Physical Allergy and Craving – Herb K – Workshop – Part 11 of 25 – Herb

Good afternoon, good evening and good morning to most of you. My name is Herb and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our big book 12-step workshop. Please join me in prayer for an open mind. God please set aside everything that I think I know about myself my brokenness the twelve steps in you for an open mind and a new experience of myself, my brokenness, the 12 steps, and especially you. Please join me in this serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenety to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference. We've finally come to a place where we've finished the administration, the protocol and the orientation and the introduction to the big book through the forewords and the prefaces we've taken a deep look at the purpose why are we here and doing this work well primarily and I hope you have this as your priority it's a spiritual awakening and now we know what that means a change a gift of grace not without our attitude and action but nevertheless a result that exceeds our contribution to it you may not have experienced that yet but you can anticipate unexpected we looked at steps 11 and 10 respectively to incorporate them effectively in our journey as tools operating tools to keep the channel clear of obstacles our disturbances and to fill the channel with light through sitting in the presence of light asking for guidance knowledge and power so we're approaching step one now formally tonight for the very first time we begin the step process the way I approach it now after having done the work four different times with four different people over a 20-year period is I have an understanding of human nature that's come to me from disciplines outside of Alcoholics Anonymous but be reinforced by my experience with the big book and Bill Wilson's approach to the first step actually I'm not sure what his educational background was that led him to talk about a problem of the body a a problem of the mind and a problem of the will but that's how he articulates it in the big book it's not the way he structured step one he structured step one on the basis of the doctor's opinion which is what we're going to look at right now the doctor is Dr. Silkworth he's a psychiatrist in the day which means he is a medical doctor with an md and he had a specialty training in psychoanalytic theory of freud so he was a psychiatrist due to his life circumstances he found himself needing employment at the time that towns hospital owned by Mr. Towns, needed a medical doctor to run their alcohol and drug rehabilitation ward. Very unsophisticated by today's standards, but it was the best they could do at the time. In fact, it was actually pretty cutting edge to have an entire wing of a hospital dedicated to detox and recovery for drug addicts and alcoholics and so dr. silk was opinion after years of processing and trying to help alcoholics and failing miserably he had a theory that they have a problem with their body he called it an allergy and craving we're gonna look at that for the next two weeks but he also alluded to a problem of the mind which stands to reason he's a psychiatrist but he didn't elaborate at all on the nature of that dysfunction we have to wait until we get into the next assignment this assignment is assignment three on the body the next assignment assignment four will be on the mind and Bill then elaborates his experience in understanding his knowledge of what the problem is in terms of addiction and the mind he uses two terms that we'll look at very carefully obsession and delusion for bill in the structure of the big book that's his approach to step one and he ends his comments on step one on page 43 when he says an alcoholic has no effective mental defense against the first drink then he starts chapter four intending to start step two that's not how we're going to do it because the third time I went through the steps a man had a different insight in terms of the content the real content of step one it has a second half what I've just talked about is the first half of the first step having to do with alcohol in the terms of the big book but in terms of my own approach I broaden it to addiction so that it encompasses all substance and process addictions substance alcohol drugs and food process that very intangible addiction of fear or gambling or pornography or manipulation and control or codependency substance addiction has a substance of course process addiction is much more subtle in one way just as devastating in every way an addiction by my definition it's not scientific but it works for me an addiction is repetitive behavior over which we have no control that leads to negative consequences repetitive behavior, over which, we have no control which leads to negative consequences all of those component parts are necessary the word commonly used for step one is powerless We become so brain-dead to it because we use it so often that it doesn't faze us to say powerless. It just rolls off our tongue as if it's, oh, it's raining outside type of comment. So I use the word no choice as a synonym. No choice. when I take a drink in my alcoholic addiction. Intending to have a drink. It will set up a craving for more. That's the use of the term craving in the big book in The Doctor's Opinion. When you look up the word craving in a dictionary, that's not what you'll find. You'll find the words something like The anticipation of, the desire for The feeling of a need That's craving in a dictionary That's not craving in the doctor's opinion In fact he very clearly says And we'll look at it when we get there The craving never happens until after you take the drink The craving ever happens until you put down the chip gambling or open your computer with the intention of spending five minutes in pornography then the craving begins after you've engaged with the substance or the process I have suggested that you look at the way-of-life document for the worksheet on the body to at least familiarize yourself with the questions that are asked not that you complete it but again ask yourself the questions and hold the questions while you're doing the assignment and then after you finish the assignments the reading assignments the reflection assignments then look at those questions and do some writing about your own personal history with addiction because this is about getting some knowledge as we'll see identifying the real understanding of craving and allergy as the doctor uses it but also having an experience with your own history not that you have to relapse in order to have the experience but you look back on your personal history of your connection to food or whatever other addiction might be tagging you right now or in your past I'll elaborate a little bit more on step one as we go forward I think that's enough for right now in terms of the orientation of step one it has two halves divided by a dash admitted we were powerless over alcohol so for our purposes since most of you are not alcoholic admitted we are powerless over addiction and you have a substance addiction but then there's a dash dash is not and it's a sign in the English language that there's a connected but new thought brand-new thought not necessarily connected to the first thought my life isn't unmanageable because I'm an addict now if I'm in my addiction my life will be unmanagable of course anybody who does anything to excess, their lives will be unmanageable. But what about the person who is a year abstinent? The person who has five years abstinent, the person who is 20 years abstinence? Their life is unmanagable. What the big book means by that is un- manageable on my own human willpower and we'll see that. Bill starts us out on page 45 looking at the will and the lack of willpower and we'll look in places in chapter 5 in chapter 4 and then in chapter five to get a full round understanding of an experience with what does unmanage ability mean because bill calls it the spiritual malady the body problem is important but not as probably not as important as the mind problem the mind problems much more important than the body problem the body problem is I have suffering from my addiction well for God's sake stop it just stop it oh yeah well I can't oh then the mind problem is a bigger problem I can stay stopped and Bill says that in step 10 we're not cured what does he mean by that it doesn't mean with regard to our addiction it's very clear in step 10 were placed in the position of neutrality we have recovered from our addiction by finishing step 9 that's the promise of the big book but we're cured of our unmanageability that's the human condition that's the daily reprieve and we treat that problem with steps 10 11 and 12 a practice of inventory a practice of meditation a practice operating on principles to help other people on a daily basis that's antidote to the will problem I have free will but in many instances my will isn't free and that's why unmanageability is in step one I have free will but I don't have free will when it comes to managing my own life what does Bill mean by that we'll take a deep dive at that in the doctor's opinion on Roman numeral 25 I'm going to just comment on some highlights as we go through the doctor's opinion originally the doctor opinion was in the main body of the big book the first edition if you've ever seen a copy or a replica page one starts with the doctors opinion at some point down the road probably in the one of the printings of that first edition or maybe with the second edition i'm not sure bill moved the doctor's opinion to roman numerals because he wanted the textbook pages 1 to 164 of the big book to be written by alcoholics and dr silkworth wasn't an alcoholic so now it's in the roman numerals and I asked you to ask yourself so what is the doctor's opinion that's the title I believe the doctors opinion is that we have a problem of the body and a problem on the mind and it's a particular opinion with regard to the problem of he says here we have medical estimate of the plan of recovery remember I talked about the big book as textbook plan of recovery blueprint it says in the bottom half of the page in the course of his third treatment in 1934 Bill was hospitalized in September he was hospitalized again in November and he was hospital in December. That was his final hospitalization in Towns Hospital with Dr. Silkworth. Finally, he had enough exposure to the Oxford group and worked the steps of the Oxford Group there in the hospital on his second day of hospitalization. You could look at his story on page 13. And he had on his third day of hospitalization his spiritual mountaintop experience a mystical experience that changed his life and ours a possible means of recovery the means of recover here is not to go to meetings the means recovery here is to pray to god for recovery Look at what he says here This is Bill's writing now The doctor's opinion Is in a different type Part of his rehabilitation He commenced to present His conceptions to others Impressing upon them That they must do likewise With still others That's the heart of the matter For recovery Yes, prayer and meditation Is important for a connection to power and guidance absolutely step 11. but many people get lost in their own lives and the recovery that comes inevitably with doing these steps and they get a little complacent with regard to using their time to helping others each person has to identify what is balance in their lives I know some people that don't go to meetings and they don't have a sponsor and they have a vital life and recovery but they help other people in a very quiet way not in the fellowship of AA but just in terms of their profession and they do it for fun and for free that's the point of helping that's point of service when you get paid it's a career a job when you help others for free that's what the 12th step is about professional sometimes get very confused in that area, and they pay a big price. On Roman numeral 26, this is where Bill makes his comments in between the two letters. They were sent at different times, and although the one on Roman numeral26 is signed by Dr. Silkworth, his original letter to Bill Wilson and published in the Big was not signed he would not attach his name to it it was too problematic in his day as a scientist to associate himself with anything that had any connection to spirituality and alcohol both so his signature came in later on as a a got some traction and got some recognition as a institution in the country Bill says we must believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as the mind bill suggests later on that were mental defectives well in fact he says it right here we're maladjusted to life that we are full flight from reality that we're outright mental defective so I didn't like that so much but I do know it's true now that I've done this work especially the fourth stuff but the doctor's opinion is really about the body problem he says in that next paragraph that there's a theory we have an allergy so ask yourself if you have allergies other than food in this addictive sense but traditional the way people would normally use the term allergy i have an allergy to cats and i have an allergy to some forms of fresh fruit my eyes close my throat closes i can't breathe and i throw up both with cats and with fruit it's odd it happened to me when i turned 30. so i don't have cats around me and i don t eat fresh thin skin fresh fruit i mean that's my solution if it was a problem i stopped it I didn't ever see before I stopped drinking that I had a drinking problem that was very similar when I started I could not stop and it happened over a 20-year period regularly there's the problem of the mind I could not stay stopped and I could see that I did not see we get to that in in the following assignment an allergy is a abnormal reaction to a substance I have an AB most people can be around a cat and many people have cats I had a cat until I was age 30 then I couldn't be around the cat any longer my body changed the manifestation of an allergy is some type of a physical body reaction I have no control over what happens in my eyes and my throat and my chest and my breathing now we get to the doctor's opinion here on page Roman numeral 27 and he talks about altruism and he talks about the unselfishness of these men entirely absence of profit motive and having a community spirit again they believe in themselves and still more in the power which pulls chronic alcoholics back from the gates of death it was very brave of him to put that word power with a capital P in there that's as close as he comes to talking about spirituality at the bottom he says of course you need to be freed from your physical craving there's where the doctor's opinion is using craving from the dictionary definition I woke up this morning and I I, in loose terms, crave the cup of coffee because I am habituated to have a cup of coffee every morning. I have one cup of coffee. That's it. I used to have iced tea at lunch. I don't anymore because of the caffeine influences my sleep at night, even at noon. Coffee is not a problem for me. But the dictionary says craving is the desire for the anticipation of the longing for both the taste and the impact of coffee he's using the term craving here in a very different way than he does on page 29 for instance he says after they have succumbed to the desire again the phenomenon of craving develops what does he mean by that in my terms when I take a drink of alcohol the alcohol chemistry mixes with my body chemistry and creates a combination like fire and gasoline and now we know from science that there's a particular chemical result that produces acetone into my cellular structure and when my cellular structure gets acetone my cells demand more L acetone it's a biological problem that's why the doctor's opinion is so important to understand what he means by craving it happens after I take a drink a food addicts craving begins after they have the first bite now of course the alcoholic as well as the substance addict whether it be food or drugs has a physical conditioning and habituation that in fact i had the four or five o'clock quote craving in the dictionary sense without ever having had a drink that day i would have a really big compulsion desire to drive for having that drink you see what i'm saying though that's a different kind of craving that's not the craving and the doctor's opinion that's why it's so so very important to understand what the doctor is saying here the craving never happens until after the the craving the doctor's talking about never happens till after i have the drink till after I have the bite this is repeated over and over again I'm at the top of page 29 and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope well then he defines as we have a spiritual awakening a psychic change easily able to control the desire for alcohol now we're talking about desire not craving in the dictionary in in the um big book sense but desire in the Webster's definition of craving desire the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules this neutrality to alcohol can be accomplished this neutrally toward our addiction can be accomplished by doing steps four through nine that's the implication here is my as I understand it. At the bottom, Dr. Silkworth reinforces this understanding of the word craving. They took a drink or so prior to the date and then the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount. Here are the chronology of this. I took a drinking and it produced the craving. this is the doctor's opinion this is what he was seeing over and over again in the alcoholics that he was treating they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control this is a biological craving it's not conscious it's a feeling it's an emotion it's not a thought it's a biological if you put black ink into a jar of clean water the entire water will be diluted to black that's what we're talking about this chemical interaction of alcohol with my body or in your case with food and or sugar and or starch whatever the chemical constituents are of the food components that's what triggers the chemical reaction in your cellular structure this phenomenon of craving causes people to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue the fight page 30 bill doesn't tell us exactly exactly what that means. My speculation is the supreme sacrifice means suicide. Many alcoholics commit suicide rather than deal with the recurring relapse, the cycle of despair. He gives us then classifications of various kinds of alcoholics but in the middle of the page, page 30, he said there are types that are entirely normal in all respects except in the effect alcohol has upon them they have one symptom in common they cannot start without developing the phenomenon of craving please hear the chronology if you think i'm being redundant i am it's such an important point and sometimes people have a very difficult time because they've been so conditioned to the webster dictionary definition of craving and their own experience with craving that they can't really hear that that's not what the doctor is talking about he's talking about what happens after you take the bite after you take the drink after you make the bet it may be the manifestation of an allergy so he's a medical doctor he's he's making a comparison with what he knows in terms of biology this differentiates these people and sets them apart as a distinct entity and of course then he concludes with the what we already know because we've heard it enough and we've experienced it enough the only relief is entire abstinence well that's pretty straightforward in alcohol and drugs that's why the food addiction is i believe the most difficult one to deal with and navigate You can't be entirely abstinent from food You would die So you have to figure out What foods are comparable to The alcohol and or the drug Most chronic addicts are doomed This is what he means by no choice Powerless What is the solution? So now he's going to wrap up his opinion And he's not going to talk about the body any longer. He's going to talking about the solution now. He's saying in the middle of that paragraph that he came across an alcoholic who accepted the plan outlined in this book, and he got free. Beginning halfway down the page, he talks about another alcoholic who he had personal experience with who was hopeless. we doubted anything would actually work for him even what bill wilson had on the following page in the end where the letter ends roman numeral 32 he said this man became sold on the ideas contained in this book notice here's a second doctor's opinion the first was a scientific opinion not based on research but based on his experience the body is a problem of biology but the second now opinion that he has based on his observation is this book this process that Bill Wilson introduced seems to be effective the ideas contained in this book work so we said at the bottom the final paragraph read the book it's all like straightforward read to book and then remain to pray read the book and you'll find out that solution to the addiction problem is a spiritual solution very brave of him finally he did add his name to the material next week we'll look at the balance of the assignment which is to look at first eight pages of Bill's story try to read it from the perspective of of course the set-aside prayer and identify not obviously with his drinking that's not necessarily how you're going to identify with him or his lifestyle but how did he drink what was his relationship with his addiction how does that compare to yours how did you think how did feel how did she behave those are the questions to ask so that you can look at and identify with Bill rather than highlight the differences where there's no identification and then finally on pages 17 to 23 the final piece of that we'll cover next week while you're doing that take a look at as I say those questions in the way of life document on the body in that worksheet you don't have to answer them by next week but by the following week I will be giving you that assignment Bill ends that on page 23 with the very common sense solution if in fact the body were the only problem if taking the drink were the only problem then stop it well and he says right there on page 23 of course you can't just stop it you can stop you have lots of experience in stopping the problem is we can't stay stopped after a day or a week or a month or a year or a decade I know many people that relapse after a decade or two why is that because they don't understand unmanageability they don't just and the spiritual malady they don'd understand the instructions of not cured and daily reprieve more about that later all right so now I would like to talk to some folks I realized I was not being honest with myself I was facing my food issues again and everything was fine but it wasn't fine I was eating sweets again and as soon as I eat them I feel sick but I can't put them down again I'm back to the first step again for this yep what happens after you have the first bite of food I have to eat the rest of it that's right yeah that's the allergy that's craving that's exactly right whether you get sick or not is irrelevant whether I black out or not is irrelevant. Whether I go to jail or not is irrelevant, whether I wreck my car or not, is irrelevant right I had the second drink and I didn't intend to see what I mean yes yeah and it wasn't my choice once I've had the first drink the second drink is my biology's choice that's what we mean by no I am yep that's right I have not wanted to accept that I wasn't like other people and I have to tell you i have loved my sobriety i have loved being a member of this fellowship but i always felt like there was something wrong with that statement and especially the allergy because i'm a nurse you know and i was like but it's not an immune it's not my immune system overreacting right but you know what stop struggling and just i i have an allergy to certain antibiotics and to tree nuts i know what happens to my body from the second it touches my lip and i know what happens when sugar just touches my lips like it doesn't have to even go into the bloodstream or a hit of pot right up to the brain so i'm really grateful that you're teaching us that it's a predisposition of genetics and that it is not about my willpower it's not anything I've done over the past 16 years that and I love the recovery of the body in the first nine steps and then but it doesn't mean we're cured and the other day as I was eating my study group knows this but as I was eating stale donuts that my son had thrown away out of the garbage I was like huh maybe that's not normal maybe it's not normal doesn't matter like he says there's entirely normal people here on page third yeah 30 so I don't have a hundred pounds to lose so I didn't end up in jail like you did it doesn't mean I don t have the same disease man sorry I'll shut up now oh no no we could probably survey the group and confirm that what you just described as eating stale doughnuts from a garbage can is disgusting but it's normal for a food addict right just like I would find drugs in the garbage or not hesitate to smoke someone else's cigarette that I found back in the day or remove a cigarette that was put out in a warm beer and drink the beer we're telling on ourselves here we're disgusting it really helped me looking up the definition of these words because i didn't understand i did not understand what an allergy was that food just like other pollens and uh microorganisms can be that but it is we're not let me just let me and i meant to say this when the nurse was on the line we're really necessarily talking about a scientific biological allergy he's more using it poet poetically from his experience it's a metaphor it looks like an allergy so i don't mind you're coming to your own conclusion on it i just want to make sure that we understand what the doctor's opinion is he's not saying as a medical doctor that it is an allergy he's just saying it looks and it operates like an allergy so that we can understand it go ahead it's insidious it's insidious when when you go to these meetings like OA or FA I've seen people stand up and talk about suicide and I didn't understand that I thought oh I'm not so bad well I'm way overweight and now my blood pressure is started going up and I have other problems and I am committing suicide when I continue to by definition you're killing yourself I am and I don't want to do that I want to be here for my children and my 12 grandchildren so thank you so much for continuing to teach us and help us understand production Potter in my own studio for years and no matter where I was or what was doing i felt compulsive like i'd never have enough clay and i was going through a one ton of clay a month alone in my studio and selling it and it was never enough never enough never enough and it just seems like i just i am that person of like it's never enough and then it's way too much and food is that currently well if it's not if it see the the issue here is like the game whack-a-mole which I've never played but I've heard about and that is a board game where there's a board with holes in it and there's a gopher whose head is comes up out of one of the holes and you hit it with a hammer and it goes down but comes up in another hole and that's the same with addiction I know lots of recovered recovered meaning they're not drinking or thinking about drinking alcoholic men 5 10 15 20 years of abstinence from alcohol who are 50 to 200 pounds overweight or their serial infidelity people in terms of their relationships or they're addicted to pornography in a way that interferes with the quality of their life so addiction will pop out from a different Avenue if in fact we don't get to the source and cut out the cancer that's what this work is this work cuts out the cancer because it goes deep in the surgery through steps one through nine but the cancer is never removed bill says we're not cured so we have to continue radiation and chemotherapy and surgery in steps 10 11 and 12. with regard to our unmanageability the spiritual malady but all of this will become more and more clear as we go through certainly the full journey on step one I wanted to say to you that after years of sobriety when I first took that first step years ago when I heard that powerless over alcohol in my mind herb I mean I've always been a person that felt like I could you know physically do most things I could do whatever I want to do I remember telling counselor one time that I pretty much had control of everything whatever I wanted to do I could do it and he just looked at me and shook his head thought oh boy I got a real live one here but Americans yeah but honestly her for the powerless part of that first step in my ignorance all these years I have looked at as I do not I am NOT strong enough to control this alcohol because always thought that I should know better you know Bill says in his story where had been my resolve and now that was it for me for sure but for it was always even though I heard it in AA meetings and I heard people talking about the allergy and that we don't have any choice in the matter I always thought that for me powerless was I just wasn't strong enough and you know I think through my sobriety even though sobriete in my mind and you know in my life has been a huge gift and blessing I've had this serial sober suffering something's not quite right and so you know I'm in the workshop now because even after years of sobrieti you know i want you know the best sobrieta that God has to offer and i'm wanting to go down you'd like to do that answer to your question i'll give in a simple way without unpacking it because we will toward the end of the step one assignments talk more specifically about it and that is it's about unmanageability the first half of the first step is about addiction that's what we're talking about tonight what happens when i put it in me i have an allergy reaction that the doctor's opinion calls a craving okay i don't have a choice biological i pounded that one home i think sufficiently i gave a preliminary hint at the next assignment which we'll get to in a couple weeks so why not just stop bill says that on page 23 well if you're suffering from addiction stop it oh you did but you couldn't stay stopped yeah that's a problem too it's a bigger problem than the allergy it's about the obsession and then we get to step 10 and bill says great you've gotten relief now you've got 10 15 years of sobriety you have abstinence and you don't even give it a second thought but your life isn't the way you'd like it you have this deep yearning because there's a black hole in you that's never satisfied and your restless irritable discontent that's the unmanageability that's the spiritual malady which is treated in that final session that we'll have on step one looking at assignment number five so let me not unpack it any further than that but it's why I do this work not for the first half of the first step for most people people who are usually dealing with their addictions are not drawn to me the people who aren't drawn to me are people with five and ten and twenty and forty years of sobriety whose life is not living up to their expectations and hope or not measuring well against other people's contentment yep I told the malady is my bullseye hmm yeah I definitely believe that herb and I thank you so much thank you for being here and and allowing us to have this discussion I think it's helpful to everybody I don't mean to dismiss people who are dealing and struggling with their addiction at all because this work will help there but my my real interest is in the spiritual malady and steps 10 11 and 12 which really foster that level of emotional sobriety and also spiritual sobriete that one would hope for and expect morning reviewing self-seeking so seeking versus selfish and I mean I always thought of selfish being about my self-will. I think you make up your own mind as to your definitions and I use the dictionary to try to get some idea of that. I make those distinction in the fourth column of the resentment inventory and I give a definition that selfish is my thinking about myself and my self seeking is my behavior that goes with it. All of it comes from my self-centeredness, which is a survival instinct, a survival instinct, which which is the core of unmanageability, the spiritual malady. And we have no choice. We have no choice over being selfish and self- centered. Absolutely. Have no choice, that's something that's really hard for people to see, especially the Al-Anon and the codependent. Because their experience is no no no you don't understand i'm all about helping other people until i start asking a lot more questions and we get underneath the motive and underneath that motive and underneath that mode and we find out it's still about their survival if everybody would just do what they wanted them to do everybody would be happy and healed yep my sponsor i never uh did something for somebody without expectation which was true and i looked up the word altruism in a dictionary that's that complete turning from that self-centeredness and altruistic is taking actions for the benefit of somebody else without any possible benefit to me that's lovely yeah and And that's by God's strength. That's impossible. No, it's not impossible. It's possible with greater strength in our own. There you go. That's right. It's about you making your mind up as to what the definitions mean. And it helps me when I make the distinction based on my human structure. I have a mind that knows and I have the will that decides for action. Yeah, right. all of the even steps are knowing steps all of the odd steps are decision and action steps oh that's yeah i know it's one of the diagrams in in step 12 in the way of life document you take a look at that and and it reinforces the opening comments that i made about the human structure and the methodology of the 12 steps being totally compatible this emotional stuff that i carry this this is what i want to get to the bottom of good excellent yeah well yeah do this work do this work with that intention bill wilson in 1958 wrote an article now he's 24 years sober at that point 1958. he wrote an that was published in the grapevine called emotional sobriety the next frontier and that's what he talked about he was 24 years sober and he was exploring it at that point and what he realized was in the article that attachment to people and circumstances and even a his dependencies was what was creeping crippling him emotionally and in this process with that focus on your part will bring it into the spotlight and you'll be able to see in the fourth step especially where you're being handicapped by your dependencies and isn't that handicap causing the addictions to kick in the money could if it could if it's not treated but here you are treating it right i understand that yeah yeah yeah no that's exactly what bill means by not cured absolutely 100 from my standpoint right now i agree because i've tried it all and i love god and i know god's grace you know what it's food money shopping whatever it's like god help me god help my god help all day long but the emotional stuff is killing me you know how you do you know how you squeeze a balloon that's maybe three quarters full and you put a strap around it what happens when you put a strap around a balloon and tighten the strap in the middle what happens to the balloon it's going to pop or it separates in two it will it will grow on each side right when we become abstinent in our addiction by putting a container around it unless we let the air out of the balloon it will pop out in different areas what do i mean by letting the air out as a balloon deflation of the ego at depth i love my ego All right. But as they say in the world of Spanish, mi amigo, mi ego is not mi amigo. My ego is Not My Friend. No, it's not. In the context that ego here is not the healthy ego, it is the dysfunctional attached ego the dependent before I came into program I was a vegan I thought that vegans would be skinny and I was the fattest vegan I ever met in my life because I would make a wonderful vegan meal it would serve five people and I'd be the only person eating I eat the whole entire thing because I can't stop I cannot stop I have no off button it's not always about like taking food out of trash can it can be bad you know being and fruits fruits and unlimited points i would fill my freaking suitcase full of clementines in school eat them all in the afternoon okay that's quantities that's an issue and that is not normal well i'm really glad that you have the experience and can help other people understand it not necessarily for themselves but for other people that it's not just sugar and flour and some other kind of chemicals that are the addictive source of the problem but actually quantity itself can be a trigger right and bill talks about it in the big book he says that um there's some place somewhere when he says you know if you think you can have one drink go ahead have one drink you know because the quantity is the same thing you can't stop at one you know you can can't stop and um you know that's my reality was i couldn't stop i couldn't you know i would just stuff myself And you have your recovery just by, you know, giving it up and then your life is unmanageable and accepting guidance. At first, your guidance is from your sponsor, but that's just symbolic of your guidance being from a higher power. But see, I'm so glad that you're saying it that way. There's a balance here. God is great and powerful and the source of the solution. but i have very difficult time hearing god i need a sponsor who can talk to me about their experience and hold me accountable personally right you know what i mean yeah no i know what you mean i know well you prompted me thank you so much the thing that really jumped out to me is on the bottom of page 28 and the start of 29 where it says men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol and then it goes over the page they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false alcoholic life seems the only normal one restless irritable and discontent after they've succumbed the phenomenon of craving develops and then you go through the cycle that's pretty much me in a nutshell so that cycle of desperation to have some relief from irritability restlessness and discontent yeah tension tension is what is drives us back to the addiction because whatever our addiction is it has soothed us and that's why step 10 says we have a daily reprieve because on the daily basis we're going to have tension and if we don't treat it with the spirit we're gonna treat it with the candy I've wrestled in this for many this particular space of being half in the water half out the water for many many years 80% 80% of the people that come in a 12-step program I don't care what program it is relapse suffer and die so we're in the minority right now here kids who are even looking at a a solution of abstinence and then living a spiritual life honestly there have been miracles in my life from the program that i've worked sheer miracles and then when i go to the dark it's hopeless and the problem that we love the miracle and we love feeling free and good but what happens when we're just in neutral we're not feeling positive we're not feeling too negative we're just in neutral and we're bored out of our minds and and the tension comes up and we have no resistance because we're not connected to a power yeah yeah i hear you i didn't realize the process addictions that i live with and um for example give me give us one example spending money oh spending money yeah absolutely big one a big one huge and you know what and i've filed bankruptcy twice in my life of course and still that doesn't matter no you got the rhythm of it now girl oh i am so good and you it's funny it's like i'm in the process of like um changing my home life around um daughter who's now 10 wants to have her own room and we i have that and so i'm all for that so i've moving things around and i've been looking on facebook marketplace and i had been i'd been the process of finding something and going oh i'm gonna ask if it's still available and oh i got it yeah or i'm waiting it's i'm such a so i i'm so see this set aside prayer and attitude is working because you're now opening your consciousness to the possibility that there's more going on in you yeah and there is and I've been working with my sponsor lately and I recently had a break but I came clean immediately after I took the bite I came cleaned immediately and my mo is usually I don't and then I think I can handle it and it festers and then it becomes even worse so um step one i'm i'm getting it and i understand like the it's the obsession that starts before i take the bite that's what it feels like that's that's exactly right you're intuiting correct based on like the conversation I had with Erin yeah she put it into behavioral terms you're putting it into the vocabulary of the big book okay all right and we'll be talking about that but tell me about your experience with the allergy and the craving okay I tell myself first off I can just have a little bit that's fine I take one bite of peanut butter or whatever and that's it my absolute mood and then what happens is it doesn't stop there it does not stop but you after once or twice a failure then you you understood it and you stopped it right no i was going to say i'm trying to look back in my history and every time i've taken that bite alcoholics drink to celebrate success and to cry over failure so it doesn't matter we'll find any reason the tension of happiness and the tension about happiness yeah but everybody can have they relate to the experience you intended to have a bag a few chips probably not the entire bag you ate the entire bag and and the few chips itself changed your chemistry and you lost you lost control the trigger was pulled the bullet was fired and there's no putting it back and so this went on for hours but but see all of that now is drama and story yes all of that is more reinforcement that you lost control but after you have the first bite the rest is going to be very predictable cycle and I did not know that I did exactly that's right now I know it and it's it's really evident to me and that knowledge will not stop you from doing no no that's the problem see knowledge is not the key we do need to know the dynamic of it we do need to know more about the obsession that was talked about earlier so that we can be more committed to the spiritual program which protects us both from the obsession and then from the craving you know for me it's a lot of the process things and in particular a tremendous tremendous addiction to my iPad and playing computer games you know that they've actually they've now they have created hospitals for inpatient treatment of technology addicts especially young teenagers and the gaming once you get your alcoholism contained through whatever mechanism that you do and you have the gift of abstinence hear my words gift we can't create it it's a gift that abstinance many of the men that i see and or work with after five or ten years become food addicts or become pornography addicts, or become work addicts because they're not treating the spiritual malady underneath that's creating the tension that then isn't have an outlet or an antidote with alcohol it finds a different mechanism like spending was a somebody mentioned earlier still with me I am yeah so it's inevitable if you're not spiritually fit you will manifest some other form of addiction it's just time to stop i don't know if i took well yeah but saying that and doing it are hugely different things aren't they no that's why i'm here if you could stop by making a decision you would but you can't so you're here this process is the deflation of the ego at death spiritual process of deflating my ego by going through these steps especially four through nine a relationship with the spirit shows me the truth which makes me right size oh i've never been right sized well at least um spiritually if not uh physically and emotionally right exactly thanks and and right size is not the criteria of abstinence be very clear on that i mean i'm that it's a component if there's smoke there's fire but it's not the goal for right size the the real goal is a relationship with the spirit and then a healthy relationship with food and and the idea of abstinence being sort of the necessary remedy makes me feel like i need to live in a yurt with no technology you know and grow my own food if i'm going to survive because that's how compulsive i am yeah well um how big is your god that is the question that i've been grappling with for a decade yeah you need to trade your god in on a bigger god you need an upgrade in your system that's what we're going to do here we're gonna give everybody an upgrade in their step two three system i do want to make a comment about a question that was asked or a comment that was made last time about the Ignatian exercises there is a Catholic Saint Ignatius Loyola who had a major conversion experience and created what he called the Ignatians spiritual exercises. He also founded a group of religious priests called the Jesuits, the Society of Jesus. Father Ed Dowling was a Jesuit, a teacher at the University of St. Louis who in 1940 read the big book went to see bill wilson and asked him did he know who saint ignatius was and bill said no did he knew anything about the spiritual exercises and bill said no and father dowling said good because now i know what you have here in the big book is an authentic revelation to you personally because there's a parallel between the 12 step process of transformation and the ignatius exercises process of personal transformation so that's the background to that just in case anybody heard the question that was raised last week and had any curiosity about it father ed dowling was bill wilson's spiritual advisor for the next 20 years from 1940 to 1960 when ed dowling died they had a powerful influence on bill and and the writing of the 12 and 12 which we'll comment on at some other time i would like to find some answers for myself how to understand that mental obsession and maybe create the same attitude to it as fire sort of thing as as if there's anything that you can know or think or remember to prevent the obsession then you're not powerless and the book doesn't apply to you this is what we're going to see in a couple weeks obsession of the mind means that i'm every bit as powerless over my mind when i get this obsessive thought as i am when i take the first piece of cake or the drink in my case i'm powerless so there's nothing that you can know or think or feel that's going to prevent the obsession right this isn't in the big book but the bottom line is you're screwed yeah thank you for laughing i'm glad i took a risk there that's not in the big book but that's the point that's the point of now our relationship with power is the only shield against that thought that obsession that's what it means by not cured that we are vulnerable to the obsession if we don't have a spiritual shield if we have the spiritual shield we're protected we don't even have to think about it that's what the book says we're placed in a position of neutrality yeah that's freedom see there's where the freedom is i thought you know i i thought being abstinent would be like put the band-aid and now i can calmly go about fixing my life it's not at all it's like ripping off a band-aid and opening up floodgate of all the stuff that isn't working and how i don't you don't have you don t have the anesthetic now exactly and i feel really stressed and really anxious like everything is like everything's unmanageable um and one of the i guess the biggest thing it's not it's not that everything became unmanageable but you became conscious that that's the life that you were living in anyway now you don't have the anesthetic to dull your consciousness you took off the earmuffs exactly yeah and um and the thing with that um i i'm becoming aware that there's a lot of pain with that. There's a lot of like, I feel it's, I've been given this awareness of that and you know I'm having all these beliefs revealed to me, this idea that you know when I get abstinent my life will be okay but the thing is what's been revealed is abstinence is not the key it's spiritual life that's the key and then underneath that is the fear that i i'm fearful that i don't have what it takes um almost almost overriding that's why we looked at the set aside prayer and attitude but that's especially why i introduced everybody to step 10 and 11 tools the meditation and the prayer and the inventory those are tools to confront and deal with your fear and the tension that comes from your beginning to be abstinent and more conscious the action that is recommended is the 10-step action of talking to somebody your sponsor step guy good friend about this on a regular basis so that you are connected with somebody who can confirm that this is going to pass it won't be by friday but it will pass it might not be until you get into the second step it might not be until you get into the fourth step at some point the level of what you're feeling right now will subside a little bit enough for it not to be so uncomfortable I am yeah thank you I have actually a couple of sponsors and one of which has been through your programs numerous times and both of them have lives that I want you know so it's like I trust in that I trust that this program is worth it yeah so I and and I have done your workshops of all the way through but it's like I see that I had this veil still over my eyes of like walking through the program and I'm just gonna choose what I want but it i'm here now and i've been through the program you know this one once in another time this is the third time i'm writing inventory but new stuff is coming up and this new layer and i realized that you know it's um it's a it's commitment it's life commitment i'm never you know it's like it's starting to dawn on me it's that's a weight i think that i'm feeling and i don't want it to be and it doesn't need to be but first of all it's not a sentence to a prison of suffering about you do this work for the next 30 years no i have been free for over 30 years that gives me hope you know it's like yeah yeah hold the model up of people who you see are a witness to the impact on their lives and you know that it worked in them you have every reason to believe it will work for you for those of us that are they're recovered from our addiction and are here mainly for the unmanageability I think you said we don't need to do like alcohol or drugs or food whatever it is that we can pick whatever it is is bothering us today was that right well yes and no I remember sort of that conversation but what I meant by that was the people who are abstinent and are not having problems with their abstinence are here for probably some other reason that their life appears to be not working or that they've had enough experience with the 12-step process to know that there's more awakening available from a very positive standpoint but I also want to expand on that now that you've raised it and that is I encourage everybody to challenge themselves with regard to their prime their primary addiction as to even if you're 20 years sober re-challenge yourself as to why do you think that you're an alcoholic what is your experience with the allergy what is you experience with the obsession what is your experience with the addiction so that you perhaps with the information that i'm sharing uh and the process that we're sharing together that you would have a deeper experience with the no choice and powerlessness of your addiction okay does that make sense for you yeah and then i was going to ask could fear be an addiction then yes you can become addicted to fear you can also become addicted to thought absolutely we can become addicted to most everything especially those those who are predisposed to addiction okay so if fear would be a process addiction so you get the fear and then you'd have the reaction which is the biochemical reaction well that's what emotion is yes and so maybe for if someone's addicted to fear it just be more intense people that could say well it's probably better that we're not talking about theory if you wanted to make it practical and talk about your own personal experience rather than trying to be hypothetical i think we'd have a much better conversation okay so like when i something happens and i get in fear and it just it triggers something in me and then my heart starts beating i start fantasizing the very worst i'd get paranoid i start calling people to get reassurance and then i withdraw and avoid everything that's sort of my pattern yeah that that would be a typical reaction of fear but where does the addiction come in for you because it happens over and over and you can't stop it I can't yeah so that seems to be then there's been a pattern in very similar parallel to the heroin addiction is heroin of course is a chemical and fear is based on of the production of chemistry so yes probably very parallel now Now in the same way we can habituate to an addiction like that, we can in fact decondition ourselves or extinguish that sometimes on our own and sometimes with professional help. But underneath, the underneath, Bill says that we're powerless over our fear and that we pray for its removal and i guess it would really depend on how hijacked we have been by the addiction and how embedded it is and habituated to us as to whether we have sufficient power or not i don't know i again i'm now i'm into a little bit of a hypothetical because i don't have any knowledge or experience with that what I do know is that fear is treated with this inventory process very effectively and if we find that it's not treated adequately by the spiritual or inventory process that professional help might be necessary because it could be connected to something psychological or emotional in like a trauma or something where professional intervention might be necessary in the two programs I'm in a and a vision for you Oh a it's through reading the doctor's opinion we don't work with people until they've got you know maybe 48 hours of clean time from food and whatever from alcohol and okay that's what I wanted to find out let's let's separate out your two experiences nobody says in Alcoholics Anonymous that you don't work with somebody until they have 48 hours of sobriety nobody says that okay all right well I know in the food program there might be a little different approach that's why I'm sensitive to it so why don't you so so take it from there but maybe would ask Ask your question and let's see where it goes. Well, and I heard yesterday that some people were still in their food that were on this call and I just received a call from somebody who is really struggling giving up the food and I thought about inviting her to this but I didn't know if you felt, is it possible to get the full benefit from it while you're in food? Could this be part of getting away from the food? Yeah, no I've had the question before and it's a good question. It comes from a misinterpretation of the big book quite frankly where it says somebody needs to have their brain defogged before they can be talked to them and have a psychological sort of a connection that's taken out of context applied to the food situation inappropriately from my standpoint so here's a real startling black and white question herb would you work with somebody that is still drinking the answer is yes okay well is the first step about no choice and powerlessness or is it not yes how can somebody quit drinking if they're powerless that is true well the answer the answer is they if they are powerless then they must find power in order to stop drinking how do they find power by finishing the first nine steps herb do you mean that you would work with somebody that's drinking and taking them through the steps absolutely on the day that I'm working with them if they've had a drink I won't so they have to come to me with at least a little bit of abstinence from alcohol or at least very little alcohol and we will begin the work now the obvious answer to this situation is that somebody works the steps much better if they're not drinking somebody works two steps much better if their not binging absolutely all right but but a lot of people really do not understand that powerless means no choice and how can somebody be abstinent from food in order to work the steps if they could do that they wouldn't need the steps now I don't have an experience in the eating program but I have an experienced of logic and I have an experience with 12-step process and I know that the big book says you're not guaranteed freedom from your addiction until after you finish the ninth step i mean that's really clear we enter it says we enter the world of the spirit so i'm not saying one way or the other other than i had a man come to me i think i may have mentioned that who had uh struggled in and out of the program for 10 years using crack cocaine and uh i knew he really was so addled in his mind that i almost didn't want to talk to him i certainly didn't want to try to take him through any type of step process because he just he couldn't focus and he couldn' t remember and i said you know there's only two solutions here one is prayer because you're powerless and the other is to help other people because you're human and those are the recommendations in the big book so i would suggest that you pray for a creative way to help other people you don't have anything that anybody wants i don't know how you can possibly help anybody but go away and pray about it and see what happens and he came back a week later and he said i have three days of sobriety because down the street from me is an old folks home and when i went there to see if i could help they said yeah you can play checkers with the old man and i've been doing that and i stayed sober ever since wow didn't see what i mean now i don't that's just that's such an extraordinary example i couldn't quote you another one but it is enough of an example to tell me that if somebody wants this thing they will follow direction and the direction would be certainly go to meetings and pray because you're powerless and follow direction and have a sponsor and be accountable for that incremental direction so if some you know it's a bill says I believe in chapter 5 it's about rigorous honesty he says on page 58 if you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it dash then you are ready to take certain steps so that's that's my commentary on that okay did I'd address your questions absolutely a person should work with somebody who was an abstinent well that's where I was when we first started this workshop a couple of months ago and you told me to just keep coming and to keep you posted on how I'm progressing been really well clicked with a great sponsor at some days abstinent now heard for the first time and I'm talking I went to eating disorder rehab in 1990 so 30 years ago I've been doing this rollercoaster ride it's the first I've ever had it explained to me dr. Silkworth definition of craving read it no after we succumbed to the desire just never clicked until you explained it about the biological down to a cellular process that happened and so that's fresh on my mind and been helping me daily you know why would I eat anything extra back in that behavior again when I I know powerless guess what my question is just wanting that insurance policy but was doing my quiet time I'm talking to my sponsor I'm writing down my food and making phone calls doing some tools stay abstinent I'm still scheming I'll finish my meal and be scheming about what can I have extra so I see with long-term abstinence go day one again so I know they're not to set anybody on a pedestal it's all we're all just one bite away one day at a time we wake up it's a new 24 hours but I just need to hold on trust this process now get a better foundation with step one as we go or am i just creating a sabotage in between my ears am i making any sense i guess is my question with what i've just said well you're making eminent sense because i think what you're i heard you say is that not only are you understanding a little bit more about what the book is saying but you're also having an experience of some freedom and management of your food issue and that you also have an awareness that there's still some undercurrent of nastiness with regard to your food my words not yours and i just want to so and the bottom line question is are you on the right path you're 100 on the right path with the experiences that you're having and i want to just confirm that the path is steps one through nine and at the end of the path bill says on page 85 84 we enter the world of the spirit but then on 80 85 he tells me what you want to hear we feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected but here the language here the verb we feel we had been placed here the gift here the deliverance it's not because you did the steps because if it's a result of you doing the steps then you have the power somehow however there is some type of a connection to my willingness and action and the gift of grace and I believe you're already experiencing the gift you see her and you're receiving it it just hasn't completed itself yet yeah yeah grateful for the gift the Babs to nuts because it is a it's definitely a gift and it's not my doing I guess I'm just trying one insurance that I can eat and it's just one day at a time on a daily basis the two components for me in terms of my attitude are a gratitude that I received a gift and a humility that I receive the gift because I didn't ask for it and I didn't work for it in my case I was given the gift before I ever came to a a of freedom from alcohol but i didn't get freedom going back to the other comment that somebody said about the human life and steps 10 11 and 12. i didn t get freedom from unmanageability until i was four years sober and did this work for the very first time and then i began i began to get free of unmanaged ability meaning restless irritable and discontent in the program sober and that took another few years of some continuous work and i haven't been restless irritable and discontent for over 30 years that's the ticket that's what's been going on irritability and just discontant not comfortable being uncomfortable and if you continue being uncomfortable you will relapse because it's the only medication that we know and that's the whole point I gotcha a constant consciousness in search of getting into alignment with instead of being out of alignment with and that that's why step 10 says when we're disturbed know that you're out of alignment and the whole purpose of the process is to put ourselves into it we put ourselves or at least want to be placed in alignment and there's the a mystery that gives me the attitude of gratitude and humility the mystery is how did it happen and how do I sustain it because the outcome is disproportionately larger than my contribution to it and that's where I come with grace but it wouldn't happen without my willingness and I can't explain that combination I could just observe it every day I have to remember I am powerless I am at step one on almost everything in life as far as control I partially agree with you if it's about unmanageability the second half of the first step I do agree that daily we need to be conscious of that but being conscious that I'm powerless over my addiction is irrelevant because in fact my consciousness will not treat by powerlessness knowledge and willpower are not powerful enough i don't have a choice what i do have a choice is accepting my unmanageability my selfishness self-centeredness my spiritual malady and treating that on a daily basis as you just indicated with 10 11 and 12. that's what i need to remember to do and then i never have to think about my addiction again i rarely think about alcohol or my addiction rarely because it's not relevant i've been placed in a position of neutrality but i'm constantly thinking about my self-centeredness i'm a recovered narcissist and you never recover completely from that and see i feel i'll never recover from uh the addiction to flour and sugar it will always be there and but but you're using recovered in a different sense the big book is very clear look at the title page how thousands of men and women have recovered you're not thinking about it and you're not using it therefore you've been placed in a position of neutrality if you haven't been placed in a position of neutrality if you're still struggling then there's something wrong with your spiritual condition that's what bill says very clearly yeah and and also too like just that whole sentence going back step one it reminds me of snakes and ladders you know oh there i go back to the bottom again i didn't so i just had to throw that in too but i understand what you mean It could be that you have past and you've got neutrality. You can get that with addiction. That's what the book promises. Look on page 85. The words are very clear. And you either have neutrality or you don't. And if you don' t have neutrally, there's something wrong with your spiritual condition. I'm not judging it or being negative. I'm just evaluating it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good. Thanks. that wonderful comment question and let's end with the serenity prayer and we'll pick it up again next thursday please join me tonight in the serendipity prayer what can we influence what can't we influence i cannot figure that out i need the gift of wisdom god grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference thanks everybody