Joe and Charlie Big Book Study – “The Doctor’s Opinion” – Joe W.

And we've had medical people, spiritual people, throughout our history try to determine what alcoholism is.
There was a doctor named Dr. Trotter that lived in England a long time ago.
And he said that I believe alcoholism is an illness.
But he couldn't explain what it was, therefore they didn't have an answer for him.
There was a doctor that lived here in the United States named Dr. Benjamin Rush.
He's one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
He wrote a paper on alcoholism, described the alcoholic.
And he said he felt it was an illness too.
But he couldn't name what it was, he couldn't determine it, so he had no solution.
It's only in this century that we have been able to find out what alcoholism is.
And then once we found out what it is, then we could find a solution to it.
You know, I don't think we alcoholics today who are in AA realize how lucky, lucky we really are
to be living in the period of time when we found out what alcoholism is
and we found out the solution to it.
And as I look at our history, which we're going to be doing a lot of this weekend,
I'm convinced in my mind that God got tired of seeing people like us die from alcoholism.
And he took various different people from around the world
and gave us these pieces of information that allows us to recover from that condition today.
And I think one of the first persons that he used was this little doctor called Dr. Silkworth.
When Dr. Silkworth was in medical school, he became very interested in we alcoholics.
But when he got out of medical school, he learned like most doctors did,
that it was very difficult.
Living, working with alcoholics.
Most doctors do not like to work with alcoholics.
They said then and they say today that an alcoholic will not tell you the truth.
That's certainly true, isn't it?
And they said they will not do what we tell them to do.
And that's certainly true, isn't it?
But they said the main reason we don't want to work with them is they won't pay their bills.
So Dr. Silkworth...
In order to find a way to make a living, he had to go off into another field.
But always interested in we alcoholics.
And he became very successful in his field.
But in the late 1930s, or 1920s, we had, of course, the great stock market crash.
And Silky had everything he owned invested in the stock market.
And he lost it just like everybody else did.
Lost the good job he had.
And he had to find...
He had to find a job somewhere.
And Charlie Towns from the town's hospital,
who Silky had met before through his interest in alcoholics,
offered him a job.
And said, why don't you come to work here and I'll pay you $30 a week in room and board.
And you can help me in working with other alcoholics, or working with alcoholics.
So Silky went to work in the town's hospital in 1930.
And he began to work with people like us.
And he began to see us come into the hospital.
Terrible, terrible physical and mental condition.
And he began to withdraw us from alcohol, build the body up, and et cetera.
And 60 or 30, 60, 90 days later, he would see us leave the hospital in reasonably good shape.
And in a month or two or three or four later, he'd see us come back in in worse shape than we were before.
Continually going in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out.
He also noticed some people that he worked with who drank like we drank,
but did not go in and out and in and out.
He also noticed other people who drank moderately and safely.
And he began to say there's something different about these alcoholics.
There's something different about the body.
Apparently alcohol does something to them that it doesn't do to normal people.
And he began to develop this little idea that when you put alcohol in your body,
it produces an actual physical craving that makes it impossible for us to stop drinking.
But he also said even in those days, that's not the real problem of the alcoholic.
He said the real problem is that the alcoholic cannot keep from drinking.
He said people who are heavy drinkers, people who are moderate drinkers,
if they want to quit drinking, they just quit and it doesn't bother them at all.
But he said it seems as though the alcoholic, after they quit,
the mind begins to play tricks on them and begins to think about,
you know, one or two drinks, and how it makes them feel.
And he said that idea becomes so powerful that it overcomes the idea that they can't drink,
and they take a drink and end up drunk every time.
He said, now if you can't drink safely, and if you can't keep from drinking,
then you're powerless over alcohol.
Now we don't know whether Bill Wilson is the first one he told that to or not.
But we know Bill is probably the first one to act on that information.
Then after Bill said that, he said, well, I don't know if I'm the first one to act on that information.
But after Bill got sober, and after Dr. Bob got sober,
and after Bill Dodson got sober, and after the first forty got sober,
based on that information, and decided to write the book,
they went to see Dr. Silkworth and said, well, you let us put that information in the book
so that other alcoholics can see what their problem is too.
And they said, well, you write some of it for us.
And the doctor said, yeah, you can use it, and I'll write some of it under one condition,
that we will call it the doctor's opinion.
He said, I can't prove it.
There's no facts behind it.
So we'll just have to call it an opinion.
And he said, by the way, don't use my name.
He said, they'll throw me completely out of the medical profession if you use my name on this deal.
In 1956, when they came out with the second edition, 1955 and 1956, they came out with the second edition.
By that time, they were out of the medical profession.
By that time, the Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association,
had recognized the fact that alcoholism is an illness.
And Dr. Silkworth said in the second edition, you can put my name in it now.
So for the second and third, you've got Silkworth, but in here, you don't.
Let's look at what the doctor had to say for just a little bit.
Let's go to Roman numeral page 24.
That's XXIV.
And I didn't know that when I got sober.
He said, the physician who at our request gave us this letter has been kind enough to enlarge upon his views in another statement which follows.
In this statement, he confirms why we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind.
Now, we know there's no must in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, but there are a lot of musts in this book called Alcoholics Anonymous, and there's one of the first one.
We must believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as the mind.
Now, this is the first time we can find anywhere in written history a reference to the fact that the body is affected as well as the mind.
Everything up until this time, they had talked about the mind only.
Weak will, moral character, sin, and et cetera.
But here we say that C.S. Davis said,
I see a statement that says the body is quite as abnormal as the mind.
I think he's telling us two things.
That the body is affected also.
But I think he's also saying the mind is abnormal when it comes to alcohol.
We react to it different physically and also mentally in an abnormal manner.
And we'll talk about both of those.
The first one we're going to look at is the body.
He said, it did not satisfy us to be told that we could not drink.
It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not drink.
It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not drink.
It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life.
That we were in full flight from reality or were outright mental defectives.
Now these things were true to some extent.
In fact, to a considerable extent with some of us.
He's at you.
But we're sure that our bodies were sickened as well.
In our belief, any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete.
The doctor's theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us.
As laymen, our opinions to its soundness may of course mean little.
As laymen, our opinions to its soundness may of course mean little.
But as ex-problem drinkers, we can say this explanation makes good sense.
It explains many things for which we cannot otherwise account.
Now if the purpose of a textbook is to transfer information from the mind of one human being
through the written word to the mind of another human being,
then it stands to reason the transference of that information
is going to be based upon the understanding of the words that are used.
If the writer of the book uses a certain word,
and understands it this way,
the reader of the book reads that word and understands it this way,
a different understanding,
then the information that comes through is going to be garbled and incomplete information.
And there seems to be a few key words in the big book
that many of us have had difficulty with.
And I think the first word we've had a real problem with is this word allergy.
You know, most of us when we come here,
we assume already we know what an allergy is.
I know I did.
And I knew if you were allergic to something,
and you got around it or you ate it or you drank it or something like that,
that there would be some physical manifestation or indicator of that allergy.
For instance, if you eat strawberries and you're allergic to them,
you'll break out in a rash.
The rash being the manifestation of that allergy.
If you're allergic to milk and you drink it,
you'll have a bad case of dysentery.
The dysentery being the manifestation of that allergy.
If you're allergic to certain plants such as ragweeds and you get around them,
your eyes, nose, itch, water, and you start sneezing.
The itchy, watery eyes, nose, and the sneezing,
that's the manifestation of that allergy.
So I knew if you were allergic to something,
there would be something there that you could see.
So they came to me and they said,
Charlie, you've got an allergy to alcohol.
You'll never be able to safely drink it again.
And I said, how in the hell can I be allergic to alcohol?
I'm drinking a quart a day.
How can you possibly drink that much of something you're allergic to?
And I said, besides that, when I drink alcohol,
I don't break out in a rash.
And I don't have a bad case of dysentery.
Once in a while I might, depending on what I've been drinking,
but usually I didn't.
Nor did it make my eyes, nose, itch, water, and cause me to sneeze.
And I said, I don't understand what you're talking about.
You need to explain that to me.
And they said, well, you don't need to understand.
They said, all you've got to know is you can't drink it.
Well, today I think I know why they told me that.
I don't think they understood it a bit better than I did.
And I went from person to person to person to person
trying to get somebody to explain this allergy to me.
And all they would say is, what difference does it make?
Forget the damned allergy.
Don't drink and you'll be all right.
Keep coming to meetings.
Now, if you're an alcoholic like I am,
with a keen intellectual alcoholic mind,
and you get a question like that dangling out here in front of you,
if you don't get the answer to it,
sooner or later it's going to drive you out of your mind.
And one day, in sheer desperation, I went to a source of information
that has never failed me since that time.
I went to the dictionary.
And I looked up the word allergy,
and I found several different definitions of it,
depending on the way you do with any word, depending on how you use it.
But I think I found the one that fit me exactly.
When it said an allergy is an abnormal reaction
to any food, beverage, or substance of any kind.
An abnormal reaction.
So I began to look back over my drinking history
to see where I was abnormal.
And to my amazement, I found out I don't know what's normal and what's abnormal.
The only thing I knew about drinking was the way I drank.
And the way those people drank who drank with me,
and if they didn't drink like I did, we didn't drink together.
So to find out what's normal, to see if I'm abnormal,
I have to go to the normal, social, temperate, moderate drinker,
those who drink alcohol and do not get in trouble with it.
And I asked them to describe to me how they feel when they take a drink.
And they said, well, we come home from work,
tired, tense, wrought up from the day's work.
We can have a couple of drinks before dinner.
We begin to get a relaxing, comfortable feeling.
We'll go ahead and have dinner,
and we probably won't drink anymore that night.
Well, I don't feel that way when I drink alcohol.
Whenever I take a drink of alcohol,
it passes over my lips.
My lips begin to tingle immediately.
Hits my teeth, and they kind of chatter up and down.
Strikes my tongue, and I can feel it begin to grow and expand and swell.
Hits my cheeks, and they kind of flutter in and out.
At the same time, it's passing through my sinus cavities up into my forehead,
and I begin to get a feeling up here in my forehead,
which is absolutely, indescribably wonderful.
Now, I haven't even swallowed the damn stuff yet.
I just got it in my mouth.
When I swallow that alcohol, it starts down through my esophagus.
Great things begin to take place.
The first thing that happens is my chest begins to grow and expand
and gets bigger and bigger.
Hits my stomach and just literally explodes like a bomb.
Immediately, I feel it racing through my arms,
and they get longer and longer.
Hits my hands and fingers, and they begin to tingle and vibrate.
Same time, it's racing through my arms.
It's racing through my legs.
They're getting longer and longer.
I'm getting taller and taller, and it hits my feet and toes,
and they get a hot, intense, burning, exciting,
get-up-and-go-somewhere-and-do-something feeling.
I don't understand a comfortable, relaxing feeling when you have a drink.
These people told me something that blew my mind for me.
They said, Charlie, whenever we have a couple of drinks,
we begin to experience a feeling of dizziness,
a feeling of being out of control.
And they said, we don't like that feeling.
Therefore, one or two drinks is all we want to drink.
How many times have you and I tried to get a drink?
I tried to get them to drink more, and they say,
oh, no, no, I feel this already.
Or, no, no, no, this is making me dizzy.
I don't want any more.
Well, today I realize that's the normal reaction to alcohol.
You see, for most people, when they put alcohol in the system,
it hits the stomach, it immediately goes into the bloodstream,
immediately goes to the brain.
And for a normal drinker, it acts as a downer.
It's a sedative.
It is supposed to give them a slightly tipsy,
out-of-control feeling.
Now, when it goes into my stomach, into my bloodstream, into my brain,
instead of me getting a slightly tipsy, out-of-control feeling,
alcohol, for me, acts as an upper.
It's a stimulant.
And my brain gets a very exciting, in-control feeling.
They have two drinks, and they want to go to bed.
I have two drinks, and by God, I want to go to town immediately.
I react to it differently mentally.
And another thing they told me is that when we have a couple of drinks,
not only do we get a slightly tipsy, out-of-control feeling,
they said, we begin to experience a feeling of nausea.
And they said, we don't like that feeling.
And therefore, one or two drinks is all we want to take.
How many times have you tried to get them a drink more,
and they say, oh, no, no, no, this is making me sick.
I don't want any more of it.
That's the normal reaction to alcohol.
Alcohol is a toxic substance, a destroyer of human tissue.
When you put it in your body,
your mind and your body is supposed to react to it with nausea
and say, puke it up and get it out of here.
When I put it in my body,
instead of my body experiencing a feeling of nausea,
my body experiences an actual physical craving
which demands more of the same.
Their body said, puke it up.
Mine said, put some more in here.
So not only do I react to it differently mentally,
but I also react to it differently physically.
Now, the only difference between normal and abnormal
is what do the majority of the people do.
If the majority, nine out of ten, react that way,
one out of ten reacts the way I do,
then my reaction is considered to be abnormal.
Therefore, I'm considered to be allergic to alcohol.
You can't see it.
You can only feel it.
And only alcoholics feel it.
You see, I kept looking for the rash.
I kept looking for the dysentery.
No, you don't see our allergy.
You feel it.
And only we alcoholics feel it.
Joe?
So I said you can get in trouble going to town.
You know, that's the trouble with trouble.
It always starts off with fun, isn't it?
How many of you ever went out to get drunk and to get into trouble?
Now we go out, you know, get drunk and have a little fun.
And that's the trouble with trouble.
It always starts out as fun.
At least that's the way it did with me.
Go ahead.
You know, I just love to watch normal,
social, temperate, moderate drinkers.
Fascinating to watch them.
Saw one on the airplane yesterday.
Yeah, yeah.
He ordered a drink.
Got him a mixer with it.
And he put his mixer in this glass with ice in it.
Poured his little bottle in there.
They buy a little bitty bottle on airplanes.
I think it cost them $4 today.
And hell, there's not a drink in that bottle, period.
But anyhow, that's what they is.
And he poured it in there.
And then he took a little stick.
And he went through a stirring ceremony.
I don't know much about stirring when it comes to drinking.
But he stirred and he stirred and he stirred.
And after a while, he laid his little stick down.
And you know what he did then?
He picked up his magazine and started reading his damn magazine.
I'm sitting there watching him saying,
Drink the damn stuff.
What the hell did you get it for?
That's what we call alcohol abuse.
Now, that may be normal, but I call that sick to drink like that.
So I think I'll read this again.
Said the doctor's theory they have an allergy to alcohol interests us.
As lame in our opinions to its soundness may of course mean little.
But as ex-problem drinkers, we can say that the explanation makes good sense.
It explains many things for which we cannot otherwise account.
And the explanation says,
And the explanation of this explains many things which I couldn't otherwise account.
It explained to me why I would go down to the bar with every intention of having two.
The next thing I know, it's midnight or 1 or 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning or the next day or the next week.
And I wonder, well, what in the hell happened?
I just went down there to drink two.
Well, this idea about this allergy to alcohol interested me.
It explained many things which I couldn't otherwise account.
Now let's go to Roman numeral page 26.
A good textbook.
A good textbook will never tell you anything to what it doesn't give you more information to back it up.
He's talked here about the allergy.
Now let's go over to Roman numeral 6, first paragraph.
Let's expand on that just a little bit.
He said,
We believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholic is a manifestation of an allergy.
I used to hate that word.
They called me chronic alcoholic.
I hated it.
I don't particularly like it today.
But I found out, too,
that it just means something that you do over and over and over.
So, therefore, I was a chronic drinker or a chronic alcoholic.
And it's a manifestation of an allergy.
And that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temporary drinker.
These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all.
And once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it,
once having lost their self-confidence to reliance upon things human,
their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve.
You know, this manifestation of an allergy that Charlie talked about,
the phenomenon of craving after we take a few drinks.
We don't have the craving before we take a few drinks.
It's only after we take a few drinks that the phenomenon of craving develops.
And then we have to have more and more and more.
And only alcoholics have that.
Non-alcoholics do not crave alcohol after they take a drink.
They just don't.
They get all they want to drink every time they drink,
which is two or three maybe.
And that's all they want.
Because they don't have this phenomenon of craving that alcoholics have.
The action of strawberries on one who is allergic to strawberries is manifested by a rash.
The action of milk on one who is allergic to milk is manifested by dysentery.
The action of ragweeds on one who is allergic to ragweeds is manifested by itchy, watery eyes, sneezing, etc.
The action of alcohol on one who is allergic to alcohol is manifested by a rash.
The action of alcohol on one who is allergic to alcohol is manifested by a rash.
And he refers to it as the phenomenon of craving.
He uses the word phenomenon because he didn't understand it.
So what it is, it's manifested by an actual physical craving in the body
that demands more of the same after we've once started.
What is craving?
And the word craving is very, very important.
You know, I hear people today say,
Well, I came to AA and I craved a drink for four years.
No, in the context of the big book, that's the wrong use of the word craving.
They might have needed a drink, wanted a drink, desired a drink.
The only way an alcoholic can crave alcohol is to first put it in the body.
Then the physical craving develops.
And then we can't stop.
And we end up drunk.
So in the recovery section of the book, when you see the word craving,
it's always referring to the body, never to the mind.
We'll use the word obsession for the mind.
The word craving is for the body.
Now, he goes on a little further over on Roman numeral 28.
And he talks about five different kinds of drinkers.
Then he drives this idea
of the phenomenon of craving home being an allergy one more time.
Let's look at these five drinkers.
He said the classification of alcoholics is on Roman numeral page 28.
The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult
and in much detail is outside the scope of this book.
He said there are, of course, the psychopaths who are emotionally unstable.
We're all familiar with this type.
They're always going on the wagon for keeps,
and they are over-remorseful and make many resolutions but never a decision.
We call that type one.
There is a type of man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink.
He plans various ways of drinking.
He changes his brand or his environment.
That's type two.
There is a type who always believes that after being entirely free from alcohol
for a period of time he can take a drink without danger.
Type three.
There is a manic-depressive type
who is perhaps the least understood by his friends
and by whom a whole chapter could be written.
That's type four.
I always thought I was the next one, type five.
Then there are types entirely normal,
in every respect,
except in the effect alcohol has upon them.
They are often able, intelligent, friendly people.
God, I liked that.
Wasn't that great?
Any more type fives in the room tonight?
Yeah, a whole bunch of them.
Now he makes his point one more time.
All these and many others have one symptom in common.
They cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving.
This phenomenon of craving,
as we have suggested,
may be the manifestation of an allergy
which differentiates these people
and sets them apart as a distinct entity.
It has never been, by any treatment which we are familiar,
permanently eradicated.
The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence.
Now I think what he said is this,
that if all we alcoholics in this room tonight should take a drink,
God forbid that happen,
but if we did,
we would not all react just exactly the same.
In just a little bit,
one of us will be crying in our beer,
oh boo hoo hoo hoo,
the world is not treating me right.
In just a little bit,
one of them will be up here on this stage,
hooping and hollering and dancing and cutting up
and having a hell of a good time.
In just a little bit,
there will be two over in that corner getting in a fight,
just sure as anything.
Look over here,
there will be a couple,
one putting the make on the other.
We tend to do that too when we drink.
We would do many different things,
but if we are real alcoholic,
there is one thing that every one of us,
would do.
We would start looking for a second drink.
The phenomenon of craving has taken over now.
The allergy has manifested itself
and now when we can't stop,
we got to have a third drink,
and a fourth,
and a fifth,
and a sixth,
and an eighth,
and a tenth,
and on and on,
until we are drunk,
sick,
and in all kinds of trouble.
Now it really doesn't make any difference,
whether we are born with it,
or whether we drank ourselves into it.
I was born with it,
I'm sure.
The first drink I took at age 14,
the allergy persisted.
It presented itself that night,
and I got drunk.
Every time I drank,
I got drunk.
I drank 26 years.
I don't ever remember
taking one drink of anything
that had alcohol in it.
It always led to 2,
to 3,
to 6,
to 8,
to 10,
and etc.
Some of you,
I'm sure,
drank with safety for several years.
But somewhere,
you crossed the line.
And the same thing began to happen to you
after several years of drinking
that happened to me from the very beginning.
But what difference does it make?
The fact is,
that's the way we are tonight.
I know that's the way we are tonight too.
Because if we were not that way tonight,
we wouldn't be in this room tonight.
If you and I could drink without getting drunk,
where would we be?
We'd be out there drinking without getting drunk.
But you see,
we can't do that.
That's what we've got in common
in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous,
is we can't drink without getting drunk.
Now,
back in the 1930s,
this was the doctor's opinion.
In the 1930s,
they knew very little about metabolism.
Today,
they know lots about metabolism.
Today,
they know that if you put anything in your system,
such as a piece of bread
or a piece of beefsteak,
that the mind and body recognizes what that is.
Certain organs of the body
begin to produce some things called enzymes.
They attack that food
and begin to break it down and separate it
into usable and non-usable items.
What the body can use,
such as the proteins,
the amino acids,
the vitamins,
the body will retain.
What it can't use,
it will dissipate
through the urinary and intestinal tract.
They call that metabolism.
Today,
they have proven
that the doctor's opinion
is no longer just an opinion.
It's actual truth.
Now,
we're going to look at a little picture here
for just a minute.
And I want to stress
that this is not AA information.
AA won't get involved
into why we're allergic
because that might bring controversy.
But this information presented to us
a few years ago
by members of the medical profession
is so interesting
and has such depth and meaning
for people like us,
I think we would be remiss
if we didn't look at it.
So let's look at it for just a moment.
In the center of that picture,
there's nine people there
that drink safely.
They are at ease with alcohol.
They take a drink or two.
The mind and body senses it.
The enzyme production starts.
And the enzyme attacks the alcohol,
breaks it down into acetaldehyde,
then to diacetic acid,
then to acetone.
In the final stages,
it becomes a simple carbohydrate
made up of water, sugar,
and carbon dioxide.
The water will be dissipated
through the urinary and intestinal tract.
The sugar is calories, energy.
Empty calories.
None of the amino acids,
none of the vitamins,
but a form of energy.
The body will burn them,
store the excess as fat
to be used at a later date.
The carbon dioxide
will be dissipated through the lungs.
In the normal social drinker,
this takes place at the rate
of approximately one ounce per hour.
Now, I know it will vary
with different people,
but the average is one ounce per hour.
And if they don't drink more
than an ounce per hour,
they can't get drunk.
Their body metabolizes it
and burns it up
and gets rid of it at that rate.
Very seldom do you see a social drinker
drinking more than an ounce per hour.
If you're with one of them
and they're drinking more
than an ounce per hour,
you better get out of the way
because they're going to
puke on you after a while.
They'll either go to sleep
or they'll puke on you,
one of the two, every time.
The left-hand side
is the one who does not drink safely.
Or he's at dis-ease with alcohol.
And if you want to use
the word disease,
that's all it means,
something that separates you
from the norm.
We alcoholics put it in our body,
the same thing happens.
The enzymes attack the alcohol,
break it down to acetaldehyde,
then to diacetic acid,
then to acetone.
It seems as though in our bodies
the enzymes necessary
to complete the metabolism,
breaking it down from acetone
to the simple carbohydrate,
are not there in the same qualities
and or quantities
as they are in the body
of the non-alcoholic.
Therefore it stays in our body
for a longer period of time as acetone.
It is proven today
that acetone ingested
into the human system
that remains there
for an appreciable period of time
will produce an actual physical craving
for more of the same.
The non-alcoholic's body,
it goes through that stage
so rapidly
the craving never occurs.
In our body
it stays there long enough,
the craving develops
and that demands a second drink.
Now just think,
you got most of the acetone
from the first,
now you put that in from the second.
The acetone level goes up.
And if the acetone
is what causes the craving,
then the craving becomes harder
with the second drink.
Now you put in the third.
You got most of the first,
nearly all the second,
now you put in the acetone
from the third,
and the craving goes up.
And that demands a fourth.
You got most of the first,
nearly all the second,
that from the third,
now you put in the acetone
from the fourth,
and as the acetone level increases
the craving becomes harder.
At midnight,
we're laying out in the parking lot.
They've run over us
and broken our leg.
And they come running up to us
and say,
can we help you?
And we say,
my God, yes,
give me another drink.
You see,
we were craving it harder
at midnight
after 30 drinks
than we were at 6 in the evening
after 2 drinks.
That explains to me
why I never got enough.
Hell, I drank 26 years.
I never did get
all the alcohol I wanted.
I got a hell of a lot more
than I needed,
more than I could stand,
but I never got all I wanted.
Because the more you drink,
the higher the craving,
the higher the craving,
the more you want,
the more you want,
and it's just endless.
Now if this never got any worse,
we could probably learn
to live with this situation.
But we know not only
do we have an illness,
we have a progressive illness
that always gets worse
and never better.
Today we know
that as we drink,
the more we drink,
the longer we drink,
the more tissue we destroy.
Alcohol is a destroyer
of human tissue.
And the more tissue we destroy,
it seems as though
that it acts upon
two organs of the body first.
Which are the liver
and the pancreas.
Now today we know
that the organs of the body
that produce the enzymes
necessary to metabolize alcohol
are the liver and the pancreas.
And as we drink
and as we damage them,
the enzyme production
becomes less and less.
The craving becomes
harder and harder,
with the resultant drinking
becoming worse and worse.
We know also that the body
begins to shut down
on the production of everything
as we get older.
Now I wish that were not true,
but believe me it is.
I'm experiencing lots of that.
If I should take a drink today
after 20 some odd years of sobriety,
I wouldn't start where I left off
20 some odd years ago.
The craving would be harder,
the drinking would be harder,
and the resultant trouble
would be harder
due to the aging factor.
So not only do we have
a physical illness,
we have a progressive
physical illness
due to two factors,
damage to the body,
and also due to the aging factor.
Now that I see that,
I can accept the fact
that I can no longer
successfully drink alcohol.
Until I could see this,
I knew there had to be a way
I could drink without getting drunk.
And I damn near kill me
trying to find it.
But now that I can see this,
I can accept the fact
that I can no longer
safely drink alcohol.
Now if that's all it was about,
what's wrong with me?
And if that's all
was wrong with you,
we would pass the hat,
get up and go home,
and never have to go
to another AA meeting.
But you see,
that's just half of my problem.
The other half is right up here
in my head.
If I never took the first drink,
this allergy couldn't hurt me.
I have a friend who is allergic
to of all things fish.
Every time he eats fish,
his throat swells up.
He almost chokes to death.
But that's not his problem.
The fact that he's allergic to fish
is beside the point.
Because if he don't eat fish,
that can't happen to him.
But he got something up here
in his head that isn't right
when it comes to fish.
A switch doesn't close
or a light bulb doesn't come on
or something.
He's three french fries short
of a Happy Meal.
Yeah.
From time to time,
his mind tells him
that it's okay to eat fish.
And he'll eat the fish,
his throat swells up,
he ends up in a hospital every time.
And I bet it always starts like this.
Well, I haven't had any fish in 90 days.
Surely I can have one piece of fish.
Or it says,
it's that orange roughy I've been eating.
If I'd eaten nothing but halibut,
it'd be okay.
Or it might even say,
it's them damn people
I've been eating fish with.
If I'd just changed my crowd,
whatever the reason,
his mind gives him permission
to do so.
Now, I'm the same way
when it comes to alcohol.
Left on my own resources,
from time to time,
my mind tells me
it's okay to drink alcohol.
Then I take the drink
and then the allergy takes over.
So the real problem
centers in my mind
rather than my body.
Let's look at the mind
for just a few minutes
and then we'll be through
for the night.
Charlie said,
the doctor said,
he has never been in any treatment
which we are familiar,
permanently eradicated.
The only relief we have
to suggest is the entire abstinence.
In other words,
if we have an allergy to alcohol
and we crave more when we drink,
he suggests we don't drink.
And that's the end of that.
So now we're going to talk about
the most dangerous part of the illness.
And the most dangerous part
of the illness of alcohol
is when we're not drinking.
You know why it's the most dangerous
part of the illness?
Because we're thinking
about drinking.
So let's move back now
to the Roman numeral page 26
and we're going to start
talking about the mind,
two-fold illness.
We talked about the physical allergy
in great detail.
Now we're going to talk about
the obsession of the mind.
It's in bottom page,
Roman numeral page 26.
It says,
men and women drink essentially
because they like the effect
produced by alcohol.
Now many alcoholics
are highly offended
when you say that.
They say,
no, that's not the reason I drink.
They say the reason I drink
is because I love the taste of alcohol.
I wouldn't argue with them
whether they do or not.
I love the taste of cold beer.
I always have,
all my life,
as far back as I can remember.
I also love the taste
of cold mountain spring water.
I never did sit down
and drink a case
of cold mountain spring water.
You see,
that beer did something for me
that that spring water didn't do.
All my life,
as a kid growing up,
I was on the outside
of the crowd looking in.
Always wanted to be a part of
and knew I could not be.
Always knew that whatever I said,
whatever I did,
it would be the wrong thing.
People would laugh
and I would be embarrassed.
You ladies,
I couldn't even get around you.
If I got around you,
I would just absolutely,
completely tongue tied.
You scared me to death.
One night somebody gave me
a drink of moonshine whiskey
and all those fears disappeared.
And I was allowed
to ask a girl to dance with me
for the first time in my life.
I was allowed to take her home
from the dance
for the first time in my life.
We got in the backseat
of a 36 Chevrolet
and I was allowed to do some things
I'd been wanting to do
for a long, long time.
I loved what alcohol did to me,
for me,
not to me,
but for me.
Now if it gave me
a slightly tipsy,
out of control beginnings
of a nauseous feeling,
I wouldn't love that.
But you see,
it gives me that great,
exciting,
in control feeling
and allows me to function
in a manner
I'd never been able
to function before.
Men and women drink
essentially because
they like the effect
produced by alcohol.
I think that we can all
pretty well identify
with that effect
in the beginning.
I certainly had that same effect,
drank it for the same reasons.
But we know that alcoholism
is a progressive illness too.
It gets worse over time.
And after a while,
I began to do some of those things
that Charlie talked about
and I began to drink
more and more and more.
And I began to wake up
some mornings
with a little guilt,
shame and remorse
as a result of things
that I was doing
while drinking.
And that brought on
more drinking
and I had to drink
to get rid of those feelings.
So another effect
by which I drank.
And as the years
and time went by
and the trouble
that I had in my life
went by,
in the end,
I drank for the sickest effect
of all,
which is total oblivion.
And there's only one thing
wrong with oblivion
though, isn't there?
You wake up.
Then you gotta start
doing it again.
So there are many,
many effects
of alcoholism.
One of them is
that it progressively
gets worse.
He said the sensation
is so elusive
that while they admit
it is injurious,
they can, after time,
differentiate the true
from the false.
To them,
their alcoholic life
seems the only normal one.
And I couldn't recognize
the truth from the false
because my alcoholic life
had become normal to me.
Everywhere I went,
alcohol was involved.
Every bar that I went to,
they drank like that
the way I did in that bar.
I didn't go to those bars.
That's what I was doing
down there
at the Zebra Lounge.
So I didn't go
to those bars.
That's what I was doing
down there
at the Zebra Lounge.
You know?
And one time,
I remember I woke up
one morning
and had a clear thought.
And I looked over
at my wife, Phyllis,
and I said,
Phyllis,
do you realize
that most people
don't drink like we do?
Now, you know
what she said?
I don't talk this way.
This is what she said.
She said,
bullshit.
That's just
what she said.
Everybody we know
drinks just like we do.
You know,
I thought,
oh, that's true.
So my alcoholic life
had become normal.
And so,
the abnormal
had become normal.
And I couldn't hardly
tell the true
from the false
in that light.
Now, he begins
to describe
how people like us
feel
whenever we're sober
in forced periods
of sobriety.
He said,
to them,
their alcohol,
excuse me,
they are restless,
irritable,
and discontented.
Put a few little words
in there, too.
Said,
we're full of guilt,
shame,
and remorse.
And remember,
you know,
when we first got sober,
you're going to feel
better all right.
You're going to feel
resentment better.
You're going to feel
anger better.
You're going to feel
a lot of things better.
Running around,
feeling lousy as hell,
wanting to feel better,
knowing only one way
to feel better,
we begin to think about
what one or two drinks
will do for us.
We don't think about
what 20 drinks will do,
or 30.
We think about
what one or two
will do for us.
Said,
we can experience
a sense of ease
of comfort,
which comes at once
by taking a few drinks.
Drinks which they see
others taking with impunity,
and impunity simply means
that those people
are drinking,
and seemingly
they don't have
any problems.
And after they have succumbed
to desire again,
as so many do.
After we've finally
given in,
and taken
a couple of drinks,
and then the phenomenal
craving develops,
they pass through
the well-known stages
of a spree,
emerging remorseful
with a firm resolution
not to drink again.
And how many times
have I done that?
if you've done that come off of one of those big drunks and long extended period drunks and promise
them and yourself and anybody that listen i'll never do it again i'm through i promise you
i'm through and those of you who've made those promises you know that we were sincere and we
meant that he said this is repeated over and over and over and over and unless this person can
experience an entire psychic change there's very little hope for his recovery so he quit talking
about the body now he's talking about the psychic change the mind later on in our book the the
psychic change is going to be described as a spiritual experience a spiritual awakening a
personality change all four words meaning the same thing a psychic change there's very little
hope for his recovery so the change is going to have to become here in the mind let's look at this
picture up here again for just a moment over here on this side we could see that because of the
allergy
we can no longer safely drink alcohol but as we said before that's not going to bother us
if we don't take the first drink so apparently the problem is going to be over on this side
the real problem centers in the mind telling us we can drink rather than in the body
that ensures that we can't drink well the doctor told us then and they tell us today there's nothing
going on in the body that ensures that we can't drink
it can be done for that so the only possible means of recovery would be to find a way to live
where our mind don't tell us it's okay to drink and we're dealing here with our emotions we're
dealing here with the way we think we're dealing here with the way that we feel whenever we're
sober we are very very complex human beings not only are we complex physically but we're also
complex mentally too and all people experience emotions all people experience from time to time
anger resentment fear worry depression excitement elation guilt remorse these are all emotions that
all human beings have now somewhere back in our lifetime
as we begin to experience those emotions as we grow up we start seeking a solution to them and like
me when i was that kid growing up i was just an emotional basket case couldn't hardly function in
normal society always scared to death always worried always angry always doing things that
i shouldn't do and feeling the guilt and the remorse associated with that now i used to think
only that we only only we alcoholics didn't feel the guilt and the remorse associated with that
that but i found out today that that's normal as kids grow up everybody experiences these kind of
feelings and they start looking for an answer and many people find it in many different ways
some people find that when they don't feel good emotionally that they can go out here and start
working and the excess work seems to make them feel better some people find that when they're
emotionally fouled up they can eat certain foods
and they can't eat certain foods and they can't eat certain foods and they can't eat certain foods
and that seems to make them feel better some people find that when they're emotionally disturbed
that that if i can just get really involved deeper and deeper into sexuality that makes
them feel better and some people find that there's establishments like this building
that if you're emotionally disturbed you can do a little gambling and that makes you feel better
now it doesn't make any difference what you find that makes you feel better
when you find a solution to that emotional problem your mind has a memory bank it may
immediately records the solution and the reason it does that is the next time you have that
emotional problem you don't have to go looking for a solution your mind feeds it back to you
well a little gambling made me feel better or that food made me feel better or that work made
me feel better whatever and that's called mental addiction and that's called mental addiction and
everybody has that you know we become mentally addicted to certain types of automobiles we become
mentally addicted to our hairdressers we become mentally addicted to certain dishwater products
that we use this so you know we've got a problem we find the answer the mind records it feeds it
back to us the next time we have the problem as a kid growing up I had that emotional problem
and one night somebody gave me that drink of moonshine whiskey and immediately those problems
disappeared and that great exciting in control feeling came over me and I was allowed to ask that
girl to dance take her home and get in the back seat of that 36 Chevrolet it answered my problem
that night my mind immediately recorded what it did for me the next time I got into a solution
where I didn't know what I was doing I got into a solution where I didn't know what I was doing
feel right things were not right my mind said if you could find a drink you'd feel better and I
found a drink of whiskey and the god the magic happened the second time in other words alcohol
became the solution to my emotional problems now if I had been non-alcoholic and that worked for me
that would have been great but I also had that physical allergy over there on that side and when
I had the problem and I used the solution it it sure enough made me feel better but also it
triggered the allergy and I would drink more than I intended to drink and I would end up drunk
and I would repeat that cycle over and over and over and over and over again
the mind causing me to drink the allergy causing me to get drunk
the emotions
after coming off the drunk to feed the mind caused me to drink and the drink then would trigger the
allergy and as time went by it got worse and worse and worse because this is a progressive illness
the drinking would become harder and harder the trouble would become more and more the restlessness
irritability guilt remorse became more and more the emotions became worse and worse to trigger the idea of
drinking the first drink
the mind destroying the body and the body destroying the mind
now somewhere down the line I said to myself one day Charlie you're gonna have to do something about
your drinking now I didn't say you're going to quit drinking I said you're going to have
to do something about your drinking so the first thing we alcoholics do to do something
about our drinking is we decide we're going to control our drinking while drinking tonight we're
have two beers we're just going to have two drinks go to the liquor store and buy a half a pint
because nobody can get drunk on a half a pint and i spent three or four or five six years trying to
control my drinking while drinking anybody in here ever try to control your drinking while drinking
well now i can see why that would not work because of the allergy
now after four or five six years of trying to control my drinking while drinking i said to
myself one day charlie i don't believe you can drink anymore took me a long time to realize it
but i said i don't believe you can drink anymore so what do we alcoholics do when we finally decide
we can't drink anymore we trot out the most useful tool we have we put it right there
and it's called willpower and we say sick of them will
we're through with that drinking we'll never take another drink as long as we live
now believe me you people that are not that are non-alcoholic when we say we're going to quit
drinking that is exactly what we intend to do you see we are strong will people we can use our
willpower to handle all other problems and we assume that we can use willpower here and we
really intend to quit drinking
now as the days went by
i haven't done anything about my emotions by the way i'll just quit drinking
and as the days go by these emotions begin to build up
the fear
the guilt the remorse
the shame
the worry the depression
becomes worse and worse
that's not the big things in life that kill us
it's the things that all people have to go through
on a daily basis in life
it's getting out there every day out morning and go into work
it's ab kick in life
it's a griping husband
extreme that the ads
password taken
hits broken shoestrings
his flat tires
although things have everybody has to go through
and these emotions start building up
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to a
cavity it might actually have to go all the way around estuaries go through all the things that everybody has to go through an easy motion start building up now after for a while the mind has worked it came up to a civil shit
to a civil shit
the mind says, a drink would make you feel better.
But remember, I put willpower in here.
And willpower said, no, sirree, we're not going to drink.
We've quit.
And that day we don't drink.
The next day the emotions are still here,
and they're building up a little higher and a little higher and a little higher,
and it said, God, a drink would make me feel good.
And the mind said, no, sirree, we've quit drinking.
We ain't never going to drink again.
The next day the emotions are still here,
and they're building up a little higher and a little higher.
And the mind begins to say, well, hell, you've been sober 90 days.
You've proven you're not an alcoholic.
One drink wouldn't hurt anybody.
And the mind said, no, we're not going to do that.
We've quit drinking.
Hell, we've sworn off we'll never take another drink.
The next day the emotions are still here,
and they're building up higher and higher.
And the mind said, by golly, anybody who's been sober 92 days owes themselves a drink.
And we begin to think about that great, exciting, in-control feeling
that comes with one or two drinks.
We begin to think about the sense of ease and comfort,
as Dr. Silkworth talks about here.
And as we begin to think about what alcohol is going to do for us,
it begins to push out the idea of what it does to us.
And we begin to forget the jailhouse.
We forget the last car wreck.
We forget the divorce.
We forget the divorce courts and the hospitalization.
And the mind begins to key in on one thing and one thing only,
what it's going to do for us.
Then when the desire to drink comes,
willpower is no longer there.
Because you see, the only time willpower is there
is when the mind sees something wrong with what it wants to do.
And just before we drink,
we don't see anything wrong with drinking.
Willpower becomes non-existent.
We take the drink.
We trigger the allergy.
We go through the well-known stages of a spree.
We emerge remorseful with a firm resolution not to do this again.
And we repeat that cycle over and over and over.
The body destroying the body over here.
The mind over here causing us to drink more and more.
And if you can't safely drink because of the body,
and if you can't quit because of the mind,
then you become absolutely powerless over alcohol.
And that's our problem.
Now if you're going to solve a problem,
you've got to be able to attack it somewhere.
I can't attack it over here.
Can't do nothing about that.
Maybe I can attack it over here.
If I could find a way to live where I could be sober
and not be restless, irritable, and discontented.
If I could find a way for me to live where I can be sober and not be sad,
if I could find a way to live where I could be sober and not be restless, irritable, and discontented.
live where I could be sober and not be filled with shame, fear, guilt, and remorse. Just maybe I could
find a way to live where I could have peace of mind, serenity, and happiness. Maybe I could find
a way to live where I could be sober and have that great sense of ease and comfort that coming
once but taking a couple of drinks. Maybe I could find a way to live where I don't need to take a
drink in order to make me feel better and that's called recovery. As we use our program, as we go
through the steps, these kind of feelings down here begin to disappear and they begin to be
replaced with peace of mind, serenity, and happiness. And under those conditions our
emotions do not build up to the level that suggests we take a drink to feel better.
Because we already feel better. That's what the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous do for us.
Fellowship alone will not bring that about. The program will. Let's read the very next statement
in the big book. And it says, on the other hand, as strange as this may seem to those who do not
understand, once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had
so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to
control his desire for alcohol. The only effort necessary being that required to follow a few
simple rules. And as Charlie said, those few simple rules are the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And our book says that in the 12 and 12, if the practice is a way of life, will expel the obsession
to drink and make the person happily and usefully hold. And that is called recovery. And that's
exactly what the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is all about.