Edward D. – 12 Steps – The Psychodynamics of the 12 Steps – 2020

Of course, you all know Ed here, our next speaker. I would just like to mention a few of his qualifications. He's a practicing neuropsychiatrist in Denver, chairman of the Colorado Commission on Alcoholism, currently chairman of The Advisory Board to Alcohol Division of the Colorado State Health Department. And I know that we will get a real message here. Thank you, Captain. Thank you all, Winston Churchill. Oh! the follow-up of his crack about Christine Keeler, you know, I mean, of her new TV series called I Love Loose Leaves. I don't know what my subject was today, but I'm going to talk about something Being fundamentally lazy, I'd like to talk a little bit about the psychodynamics of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's something I talk about every year at the Utah School on Alcohol Studies. Why they want me back, I don't know. They always insist upon this subject, so I'm going to foist it upon you along with a little of my thinking about this subject. I won't keep you too long. I look at my watch, and then I forgot what time I started anyway, so it doesn't make much difference. In discussing AA, however, from a dynamic standpoint, I think we need to lay some groundwork. uh we have to keep a semantic perspective and have some definite foundation for a meeting of the mind as to just what we are talking about semantics is a uh an interesting study as most of you know the problem of communication between people uh it's kind of like the pompous guy that went into the drugstore and said give me a dozen tablets of monocytic acid ester of salicylic acid and the drugist said do you mean aspirin he says yeah I never could remember that word I like to tell the story on semantics my wife always enjoys them anyway whether you do or not about these things actually happen on Jack Parr's show, for instance. You may have seen him give a sentence or something to one individual who had translated into Hungarian, into Italian, into some other language, then back into English. And one of the classic ones was they gave the proverb, out of sight is out of mind and it went through all these people and came back uh and the definition was i mean for out of sight out of mine was the invisible are insane and another one they uh they showed on this automatic translation of english into russian and russian back in into english to have a machine for that so they fed at this uh this proverb The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. Punched that into the machine and then into Russian and then came back into English. And the translation was, The vodka is fine, butthe meat is spoiled. So we don't know what we're talking about. That is some of the problems of semantics. We first should orient ourselves as to the scope of Alcoholics Anonymous. what it can and cannot do and what it should and should not do. It is necessary to differentiate between AA as a philosophical concept, which is clearly defined in the book Alcoholics Anonymous and in the Twelve Traditions of AA, which is a further guiding definition as the meaning of the movement, and between AA as a fellowship both in action and practice. There is a distinction. We have to keep our thinking straight on that, and the lack of understanding between these two ideas is the basis for quite a distorted diatribe by an angry psychologist who rushed into popular print in Harper's Magazine here a few months back with a very unscientific and subjectively factless article entitled A.A. Calder Cure. Those of you who read it, I'm sure your blood pressure went up a little bit like mine did, but I think it did some good in focusing the difference between A.I. as a philosophical concept and A.N. action. the following is my own concept of a means of recovery of an alcoholic and as to how AA fits into that scheme you may or may not take this on its face value and if you disagree it may still stimulate thought and discussion which is after all one means of advancing knowledge as one nudist said to the other in the nudist colony this is a good place to air our differences. Without belaboring you as to the definitions of an alcoholic, suffice it to say that anyone who needs to consider whether he is an alcoholic probably is, as someone brought out this morning. I mean, the guy goes around bragging that he can take it or leave it alone, you know damn well he's got a problem. So that, and it is up to him to follow at least some of these points, I think. And this is my own personal thinking and approach towards the alcoholic. One, he must develop an insight into the fact that a problem exists. He must then attack drinking directly and attain sobriety in whatever manner or means are at hand or necessary. In other words, it doesn't make any difference why you drink, you've got to quit drinking, period. The analysts tell you that because you hated your mother when you were three years of age, or your uncle dropped you on your head when you're four, I don't give a darn. You got to quit drinking, period. This sobriety may or retaining drying out may consist merely of shaking it out, either alone or with medical help, or through a couple of AAs sitting on your hands, or through hospitalization, which is sometimes necessary and which is an easier way and has both its advantages and disadvantages. Secondly, he must come to the acceptance of total and continued abstinence as a sine qua non. The alcoholic must see and be shown that in the light of his own experience he is no longer able to drink in a controlled or social manner as he once did or his friends may now do he must recognize that when he attempts to use alcohol he almost invariably drinks more than he intended to and one drink leads to the invariable drunk inevitable drunk with its concomitant physical, psychological and social distress some alcoholics will say I don't get drunk every time I drink we'll agree with them but if you they will usually admit that yes, but you invariably drank more than you intended to you wanted to take one or two drinks and go home found out two or three hours later you're still sitting in the bar with six or eight drinks and your wife is home waiting dinner for you and you say yeah I guess that's right so if you will point out them. The fact of the compulsion to drink more once a drink is taken. And thirdly, it is quite important that he finds some degree of happiness or contentment or serenity, call it what you will, in his sobriety. He has to be happy though sober. And this will be found only through some degree a personality reorganization. It may range all the way from from taking more interest in his family or some hobby, clear up to a complete and thorough depth analysis. Since neither of these extremes is suitable, since one is usually not sufficient and the other is not financially attainable or feasible, he will probably accomplish it in one or several of the following ways. An understanding or trained pastor may help him to apply certain Christian principles to his life, which will afford him emotional growth and increased ego strength. Or possibly a psychiatrist or psychologist can guide him to an emotional plateau wherein he learns to accept the consequences of his own behavior and can learn to accept himself as he is, without projections of his own psychic difficulties towards others. He can learn to accept and to endure discomfort. As drunks, that's one thing we could not do was endure discomfort, at least I couldn't. I don't care whether it was a toothache or the bill collector. I mean, the solution to that was a drink, to forget about some of it. So we have to learn to endure discomfort, and that we do learn in AA. Our beloved Claire Pearson, in discussing after we find our sobriety, he says, Ed, they can't hurt us anymore. We've been so badly hurt in the past. I think I was discussing the pain of a convalescent from a ruptured appendix. I wouldn't even ring for a nurse to get a pipe or anything. Hell with it, I'd sit there and tough it out. It didn't make any difference to me. I've been hurt a lot worse than that. And Claire says, that's true. They can't hurt us anymore. We've been hurts so badly in the past, so we learn to endure discomfort. Whether this discomfort is physical or psychic and we need to overcome the frequent need of exceptionality as demonstrated in so many alcoholics. As drunks, we always had to be the exceptional. I mean, you know, throw a $50 bill on the bar and they set them all up, Joe. I mean the wife's sitting home and the kids are probably hungry but we're the big shots, don't you see? The big shot either. This psychiatrist or psychologist that I mentioned must be able to understand the alcoholic's own personality structure and his personality needs without detouring through the morass of Oedipal conflicts and structural reflex behavior that the psychiatrist or the analyst is so often apt to go into. The psychiatrist's greatest error in the past has been approaching the alcoholic in the same manner as he does other patients, especially as regards his drinking. The psychiatrist gets lost in a maze of minutiae regarding past drinking episodes, the why and the wherefore of each binge, and so forth. This is not my idea alone, but brought out by Dr. Harry Thiebaud, who many of you know from Connecticut, in one of his excellent articles on alcoholism entitled Surrender in the Therapeutic Process and surrender versus compliance, especially in regards to alcoholism. And the third one, the direct treatment of a symptom. As Harry Diebel brings out, he says sometimes you can say to a patient, hey, cut that out. I mean, the permissive psychiatrists who go along and say, yeah, we understand, dear, and that's fine, you're not drinking so much, and you have to cut out some of this permissiveness stuff and say, hey, bud, you've got to quit it. I probably have always been that way with my alcoholics, and most of them consider me pretty darn tough with alcoholics. But I expect them to get sober, and I don't ask them to do anything I haven't done myself. The unenlightened psychiatrists attempt to find out why the patient drinks to excess. No one knows the answer to this. There isn't anyone who can tell me why, if I took a drink with my dinner tonight, I'd be in jail by midnight. It's been over 18 years since I've had a drink, to the grace of God and people like you, but nobody can tell мне why that is true. And that is a disease, alcoholism. The compulsion to drink more, which is engendered in certain susceptible individuals by one drink of alcohol, and that's me, or I'm one of them. If the psychiatrist or the psychologist is seeking the reason why the alcoholic takes a drink, the answer is simple, because he wants to. Either he's attempting to ease some psychic discomfort, and in his immature juvenility he denies reality and reassures himself that, quote, this time it'll be different. no one needs to know that I'm taking a drink and I'll be careful many of these pitfalls and this thinking-thinking as AA will recognize it can be avoided through enlightened counseling however the commoner and therefore the quantitatively more successful method is through the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous as I stated before every recovering alcoholic must show personality improvement or he is not going to be happy with his sobriety. Or shall we say he's not going to be less unhappy than he was in his drinking. The alcoholic must rise above his average and even the average of his peers in handling certain personality traits which often exist in those who are not alcoholic. Actually, because of his, quote, handicap, unquote, of being allergic to alcohol, he is forced into a way of life he has repeatedly resisted or did not even know existed. This way of life forced upon him becomes so satisfying that it is the reason for so many AAs to exclaim, I'm glad I'm an alcoholic. I'm sure many of you have been in AA meetings and the guy gets up and says, I am an alcoholic and I'm glad I'm an alcoholic. And you think, well, he didn't quit drinking soon enough. Maybe he's got all these marbles, but they're badly arranged or something. Actually, he has stumbled upon good mental hygiene and it is shown to him through the simple application of Christian principles to his life. Before we attempt any dissection of the 12 steps of AA, it might behoove us to glance at the origin of the movement of AA. How are the 12 steps devised and agreed upon, and by whom? Did the co-founders Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob plagiarize these steps from the philosophical reveries of some pious monastic or brilliant philosopher, or did some of the Madison Avenue flannel suit boys unroll them out of a ball of wax? uh none of these methods gain credence since analysis show these steps of aa are but the evolution of man's experience over the ages these steps can be found in other places and in other forms but we need not look for possible origins as bill wilson himself has told us that The AA idea was based upon psychological and spiritual concepts very similar to those of Frank Buckman's Oxford group, which are the following. If our licensed projectionist will give us the Oxford tenets. One, he admitted he was powerless to solve his own problem. Secondly, he got honest with himself as never before. He made an examination of conscience. Three, he made a rigorous confession of his personal defects. Four, he surveyed his distorted relations with people, visiting them to make restitution. Five, he resolved to devote himself to helping others in need. And six, by meditation he sought God's direction for his life and helped to practice these principles at all times. I had another slide which shows the derivation of the 12 from that, but in the interest of time we do not need to show it. These six steps were changed around with the next step we have the original six steps of AA, or the six principles of AA. You can see the evolution from one to the other. I will not take the time to read them. The early members of the group, through trial and error, cussing and discussing them through their individual and collective experience, then involved the 12 steps of AA. It might be well to look briefly at what these 12 steps are to accomplish, remembering that they are to help the alcoholic have some degree of personality improvement and some of the common traits found in alcoholics consist of a unconscious need to dominate yet he is very dependent I'm sure you're all familiar with that you know, the alcoholic who the louder he cries for his independence the more dependent he is secondly, he has a hostility feeling tone based usually on guilt and which is a defense of his feelings of inferiority and knowledge of his own failure. He has a sense of loneliness and isolation. His social contacts tend to deteriorate in his effort to find companionship wherein his abnormal drinking is more tolerated. He has simultaneous feeling of inferiorty but still is incapable of self-criticism. He has striving for perfection which takes the form of exceptionality or big-shot itis. Dr. Ruth Fox, who many of you know, of course, in New York, lists the alcoholic's personality defects as one, egocentricity, low tolerance for tension, three, dependence, four, the sense of omnipotence, as exemplified by word magic, which we won't take the time to go into. So in descriptive terms, we are essentially in agreement When we say the alcoholic exhibits emotional immaturity, inflated ego, dependency, he is impatient. He is intolerant especially of things of which he himself is guilty. There is little question of his neuroticism as manifest by tension, anxiety, fear and worries. Often he is or claims to be atheistic or agnostic And even, at best, his spiritual ideals and concepts and training are warped, misshapen, and ignored. Not yet, Ross, just a moment. Comes now the problem how to help this poor meatball that optimistically calls itself a personality and develop within it maturity, objectivity, humility, patience, tolerance, self-reliance, honesty, and spirituality. I'm sure we all cringe from the prospect of applying all these attributes to our own lives and we should not expect too much of the alcoholic but some degree of success is necessary Improvement that is constant and daily is more important than the degree of perfection attained It's not how far you have come, but are you going in the right direction? any degree of improvement is reassuring to the alcoholic and sustains him in his total goal of how to be happy though sober when I bring out these personality traits do not be confused and think that they are peculiar or indigenous to the alcoholic, they are just as manifest in the neurotics and in most of the general population but they are the trait the alcoholic needs to overcome if he is not going to drink and in overcoming them he finds a way of life that is much more satisfactory and that's why he says i'm glad i'm an alcoholic in an attempt to simplify some of the dynamics and to portray a graphic representation i have oversimplified to a great extent by using one word to epitomize what i feel each of the 12 steps prime function is. We all know that each step is much more dynamic and complicated than my fatuous definition, but nonetheless, let's take a look at each step in this manner. If we can have the next slide, Ross. Step one, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable. This I have termed insight because insight means keen discernment or understanding. With this, the alcoholic becomes aware that he has a problem, or at least he now openly admits it. He has been denying it to himself and to everyone, but his alibis and rationalizations have now broken down, and once having faced his problem, he is on the road to doing something about it. If his insight is profound, he will understand the irreversibility of this step and accept the need for total and continued abstinence, no matter how manageable his life may later become. I stress this irreversibility because too many alcoholics find that the second part of this steps is reversible. Their lives again become manageable, the dog doesn't bark at them when they come home anymore, their wife speaks to them and the kids don't run and hide, and their boss says good morning when they came in so they think, well, my life is no longer unmanageable, so therefore I'm no longer powerless over alcohol. So we do stress the irreversibility of this, of the first part of this first step. Step two, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. This I have called surrender. Surrender in its definition means, quote, to yield to the power of another. This surrender, of course, enhances the insight of the previous step because if we can admit that we are acting in an insane manner during our drinking, we certainly have insight as well as surrender. some of the pitfalls of the alcoholic consist of only partial surrender and therefore only compliance as Dr. Thiebaud brought out in his article compliance is not enough it is easy to surrender to the overwhelming problem while we are still in the trap but after getting out of the trap we are too prone to again nibble at the cheese this compliance rather than total surrender is characterized by mental reservations In some cases, it requires a relapse to finally sense the argument the alcoholic has within himself that someday and in some way he will be able to control his drinking. It is most important that this surrender be both intellectual and emotional, though either may be sufficient unto itself. Step three made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Decision is a key word here because decision means a settling or terminating as if a controversy by giving judgment on the matter. Most alcoholics say they are quite willing to turn things over to God as they understood him because they feel there's none else to turn to but God. They've tried every other means to stay sober without success, so what else is there to turn through? This step introduces a spirituality into the program and into the alcoholic's life. It can scarcely be termed religion, since the concept of a higher power is common to all religions, and even the agnostics and atheists have a sneaking hunch that there must be something to explain the profound mysteries of the universe. Step four made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves, this I've called introspection. to look into or within as one's own mind with this step we attempt to aerate our suppressed and repressed false sins and transgressions likewise we must also attempt to find any spark good in our character an inventory implies assets as well as liabilities it is through Through this introspection that we become objective with ourselves, or as the AA's describe it, honest. Honest with ourselves and with our thinking. This introsection should be crystallized either in writing or in words which leads us to the next step, step five, admit it to God, to ourselves and another human being, the exact nature of our wrong. i've called confession which means to avow acknowledge or admit as a fault or a debt this is the logical continuation of the previous step and is the beginning of humility the psychiatrist recognizes this or calls it mental catharsis or shall i say the analyst they're recognizing the cause of mental cathartic it is of prime importance since personality defects must be eliminated through accurate self-knowledge. When we tell another human being the nature of our shortcomings, we are certainly gaining in self- knowledge. Religion has recognized the value of the confessional process not only for its spiritual value but because of the mental hygiene involved. Once we have attained the position that no one can say anything about us that we have not said about ourselves, there is a great release from tension and anxiety. We no longer need to assume the facade of imaginary accomplishments or denials of facts that are common knowledge but which we repress or submerge as too painful to face. Step six, we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. This I have termed submission, which means the act of submitting, especially surrender of person and power to the control of another. As a corollary or sequence of this submission, I like the word willingness, and I believe that both are embodied in the phrase in the Lord's Prayer, Thy will be done, which requires both submission and willingness. Willingness is the key to submission to whatever we need to accept, which is not our will but something beyond our ken. The next slide, please, is step seven. humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. This I have called humility, which means freedom from pride and arrogance. How can we any longer assume an arrogant manner and exhibit false pride when we have verbally admitted how inadequate we are of ourselves, inadequate to even overcome our shortcoming? We must call upon a higher power to do this for us. This step may not confer humility, but I submit that we must find some degree of humility before we can essay the step at all. Humility to me suggests the concept of being one's self neither more nor less, admitting our faults but not groveling and also using our talents and assets. however, is the most evanescent of virtues. The minute you think you've got it, you've lost it. Step eight, made a list of all the persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends for them all, which I've called inventory, which means a catalog or schedule. I also feel that perhaps forgiveness would be a better word for this step. And I point out the word willingness in this step. Many people we have harmed, we can never make amends to, you know. So we must try, and no matter how difficult or embarrassing, an honest effort must be made. This simple effort confers much honesty and humility. As a byproduct, we are relieved of the fear and anxiety of possibly confronting someone to whom we should long ago have made amends. Step nine, made direct amends to such people whenever possible except when to do so to injure them or others is what we have called restitution. Meaning restoration of anything to its rightful owner. Perhaps reparation would be more ethical because so often we have nothing to restore to others except their peace of mind and we can but make amends for the grief and heartache we have caused. Our continued sobriety and personality change may be the greatest gift of reparation we can make to those nearest and dearest to us. Any material reparation may be insignificant to moral restitution. An abject and sincere apology and admission of wrongdoing, even to those whom we owe material things with the acknowledgment of debt, may be of greater value then than the material itself. This is a great step towards maturity. and with its release of guilt alleviates tension and the need for alcohol. Step 10, continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admit it. This I have called reorganization which by definition means to again become systematized or constitutes into a whole of interdependent parts. When a recovering alcoholic has reached this step is well along the way to the personality reorganization of which we spoke earlier. Step 11, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. This I have called spirituality, the moral feeling or states of the soul, the exact definition of spirituality. Through this frequent prayer and mediation, Humility becomes commonplace. Effort at improvement is routine, and progress in all spheres of life becomes inevitable. Anxiety is relieved by the feeling of an omniscient, omnipotent being whose will supersedes our own. And our soul prayer consists of seeking knowledge of that will and the ability to carry it out. Faith. Faith is a cure for fear. This step provides the impetus for a lifetime of study as to man's experience in this field. William James' book, The Variety of Spiritual Experience, is a good starting point. It had a profound influence upon the early formation of the AA movement. As Bill Wilson will tell you, his reading of William James' variety of spiritual experience has much to do with formulation of the 12 steps of AA. And finally, the 12-step having had in the spiritual waking as a result of these steps, we try to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. This I have called charity, which means an act of loving all men as brothers because they are sons of God, goodwill to the poor and the suffering. The joy of living is the theme of A.A.'s twelfth step, and action is its key word. This step is not as unselfish and selfless as it may sound, at least psychologically speaking. Through the efforts of the recovering alcoholic to help others, he gains insight and introspection into his former distorted thinking. The fact that he's working with others gives him a sense of accomplishment and of belonging. His narcissistic ego, if I may use a big term, a 35-sentiment, gets a thorough deflation as he attempts to help others who still suffer from the disease alcoholism. His daily petty difficulties become as nothing when he observes the graphic picture of what he might be suffering should he delude himself into thinking he could take just one. He realizes that for the grace of God, there go I. The final slide, I think, is kind of putting all this stuff together. Well, those are the 12 words that I use to epitomize each step. And the final slide shows some of my doodling. We've got another smile here. Yeah, no wonder he didn't think it looked right. I agree with him. I mean, it looked like it was all messed up. But you notice on the left side of the diagram are the neurotic manifestations common to many people, but which the alcoholic must overcome by getting across through those 12 steps into the ideal of the mature individual and so forth. This is far less than scientific, I assure you, and it's purely the graphic trying to portray these sort of things. You can turn off the lantern if you will, Ross. Why does A.A. succeed when other methods have failed? What time did the eclipse start? Did anybody understand the eclipse? medicine has confused the treatment of the hangover with the treatment of alpha and all this one of the prior speakers Dr. Berger I guess it was brought out a point which has been very close to my thinking I even called Dr. Marvin Block on it, but we don't treat alcoholism. There isn't any treatment for alcoholism and we handle the alcoholic yet and we help him adjust to his problem that he had but there isn't any treatment for alcohol if there was you could go back to drinking didn't you? So we actually because we don�t know the nature of this illness But medicine has confused this with sobering up drunks and getting them all cleaned up and out of the hospital in a week looking fine, then they're back two days later dirtier and drunker than they were to begin with and the physicians said, the hell with him, I treated him for his alcoholism and looked at him today. That is one of the pitfalls. Psychiatry has gotten too involved in the etiology, the genesis, and the chronological development of the condition. Treating it in a permissive and non-directive manner, and as I mentioned before, after all, we can be directive and nonpermissive. We can tell the patient you've got to cut that out, but most psychiatrists won't agree with me when I talk that way, but I don't care if this thing works. Three, religion has put too much reliance upon the infallibility of prayer. Also pleading and punishment are to little avail. Pressure and duress, yes, we can put duress on the and pressure upon the alcoholic when he has to suffer the consequences of his own behavior. We quit covering up for him. As our executive director of the commission, her story is about the poor, sick alcoholic who was hungover and, oh God, he was feeling bad and he was really suffering. And his wife was quite a religious woman and he said, dear, something's got to help me. Can't you pray for me? So she said, I'd be happy to. She got down on her knees and started praying, dear God, my poor husband is so sick. Please, can't you help him? My poor husband is drunk again. Oh, don't tell him I'm drunk. Tell him I got the flu, he says, you know. It's a little custom to be covered up for, you know, that even God couldn't know he was drunk. Religion further should stress spirituality rather than religion. A.A., in my thinking, is effective, one, because of its absolute independence. It is a fellowship but not an organization. As was brought out, we have no rules or bylaws or charter or constitution in this group, which has been in existence for some 15 years now, and it's got along pretty well. Secondly, it has nothing to offer except friendship. it hopes with the alcoholic rather than copes with the alcohol and that was brought out today earlier to that you're much better off to really be helpful and hoping along with the sick alcoholic than foreign to be in the finest of hospitals with a hostile crew or personnel in that hospital. Dr. Vicki Fox of Atlanta, Georgia is the one who coined that phrase as far as I know because she found it in her personal experience in the Georgian clinic. You've got to hope with the alcoholic and not cope with him. And then if You start coping with the alcoholic, he knows it, and you've lost rapport with him. Thirdly, AA is effective because it offers hope, and seemingly more hopeless people than the individual concerned have recovered. Who else to turn to but God, we say in AA? Everyone else is considered our case as hopeless, you know. At least I certainly was diagnosed with everything from schizophrenia drink the manic depressive and on up and down the line when I was just a good, dyed-in-the-wool alcoholic. I acted so contrary to reason that they had to tag some diagnosis on it and were considered hopeless, no doubt. Ended up on the back ward of the state hospital, you see, and I was in the state hostel more than I was out, so I thought, well, hell, if I can't lick them, I might as well join them, and that's how I got into this racket of psychiatry, don't you see? In defense of psychiatrists, you see, I'm an alcoholic who became a psychiatrist, not a psychiatrist who became an alcoholic anyway. Not that it makes much difference, but it's just a chronological note we offer. uh fourth uh the effectiveness of aa is based upon the fact that we are again re-accepted by people we have rejoined the human race previously we've been rejected by everyone friends employers and family we've thrown out of professions and vocations and avocations and we have tasted the depths of loneliness plus this feeling of complete hopelessness. AA has let us rejoin the human race. Fifthly, AA has taught us the knowledge, given us the knowledgings of what is wrong. It tells us of the obsessive, compulsive nature of our drinking. When we were drinking, we were kind of excessive repulsives, and now we become obsessive-compulsive, you think. Even though we know nothing at all about why should this occur in 3% of our population. Frank, this morning, brought out the futility of why, and I think this is very well taken, I mean, to wonder why. Let the researchers wonder about why, but for us who are alcoholics or who are handling alcoholics, they want to know why. I tell them, I don't know. And I found that in my office it's been one of the most helpful things to tell an alcoholic that I don' t know why you drink like that and medicine doesn' t owe either. And when we tell them of our ignorance, it seems to be a great relief to many alcoholics. I've seen it happen. When we just laid on the line to them, and we're no longer the brilliant psychiatrists, we're just a dumb physician who's trying to help them out of a hole. We don't know why you do this. But I don't understand. I don' t know why some people break out in the highs when they eat shrimp either. Some people can't eat strawberries or break out on a rash. They don't come around asking me why. They just say, I'm quitting eating shrimp or strawberries, Doc. I mean, that's it. And you've got to do the same thing with your alcohol. It's as simple as that. Why this should occur to 3% of the population, we don't know. Statistics, again, what difference does it make? They say statistics are like bikini bathing suits anyway. It's what they reveal are quite interesting, but what they cover is vital, you see. And sixthly, A.A. helped the sufferer to accept the handicap, in quotes, of his being different along with getting over the resentment of no longer, quote, having fun with his friends. It is quite a hard thing to think, well, I can't have any more fun. I can'T drink with my friends anymore. And you have to accept some of that. I know for one thing I used to love to do when I was drinking was to get a jug of whiskey and go up in the mountains on a beefsteak fry. For a year and a half after I was sober, I wouldn't go near a beef Steak Fry or anything what the hell are you going out and cooking a steak if you haven't got a jug to wash it down with, you know, what the heck was it? So I felt that I was not having fun, which was true, so I had to give it up. So we can forego some of this, quote, fun when we begin to find out how much fun we can have in other ways in being sober. Seventily, A.A. helps the alcoholic to accept himself as he is, a human being with all his faults and his assets. He learns to accept averageness and normality. Exceptionality must go. He learns tolerance of himself and others and learns that God will give him only that which he can trust him with. Our faith can't go too far sometimes. We had this happen up at, we live up in the mountains above Denver. Our home was at 8,000 feet in the hills. And there's a club up there, Mount Vernon Club, which is a nice place. There's a bar and so forth. But we observed one fellow who, alcoholic or not, I don't know, but he was pretty well smashed one night. And he knew it, and he hated to drive down that canyon because it's quite a drop down to 5,000 foot into Denver, you know. so he had presence of mind enough to watch who was leaving the club and out comes a Catholic priest because he had his Roman collar on gets in his car and says oh boy I'll follow the good father down the canyon I'll be alright so he followed him down far away but the father was going pretty fast and he was getting a little concerned But finally the goodly priest missed one of the corners and went over the side of the canyon. And the poor drunk stopped and looked down, you know, with much concern and called to him. Hey, Father, are you all right? Finally the priest called back up. Yeah, he says my car's ruined, he said, but I'm all right. God was with me. The drunk said you better let God drive with me, you damn near killed him. Number eight, the fellowship of A.A. demonstrates the ability to relate to the omnipotent as a friend rather than a threatening figure. The fellowship of AA has been described as, quote, a glimpse of God because here he can be accepted without deserving it and no recompense is expected. Some of the qualities that we need to develop, I think were brought out so well by Dr. Al Church last year at the Sunday morning meeting. I told Al I hadn't forgotten his talk till yet. He used it all year. That is some of this very simple concept. The two things kept him from his sobriety. That was resentment and pride. And two things cured him, or at least showed him the way. That was humility and gratitude. And that word gratitude has stuck with me all year. I mean, I've tried to be constantly thankful for what I have and not complaining of what I would like to have. there are so many things that could happen to us we better darn well be happy with what we have gratitude for everything we have is so necessary and Dr. Church brought that out last year in such a magnificent way and we have to keep remembering that God will give us what we need I learned that years ago in Texas and talking to a young minister. He said he had to leave the meeting that we were at. It was a regional meeting of AA. He had to Leave early, and I said, Well, what are you leaving so soon for? He said, I'm taking the bus home. It takes me a day and a half on the bus. I said. Oh, hell, take it to the airplane. He said. Why? Well, Doc, I haven't got that kind of money. He said... Did you know I threw away $30,000 in my drinking days, and now God won't trust me with that much money. He says, you'll give me all the money I need. He said, there's all he can trust me with, but that's all I can have and I'm satisfied with it. And that taught me a lesson that God trusts us with just what is good for us. So finally, I'm still looking at my watch. I don't know what time I started with making a difference. About an hour ago, I guess. In conclusion, we might summarize some of the elements of the AA program as one, the inculcation of honesty with oneself and with others. Two, recognizing our limitations, accepting averageness and avoiding the need for exceptionality, attempting only what is possible, enduring discomfort. Three, recognizing the circumstances are not relevant to drinking nor to sobriety. This goes away, of course, with our rationalizations and alibis. Fourth and final, placing sobriete ahead of all other goals but to so learn and live that sobriety becomes second nature and normal, mature behavior is the ultimate goal. We should be able to echo what John Bradford said back in 1950. By the grace of God, I am not what I was. Thank you. I believe on behalf of the group I would like to thank Ed for an inspiring talk I know I enjoyed it very, very much I'd also thank you very much for allowing me to chair the meeting