Physical Allergy and Mental Obsession – AA Joe H. Step Study – Part 2 of 11 – Joe

I'm Joe. I'm an alcoholic. Just to bring you up to date with what we've covered so far, we started the first week with the title page. Talks about three parts of the program. Unity, recovery and service. When I was about four and a half months dry and my life wasn't going real well sober I went to a man who started sharing this program with me from this big book and from the title page on I saw that I'd only been in one part of the program all I was was a member of the fellowship and I thought going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous meant that I was in the AA and I saw that that didn't that wasn't true all that meant was was that I was a member of the fellowship and that was only one-third of the program we talked about that and we talked about a little bit about the preface and the forwards and the history of this book a little bit we talked about that this is a precise way to recover and that was the main purpose of this book to show other alcoholics precisely how to recover but what I've tried to to stay centered on is the first step. So what we really got into at depth was the doctor's opinion, and we learned how to use every statement in the doctorís opinion as a question for me. Is this me? Do I believe this? Have I suffered from that craving that they talk about? When I take a drink, do I crave more? And do I see that as physical? Can I admit that my body is sick that my body suffers from an allergy to alcohol we talked about a exercise with Bill's story where you can take the first eight pages of Bill's story and mark everything that you can relate to the way he thought the way he drank and the way he felt you know to answer a very important question that page 17 follows with was I as hopeless as Bill if you're looking at the physical part of your disease why are you powerless over alcohol physically after you take a drink you will find that from the doctor's opinion through the exercise of Bill story and everything from page 17 to page 23 we answered that question on page 22 and page 23. And the way I make that statement into a question is this. Am I positive that once I put alcohol into my system, something happens, both in the body and the mind, which makes it virtually impossible for me to stop? Does my experience abundantly confirm this? Does my body crave more when I put a little bit in it? we went from page 23 to page 30 looking at the mind they said the observations about the body that admission about my body once i take a drink that admission about my body is very important but it's also academic and pointless if i never take that first drink which will start that craving so they got me into the second part of that first step Why am I powerless over alcohol mentally when there's none in my system at all? I become obsessed. I become possessed about having a drink. Some trivial thought comes into mind. After 20 days, a week, after a month, after six months, however long, can you look back through your drinking and see that the thought came after a period of dryness and that thought had more power than what you wanted earlier that morning and even though earlier that morning or an hour ago or five minutes ago you really didn't want to drink something happened up here that talked you into doing it again an obsession an idea that outweighs all other ideas or the ability that you and I have to believe a lie this time it will be different what happened last time won't happen so not only have we looked at my powerlessness, after I put a drink in my system, we are now changing the perspective and we're looking at my powerliness when there's none in my system at all. What is my head going to do to get me back to the first drink? Have I experienced that? Can I look back through my drinking and see the days where that happened? Like waking up in the morning with a firm resolution. You tell the old lady or the wife, listen, I really don't want to do what I did last night anymore and I'm not going to drink today. Or that solemn oath, I'm never going to do it again, honey. And then found yourself breaking her heart that night, repeating the same stuff. And something happened between leaving work and making it home. And you need to look at was there a choice involved? Okay, a lot of you will think, yeah, there was, you know, I just made up my mind to go have a drink. Little did I know that I wasn't going to be able to stop and I was going to do what I did the night before and I was going to end up with a 502 or a DUI or getting in trouble or going to jail or breaking her heart. But yeah, it was just a mental choice. It was just a choice to get messed up again after not doing it for several hours or several days or several months. But what you really need to look at, was it really a choice? Or was it more like something that happened you know was it like you come to an intersection every day for a week and at the dead end and you can either go left to the bar or right to home and that maybe 28 days in a row you got to that street and you felt like you were kind of in control and you turned right and you went home but somewhere in those 30 days the day came when you really wanted to turn right and go home and you ended up over at the bar and you have to ask yourself was there really just a choice to drink or was it something that happened did I get struck drunk would I just find myself all of a sudden with a drink in front of me and then wondering how it happened was it really just mental choice because that was one of my reservations when I started looking at this first step what I came to was yeah I might be powerless over what happens after I take a drink. But what I do is I just decide to drink again and that puts the ball in my court and I'm the one with the power. What I had to see was although I do just change my mind sometimes and it was just a choice, there are also lots of times when it wasn't just a choose because I didn't want to. At the end of the last chapter there is a solution. I asked you to consider three words because all three of them are going to become very important in this admission, this admission in the first step, the admission of powerlessness over alcohol. And those three words are power, control, and choice. And I'd like to look at those three word because this next page, page 30, is going to talk about control. And I think, to me, these three words were synonymous. I looked him up when I was new and I was going through this work and with power it talked about strength and for control they talked about ability and for choice they talked two or more reasonable options okay my contention is this if you lose one of those three things you've lost all three if I've lost the power I've loss control I have no choice I will drink it's kind of like you take a guy sitting on a sofa and he's paralyzed from the neck down you ask yourself does that guy have the power to get up walk to the door and and walk out of here a free man? Does he have the power to do that? No. No. Does he have the control to get up and walk off of this room? No. Okay, does he have a choice? No. So what is it going to take to get this guy off the sofa and get him out the door? It's going to takes a power greater than himself. He doesn't have the power to pull that off. it might be two guys lifting them up under the arms and carrying them out of here that's a power greater than himself okay this book makes reference to i'm just like that guy who's lost his legs and it says i never grow new ones so how can i admit powerlessness in the first in the first step the admission of powerlessness over alcohol how can I admit that I can see where I'll never have control over it and then sit here and say but today I have a choice over alcohol or I ever did you see because somewhere in my drinking I lost the power and I lost control and I lost a choice over alcohol I couldn't just wake up in the morning say well today I choose not to drink and carry that out for very long like I said earlier the longest I ever carried that choice out was 28 days a couple times I was never away from alcohol for 30 days for 17 years so did I rip did I have a choice did I reach a stage in my drinking when I couldn't just choose not to drink and pull that off and did I reached a point in my drinkin where it wasn't just choosing to drink this page 30 is also going to talk about three other words that were important for me to look at and see the difference but they're all the same obsession illusion and delusion they're gonna use those three words for the next 13 pages quite a bit I was told in an obsession is like we talked about the ability to believe a lie or an idea that comes to mind that outweighs all other ideas why I shouldn't I was told in it that an illusion is a fault faults or an erroneous perception of reality what I see out here you know like an illusionist like a magician does illusions in front of us what we see isn't really what he's doing so illusion is what I out here that I that I warp and the delusion is to mislead the mind I do do that in here I dilute myself I suffer from delusions of the mind this chapter talks about most of us being unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics no person likes to think he's bodily and mentally different so we've looked at being bodily different and I hope and I hoped we've each in our own way come to that admission about physical powerlessness and now we're looking at being mentally different from our 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 here's another description of an obsession the idea that somehow someday I will control and enjoy my drinking this is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker how many in the room have suffered from that idea. Somehow, someday I'm going to be able to control and enjoy my drinking. How many? The persistence of this illusion that we're going to control it and enjoy it is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death. How many pursued that illusion that you were going to be able to control and enjoy your drinking right up to the gates of insanity and death. We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost self that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. How many of you that have been in AA before have sat in meetings and heard people say the first Step doesn't have anything to do with admitting you're alcoholic? It has to do mit admitting that you're powerless. I've heard that a lot. this says that we have to fully concede to our innermost self that we're alcoholic and that this is the first step now they talk about a delusion and I think if there's one thing that I've suffered from since alcohol and drugs are no longer a problem is this delusion right here the delusion that I'm like other people or presently maybe has to be smashed okay what do they mean by that I'm starting to see that I'm not like other people once I put some booze in my system and I'm also starting to see that i'm not like other people when it comes to my mind with booze and drugs my mind talks me into doing something that's killing me and getting me in trouble but why do they say or presently maybe to me that means now presently sober I'm not like other people you take my neighbor on a Monday morning and convince him that a certain behavior that he's doing is killing him and causing problems in his life and by 5 o'clock Monday afternoon if he made a decision not to do that behavior anymore his mind isn't trying to talk him into doing it again mine is normal people when they don't feel emotionally well don't go do something that's caused problems every time they do it so I'm not only physically different after I put some in my system and mentally different when I don't have any in my system at all and I become obsessed about it I'm emotionally different because my emotions will dominate me back to something that is going to kill me and I'm spiritually different sober, now today and if i would if i could say one sentence in this book that summarizes every problem i've had since i've gotten sober and the problem with alcohol and drugs have been removed i would say it's the delusion that i'm like other people see i think i can do what my neighbor can do with resentment i can hold on to it for a while i can get revenge i can retaliate i can wallow in it he can do that can i i think i can do what he can do with fear i think I can treat people the way he does I think I could drive the way you does I think i could lie the way he does and there's the summary of all the problems I've had I think unlike other people I think I'm like normal people. We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. The amount I take once I start and staying stopped. Those are really the only two points you have to look at in this first step. Can you control the amount you take once you start and can you control staying stopped? All of us felt at times we were regaining control but such intervals usually brief were inevitably followed by still less control which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization how many of us know about pitiful and incom comprehensible we don't even understand it what happens to our morals how many have found us saying things on a monday i'll never do that doing it once feeling a little bit guilty and then a couple months later doing it with relatively with ease what happens to my morals they slowly deteriorate what was absolutely unacceptable to me two years ago during my drinking i'm doing a couple years later we are convinced to a man that alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness over any considerable period would get worse never better how many in here looking at at the progression of your disease see where it got better over the years. We are like men who have lost their legs they never grow new ones. Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment 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. Physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree there is no such thing is making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic science may one day accomplish this but it hasn't done so yet and that was written in 1939 science hasn't done that yet either let's go back to that that's that paragraph on the previous page we alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking and let's substitute the word choice for control and see if it doesn't fit. We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the choice with alcohol. We know that no real alcoholic ever recovers choice. All of us felt at times that we were regaining choice, but such intervals, usually brief, were inevitably followed by still less choice. See I think those words are synonymous. I admit my powerlessness. I see where I will never have control over alcohol it's not going to get any better but i'm going to sit here and say today i have a choice you see somewhere during my drinking i lost that kind of power and i also chose a loving god at the second step who loves me more than to give me a choice over something that's going to kill me the great promise of the 10th step is that the problem will be removed and if the problem has been removed there is no choice in a fit spiritual condition now I'm not saying I can't slip back into that that insanity that maybe I have a choice but I'm saying in a fits spiritual condition why would I even choose that assumes I'm the one with the power and I'm just going to make a choice and if I take a drink where's the choice and if you don't and if they don't take a drunk where's their choice and there's more freedom in that some people think that sounds kind of uh binding or restrictive i experienced when that went from my head a simple idea at this first step and then going through the work and somewhere around the ninth step or somewhere in there a little while later after doing some work when that Went from here to here within and became part of my experience i felt a great weight lifted all of a sudden i realized the battle was over that I had made a decision in the third step to turn my will and my life over to the care of God and my will is to drink. We'll come back to some of that a little later. Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe that they're in that class. By every form of self-deception and experimentation, we will try to prove ourselves exceptions to the rule, therefore non-alcoholic. look back through your drinking and look at all the self-deception what do they call it now it is denial an experimentation that you tried to convince yourself you really weren't an alcoholic the bottom of the page there's a little test if you're starting to have reservations we do not like to pronounce any individual as alcoholic but you can quickly diagnose yourself step over to the nearest bar room and try some controlled drinking two drinks a day for 30 days no more no less try to drink and stop abruptly try it more than once it won't take long for you to decide whether you're alcoholic or not if you are honest with yourself about it it may be worth a bad case of the jitters if you get a full knowledge of your condition see now I would never suggest that to anybody until we went all the way through this first step because I think you can get a full knowledge of your condition in the framework of this work but if all else fails that is a consideration and you don't have to do it to consider that is there anyone in this room that thinks they could take two drinks a day for 30 days no more or known lusts. Maybe you need to try that. So self-will could keep you. Self-will, sufficient reason, that's the normal reaction for a real alcoholic a normal drinker would not be terrified by that proposition a normal drinker will have all the confidence in the world and say sure sure I could do it but when that was presented to me for consideration that was my reaction because I know in my heart of hearts I might be able to do it for a week I might not but I know that in one of those days something will happen and I won't be able to tell you how many more I'm going to have when it'll end or what I'll do in between I know them that the day will come I will lose control over the amount once I take two drinks which is scarier knowing that that would happen on the first day or not knowing when that would happen now through this story they're going to give examples I mean through this chapter they are going to give stories for examples and each of us finds ourselves in different degrees in each story I certainly don't find myself in the guy that was 30 and doing a lot of spree drinking and then deciding to stay sober and staying sober for 25 years I mean I was 30 when I got here and I was done but I find similarities a belief which practically every alcoholic has that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline and qualified him to drink as other men now I haven't had a long period like 25 years but in the short time that I have had there has been that crazy idea that maybe now that I've done it for five years four years three years maybe now it'll be different and that's the same idea that used to creep in there whenever I left treatment the same idea that creeped in there when I left the penitentiary now that i've been sober for a while can i kind of start again kind of can i kind of just start over the bottom of the page talks about gathering all his forces he attempted to stop altogether and found he could not i relate to that i tried that i tried that several times every means of solving his problem which were which money could buy were at his disposal i can surely relate to them i tried everything that money could by every attempt failed I can relate to that so what I'm asking you to do is use the stories in this chapter the same way you use Bill's story look for the similarities put aside the differences bottom of the next paragraph talks about if you're planning to stop drinking there must be no reservation or any lurking notion that you will one that you that someday you will be immune to To me that means, do I have any reservation or any lurking notion that I will ever react to alcohol any differently, physically, or that I'll be able to control it? That's a must. They tell me there must be no reservation about that. So what do I face in the first step? What do I make of it? What do you face in my first step of my reservations about am I really an alcoholic? And you can face those reservations within the process rather than having to try to drink again because some people die trying that. There's another test on page 34 that I like better which was a great test for me because I was never able to pass it. Third, fourth line from the top. If anyone questions whether he has entered this dangerous area let him try leaving liquor alone for one year. If he is a real alcoholic and very far advanced there is scant chance of success. Okay, does anybody in here think they could leave liquor alone altogether for one year? Uh-huh. Next paragraph. There's a very important idea about choice. For those who are unable to drink moderately, the question is how to stop altogether. Altogether. Forever. We are assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. 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 okay i met a man when i was new and he was 19 years sober and he said god doesn't keep me sober he said i wake up every morning and i choose not to drink and i've been doing that for 19 years but i'm working with this sponsor and we're talking about choice and I'm looking back through my drinking and I don't have that kind of power because I was real close to getting ready to drink and it wasn't going to be a choice and I somewhere in my drinking reached a point where I couldn't just choose not to drink but here's this guy who sounded like he was pretty bad he said for 19 years all he's done is choose not to and here's where I found in the bullshit sifter here's what I found what described him and what described me he was able to quit upon a non-spiritual basis because he hadn't gone to the extent that I had I wasn't I started seeing that I cannot quit on a non spiritual basis because I've gotten to the point where I've lost the power to choose whether I was going to drink it was more than a choice it was something I was powerless over or not I couldn't just choose to keep myself sober 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 I've heard a lot of people say the insanity of alcoholismo is picking up the first drink that's not what the next part of this book is going to say okay, granted it would be insane for me to pick up the second drink but when would the insanity occur okay i was at a detox in uh sheridan wyoming and um the leader of the meeting was six and a half years sober and he wanted to talk about he wanted a drink and he talked about that to the point where everybody was getting so uncomfortable because there was about 40 patients and he started calling on him and of course that's what they wanted to talking about they wanted to drink too and i hadn't been sober that long after about 40 minutes of that i was getting uncomfortable and he called on me and there was one other visitor and i shared and there was one another visitor in the back of the room and he caught on this guy from the indian reservation in um in from wyoming or montana or somewhere and um this guy started telling this story and his voice was so powerful although it was quiet that in about two words of his story he had the whole room turned around looking at him and all he said was this he introduced himself and he said you know i heard about a guy who walked in a bar one time and ordered a shot of whiskey and a beer and left the shot of whiskey and and then drank the beer and then ordered another shot of whisky and another beer and drank the whisky and drank the beer and then order another shot of whiskey and another beer and drank the shot and drank the beer and did this all night and at the end of the night the bartender said I'm really wondering why you left that first shot out a whiskey and the guy said to the bartender well some people in Alcoholics Anonymous told me if I didn't take the first drink I wouldn't get drunk and I think there's more to the first step than that and he passed so thank you the whole room was floored one of the most powerful things I ever saw because this next page says at the top of the page so we shall describe some of the mental states that precede a relapse into drinking for obviously this is the crux of the problem you see I don't know when it will happen see the insanity could start today and I could slowly clear away everything that stands between me and booze and find myself taking a drink in six years it could start today and maybe only take 10 seconds it could start today and take 12 hours but I do know that even if it's only a few seconds before I pick it up the insanity occurs before I picked up the first drink at my very best see this is where they started bringing me out from behind the bottle and I didn't even know I was doing it yes I had started putting aside some of my excuses i'd stop blaming you know how we all blamed something for the way we were i started putting aside okay maybe it's not mommy and daddy maybe it is not those guys maybe it was not because i went to the penitentiary my god i was drinking six years before i ever went to a penitentiary maybe it wasn't that school that environment i started pointing some of my excuses that i used to want to blame for why i turned out the way i did aside but i was still hiding behind the oldest excuse of all time and i didn't even know it and a man did for me what i couldn't do for myself he asked me to make a list of the 10 craziest things i ever did and i sat down and i made this list and every one of them was under the influence of alcohol or drugs beat her up drunk committed an armed robbery under the influenced drunk drunk drunk trunk drunk, drunk. You see what I'm doing there with that? You see what I am doing there? With that, I'm justifying the insanity behind the booze and the drugs. And this guy shook his head and he laughed and he looked at me and he said, I'll bet you 10,000 bucks right now that the number one thing on that list, the number 1 thing you should have on that list every time you did it, you were absolutely bone dry. Nothing in your system at your very best and I realized that day they brought me out from behind the booze and I realised the most insane act that I ever committed was 28 days out of the penitentiary with nothing in my system I walked across the street from a parole officer's office into a bar and picked up a drink and I did that on my own at my very best with every sufficient reason in the world not to when things were going good I commit the most insane act of my life the next example is of a guy who takes the first three steps and stops and drinks here's a guy they told him what they knew about alcoholism and the answer step two and he made a beginning step three all went well for a time but he failed to enlarge his spiritual life he agreed he was a real alcoholic he took step one and in serious condition he knew he faced another trip to the asylum if he kept on moreover he would lose his family for her he had a deep affection yet he got drunk again you read through these stories and you find yourself and you'll find he was restless and he was irritable and he was discontented and he hungry still no thought of drinking and and then you'll see the example of that thought come into mind suddenly the thought crossed my mind that if i were to put an ounce of whiskey in my milk it wouldn't hurt me on a full stomach see the insanity was sudden i ordered a whiskey and poured it into my milk then what does the truth how does the truth come vaguely the insanity comes suddenly the sanity comes vaguely I sensed I was not being any too smart, but felt reassured by the lie. I was taking whiskey on a full stomach. What things in that example have more power, the truth or the lie? The insanity or the insanity? He had much knowledge about himself as an alcoholic, yet all reasons for not drinking were easily pushed aside in favor of the foolish idea that he could take whiskey if he only mixed it with milk. whatever the precise definition of the word may be we call this plain insanity and now the definition of insanity as it is in the big book like a proportion of the ability to think straight I can't think straight I'm rubber-minded thought a I don't want to drink today thought B I can do that something comes between a and b and i end up way over here at c i can't think straight i can think from lot from point a to point b and get myself there some crazy idea sneaks in there and has more power than my best thinking we've sometimes reflected more than jim did upon the consequences but there was always that curious mental phenomena something we don't understand that goes on in our mind that would run right along parallel with our best thinking there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink and my best thinking failed to hold me in check the insane idea won out next paragraph talks about the justification being justified by nervousness anger worry depression Jealousy. How many of us have drank behind those things? Anger, worry, depression, jealousy. Even with this type of beginning, are we obliged to admit that our justification for a spree was insanely insufficient in the light of what always happened? It's gotten me in trouble and sent me to jail the last ten sprees I went on, but I'm so upset and I'm så angry and I'm so depressed that this time it's going to be different. There was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrible consequences might be. This example is of somebody who reflects on the consequences and what the outcome's going to be and the justification. The next story is where I found my insanity. I found myself in this next one, the jaywalker who every time he gets out of the hospital thinks he can do it again and gets the same results each time a little bit worse you go through that story of the jayswalker and every time they talk about jaywalking you put in their drinking or drugging and see if it doesn't fit you however intelligent i may have been in other respects where alcohol has been involved i have been strangely insane you see i started hearing that word insanity when they when they talking about the first and second step and i wanted to say no not me i don't belong in a state hospital shock treatment thorazine they said no no that's not the kind of insanity we're talking about we're taking about the insanity where alcohol is concerned you know how come i have a mind where if i stick my hand on a hot stove once and burn it really good and i say hey i'm not ever going to put my hand on that stove again how come i can pull that off how come i can keep myself from putting my hand out a hot stove after getting burned once but how come i get burned over and over and by booze and i can't keep myself from doing it where alcohol and drugs are concerned i'm strangely insane because i suffer from obsessions this time it'll be different what happened last time won't happen Or, in a minute here we're going to see an example, maybe I don't think at all. Maybe I don' t think much at all about what's going to happen. Page 39 talks about do you think you can quit drinking on the basis of self-knowledge? Do you think there's enough you can learn about yourself and based on that knowledge of yourself stop drinking? I pursued that one all the way to the hilt. degree in college psych psych psych social work drugs and alcohol working as a therapist in a treatment center 10 different treatment centers i thought i was going to get some piece of information that was goingto explain it all and then armed with that information i would be able to figure it out and stop it was futile the next story about fred is a guy who wouldn't even admit the first step but he tried to make up his mind to quit drinking forever it never occurred to him that he that perhaps he could not do that he didn't take the first and he didn't the second step he was a long way from admitting that he could do nothing about it himself he was positive that his humiliating experience plus the knowledge he had acquired would keep him sober the rest of his life self-knowledge would fix it and you'll see what happened to him he talks about on page 41 that he went to his hotel leisurely dressed for dinner now let's watch the progression of the insanity as i crossed the threshold of the dining room the thought came to mind that if i it would be nice to have a couple of cocktails with dinner that was all nothing more and he ordered a drink it was real easy it was really easy for him to buy the lie he didn't have much to push aside he didn t even think he was alcoholic the bottom paragraph talks about as soon as I regained my ability to think that's trouble right there I went carefully over the evening in Washington not only had I been off guard I've made no fight whatever against first drink this time i had not thought of the consequences at all i just found myself in a bar i think the bottom line of that page really sums up this part of the first step for me if i have an alcoholic mind i will drink again i hear a lot of people say the first step for them is i can't drink i think they're missing some real freedom and some real admission. The bottom line of the first step for me is on my own, left to my own devices, on my old power, I will drink again. If my mind isn't treated in a dramatic way through these 12 steps like an entire psychic change, if the mind that came to AA five years ago wasn't changed, if those obsessions that gnawed on me you know that's why it's so hard for me to talk to new people sometimes because i know that that obsession is on them and it's just gnawing at them almost every day because i was that way when i came to treatment and the idea that you can tell someone that that can literally be removed and that you don't ever have to suffer from that obsession that gnawing obsession that's just on your back ever again that was like a dream to me that was like a fantasy I certainly didn't believe that could happen because I'd lived with it for about the last nine ten years of my drinking you mean that obsession can literally be removed that's what these that's what these first nine steps are all about he later makes some admissions on page 42 five lines from the top after the experience he had he knew from that from that moment that he had an alcoholic mind and he saw that willpower and self-knowledge would not help in those strange mineral blank spots. I'd never been able to understand people who said that a problem had them hopelessly defeated. I knew then. Two people came to see him. They asked him if he thought himself an alcoholic and if he was really licked this time. He had to concede both propositions. They piled on him heaps of evidence to the effect that an alcoholic mentality such as I had exhibited in Washington was a hopeless condition. They cited cases out of their own experience by the dozen. This process snuffed out the last flicker of conviction that I could do the job myself. There is the bottom line of the first step. You go through this first step and ask yourself, has this first-step process snuffed off the last flicker of conviction that you can do the job yourself. And if you can answer that, then it's time to go on. And that also reaffirms that you don't have to drink again to find that out, that this process can do that. I think people that tell someone to go drink to find out before they put some effort into it and spend some time with that person and do what these two guys did, I think they're selling the process short. I think there are people with not much faith in this process of the first step. because I think if you sit down and you do with somebody what's in this book what these two guys that came to see these two boys these two men from Alcoholics Anonymous did with this guy in this example see I want the easy way out someone doesn't believe right away I want to tell them oh go drink and find out but if I'm willing to take the time and the effort and sit down with somebody and help them look back through their life at all the things that we've covered in these first 43 pages I have enough faith in this process to know that this process can get you to the first step then they outlined the spiritual answer, step two and the program of action which a hundred of them had followed successfully three through twelve though I had been only a nominal churchman their proposals were not intellectually hard to swallow but the program of action though entirely sensible was pretty drastic it meant I would have to throw several lifelong conceptions out the window that was not easy i was asked to use that as a prayer i was ask to use a prayer at this point please let everything i think i know about myself my disease this program and these steps and you, God be put aside for an open mind and a new experience with myself my disease this program and you and it's a very powerful prayer we sometimes have more trouble with people that have been around the program for a while and either made it or not made it in going through these steps because they have a lot of stuff to unlearn that hasn't worked. Now, I'm not asking for that stuff to be thrown away. I'm asking for it to be put aside for an open mind and a new experience knowing that whatever is true, whatever is of God, will come back anyway. He talks about quite as important as this knowledge about himself and this decision he made and the program of action being outlined was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems. You know, how many people do we hear in AA say, this program is just about not drinking and then deny God in every other area of their life. Well, he certainly can't do anything over here and he certainly cannot do anything in my family or my business or any of this. This tells me that spiritual principles and the power of God that we get to tap into in this program can solve all my problems. Yet I want to deny that. i was real confused by this next statement until i looked back at the ideas about choice he says here i've since been brought into a way of living infinitely more satisfying and i hope more useful than the life i lived before my old manner of life was by no means a bad one see we're not bad we're Not Bad trying to get good we're sick trying to Get Well but i would not exchange his best moments for the worst i have now now here's the statement I would not go back to it even if I could what is he saying there I would NOT go back to it even if I could there was no choice you'll find another story at the end of the next chapter on the last page of the chapter to the agnostic where a guy says the same thing and they say what is this but a miracle of healing this book repeats itself and we've looked at some of the same stuff over and over but after next week we're not going to look at the symptoms anymore all we've done in looking at the body can you control what you drink once you start and all we have done in looking at the mind can you control staying stopped all we have done is look at the symptoms of alcoholism and that's about all I find in the 17 years that I drank and drugged from here on we are going to look at the rest of the steps and we are finally at step 4 going to get down to the root the spiritual sickness that was there before you ever took drink but once more they're going to repeat themselves and they're gonna sum up everything we've covered from page 23 to page 43 about the mind once more the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink except in a few rare cases neither he nor any other human being nor or any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a higher power. Yet I'm going to choose the group to be my higher power after I've just seen that no human power is going to provide me that defense. Now if that's all you can choose when you're new, that's fine. But the day will come when you'll see you will need something more than human power to carry this out. I had a roommate in Denver when I was newly sober who chose a lamppost as a higher power. And we were sitting in a meeting one night and he looked out the window at this storefront meeting and he saw a dog peeing on a lamphost and he figured he better change his conception. You'll find that the first paragraph on the next page sums up the two points we've looked at really well. They've taken 44 pages plus the doctor's opinion to help you look at the two points they're going to summarize in one paragraph. In the preceding chapters, and this is really where we can start to use the book and see every statement as a question and answer them ourselves. So let's read this. In the proceeding chapters, have you learned something about alcoholism? Have they made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic? And then here's the two questions. Two points, repeat it again. when you honestly wanted to did you find you couldn't quit entirely could you control staying stopped or if when drinking did you have little control over the amount you drank you're probably alcoholic if that be the case and here's what you can think about till next week if that being the case do you believe you're suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer Thank you.