Physical Allergy and Mental Obsession – And Joe H. – Prescott Big Book Study – Part 1 of 8 – Mark H.

nice thing and I can't remember that I have this thing this phenomenon called craving the reason I know that going to experience if ten years before coming day a I knew this happened and I drink for another 10 years this information although was nice to have has never kept me from drinking nor is it kept any of you from drinking but it doesn't explain to me why I'm physically powers having worked a lot with chronic relapsers and some of those were older men and women and some have had a long time. People who have long-term sobriety to pick up a drink or start doing drugs again, very few of them ever make it back to AA. Most die and die quickly. Why? Because this physical part of our illness seems like the older we get gets worse whether we're drinking or not drinking. Meaning if I was to pick up a drink I strongly suspect I would drink 24-7 recently a man I'd done some work with one time he had 18 years he was a medical doctor, addictionologist worked in the field for a while picked up a drink at 18 years took him 6 years to come back to AA I did some work with him when I lived in Austin, Texas boy did he teach me how deadly self-pity is and he also taught me how deadly it is to analyze god uh and he also taught me how deadly it is to have these old belief systems about a judgmental god but he got about two years picked up another drink sent him to a longer term treatment facility he was there four or five months got back on his feet went back up to canada back practicing medicine again i was supposed to go up to canada i went up to canada six weeks ago to speak at a convention i talked to him probably three months ago he was excited about me coming up I'd done a bunch of work wonderful man I get a call two weeks before I'm supposed to get on the plane from a friend of mine that said Ed is dead I don't know how I get to a lot I get up to Canada I hadn't been there 10-15 minutes this guy comes up introduced himself he's a doctor he said I want to talk to you for a minute I know you did some work with Ed I know that you knew him he said what I want to tell you is ed picked up a drink and he drank himself to death in four days 52 years old brilliant man brilliant man one time was medical director of two treatment centers for chemical addiction deadly thing we got here but this explains what happens to me when i take a drink and your age by the way has nothing to do with this see i tell you one of the things that the big book will do every reason why you think you're not one of us the big book Will strip you and it'll pull away and it will say it doesn't matter when you take a drink did you lose control is this you but this is so expertly covered in the doctor's opinion I always thought that this process this recovery process that I started at six months sober dying of a part of the disease I didn't know I had I always though this process began for me was step one please don't ever let me forget this process began with the 12th step in somebody else's heart who still cared to be there and still carried the message that could save an alcoholic like me it begins with the twelfth step in somebody else's if you're new and they've told you you're the most important person in the room finally they've recognized your true importance but please don't forget you might be the life blood but blood needs a heart to flow through and those are the men and women that have a solution for you because if you were sitting in a room with all new people who have no solution the county jail would have worked for a lot of us we don't need to be with people with the same problem. We need to be in rooms with a magical combination of people who have the same problem and have a common solution. In jail, penitentiary, they paraded people by me who I said in my heart, this man has been where I've been but they never had a solution. And they paraded People By Me that had a Solution but the first thing I would say was he doesn't know where I've Been. And I think the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous happened for me when I heard a man that I knew in my heart was like me, felt like me been where I'd been, lived with that question, what's wrong with me? Didn't know if he was an addict or an alcoholic or both he'd been where i'd been but I also knew at the same time he had been changed. But you know what I thought that took me six months to ask him? I thought he had changed himself. So when your ego has rebuilt or you're someone who really believes you've changed yourself and smashed your ego and brought about your surrender and chose not to drink, don't be surprised if here and there once in a while you meet an alcoholic or a drug addict who looks at you and you scare him because he knows he doesn't have a choice. One of the main slogans in Los Angeles is we don't drink no matter what and you know what? If I could drink no mater what if I could just not drink no matter what, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn' t be here this weekend. I'd be home in Los Angeles not drinking no matter what, smashing my ego, working on my defects, bringing about another surrender. I needed to meet men and women who drink no matter what. So this process did not begin for me at Step 1, nor was I in Step 1 when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe if there is a step one, there must be a step zero. They talk about it in my home group in Santa Monica a lot. Step zero? Step zero is that wonderfully horrible period of time from your last drink until you give yourself to the first step of recovery. That could be six months. I was ready to kill myself. But I had a great six months until I was given the grace to see the nature of my condition further away from my last drink than I'd ever been. That's baffling if you still think alcohol or drugs or both were your problem. Alcohol and drugs were my solution that I poured on the problem for a long time, and for a lot of years, for a very long time it worked. Step zero is that period of time where you're rounding around and around, and you know what you're doing in step zero? Whether it's four months or four days or four years or 20 years before you give yourself to the first step, You know what you're doing in that circle in that zero step You're eliminating alternatives till you get down to two the big book says then you're ready for the program And what are those two alternatives die an alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis? Mine was like dying alcoholic death live on the spiritual basis, or do the best I could and Just not drink and I made it six months with that In the grace of God, but I was taking the credit I believe there's a form of denial stronger than the denial some of us came here with. And it's a forma of denial that you can be in five years sober, ten years sober fifteen years sober twenty, thirty and it's not talked about that much and I know I'm not the only one. Mark's had it other friends I know people in this room that have had it and it is not the denial of the disease it's the denial of the grace of God and that's when you're taking the credit. Look at the great job I've done thank God that God doesn't care whether he gets the credit or not he doesn't need any more credit but sometimes I can be in that denial and once again see I'm not in step 0 just once you can be in step 9.0 and all of a sudden those amends don't have nothing to do with being powerless over alcohol anymore and you're eliminating alternatives die an alcoholic death, live on a spiritual basis make amends or pursue a life. I have to get a life my God God's given me a new life some people say I got my old life back I don't want my old life or my old mind my sponsor said restore to sanity we're going to assume you went sober you went crazy four seconds after you were born you don't need to be restored to your old mind you need a new mind so step zero is that wonderful place that can be wonderfully horrible until you're ready for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. You're eliminating alternatives. Die an alcoholic death, live on a spiritual basis, or get the right girlfriend. Die an alcoholic death, live on spiritual basis or just go to meetings. Die an alcoholic death live on a spiritual basis or get the right job and you run all those things into the ground because those things will not bring up they will not treat your spirit another thing I wanted to mention was questions the mechanics that I wish that was shared with me on how to use the doctor's opinion was turn every statement into a question I was also told you should look at questions like a coin there's two sides to every question those of you that have been around for a while you would get a lot more bit from taking the question let's say the question is like does my experience abundantly confirm top of page 23 does my experienced abundantly confirmed that once I put alcohol in my system something happens which makes it virtually impossible for me to control the amount if you've been around for a while and you're going through the steps again it might be good to look at the other side of the coin maybe that's not true or maybe after this long period of sobriety that wouldn't happen again questions are like coins they have two sides the prayer was very important i had worked in treatment i had a degree i'd been a therapist drinking and now i'm here and i'm sober and i've been in the hospital for a long time six months and i am dying and it's confusing because i think the problem whatever it is I suffer from should be better after not drinking longer than I ever didn't drink. And I was worse, and I'm wondering what's wrong with me. And i finally went out to this man's house I'd heard in my first meeting, Don, and I said can you help me? He said I only know one way to do it. We're going to start on the title page, and we're going to go through the first 164 pages, and we're gonna stop at every statement. We are going to make it a question for you, and at every direction. We're going to stop until you finish that direction. I told him a little bit about my experience. He said, my God, you know enough about yourself, how you feel and alcoholism to be dangerous to yourself and everybody around you. Why don't you just say a prayer for an open mind and a new experience? Now he doesn't like it that we have sort of ritualized that, that some people call it the set aside prayer. He pulled a joke on me not too long ago. We were on the phone and he said to me you know you stuck me with something that I've been blamed for for a long time and I wondered what did I do now and I said what he said that set aside prayer but it was very helpful and it's been very helpful with people I've worked with and very helpful every time I've started the work in your own words in your only way I'm not really into it but be careful when you're working with someone or you're doing it yourself that you don't turn the prayer into, dear God, please help me set aside what I think I know about whatever it is you want an open mind and a new experience with. Everyone I've seen that changes that prayer has first step reservations. And it's interesting. I ask God to set aside what I know just long enough for me to have an open-minded and new experience. And there's information in the doctor's opinion and the rest of those chapters that I wasn't debating based on what I knew working or being in treatment. A set-aside prayer is very important. I would also like to talk about one other thing. I do not believe that we work the steps to stay sober. I believe if you're working the steps, you're probably already sober. I haven't seen too many people work the Steps drunk. And I learned this from a man who did the work in the big book for the first time when he was 20-something years sober. And he started this prayer. And he called me a few weeks later and he said, I have a real problem. I said, I know you do. What do you think it is? He said, for 23 years I've experienced the grace of God. I've seen it in every area of my life. I've sat with it. I've realized it. I've been in the grace of God Why do I need to do this work? I said I don't know I made it six months I was ready to blow my head off. He said I'll pray about that. He called me a few weeks later and he said, I know why I need to do this work. I'm an alcoholic and I would like to have a conscious contact with that which has been giving me this grace for all these years. And about a year and a half, two years later, he said to me that the difference between being in the grace of God, and I believe if you're an alcoholic or an addict or both and you're in this room tonight, you don't have any drugs or alcohol in your system, I believe you're In the Grace of God whether you take the credit for it or not. And he said, about two years later, he said the difference between being in the grace of God and having a conscious contact with that which has been giving you this grace is like night and day. So I bring myself to this prayer. I say it now in my own words and my own way. You should too. It doesn't need to be memorized or written down. You say it from your heart. There might be things on your mind different days. Let me have an open mind and a new experience with this appointment I have at 10 o'clock, with this meeting I have with where I am in the work with the craving and I know from my own experience you can have a first step experience gut level sober so as far as the mechanics if you're going through the doctor's opinion turn every statement you can into a question men and women drink essentially because they like the effect some of us became so good at our drinking we knew what to drink for a certain effect didn't you have that one thing that if you were going to fight was the right thing to drink? Didn't you have that right thing if you felt romantic really enhanced it? Didn't she have that drink that on a hot day was the wrong thing to do? The right thing to drink. We drink for the effect. And when I talk to people and when I listen to new people talk about when alcohol started working it doesn't happen for all of us right away for me it did but you listen to a real addict or a real alcoholic talk about when it started working they're going to describe a spiritual awakening. They're not going to just describe a substance that felt good and it was fun to party. You want to know what alcohol was like for me when it started working? Huge emotional displacements and rearrangements, ideas, emotions, and attitudes were cast aside and a new set of conceptions and motives began to dominate me. A personality change sufficient to not be suffering from the spiritual malady. Sudden and spectacular upheaval. Sometimes it was an immediate and overwhelming consciousness, a vast change in feeling and outlook. Profound alteration in my reaction to life. Here's another myth. How many in this room have been victim of the belief there's only 12 promises in our book when they read the promises halfway through the ninth step? Good. There's promises at every step And you know what? Every one of those promises, except for one set of promises that we don't hear about very much, every one of Those promises came true when alcohol was working. Take the nine-step promises and put just before it. When alcohol was Working, fear of economic insecurity would leave. Buy everyone a bar. Buy everyone A drink. Buy everyone, A bar. No matter how far down The scale you had gone, you're sitting In the bar, booze is working, and no matter how far down the scale you've gone, you actually thought your experience could benefit others. All those promises happened except the ones when you've entered the world of the Spirit. The 10th and 11th step promises that we don't hear about much in AA because not very many people get past the 8th and 9th step. They never become willing to make amends to them all and they never do. Imagine, our book says, imagine saying this in some meetings that we all know. The problem will be removed. sanity will return the big book promises a sixth sense besides the five that you've depended on your whole life you'll be taken to a fourth dimension beyond body mind and emotion that's all i had to be dominated by before i found the great reality deep down within so it started for me with the doctor's opinion and i found out the beginning of that answer what's wrong with me why did i do what i did the day of my dad's funeral when my mother begged me not to drink and i said to her with all my heart. Was it that I didn't love her? Was it that I wanted to show up drunk? I didnít want to. But I found out that I have a physical reaction to alcohol. Why did I drink 28 days out of the penitentiary? I donít have any booze in my system. The insanity of alcohol returned. And the insanity of alcoholism is not what you do when youíre drunk. Itís the insanity of picking up that first drink. The best way Iíve ever heard it was in Australia. And the guy said, I never took the first drink drunk. I never took the first drink drunk. That's the insanity of alcoholism. I wish we had more time tonight to have spent some more time with the preface and the forwards. There's a lot of stuff in there about our history, how the book changed, how they added stories. But I think one of the most important, and back to one of our original questions, is the forward to the first edition. My home group uses it as part of our format. We of Alcoholics Anonymous are more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. You see, I don't suffer from a hopeless state of mind and body because I'm not craving booze and I'm not obsessed about it. To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. My, how that's been forgotten. And it's not popular anymore, is it? I use Bill's story, get through the doc's opinion. I read the first eight pages of Bill's Story and I work with three words. When did I think, drink, or feel like Bill? That's to follow an instruction they gave me in the forwards. Did this happen to me? Am I like this. And I highlight anywhere where I think, drink, or feel like Bill, and regardless of your age, if you're a real alcoholic, you're going to find yourself all over those pages. I do not read pages 9 through 16 in Bill's story until I'm up to the eighth step, and the reason is because pages 9-16 will discuss Bill as he moves through the process and the steps, and I'm going through to have a new experience and I am not there, so I'm not going to read it until I get to the eighth step. Then I'm gonna go back and compare my experience to the one he describes to see if I had the same experience. But at the same time, it can be very beneficial to use 9-16 with somebody doing it the first time or doing it again yourself to ask yourself, is there anything in 9-6 that Bill did that I'm not willing to do? When I start to work with somebody, I give them some questions. Is this work what you want to do? Are you willing to go to any length? Why do you want to do this work, and why with me? Because most of the idiots I get, that's exactly what I'm asking myself by the time they leave my house. Why me? And I find out why. And those, I believe, sometimes sponsors don't know that it's as much, I think, I believe it's just as much of a commitment for me as it is for the person who's asked me to take them through this work or to be a sponsor. And you know what? if you ask me to be your sponsor or to go through the steps if you want to do this work to get a wife back or straighten out your life I'm not your guy if it has something to do with life and death so as much as I agree with Mark I think it can also be beneficial as a guide to the rest of what's coming to see and ask them to mark anything in 9-16 they're not willing to do that Bill did so as Mark said with 1-8 you're examining your drunk log not Bill's I read Bill's story I was never married, I wasn't in war, and I'm not a stockbroker. And this old boy in Denver told me, why don't you put aside the differences and look for the similarities as far as, like Mark said, drink, how he drank, how we thought, how it felt. I've seen women go through Bill's story and mark three-fourths of it. When you look at your... It brings you to your own drunk-along. And in 9 and 16, you can get an idea of what you're going to be asked to do in the rest of the steps. page 20 there's some important things in this page I work with you may already have asked yourself why is it we became so very ill from drinking doubtless you may be curious to discover how and why in the face of expert opinion to the contrary we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body so if you're an alcoholic who wants to get over you maybe already be asking what do I have to do. It is the purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically. And then they spend a paragraph describing all the things that people have said to us over the years, and actually we could add to that some of the one-liners that I hear in the meetings. You know, here I can take it or leave it alone, why can't he? Just don't drink, go to meetings. Right? put the plug in the jug. All of those one-liners may as well be in this part here, and the book says that these are observations on drinkers we hear all the time, but back to them is a world of ignorance and misunderstanding. These expressions or all of these statements refer to people whose reactions to alcohol and drugs are different from ours. I will never say those kinds of things, and here's why. I went to a bunch of AA meetings about two years before I got struck sober, and I got stuck sober. And I heard some of that cute stuff. So I'm sitting there, and I hear a guy that says he doesn't drink between meetings, and i drink. And I hear guy that say just don't drink and go to meetings or don't pull the bowl out of jugs. And I do all that, and you know what my head starts saying? AA will not work for me because those people can do some things I can't do, which is why we probably have no business saying that baloney in our meeting. If you got the power to do all that stuff, you're not an alcoholic. I am powerless over alcohol. I don't decide whether the plug stays in the jug or comes off of it or not. But now the book's going to talk about two kinds of drinkers and then a real alcoholic. And so if you're sitting here and you had any questions about alcohol, drugs, whatever, this part can help you. First of all, it's going to talk about this moderate drinker and they define this person. They have little trouble in giving up liquor entirely if they have good reason. So I ask myself, did you ever have good reason to give up liquor internally? Yes. How about cocaine? Yes Could you do that? It says they can take it or leave it alone. Could you? And I go into my experience and I go, no I could not take it nor leave it along. I seem to always take it So that means I'm not that guy. So we'll go on to the next one. We've got a hard drinker. This person has a habit bad enough to impair me physically and mentally. That was true of me. This habit may cause me to die a few years before my time. This is true. If a sufficiently strong reason, they give some. Ill health, falling in love, change of environment, wanting to be a doctor, and you could add to that. parents, wife's going to leave, criminal justice system, you name it. Here's what this person does. This person can stop or moderate. And so I ask myself, did you ever have sufficient reason, Mark, to stop, stay stopped and moderate? Oh yeah, long list of them. Based on your experience, could you pull that off on your power? No, then I'm not this guy either. And what I'm left with is the real alcoholic. The real alcoholic may start off as a moderate drinker, he may not even become a hard drinker but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption or drugs once he starts to drink. Is this you Mark? Yes, now I got my truth. I'm a real alcoholic based on fitting this criteria. I don't fit the criteria of being a moderate or a hard. Now, I want to tell you something else that I've seen happen in our fellowship. If you're a real alcoholic and get a hard drinker as a sponsor, how do you think that's going to work? There's hard drinkers sitting in the rooms of AA who had something happen, came to AA, they liked the fellowship and stayed. You know how I can tell them? They don't need to do step work. they can just not drink and go to meetings they absolutely can they got power they don't have to make all their amends they don'y have to work with the strict disciplines of 10 and 11 they don''t have to sponsor people I know I've helped people in the rooms of AA find out their truth that they're not alcoholic and there isn't a single one of them that's ever had to do what this book asked me to do and the reason is the book says it's because they got powder but this is me I'm the real alcoholic I'm the guy that lost control. Now I'm starting to find out a lot more about me and who I am using the big book as we're outlining here. And then if you turn over to page 23, and I want to talk briefly about pages 23 to 43. Top of page 23 looking at the body stops. From page 23 to 164, the big look will no longer talk to you and I about drinking. about having alcohol in our body why because it says because mark all of this information would be academic and pointless you never took the first drink and i see the truth of that therefore the main problem of the alcoholic or addict centers in my mind rather than in my body what in god's name are they saying now i told you earlier this is based on experience I believe 23 to 43 to be the least understood pages of the book by anyone I've ever known with relapse history so let's cover some key points in these pages and I want you to remember something when we talk about pages 23 to 44 we are talking about the times in your life in which you were sober and your mind took you back to a drink and did you choose that? or is it possible that sober at certain times you have lost the power of choice you have no effective mental defense and it doesn't matter what the reason is there's a part of you that's going to take you back is that possible that you're one of those kind of people in the bottom of page 23 it talks about the tragic truth if the man be a real alcoholic like this happy day may not arrive, he's lost control. See, I've lost control when it's in my body and I've loss control over staying stopped. And it talks about at a certain point in my drinking, I passed into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking was of no avail. And then you have this paragraph in squiggly lines. And this is not good news, by the way, if you're sitting in this room and this is you. this is not a good news paragraph I'm going to tell you that right up front I think that's why they put it in squiggly lines they wanted me to make sure it caught my attention and here's why it's in this paragraph they explain very clearly to me that why sober I'll commit the most insane act I've ever done because the fact is that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure we don't know we've lost the power of choice in drink, period. They are not talking to me about having taken a drink, they're talking to me about prior to taking a drink. I have lost the power of choice and drink, and they're kind enough to elaborate on why, because choice comes from will. They go on to say, here's why you've lost the power choice and dream, because your so-called willpower, which is where choice comes from, becomes practically non-existent. You're going to be unable at certain times to bring into your consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of a week or a month ago. You are without defense against the first drink. That paragraph changed my life in this program. Why do you think it did that? Because it showed me I needed something between me and my mind sober taking me back. I needed power. I saw the truth of this. I saw that number of times that I was sober and I was unable at certain times to bring into my mind the consciousness of the suffering of a week or a month ago when I took a drink and I'm stone cold sober and I didn't want to drink and I drank. And what do we hear? Just think it through. Think the drink through. Or remember your last drunk. I can tell from some of the faces in this room, there's probably some men and women in this room who can't remember the last several months. So what are they? In big trouble. I love when blackout drinkers get up and tell you detail after detail after detail. I think blackout drinkers, I think Blackout is by the grace of God. I think that's an act of grace. If remembering the pain of your last drunk is enough to keep you sober, then the memory of the pain you had the last time you gave birth to a child would be a great birth control method. I can't bring to my mind, but yet I'll suffer from the delusion in Alcoholics Anonymous, today I have a choice and if the thought comes, I'm either going to remember the pain of my last drunk or where it's going to take me. It's crazy. There will come a time there will be no effective mental defense. And they go on and they talk more about that, and I just want to get some of the main sentences because this part is just so important. It talks about, see sometimes people have this idea that consequences would keep me from taking a drink. A gentleman we just read about in the Phoenix paper, he suffered some consequences prior to what he just did. You can pick up the paper every day and read about somebody who suffered severe consequences, had a period of time with no alcohol in them, and picked up a drink. Go into your own experience. Consequences have never prevented me from picking up a dream. I don't care what they were, divorce, job, physical health. They had no power to keep me away from a drink, and some people make it sound like they drink a lot or they start drinking again because of an emotional state or circumstance. If you honestly look back through your experience, it probably didn't matter, the circumstance. I drink when she stays. I drink when he leaves. I drank when the team wins. I'd drink when the team loses. I'll drink when I'm feeling bad. I will drink when I'm good and I love to drink when i'm not feeling much at all because that's the place I hate. And I'm gonna tie that in later when we get to the question, why do you believe God's working in your life today? I believe if you're first step you can get free of circumstance or emotional state having anything to do with it. You can get free of some stuff down the road that plagues people too. Emotional state and circumstance doesn't have nothing to do With the craving or the obsession. I can be feeling good the obsession they give you examples. The car salesman, the other guy after many years out come the carpet slippers and he drinks again the guy that has no clout on the horizon they give you examples especially in more about alcoholism of different circumstances and different emotional states that have nothing to do with the obsession returning yes the obsession returns because of an untreated spirit but it'll come at any time and the funny thing is about that summary and i love that the book at the end of 23 when you're not going to talk about the craving anymore ends with a summary question. Don't go past the top of 23 until your experience abundantly confirms that once you put alcohol in your system, something happens, which makes it virtually impossible for you to stop. And don't go pass the bottom of 43 until your experienced person abundantly confers that at a certain time there'll be no effective mental defense against the first drink. Neither me nor any other human power is going to be able to provide that defense and that it must come from a higher power. You think the group keeps you sober? You think your sponsor keeps you sober? Move 1,500 miles away from your sponsor and have some time when you're not at meetings. And slowly slowly you get brought back out of that denial of the grace of God to what's already there. It's already here. Some other things back on 24 you hear this in meetings about thinking through the drink. It says the alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way, it won't burn me this time, so here's how. Or look at the next sentence, or perhaps he doesn't think at all. How can you think through the drink if you get taken to a state where you don't think it all? And some of you that have been around for a while probably think that it would be the lie that would take you out of here. One of our heroes told us a long time ago to look at our experience and see that the ego will use the very best of you. At your very best. Some of you have been further away from your last drink than you've ever been, in good shape, things going well, and bam, you drank again. What about this idea? I think most of us in this room would be taken out by an idea that would be the truth. You're sitting on a plane, you watch somebody serve a drink, your mind says that's really pretty is that a lie it is pretty red wine whiskey gee i bet that would taste good is that alive not if you love the taste of whatever it is you're looking at a couple of those would be nice is that alike see my sponsor told me when i was new and it's true to this day the truth doesn't work for me if there's no power behind the truth I could know the truth all day long I knew enough about myself and alcoholism like I said to kill myself and people around me there's got to be some power behind the truth the truth would take me out my sponsor said the truth doesn't work for you you have the unique ability to take the truth in here find the edge think of how you're going to use it and by the time it comes back out it's no longer the truth Dr. Silkworth said Alcoholics can't differentiate the true from the false. Back then that meant to me I couldn't tell the difference between what it was doing to me and what it was doing for me. Even when all you got left is oblivion and all you ever get is just out, it's not even hardly working anymore, that is still going to overwhelm what it's doing to you. You can't differentiate the true from the faults. The line that I think is important, whether you're new or old or in between, is also on the first page of More About Alcoholism. And this, I would say, could sum up every problem that I've ever had in sobriety. And you know what that is? The delusion that I am like other people presently has to be smashed over and over and over. I thought when they said that in that first paragraph, I thought they meant that when I was drinking. But the way it's worded here to me now in that second paragraph on page 30 these people saw that they had to fully concede to their innermost self that they were alcoholic. That's a gut level experience. That stuff just reading on the wall we admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives are unmanageable. I thought powerless over Alcohol meant I don't like where it takes me. No one had ever talked to me about the physical craving or the mental obsession. These people saw they had to fully concede to their innermost selves that they were alcoholic, this is the first step in recovery. And then the one that sums it up, the delusion that we are like other people or presently maybe like other People has to be smashed. A lot of people go out with big time behind that because they think they're like normal People now. We're not like normal people sober. we need power we're not just someone who can walk into a church hear a great sermon and go home and start to practice that we would like to you do it for about a week or so and then the needed power isn't there we're people that suffer from a disease that's rooted whether you're talking about the craving, the obsession or the spiritual malady we suffer from a disease that's rooted in lack of power I don't have the power to control the amount once I start I don't have the power to keep myself stopped once I stop. No one in this room probably had a trouble stopping. Staying stopped is the problem. And I don' t have the ability and I don''t have thepower to heal the spiritual malady. I suffer from lack of power no matter which part of the three-part disease you're talking about. I can't keep myself sober. yeah you're talking about in terms of the time yes there was a schedule change i mean if you have to go go we're going to uh go another 14 minutes yeah sorry i forgot we forgot to announce that i've had a change of heart and ideas about a page that we used to take sometimes it was helpful sometimes it was not. And that is the bottom of page 31 where it says, we don't 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. Try to drink and stop abruptly. Try it more than once. It will not take long for you to decide if you are honest with yourself about it and it might even be worth a bad case of the jitters to get a full knowledge of your condition. I had to go back and I had to read Marty Mann's primer on alcoholism she was the first woman to stay sober in AA, the first women in AA blew her head off killed herself the second woman, the first woman to stay sober in AAA was Marty Mann her story is in the older editions Marty Mann story was a story called Women Suffer Too in the first section of the first Pioneers of AA. She founded the National Council on Alcoholism. She wrote a book, and people in Denver used to say that in that book she suggested a test that if you're not convinced, you try two drinks a day for 30 days, no more, no less. I had to go back and read that because I found this out. That might not happen to an alcoholic that's in the grace of God. So I went back and I read, and she was talking about a drinking alcoholic who's in that pattern of drinking with the craving, obsession. She says during that time, try to stop that pattern of drinking and control it. I don't give the drinking test to people. I don' t even suggest it to people that are sober because how would you know? What if they passed and all it was was a period of time of grace? They might find out they aren't. It might kill them. I think that test should be tried for somebody who's still in their drinking, experiencing the craving. My experience with the first step the first time was this. I had a huge drug history and you know we have to talk about it and we talked about it earlier. I've been addicted to drugs but does that mean that I'm a drug addict? That'd be like saying every hard drinker in the world is an alcoholic. He just described a hard drink. He can have a habit, he can be physically and mentally impaired, alcohol might even kill him. Give him a good reason, he makes up his mind and he walks away from alcohol. It's a hard drinker. So what my sponsor did with me is we went through those pages with drugs and I found out I've had the craving for drugs. If you gave my mother, God rest her soul, you gave my mother cocaine. You gave any normal person you can think of cocaine, they're going to experience a physical craving. They might even, if they have a habit badly enough, experience a mental obsession. So here I was looking through my experience. I saw the craving and the obsession for certain drugs. Then he went back to that page that Mark just went over, the most important page in the first step, the moderate, the hard, and the real alcoholic. Those aren't three kinds of alcoholics. Those are three kinds of drinkers. I'm definitely not a moderate drug user. Maybe I'm a real addict, but maybe I was a hard drug user, so I went back and I looked at my experience. Given a sufficiently strong reason, I made up my mind. I walked away from heroin. Couldn't quit drinking. Woke up one day, I said, I hate the way cocaine makes me feel. Walked away from it. Never did it again the rest of my life. Couldn't quite get out and couldn't quit drinking. So technically, by the book, I'm an alcoholic drug user who's a real alcoholic. And they use the same guidelines with alcohol. I'm definitely not a moderate drinker. Maybe I'm just a hard drinker, and I looked at the sufficiently strong reasons. So what I'm saying is I believe that page that he went over with the moderate, the hard, and the real. Is it applicable if you're working with a drug addict? As applicable as you're working with an alcoholic, and maybe if somebody finds both. In all these years, Mark and I have met very few people that are a real addict and a real alcoholic, but there are exceptions. There's people that're both. Our friend here tonight damn near died in Alcoholics Anonymous being told that he was alcoholic. Guy came over to my house one day, and he said, I want to go through the work. I said, great. We started into the doctor's opinion. He said, i need to tell you something that's never happened with alcohol, that craving. He says, I can take or leave alcohol. I said why do you say you're alcoholic and he said something really sad to me because he'd been in this program seven years he said to me I say I'm alcoholic because they told me I am he was never given the grace or the dignity to find his own truth why is it so important to find your own truth in the first step because it's a program that demands rigorous honesty and we've seen people start the work based on a lie get to the ninth step crazier than when they started it's also a program that requires identification we had a lot of relapses in here I want to go back to something on page 24 25 and a couple other things speak briefly to the spirituality but bottom of page 24 we've gone through and we've looked at this idea is this me? does my experience confirm I've lost the power of choice in drink or drugs have I sober with sufficient reason has my mind taken me back and if that is so that's me the book says at the bottom of 24 when this sort of thinking is established an individual with alcoholic tendencies with that experience he or she has probably placed themselves beyond human aid you need to ask yourself a question have I and what does that mean to me I was very clear I made a list of all the forms of human aid I had attempted to work with to not drink and I was very clear no human was going to keep me away from alcohol why is that important because if you're beyond human aid what's left see I was somewhere between agnostic or atheist my first time through this work. But I'm not an idiot when all I'm left with is beyond human aid, when my experience abundantly confirms that it got me very open-minded about the God issue. I was no longer in the debating society about God. I just needed power. And then on page 25, four lines up, i get to i get two options again here they are the bitter end or spiritual help yet we're the only people that say well what does the bitter and look like you know well ultimately it always looks like the bitter in and ultimately it's death and it may take years you know i've seen it take many shapes and forms i actually i think my my friend ed was lucky we drank himself to death in four days i've i've seen horrible horrible things happen to people paralyzed from the neck down and uh you you relapsers get this part get this that you're beyond human aid let's tell a gentleman to break there are some of us in the book in one of the chapters to the wives talks about four kinds of drinkers, four kinds of alcoholics. And there are some of us that absolutely better make this a way of life 24-7, that our spirits need to be fed. And you better find out if you're one of them. And if you are, if that's you, then I strongly suggest you surrender and embrace this as a way of life. And how you feel about that or what you think about that, I don't think makes much difference, quite frankly. And it's one of the first paradoxes in our program. The one that's in the worst shape, they say, has a better chance for this program. Type 1 may or may not even be alcoholic. He's begun to get in trouble, he or she. Second one's in a little more trouble. Third one's a little bit more troubled. The fourth one has reached a place of hopelessness and he has a better chance. Why? The other ones still have alternatives. It saddens me sometimes when people come to this program before they're done the seed might be planted they might remember something it's a horrible struggle when you're not done and I think most of this this debate about all that comes from a statement God has either removed the obsession or he hasn't you know or the one that I really like you know those people we get to watch he wants to want to he wants to want to be sober. I don't identify with these guys. Hey, I went out for two nights and I got myself back to a meeting. I relate to this guy that I know in Los Angeles. He did all the work. Famous comedian. Everywhere he goes, pats on the back and applauds. He had about ten amends left and he became adamant. I'm not making that one, I'm not making that one. I'm certainly not going back to New York and drank, and he can't get back, and He wants to be sober really, really bad. Some people drink past desire, choice, whether it's right, wrong, necessary. You know? I'm a type four, and I think there's more hope for me than anybody who still thinks they have other than two alternatives. But I'll tell you what, to die an alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis, my first thought was, what do you mean living on a spirit? A spiritual basis wouldn't always be wonderful. You know, sometimes stuck in grace is not always a great thing. He couldn't drink even if he would. It's not a wonderful promise sometimes when you're 15, 20 years sober and you're suffering and you believe the work won't work. One of the saddest things I've heard from people with time is I've worked the steps. You know what they're telling you? there is no more God for me. Then they go off to graduate school and those programs that hook alcoholics. AA was kindergarten, but you come to our program and it's graduate school and they start doing stuff instead of rather than along with. We hear about a lot of people going out behind insanity. What about the people we lose all the time that just blow right out the top of AA? Either there's nothing, either I'm, take three words, power, control, and choice. If you're powerless and you've lost control, whether you start or you stop, how could you have a choice? If you lose one, you lose all three. What am I going to say to you? Hi, my name is Joe. I'm an alcoholic. I's powerless over alcohol, and today I have a choice. I've run into people that actually say, God gave me a choice to drink again. I got to ask and what kind of God did you choose that would give you a choice over something you absolutely know is going to kill you? I don't have a choice today. There's nothing I can do to keep myself sober. And I'm not doing this, carrying the message or going back through the steps to keep my soul sober or manage my life. I've tried it. It didn't work. It didn' t work. I go through the step I carry the message I work with other people I work the steps, I read the book I go to meetings and I have a sponsor because those things help me seek a deeper relationship with that which is already keeping me sober they're just fingers we don't worship the fingers you give your sponsor the finger, he's just a finger don't give him the finger we're out of time for tonight we will resume this tomorrow morning at 9am silence followed with the serenity prayer thank you serenety prayer God grant me the serenITY to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference I'd like to read something that has helped me a lot. It's called Dismount Your Donkey at the Summit. Some places in this world are very hard to climb, and people use animals. Each person can only ride one, and each animal might have a different name. The riders go up the trail in different orders, and they discuss their varying opinions about their experiences. They may even have conflicting opinions. One traveler may think the trip thrilling, another may find it terrifying, and a third may find it banal. At the summit, all the travelers stand in the same place. Each of them has the same chance to view the same vistas. The donkeys are put to rest and graze. They are not needed anymore. We all travel the same path to God. The donkies are the various doctrines that each of us embraces. What does it matter which doctrine we embrace as long as it leads us to the summit? Your donkey might be a Zen donkey. Mine might be an... ...donkeys all lead to the same place. Why do you poke fun at others over the name of their donkey? Aren't you riding one yourself? We should put aside both the donkey and our interim experiences once we arrive at the summit. Whether we climb in suffering or joy is immaterial, we are there. Our religions have different names for the ways of getting to the holy summit. Once we reach the summit, we no longer need names, and we can experience all things directly. We spent some time last night talking about the circle and triangle in the table of contents and forwards some general information about AA. We talked at length about your first step experience is what will bring about a willingness to do the rest of the things that the big book is going to ask you to do to have a revolutionary spiritual experience. I shared with you my own experience about the importance of a current experience with a first step. I've been sober since October 19th of 1982. My first step experience, is it alive for me today? Or is it just an old memory of something that used to be a long time ago? Do I still need power? We looked at some information in the doctor's opinion about this thing about, am I powerless physically? Do I have this thing that they call an allergy? A manifestation of a craving which addresses the issue really of control. When I take a drink, do I lose power, choice, and control over how much I drink? That answer really is yes or no based on my experience. Spent some time looking at a moderate drinker, a hard drinker. Real alcoholic. What separates the real alcoholic from the moderate drinkers or hard drinkers is loss of control. It has nothing to do with how much you drank, how often you drank how old you are, etc., etc. It has to do it loss of the control. from there we began to look at page 23 of the big book where we're told that our main problem centers in our mind rather than in our body and we looked at the idea the reason the book says that is because if your experience was like mine years before i came to aa i knew that when i took a drink or i did a line of cocaine that i lost control but i kept doing it anyway so knowing that I have an allergy and knowing that that's why I break out in a phenomenon of craving is good information insomuch as that it explains some things about me and this relationship I have with alcohol at the same time though I went into my experience and I saw that knowing that information never kept me from picking up a drink because I forget that I forget that that thing happens to me and I don't have the capacity at certain times to bring to bear the memory of the suffering and humiliation of a week or month ago. Therefore, I am without defense against the first drink. We looked at this idea. We posed the question, how many of you are choosing to stay sober? And some of you raised your hands that you were, and we asked you to ask yourself, where did you get that belief system? And we looked at what the big book said, the big book said, no Mark, you've lost the power of choice and drink. And it went on to elaborate why. Choice comes from will, and at certain times my will is going to be completely unavailable to me. And It was in those pages that I was shown that I have two options, to die an alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis, based on what I'd seen so far in the book, if my experience is similar to what these people described. There's one other piece that I want to read which describes my mind and describes to me alcoholic insanity. It's on page 42 of the big book. It talked about they had said that though I did raise a defense, this is a story of about a 12-step call made on a guy who thought he had choice around alcohol. It said that they said that through I did rise a defense. your reason for not taking a drink, it, this defense, would one day give way before some trivial reason for having a drink. Well, just that happened and more. For what I'd learned of alcoholism did not occur to me at all. Now there's some of us in here that we've got a few days away from alcohol, and I believe that statement speaks to us just as much as it speaks to a brand new person? He says, I knew from that moment I had an alcoholic mind. And this is now going to give me a description of me and my mind and why the book says, Mark, your main problem centers in your mind. I saw that willpower and self-knowledge would not help me in those strange mental blank spots. I'd never been able to understand people who said a problem had them hopelessly defeated. I knew then, and it was a crushing blow. Bottom of this page says quite as important was the discovery spiritual principles could solve all of my problems. We're going to talk about that later on in the weekend. Page 43, they sum it up again, about 10 lines up. As to two of you men whose stories I've heard, there's no doubt in my mind you're 100% hopeless apart from divine help. So go into your experience. Is this you? Has human aid, human help ever been able to keep you away from alcohol and or drugs? And has it ever brought about what the book calls a permanent effect? And they summarize these pages up in the last paragraph once more. The alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. Over the years, those words at certain times have gotten a lot brighter to me. The trap that I have fallen into at times, having some days between me and a drink, is taking days off from doing the spiritual disciplines of the 10th and 11th step. I believe that that's a crapshoot today, which is why I no longer do that. And my truth is, I don't know what the day looks like when this mind will take me back to a drink. And that being the case, and knowing that this is me, I'm willing to commit to the disciplines of the 10th and 11th step and what they ask me to do one day at a time until the day I die. I don't have the luxury of missing one day. That may be the day when this mind says let's go drink again. And I'm glad that I understand that. Experientially, I'm glad that I understand that." And he goes on to say, except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. My defense must come from a higher power. Is that my truth? Your first step experience will get you very open-minded about the concept of God. My first step experience got me open- minded about laying aside what I thought I knew about God for a new experience. My need for power. People who have said to me they're struggling with the God concept, I say to them, no you are not. You still haven't experienced your first step and the hopelessness of it. The only people I've known who are struggling with The God Idea are people who still think they have some kind of power or they haven't gone into their experience and seen the hopeless of their first step and their need for power. Steps 2 through 12, we move through 2 through 12 because of our need forpower, not wanting to die an alcoholic death. That is the only reason. There is no other reason. There is No Other Reason to do 2 through 12. They're acts against the will. I'm self-will run riot. I know better than anyone. There's no way in the world I'm going to do what this book asked me to do unless I see my need for power, to stay away from a drink, the unmanageability of my life. Real quickly, I want to talk about what we like to call the unMANAGEABILITY or the SPIRITUAL MALADY. And there is a line in our big book, it's on page 64, it says, When the spiritual malady is overcome, I straighten out mentally and physically. what is this spirituality what is its unmanageability my experience is it is describing an internal condition it is the way my mind and my emotions experience myself, you, and my life in my life situation there are words used to describe that restless, irritable, discontent we like to use some of the words on page 52 to describe this spirituality, in which it says I'm having trouble in personal relationships, cannot control my emotional nature. I am a prey to misery and depression. I are full of fear. I feel useless. I am unhappy. I cannot seem to be of help to others, and I am not satisfied with the life in which I am living. That condition, that state of consciousness, ultimately is what will always take me back to a drink, which is why I believe our big book says, Mark, when that spirituality in you is overcome, you straighten out mentally, meaning the mental obsession. And if you look at the rest of the steps that we're going to look at in the course of action we're gonna pursue, by the time you've done the work in steps two through nine, the spirituality has been treated, which is probably why in the 10th step it says, mark, you've now been restored to sanity. You've been placed in a position of neutrality. Because I took a course of action to eliminate the spirituality, which is a firing mechanism for the obsession of the mind and my need for a drink. So I have a three-fold illness, not a two-fold. I have an illness of the body. I take a drink and I break out in a phenomenon called craving. Sober, my mind takes me back to a drink even when I don't want to go back. That's my experience. Do I suffer from a spirituality, unmanageability? Yes. Do I believe that any human power can remove that? And I'll leave you with this thought. Where does the spirituality come from? How does that come about? A little later on in the book we're going to be told it comes from self-will. It comes from me playing God. See, I know better than God who's supposed to be in my life and where I'm supposed to live and how you're supposed to act, and the list flows on and on from there. I create the very thing that has me miserable that I then bring to my meetings and share with you. When you ask that great question, does anybody have a problem? What an insane thing to ask in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. See, the very think that creates the problem that you want to talk about in the meetings is the very things that will take me back to a drink, and I create it. The part of me who creates it you're not going to willingly commit suicide. See, my self-will can't eliminate my self will, hence the rest of the work. But this understanding my experience with the first step is what has kept me so connected to this spiritual way of life, to working and reworking these steps, to sponsorship, to accountability, to those kinds of things. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. My name's Joe. I'm an alcoholic. I have a little prayer I'd like to read. God, we invite you into this room to guide and direct each of us as we seek your truth. Father, please set aside within each of us that which would block us off from the truth. Lay aside our prejudices about what we think we know about this process this weekend and our spiritual condition. Remove our fears, Lord, that we may hear your truth through the members of this group. Give us the strength and courage to share your truth with each other in a real spirit of love and compassion for our fellow men. Amen. I have a test for real alcoholics and real drug addicts, and it comes in the form of affirmations. You know how you read some of these New Age affirmations and it says something like, look in the mirror and realize you're a perfect child of the universe? and after you read it, you feel like a piece of shit? Well, I have a theory and it was proven true by two women in the program in New York that for real alcoholics, if you do the opposite in the morning, you end up feeling better rather than something that you'll probably never quite live up to. And the name of this book is Today I Will Nourish My Inner Martyr. Affirmations for Cynics. Let's see what I turn to for today. Today, so that I can later bore my friends with slides from my fantastic summer vacation, I will go to every tourist trap within driving distance. Today, if I act incompetent, other people will take care of me. Here's an important one in the morning with your wife or your loved one. Today, I will read a magazine or a newspaper while someone is communicating their emotional needs to me. Today I will remind myself that sex really does equal love. Today I will accept the fact that I am a materialistically driven charlatan. I feel better already. Just so we can have a little view of the mechanics of the part of the book that we've covered, I always kind of wish when Mark and I do this, we could spend a lot more time from the title page to the doctor's opinion. Because that area of the book really changed my whole view of Alcoholics Anonymous when I had been around here for six months. I had this six-month period with another sponsor and he said, are you alcoholic? I said, yep. He said, is your life unmanageable? I said, yeah. He says, do you believe in God? I say, yes. He said, let's do this prayer. I have no idea what the prayer was and he gave me a sheet how to write inventory. And I was able to put who I was mad at, I've been doing that my whole life, why I'm mad, how it affects me, and then I got to the part where you have to see, you have to have some power in your life to see the truth behind every resentment. And I couldn't do it. And I started to lie and at six months I hit bottom with the second half of step one. I saw the nature of my condition further away from my last drink than I'd ever been. And when I called Don, and I'd heard Don in my first meeting, but he scared me because I thought he had changed himself. I knew he was like me. He talked about how he felt as a kid, what's wrong with me, out of place, like an alien. He talked about drugs, alcohol, penitentiary treatment. He talked about getting to AA and still having that question that so many of us still have, what is wrong with you? What is wrong with me? And I really related that he was like me, he touched me at a gut level. But then I saw someone who wasn't that way. And I, for six months, thought he had changed himself and I had pretty much given up on trying to change myself way before Alcoholics Anonymous. But at six months I was given the grace to see the nature of my condition, this spiritual malady, without alcohol in my system. Here's my first step because I don't know why but I thought the dash in step one was like fill in the blank and I thought, this is my first step. Yes, I admit that I'm powerless over alcohol, and that's why my life is unmanageable. So now that I am not drinking, everything should just be hunky-dory. And the words I filled in there were erased with six months of trying to do the best I could with the grace of God. I remember in Los Angeles when I moved there five years sober, one of the big slogans in South Central LA was grace is sufficient. Well, for many, many, many alcoholics, I spoke to some last night who had long periods of time before they gave themselves to the recovery process. We call that in Los Angeles step zero, slowly eliminating your alternatives just to get down to the two in the book, die an alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis. That wonderfully horrible period of time where you still have more than two alternatives. they then gave themselves to this process and they saw that living in the grace of God and having a conscious contact with that which has been giving it to you for all this time is like night and day and at six months I decided to give myself to this process based on hopelessness and from that hopelessness came a willingness that I had never had before and I think that's one of our paradoxes you know if you're new in the room this weekend if you are new to Alcoholics Anonymous us, thank God this program doesn't make sense. Because if you're anything like me and you look at your experience, everything in my life that ever made sense didn't work. And the only thing in my Life that still doesn't Make sense is the only Thing that's worked. You come in, they say things like, don't make any major decisions in the first year. A week later, your sponsor is asking you to turn your will and your life over to the care of God. Fake it till you make it. That's a great paradox, right? You're not going to make it if you're faking it, right. Give it away to keep it. That does not make sense from where I come from. In the Michigan State Penitentiary, you don't give it away, right, as I like to say that I remain celibate through my penitentiaries time and I'm happy of that. Surrender to win. That doesn't make any sense from where I come from. To win, you've got to fight. So there's all these paradoxes. From hopelessness comes hope. Because maybe in the middle of your hopelessness, you'll see, hey, I give up. There's nothing I can do. That's any length. You can watch a lot of people, those of you that work with others, come out of the first step with the ego more inflated than when they started the first steps. Another warning Mark and I sometimes forget, don't start this work without some sort of a commitment to go all the way through. We've seen people start and stop in step four or after five and get worse than if they started because you make this third-step decision from some kind of place from your heart and it will go on without you. I was told you're either putting the inventory down in black and white or you're watching it in your life in color. so some of the simple mechanics that we've covered so far is to view from the title page up to the doctor's opinion as great general information about our program the circle and triangle it's unfortunate that we lost that due to our irresponsibility and not wanting to fight in court with people that took that from us to make money we gave it up but that circle and rectangle my first day at Don's house showed me that it's a three-part program and I was only in one part expecting the results of the other two. Going to meetings and not drinking did not treat my alcoholism. As a matter of fact, because of you people, it brought my alcoholismo to the surface. From the doctor's opinion to the top of page 23, it's pretty simple. You're only looking for the truth about one thing. And it's so nice that the book ends 23 with a review of the only thing you need to be convinced of up to that page. Does your experience abundantly, not once, not twice, abundantly confirm that when you put alcohol and or drugs in your system, something happens where you lose control over how much you're going to take? Sometimes it ends quickly. Sometimes you're passed out that night and it's done. Sometimes it just lasts. Do you get that craving, which is loss of control. With the doctor's opinion, we try to turn every statement you can into a question. He makes a statement, turn it into a question. Is that true for me? There comes a time where the we part of the program is very important, but there comes a time when in the first step you must personalize it. Is it true for me? Doesn't matter if it's true for my sponsor. That's fine and dandy. Is it true for me? Can I control the amount once I start? Bill's story, one through eight, will take you into the middle of your own drunk log. The progression of your disease. Look at how he thought. Did you think that way? You'll see a progression of thinking. Look how he drank. You'll see a progression of drinking and how he felt. You will see a progression to the bottom. With nine to sixteen, have the person mark anything they're resistant to doing that Bill did to recover. With seventeen to twenty-three, they're going to give you some more about the craving. All of that, you only need to be convinced to your innermost self that once you put alcohol and or drugs in your system, you lose control over the amount. Twenty-three to forty-three is going to be focusing on the mental obsession that takes place before the first drink. The insanity of alcoholism is not what we do drunk. The insanity of alcoholismo gets us at our very best further away from our last drink than we've ever been in our right mind an idea comes in that outweighs any other truth this time it's going to be different what happened last time won't happen those of us with time approaching the first step maybe there's some lurking notions Maybe every year or so, as the ego rebuilds and is deflated and then rebuilds in the future, maybe each time through the steps you'll find new lurking notions, new reservations that are not applicable to somebody brand new. Maybe now after 20 years I've learned enough to overcome that craving or I can keep myself sober. I'll give you an example. I'm going through the Steps one time with a friend that's been around. I'd been around for 10, 12 years. We got to that part that says he thought his long period of sobriety had qualified him to drink like other people. He said, you don't have that reservation, but I bet you have a reservation that your long periodof sobriete has qualified you to not drink like normal people. And then now if you just do this the right way and the right kind of meditation and this and this and this, you can keep yourself sober. It's almost like our little list. You know how we make fun of other people in AA that have their little list of stuff? Just don't drink no matter what. Call your sponsor. Today you have a choice. We make funof their little lists. At the same time, you're creating your own little list of what you think you're doing to keep yourself sober. I do not do these things to stay sober. I do these thing because I am sober by the grace of God. And I want a conscious contact with that which has been giving me this grace. so from 23 to 43 we continue to turn statements into questions the greatest tool if you had to ask me what's the one tool with the big book if you only had like 10 seconds passing somebody in the airport to tell them hand him the book and say just turn every statement into a question and if you get to a direction that says do this don't go any further until you've done it that's basically what they did with me the first time and now here we are at the top of 23 they gave you a summary of the craving. At the bottom of 43, they gave you a summary or the obsession. And we've gone from the doctor's opinion to the bottom of page 43. We've watched this phenomenon, Mark and I, and a lot of other people who work with others. We watch this phenomena in ourselves and others where you get halfway through or three-fourths of the way through your ninth step and you stop. And I heard a lady from my home group in Los Angeles who I saw in Dallas not too long ago, she said it better than anybody I've said, I've ever heard. She said, you know there's people that can take you forward through the steps, but there's also people that kan take you backwards through the step because at any given moment you're either headed in one direction or the other. Like what does it mean to go backwards through the steps you're stuck in amends and somebody says well maybe you weren't really clear on eight you didn't really become willing or seven six five four because you don't really believe you're powerless over alcohol anymore your actions don't demonstrate that consciousness and it's not that we lose the knowledge of the first step i've had time