Physical Allergy and Controlled Drinking – Workshop – 2025 – Part 2 of 2 – Local AA Speakers

Good evening, everybody, and welcome to our eighth installment of the Big Book is Alive workshop. I'm an alcoholic, and my name is Mike Chase. And I'm a recovered alcoholic,and my name Is Joe. Well, our spiritual duty is to put newcomers' hands in God's hands as quickly as possible. We have found this to be the most effective by doing our part to make the Big Books come alive. As a disclaimer, we're not experts. We're just a couple of recovered alcoholics that love the Big books. However, we have made it our utmost spiritual errand to become as familiar with the facts and history as possible. In other words, if we're reading from the big book, it means that we are studying what we know to be a divine solution to alcoholism. At other times, we may share an experience, an observation, or an opinion, and we certainly encourage you to investigate the history and do your own research as you grow spiritually. Basically, we aim to reproduce what we do with our students slash sponsees in a one-on session with a much bigger audience this however should not replace your own personal one-one work with your own teacher or sponsor absolutely that's right this is a workshop style study and our aim is to invigorate your current experience with god i hear the bells coming up you know what that means fantastic tonight we aim to start more about alcoholism but we always appreciate spiritual consent to allow god to lead us what that mean is we usually end up where we end up. As we study tonight's material, please enjoy the pages which have been uploaded to MikeChase.org. If you're listening to us from just a podcast page, if you go to MikeChace.org and click on the Mike Chase and Joe Big Book is Alive, you can download the pages and read along on your iPod or your iPad or your Droid, I guess. There you'll find reference to the specific highlight and structure we've been referring as we study. This will give you a completed teacher's edition toolbox. Before we begin our study of the big book, we would like to invite you to join us in a brief two-minute meditation. We do this for a definite spiritual reason and that is to allow God to remove all forms of self which might block us from the sunlight of the spirit so that we may have a clear connection with God as we study. So what we're going to do, Joe's going to go over set his little timer for two minutes. We turn the lights down whenever possible. We get comfortable, we sit up straight, we concentrate on the breathing. This is our opportunity to get really connected to God as we jump into the book. We find that it's much more productive when God is sitting right with us. We're fully connected and the craziness of the day is gone. So we're going to shut down ourselves and we'll invite the monks directly back into the room. They've been out in the hall practicing again. So I'll see you guys in a couple minutes. Amen. Choir singing. Thank you. Thank you. wow that seemed like three seconds to me right please join us in the lay aside prayer dear god please set aside anything i think i know about myself about my disease about the big book the 12 steps the program the fellowship and all spiritual terms especially you god so that I may have an open mind and a new experience with all these things. Please help me see the truth. Amen. Amen. Thank you very much. I'm going to do the quick little tee-up where we've been starting from. We started a few weeks back in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, hitting the forward of the first edition. That was AlcoholicsAnonymous' introduction to the world. It was our 30-second soundbite or 15 minutes of introduction to The World that told us about the importance of the alcoholic recovery program, how many thousands of people have recovered from alcoholism. We have Alcoholics Anonymous for more than 100 men and women who have recovered form a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. It's not something to just idle the time away. This is the specific direction from God through 6,700 alcoholics and what to do. This was the introduction to the world. In the forward to the second edition was our 16-year update. It was our opportunity to save the world, this is what we've been able to do with the information. When we first introduced ourselves, we were just a bunch of drunks. What are we going to do about this? 16 years later, we've reached 6,000 new groups, 150,000 recovered alcoholics, when all we had was the pure message from the book, one alcoholic working with another alcoholic, dependence and reliance upon God, we had success rates. Well, let's read what the book says of alcoholics who came into a, and really tried 50% got sober at once and remained that way. 25% sobered up after some relapses. And among the remainder, those who stayed with AA showed improvement. You know, that's the type of stuff that we want to be able to carry today in this day and age when most alcoholic recoveries around seven, 8% in some areas, let'S bring back what We had an original. We seemed like a bunch of fanatics in the forwards to the first and second. You know, these guys love the bells, perfect opportunity. Whenever we have the bells it's like something great is supposed to be listened to. So I like how this works out. In the doctor's opinion it gave us reason why we were sort of fanatiques. People are dying. Slowly but surely people are dying and we were given a solution. And the doctor'S opinion gives us information. It gives proof to the world that it is a disease. It talks about the threefold disease. The first fold is the malady, disconnect from God. The second fold is obsession of the mind, that insane we talk about. And the third and most dangerous is the phenomenon of craving that once we trigger it, obsession of mind leads us to the phenomenon or the phenomenon craving as a direct result of us picking up after the obsession of mine from a problem, the spiritual malady. So the doctor's opinion gives us reason why we really have to go out and work with people because this is a deadly disease. Then we get into Bill's story, which is a classic 12-step call. It gives us the opportunity to see the progression of alcoholism. You know, Bill started like a normal, almost every time a guy. He tried to control his drinking for a while, then it became uncontrollable. He made many, many attempts to control and stop his drinking without success. Luckily, Abby Thatcher came out of nowhere with a solution. Bill jumped onto it full force, and he got really sober for a few years. He brought the book into the world. He did some great things in that time period. Then we have the solution. People come to LX Anonymous, and it's like, there's a lot of God talk. What's all this God talk? When you're reading the book and you're bringing somebody through the program, through the book, the God thing is brought in at an appropriate time in a very gentle, subtle way, not sort of like an in-your-face way, which is why we love Big Book Sponsorship, because it introduces things just when we're ready to hear them and just when they're palatable to accept them. So there's a solution which has just got some great information in there. It talks about the real alcoholic. We start culling the herd, as we could like to say. We start separating the problem drinkers, the heavy drinkers from us, the real alcoholics. It goes on to talk about how problem drinker's heavy drinker have inundated rehabs, and a lot of them actually have them in AA today. And a lot OF the pseudo-psycho-social babble stuff works to help them get sober. But for a real alcoholic, that's just not enough. And we talked about what a spiritual experience was. Got some great information. So we're starting to determine, I am an alcoholic or I'm not an alcoholic. We've got some questions. We've laid some ground rules. So we've got the chapter now called More About Alcoholism. I like to call it the chapter on relapse because we talk about untreated alcoholism. We talk about some different characters and their struggles to try and control the drinking, fear, knowledge, willpower, and we're going to have some fun with these guys. Essentially, it's going to also discuss what happens to the dry or untreated alcoholic without that vital spiritual experience that we started talking about in The Doctor's Opinion and enlarged upon when we looked at Roland Hazard and his studies with Carl Jung in Europe for a year. So now we're going to see what's going to happen to a group of us without this vital spiritual experience, spiritual awakening sufficient enough to recover from alcoholism. So let's turn to page 30 for those of you. Let's start off by the top of the page. I've written chapter on relapse, more about alcoholism in quotations. I've got untreated alcoholism We're going to study what it is to be an untreated alcoholic. Going to AA meetings is a great place to meet somebody, to introduce you to the book, to bring you through the book to introduce your guide so God can get you sober. But if you're just going to meetings, we like to call AA jail in and out every day, but not actually doing anything to get a vital spiritual experience. The chances are you will relapse and pick up. Of course, unless you're like a non-alcoholic and just happen to fall into our rooms accidentally. Let's start off by reading here. Most of us have been unwilling to admit We were real alcoholics, green. No person likes to think he is bodily or mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday, he will control and enjoy. Joe, when you were enjoying it, did you think you were controlling it? I was way out of control. And when you are controlling, when YOU WERE controlling your drinking, were you enjoying it? I hated it. Misery, right? I can't wait for my parents or someone to leave so I can start drinking the way I love to drink. His drinking is such... Excuse me. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. I love the words he uses here. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death. Joe, you want to go back and touch on some of those words in that previous? Yeah, absolutely. and especially with that idea of control and enjoy you know what we're really getting at here is those two for alcoholics don't come together you know like you pointed out there were times where perhaps in our early on in our drinking careers we did control it but we certainly weren't enjoying it at those times and at times when we were really having our fun we were way out of control those two never came together for us and we have this obsession and uh that they will eventually come together again this is juxtaposed by words like illusion delusion things like that which all come down to the same idea of something that is unreachable out of touch and it's something that isn't a reality for people like us so if you guys got to get a pen out and let's underline a couple of these words i love to underline these particular words countless vain attempts is a great one control enjoy obsession i love this one abnormal drinker depends who you're hanging out with if you're hanging out drug addicts and alcoholics you're not that abnormal but even around those people i sometimes was an abnormal and i love his persistence and illusion you know right now we're just touching on that spiritual malady that mental obsession that's kicked in it's just not normal this next paragraph we have it boxed you want to read this one sure We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. This is The First Step in Recovery. I love this. Fully concede, to our inner most selves, that we're alcoholics We've had a few pages, we're on page 30, but you add doctor's opinion and forward to the first We've have some 40 pages of information that's leading us to make a decision Am I really a real alcoholic, or am I just a problem drinker? The delusion that we are like other people, or presently maybe, has to be smashed. We're going to be jumping into the program in a couple chapters, and in order for us to actually put 100% into that, we have to be fully convinced that we need to. Because if you don't think you need to, you're going do it at half measures, and half measures availed is nothing, zil, zip, nada. so we go on to say we alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking we know that no real alcoholic ever recovers there's that word again control i got this in green we alcoholists are men AND women who HAVE LOST THE ABILITY TO CONTROL OUR DRINKING lost is not a temporary situation it's gone we have we know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control you know i had 15 years of sobriety i like to talk about and i went out and i was just as i was worse off than when i said left it was just there's no way for a real alcoholic ever to recover control all of us felt at times that we were regaining control but such intervals, usually brief, were inevitably followed by still less control. Green underlined, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. Which led in time to Pitiful and Incomprehensible Demoralization." If you're not relating to these words, you might not be a real alcoholic or you may be just on the road to becoming a real alcoholic we are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type the first 67 the real alcoholic types are in the grip of a progressive illness green underlined over any considerable period we get worse never better you know i know guys that were when we started drinking at 12 and 13 that were crazy alcoholic you know they just could not stop their phenomenon a craving kicked in right away and those you know a lot of those guys aren't even around today um it took me about until i was like 15 before that really kicked in with me but it's progressive you know yes and you start seeing the progress and i love to talk to my guys about this you know a problem drinker a heavy drinker you know he can on a scale of like one to six let's just put the his drinking and his life he's floating around a four or a five you know normally and there's a chance that for the rest of his life, he's going to go between four and five, four and 5 ongoing. But as an alcoholic, I'm going to be around a four and then I'm gonna be a three and then i'm gonna be a two. And then I might go up to a three. And then I dropped down to a one and the hub around one. And the things that go into the negatives, you know, that's the progression. It will get worse. These guys that come in at a very early age that are able to see their alcoholism come to realization with and jump in the program they don't have to get that bad you know we don't all have to hit negatives in order to continue on in this program with information and proper you know proper education and with god jumping at the right time we can get these guys and gals and it's important to know that it progresses whether we're drinking or not as our body naturally degenerates and scientifically that can be explained but over that's why it says over any considerable period drunk or sober we get worse never better so that whole physical thing that comes in and the more you drink the more sensitive you are but the obsession of the mind continues to go worse and the spiritual malice a snowball effect if anybody from the north has ever tried to make a snowman after the first snow you know you're rolling on that big snowball and you're getting all the sticks and leaves and it gets bigger and bigger with more and more dirt you know that was my life just got worse and worse definitely progression was there we are like men who have lost their legs they never grow new ones neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment with which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men we have tried every imaginable remedy in some instances there has been brief recovery followed always by a still worse relapse just ask anybody on their fifth sixth seventh time through rehab you know green physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree there is no such thing as making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic you know they can look on mris they can do chemical studies but the fact of the matter is they didn't and i like to say and i've heard this before that if they did come out with a pill that would allow us to drink like normal people they don't get us you know we would chances are we'd Crushing that pill, snorting the pill, smoking the pill Shooting up the pill Taking two pills instead of one pill They just don't get how we work It's a spiritual based malady That once that takes over we can get on with our lives We get addicted to the cure in other words Yeah The black market and alcoholic spills right Science may one day accomplish this But it hasn't done so yet And what good would it do We'd still be disconnected from God We'd be miserable You know the sneaky thing about this disease It does give us an opportunity to have a whole new way of life, a life with meaning and something that's awesome. I've got this next paragraph boxed, highlighted in yellow with some underlining and some green. This is what I like to call the white chipper's obsession controlling box. Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics underline real alcoholcs are not going to believe they're in that class By every form of self-deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore non-alcoholic. Green underlined, pay attention. If anyone who is showing inability to control his drinking can do the right about face and drink like a gentleman, our hats are off to him. Heaven knows we have tried hard enough and long enough to drink like other people. I am just so glad that when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, it was one of those situations where I had been trying to quit and was unable to quit, try not. You know, these poor people that come into AA accidentally by some bad thing and never ever attempted to quite quit drinking in the first place. They're never going to be fully convinced, and they may not even be alcoholic. You can come to the rooms after a scare or DWI or some incident and not pick up another drink and not do any work. You know? You're probably not an alcoholic. Probably not an alcoholic. Heaven knows we have tried hard and long enough to drink like other people. So, we're going to get into some ideas about if you're not convinced, you might want to do some investigation in this situation. Here are some of the methods we have applied. This paragraph. This is amazingly silly because this page is full of all this silly, goofy stuff I tried and Joe tried And you guys, if you're a real actor, have tried to become normal, controlled people. So Joe, this is not supposed to be some sort of bizarre, abstract thing here. This is actually stuff that we can relate to. So I want you to read this fun and with frivolity because it's a hoot. I'll give it a shot. Drinking beer only. Limiting the number of drinks. Never drinking alone. Never drinking in the morning or always drinking inthe morning. Drinking only at home. never having it in the house, never drinking during business hours. Oh, that was my favorite, getting paid to drink. That was so satisfying. I have to admit. Drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy. That's a nice one. Drinking-only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job. Okay, I don't know about you, but I don' t think my boss would have given me the option, okay, you're drunk, you should probably resign. I think I could be fired. The only time I felt like resigning was when i was sober on the job taking a trip not taking a trip swearing off forever with and without a solemn oath taking more physical exercise reading inspirational books going to health farms and sanitarians accepting voluntary commitment to asylums treatment centers detoxes we could increase the list ad infinitum i used to put a rubber band around my wrist that would say that was my reminder to me to have one or two drinks and after the first drink that rubber band was like broke flying it was gone i was shot into the dance floor um interesting you know we somebody once said if you're trying to control your drinking guess what you've already lost control of your drinking we do not like to pronounce any individual as an alcoholic i want to repeat that once more time this is yellow and underlined we're going to talk about this this is that sentence we do not like to pronounce any individual as an alcoholic bill is very particular in the words that he used he just doesn't randomly throw words out there if you notice your word use the word like it doesn't say you must never it doesn' t say don't it says whatever you do never do this it's a sponsor's teacher's obligation to be working with their sponsee and with the information and knowledge that you spent at this point in time probably nine hours nine and a half ten hours with your sponsor you're getting to know them if they're on the fence you know they're maybe i am maybe i'm not you as a knowledgeable person as a sponsor can review in the book with this this little guy or gal and help them to decide whether they are or not maybe they're just going to need the little push you know there's been some times where i've been working with some guys and i looked at him point blank and i say a b c and d you are the biggest alcoholic I've never known. What are you thinking about? And we talk about it. We help them. This whole trying to decide if you're an alcoholic by going to meetings and waiting to hear your story, I don't know where that comes from. We share experience and knowledge with these guys to help them decide. And sometimes it may require going out on a run, you know. You don't even have to tell your guys to go and have a drink. A lot of times they'll just go out and relapse anyways and come back. But we've got to talk about how that is done. So let's jump in. Do you have any comments to say about that? Yeah, absolutely. It's all about making an informed decision based on the information that we have. You talked about speaker meetings and identifying with your story. War stories. War stories, they put emphasis on consequences which don't define alcoholism. The information that мы have at this stage is what мы did in our recap, the threefold disease, spiritual malady, obsession of the mind and phenomenon of craving. Without that information, if I opened the book to this page and I looked at that term real alcoholics, I would have said to myself, I drank a lot, so therefore I must be an alcoholic. And that's what happens so often in the fellowship. So it's all about making this informed decision in the presence of an awakened mind, in the absence of God, and we can go from there. We do not like to pronounce any individual as an alcoholic, but you can quickly diagnose yourself. step over to the nearest bar room and try some controlled drinking. Try to drink and stop abruptly. Now, this is where I need to put a little word in here. Let's not go and have a little wine spritzer or half a glass of Chardonnay and say, oh, look, I'm not alcoholic. And I did that game for months sometimes, just a little drink here, a little drank here. I could convince myself I wasn't alcoholic. What I like to say is we're trying to find out whether we can trigger that phenomenon of craving. If you can trigger the physical allergy, then you're an alcoholic. Try it more than once. This is yellow underline. It will not take long for you to decide if you are honest with yourself about it. It may be worth a bad case of the jitters to get your full knowledge of your condition. Did you trigger your allergy? I like to send, you know, I would suggest to somebody go out and have some, you Know, Johnny Walker Blue Label. Go get some of the strongest stuff you got you know don't instead of drinking 18 little wine spritzers go out there can you trigger that allergy you know if you're not an alcoholic and you go out and you have three or four you know blue labels some strong stuff you're a sick dog the next morning but if you didn't trigger that phenomena craving a couple times guess what you're now one of us now imagine this i mean it's even gotten to this stage where it's absolutely necessary to tell an alcoholic who may not be convinced that he is to try and figure that out for himself. And if it takes a bad case of the jitters, then all to the better because to proceed with the work beyond this point with someone who's not convinced reservations, reservations, it could be damaging. So we absolutely need to make sure that our little guy sitting across us is convinced of the fact that he is an alcoholic and we're doing our job as recovered alcoholics and as teachers to make sure that we're qualifying that person and i'm sure all of you out there a lot of you can relate to the fact that you brought somebody through the steps and then steps you know eight or nine they drink and they come back well i wasn't sure right you know if you're gonna do it get over and done with and that's a great thing about um alcoholics anonymous today and there's a lot of information out there for these people to make a you know an informed decision on that though there is no way of proving it we believe that early in our drinking careers most of us could have stopped drinking. I was about 12. But the difficulty is that few alcoholics have enough desire to stop while there is yet time. We have heard of a few instances where people who show definite signs of alcoholism were able to stop for a long period because of an overpowering desire to do so. We're going to meet a guy here now. We refer to this guy as the man of 30. Well, they refer to him as the Man of 30 I like to put off the Sideman of 30. We're going to find out about this guy. This is a guy who was able to, at a certain point in time, realize that he picks up and he loses control. Now, the cool thing about that we're going pick up here is the mental obsession had not yet caught up with his physical allergy. The allergy was present, but the brain had not fallen into that obsession of the mind yet. So he was actually able to say, whoa, A plus B equals I should not drink. You know, I was age 12, 13, 14, and A plus D said I should not drink, but I said, well, maybe we'll be different, you know? I was so not the man of 30. You know, that phenomenon of mental obsession kicked on for me right away, but not with everyone. So this is our first of four stories that we're going to study here. A man of 30 was doing a great deal of spree drinking. What's Spree drinking, Joe? Binges, Weekend Warrior, going out there for a real hoo-ha. Yeah, but uncontrolled hoo-hat. Uncontrolled hoo-hah. Uncontrolled hoof-hat, yeah, absolutely. He was very nervous in the morning after these bouts and quieted himself with more liquor. Hair of the dog. Hair of The Dog was also that. Heroin addicts call it dope sick. We call it alcoholic dope sick, but we need more of the body's craving. It's starting to misbehave. Give me some more of that stuff, and I'll settle down. A physical reaction or withdrawal, if you will. He was ambitious to succeed in business. Yellow underline. But saw that he would get nowhere if he drank at all. Once he started, he had no control whatever. So this is a man who was actually able to see that there was this phenomenon, a craving type thing, without even knowing what it was, seeing what's happening. But he also had the state of mind that better not drink anymore. I've got some goals, and these things are getting in my way. It goes on to say he made up his mind, which is an interesting word because that's by definition where we know the problem is. Because we weren't able to. He still was. That until he had been successful in business and had retired, he would not touch another drop. Bet you 10 to 1. He had a bunch of different kinds of sprees. Work sprees, gambling. What kind of spree? Imagine the different ones he had. Money sprees? Thinking sprees ? An exceptional man, he remained bone dry for 25 years and retired at the age of 55 after a successful and happy business career. Then he fell victim to a belief, and we're going to use this word to parallel that with a lie, because this is a lie that he told himself, which practically every alcoholic has, that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had qualified him to drink as other men. Now, as someone who doesn't know about phenomenon of craving, it would sound perfectly logical. Knowing that the body that metabolizes the alcohol after 25 years had deteriorated anyways, whether he was damaging it with alcohol more or not. So when he picked up again, his body sensitivity was more than when he stopped. Out came his carpet slippers and a bottle. In two months, he was in a hospital, puzzled and humiliated. Green underlined. He tried to regulate his drinking for a while, making several trips to the hospital meantime. Where did we hear that before? The idea that somehow someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is a great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death. We're taking old information and bringing it into an example, and we're going to process it. We're goingto be able to make decisions going on. So before we had the word belief, and we paralleled that with lie, this sentence here gives us the truth of the situation. Then gathering all his forces, he attempted to stop altogether and found he could not. Every means of solving his problem money could buy was at his disposal. Every attempt failed. Though a robust man at retirement, he went to pieces quickly and Green was dead within four years. You know, that was my drinking, you know, after without adult supervision, without, you know, controlled situations, four years, five years, I'm in rehab, I mean, I would psych ward, you now something about four years I relate to this guy. And we also learned a very important thing at this point is that he made a decision based on a lie. He made a decision based on what his mind sold him, and then he found out the truth. And by the time that he found OUT THE TRUTH, he was stuck in that phenomenon of craving situation where he drank himself to death. As a matter of fact, this case contains a powerful lesson. Most of us have believed that if we remain sober for a long stretch... A week! Two weeks! A day! A few hours. We could thereafter drink normally. But here is a man who at 55 years found he was just where he'd left off at 30. Biological. We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again. Underlined. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. You know, bumper stickers and cliches make me want to gag, but there's that one that just, once a pickle, always a pickle. You know? Once your body is, you know, that's one thing. The body is pretty good at repairing and rebuilding itself. but the pancreas and liver that whole thing designed for metabolism is one of those things that just never is able to replace the other the ability to process alcohol commencing to drink after a period of sobriety we are in a short time as bad as ever short time as bad as ever it doesn't take long for that phenomenon to kick back in the obsession of mine carries along with it the snowball effect the spiritual malady If we're planning to stop drinking, there must be no reservation of any type. No lurking notion that someday we will be immune from alcohol. Off to the side I have written, are you done? Young people may be encouraged by this man's experience to think they can stop as he did on their own willpower. There's that word again, think. we doubt if many of them can do it because none will really want to stop and hardly one of them because of the peculiar mental twist already acquired will find he can win out physical craving mental obsession spirituality it's all coming to stand here highlighted in yellow several of our crowd men of 30 or less had been drinking only a few years but they found themselves as Helpless as those who'd been drinking 20 years. Not taking into account spirituality, but the phenomenon of craving is a direct result of our body incapable of processing alcohol. It's either our body is not able to produce the quantity or qualities of enzymes to produce. So what happens is it triggers that phenomenon of crave. So if you're 13, 14, 12 like me and I had been born with a particular liver pancreas system that was alcoholic from that early age, these old guys will come up to you and say, I've spilled more drinks on my tie than you've ever drank, young feller. And it goes to show that the old guy doesn't know what he's talking about. It's a chemical reaction. It's an biological condition. Now, yeah, you can be a hard drinker and take 20 years to damage your pancreas and liver enough so you become alcoholic. But if you're born with a damaged system, the age and consequences have nothing to do with it. it's a very linear approach to looking at what's really going on here and i i can speak you know for myself it i i am in here at a relatively young age and and that's because it became life and death for me at this time um and you had a great family your consequences it's not hit joe is the biggest biological alcoholic i've ever known by the way for you guys who don't know about joe is a purebred alcoholic i don't even think he's taking aspirin ever this guy this This is as pure an alcoholic as you can get, and he says it's such a gift to have in my life. Green, underline. Pay attention, old guys. To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time, nor take the quantities some of us have. It's not time and quantities all the time. Yeah, you can have a mediocre 50-50 pancreas, liver thing, and heavy drinking over 20-30 years become alcoholic, or you can be born with it. I'm beating a dead horse here with that, but just stop chasing the young kids out. This is particularly true of women. Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in a few years. Certain drinkers who would be greatly insulted if called alcoholics are astonished at their inability to stop, and that's yellow and underlined. Their inability to stopped. I grew up in Minnesota, and we used to have some horrendous ice storms. I would be up on a hill, and I'm going down, and it's like, ooh, there's a truck parked at the bottom of the hill. And I slam on my, well, actually we slammed on our brakes back in those days. And my car wouldn't stop. I so wanted to stop. I'm panicking. Stop, stop, stop. I'm doing everything I stop. I can't. That's how I relate to the inability to stop%. I can relate that to my drinking too. I've got to get up in the morning. I have to be at work on Monday. My inability to control or stop. This is where that little dude who's, like, not sure if they're alcoholic or a real problem drinker creates information here for them to start processing and take the old information. As a recovered alcoholic, this is an opportunity for us to jump back and forth in different parts of the book to bring up information. To be gravely effective, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantities some of us have. This is particularly true with women. Potential alcoholics often turn into the real thing and are gone beyond recall in just a few years. Certain drinkers who would be greatly insulted if called alcoholics are astonished at their inability to stop. We, who are familiar with the symptoms, see large numbers of potential alcoholics, young people everywhere. But try and get them to see it. Absolutely. And, you know, thank goodness. We live in South Florida. I don't know about the rest of the country. But I would say a good 70% of the people in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings down here are under their 30s. That's true. It's so cool. As we look back, we feel we've gone on drinking many years beyond the point where we could quit on our own willpower. If anyone questions whether he has entered this dangerous period, yellow underline, let them try leaving liquor alone for one year if he's a real alcoholic. Also, off to the side, he'll also say no drugs either. Right. You know, no street drugs, no pot. It's like, yeah, I don't drink anymore, but you smoke a lot of pot, right? If he is a real alcoholic and very far advanced, there is scant chance of success. In the early days of our drinking, we occasionally remain sober for a year or more, becoming serious drinkers again later. I never ever considered to quit for a long period of time. I wanted to stop, but then I never really would ever leave that, you know, the phenomenon of craving cycles. You know, there's the times where I would have to like go two or three days without drinking. but there was always that craving kicking in with me and i'd try to stop and i would like change my mind well i would think i'd change my mind but actually it was that the phenomenon of craving just overpowering my my normal thoughts though you may be able to stop for a considerable period you may yet be a potential alcoholic we think few to whom this book will appeal can stay dry anything like a year in other words identification if you're starting to nod your head and this book appeals to you we hardly think that you can stay dry anything like a year some will be drunk the day after making their resolutions most of them within a few weeks yeah i'm honestly sitting here trying to figure out when i was in my drinking life you know i don't ever think i ever tried to stop you know other than like those those moments i have to stop drinking but i never no one ever came into it why don't you quit drinking for six months or a year it just it never crossed my mind i never left that cycle you know i actually started drinking you know alcoholically at age 14 and i really don't think until age 24 i went uh more than two or three days without having some alcohol in my system and that was perfectly normal for me i thought that's what life was about so for me to like be told that i probably should quit drinking it was like but why the consequences weren't no one ever told me anything i just i was able to slide into the consequences no one ever caught me and and for me while drinking i've never gotten to a stage where i'm like i feel drunk enough you know that thought has never occurred to me and i would come out of a blackout the next day and think wasn't that enough i mean i want out of control but can i limit the amount of out of patrol i've not been able to do that i've got to do it i've felt like the craving has been quenched i have to drive so i should probably slow down i'll just stay longer and when i think about it the only time that i actually had a mental thought of like time to stop drinking is if i got the swirlies if the world started i had to lie down and put my foot on the then that would be oh i really shouldn't drink anymore you know and that was just the body going into hyper reaction let's shut this buckaroo down you know this guy's not stopping we're gonna like either pass out and i guess that was the beginning stages of pass out it's so cool to fall asleep now isn't it absolutely and wake up in the morning and feel just invigorated ready to go with life here's another great box we got this highlighted in box and this is the have you crossed the line box for those who are unable to drink moderately the question is how to stop altogether we are assuming in green of course that the reader desires to stop such an important concept we are assuming of course that the reader desires to stop it's not the price of alcoholics anonymous to convince people to quit drinking it's not our job to like you know talk them into it if they want to quit drinking we're here to help them and we'll help them decide whether alcoholic or not but if you spend so much time trying to get people to quit drinking that we neglect the people who really want to The little guy in the back who smells a little bit. That chronic relapse that nobody wants to work with because you will actually have to work with them instead of like give them an assignment, go home, read, you know, the doctor's opinion 30 days in a row and after 30 days of successful and you don't miss a day, we will talk about doing some big book work. Horrendous. Instead of ignoring the people that really are having problem getting sober by sitting down and reading the book with them. So let's start at the top of this page again. For those who are unable to drink moderately, the question is how to stop altogether. We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. This is absolutely key and the most important component of this box. Whether such a person can quit upon a non-spiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. many of us felt we had plenty of character there was tremendous urge to cease forever but yet found it impossible relate that to that last sentence whether such a person can quit on a non-spiritual basis depends upon the extent to which has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not i.e if you're able to stay sober on a coffee commitment and be happy joyous and free or on the room chair come in or a general service come in and whoever sleeps is sober. If you're not doing any step work developing a new relationship with God, chances are you're not a real alcoholic. Yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it. This utter inability to leave it alone no matter how great the necessity or the wish. You know I stacked a lot of chairs and I used to make a lot of coffee and it still didn't keep me sober. Wow. We're just got a couple more pay, a couple More paragraphs and then we're going to close it off for the day. Um, then how shall we help our readers determine to their own satisfaction? Green underline. I love this. Whether they're one of us, our job as recovered alcoholics, members of Alcoholics Anonymous, it's our responsibility to help these people decide whether they're One of Us or Key, Not One of us. The experiment of quitting for a period of time will be helpful, but we think we can render an even greater service to alcoholic sufferers and perhaps to the medical fraternity. That last paragraph I got written on the side, ask the questions. Also, it says weed them out. The last thing we need to do is get more non-alcoholics in Alcoholics Anonymous running meetings, sponsoring people up in the general service, in the grapevine, all the non-alkoholics that are diluting our program so we got this part in green underlined so we shall describe some of the mental states that proceed to relapse into drinking for obviously and this is key this is the crux of the problem if we don't pick up in the first place we cannot trigger the phenomenon of craving the allergic reaction but we've got a pile of doo-doo a pile history that says joe You pick up my chase, you pick up the stuff's going to hit the fan. You will lose complete control, but we still do it anyway. So what's leading up to that? For example, what was going on in the man of 30s mind before he started to drink again? We're going to look a little more closely with a few more examples at what that kind of plays out for us. You know, and I can side with the man at 30, you know. He had no real proof of mental obsession. There was no evidence that we see of spiritual malady. there was just this part that well you know i was young and i was you know carefree and i had drinking problems and i quit now unfortunately we weren't able to like follow his life and find out what type of sprees he went on to but we're going to be jumping into a couple guides here in the future you know pages that show some the combinations of the mental obsession the spirituality and the physical craving all hand in hand as a matter of fact um i'm going to read this last paragraph we're gonna pick this up again next week so joe read the green again so we shall decide? So we shall describe some of the mental states that precede a relapse into drinking for obviously this is the crux of the problem. Theme of this page is if you make a decision based on a lie, you will always run into the truth. Wow. Yellow box. This is called the real app, a box. What sort of thinking dominates the alcoholic who repeats time after time the desperate experiment of the first drink friends who have risen with him have after a spree which have brought him to the point of divorce or bankruptcy are mystified when he walks directly into the saloon why does he of what is he thinking that's a great one to leave off to let you guys think about that hopefully you guys can relate to that this is uh i just love more about alcoholism You know, it gives us the opportunity for me to once again redefine myself. Oh, yeah, for sure. Mike Chase, you're certainly the big old alcoholic. And it's also my responsibility, you know, if somebody doesn't think they're an alcoholic, to help them discover whether they are or not, you now? And it is also my responsiblity as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous to like tell people, you know ,to help them come to their decision. It is like you are not a real alcoholic, you are a problem drinker. You are a hard drinker, you got some problems. There is a lot of other programs out there that are specifically designed Celebrate Recovery comes to mind. Church organizations, therapy, clubs, organizations, new friends. You know, get on with your lives. But if you're coming to the point to find out that you're one of those real alcoholics, which means you're going to start to have to do some work in a couple chapters, and it's not going to be just blah, blah, lah stuff. It's going to me some hardcore big book recovery work, and that's what we're trying to get people ready for. So in closing... Are we closing now? Is this enough for tonight? I don't want to. I don' t want to, but we better let these guys go back to what they're doing. This is an excerpt from The Doctor's Nightmare. Wow. Who's the doctor? Dr. Silkworth? It's Dr. Bob, actually. Dr. Bobsmith. This is also in the back of the book. Oh, that's right. One of those nights where he just sort of gets stuck out in the bag. Right. If you think you are an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic, or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this book, I feel sorry for you. If you still think you are strong enough to beat the game alone, that is your affair. But if you really and truly want to quit drinking liquor for good and all and sincerely feel that you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for you. It never fails if you go about it with one half the zeal you have been in the habit of showing when you were trying to get another drink. Your Heavenly Father will never let you down. Now I know where that annoying bumper sticker comes from. My therapist used to say, you know, I was unable to get to therapy because there was a hurricane coming to town. And she would say to me, well, you were able to get to the liquor store in the last hurricane, weren't you? It's like, okay, first of all, I'm an untreated alcoholic, right? I'm in IOP, which means I'm untreated, which means they're still lying, cheating, stealing, manipulating. And she's trying to guilt me into recovery, which does not work. Oy, IOP. IHOP. Mike Chase, this is what I'm supposed to read, isn't it? Go for it. Please join us next week as we continue the study of the big book. And remember to download the highlighted pages from tonight's session found under the podcast link. We always enjoy hearing feedback from you guys. So don't be shy about dropping us a line as it is a privilege to meet other alcoholics who are also on fire about God and on fire about the big book. Let us close with the fog light prayer. This is our family fog light prayer. We found this to be a lot more unselfish as perhaps that other prayer. That's me, me, me, Me. This is a, this is one that we truly enjoy. Ready? God, let your love shine through me like a fog light for those who are lost, sick and dying can find your love through me. Amen. Amen, thank you. Look forward to seeing you guys next week. Take care and God Let's be at peace.