to think that he's bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove that we can drink like other people. Now, I never did that. I never tried to quit drinking until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. So these people are talking about they tried countless vain efforts before they ever got this book or before they never went to one of the meetings that were getting started. The first meetings were the Oxford group and then they moved into the Alcoholics Anonymous name and that's when the book really took off. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of a very abnormal drinker. To be able to control my drinking if I try to control my drinking. Because I did during that three and a half period I was in and out. I tried to control my drinking When I poured that drink the only thing I could think about when I was looking at that drink and taking that first drink was the second drink I was miserable trying to control my drinking Alright And if I drank and got drunk which I did every time and passed out I was no longer enjoying it so I was trying to control and enjoy and I couldn't do it I mean there might have been a time in my life where I enjoyed drinking and it was fun and it did something for me and then I found out what it did to me ok the persistence of this illusion is astonishing many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death it's a deadly disease we're on page 30 and we've already read 30 pages and the doctor's opinion and you know what you're about to find out where the first step of recovery is we learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics this is the first step in recovery to fully conceive