Ron D. on the Disease of the Emotions and the Journeyman Alcoholic

My name is Ron, I'm an alcoholic. Up until recently, if I was speaking, I always gave my last name and I stopped doing that. When I first came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I used to just give my first name. And when I was sober, I don't know, a couple of years, I can't remember how many years, we had a speaker, I got sober in Pasadena, and we had the first speaker, and he had a lady that lived there by the name of Sybil, Sybil Corwin, or Sybil C. And Sybil was a speaker one night at a meeting, and she had a great sense of humor. And what she did is she said, my name's Sybil, and Sybil was married six times, and she gave all of her last names. But the book Dr. Bob and the Old Timers had just come out at that time. And I got sober in 1976, and like I said, the book, Dr. Bob and the Old Timeers had just come out. And she said, the reason I give my last name, if you read what they wrote in the tradition and Dr. Bob's opinion of it, and I can read it to you, but basically what Dr. Bob said, and he's from the East Coast, the same as I am. He's from Vermont and he was a direct man. He said, for anybody that can read the English language, I mean, he wasn't sugarcoating this. He said, to not give your last name in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous is the same violation of the 11th tradition as to give it at the level of press, radio, and films. So for the last, I don't know, 35, 37 years, whatever it's been since this book came out, I've always given my last name, certainly in a reading, and certainly anytime I get to speak somewhere. I was talking to Ed recently about the thing you guys had going with the 11th tradition as far as what do you do and he asked me my opinion and I said, I don't know, I haven't really researched giving your last name on a CD or tape it never made sense so I said let me do some research on it And I remember a few years ago, I had done a talk for some good friends of mine who a lot of people know, Debbie D. from Concord and her husband Kent. And when I had Done This, it was for their intergroup, and I remember the person in charge of the intergroup had made a statement. He said, this is going to be the last speaker that you're going to have to pay to buy a CD from. He said, starting next year, we're going to use MP3 players and everything will be done instantly and you'll just be able to download it from the internet and won't have to pay for it anymore. So I figured, let me give them a call. They're very well-versed AAs and they've gone through this in their intergroup and Concord, that section of town, is just very into Alcoholics Anonymous and Kent would probably know the answer. And so Kent and I were talking, and he said, let me see what they did. And he said oh we really screwed up. He said we not only have the last names, we have an index of everybody. And it'll say like first and last names. He said but technically we know you're not supposed to use your last name on a CD. He said let me give you a phone number of somebody else who really knows about this stuff. and Ed and I were talking about this and this is a guy who lives in Arizona and he's the owner, I guess of xaspeakers.com and he has 8,000 CDs a lot of CDs and he said you know he said I realize that it's a violation of a tradition for a speaker to give a last name when they're speaking somewhere, he said and the reason is in today's day and age people will just hold up their iPhones and tape you by the time you're done speaking that's all over the airwaves he said with 8,000 CDs it's kind of hard to do but we're trying to figure out a way to erase all the last names I don't know what this has to do with the workshop it's just kind of on my mind that's kindof the way it goes But he said it's a real problem in Alcoholics Anonymous as to what to do about it. So anyway, I am Ron. I am an alcoholic. I'm a member of AlcoholicsAnonymous. I firmly believe – I do a lot of these workshops and do a whole lot of stuff in AA. And I have for 39 1⁄2 years. And I kind of think a lot of times people come to a workshop like this, and I did it for a long time, looking for a magic answer. Like the person holding the workshop is going to give some, especially if you're sober a long Time. You know, sober a Long Time, you should be able to say, do this, this, This, and This, and you'll be all better. Work this step, read the big book, read the 12, whatever it is. Apply this in your life and now you'll be fine. I was also one of those people that believed when I first got sober and for the first few years, I truly believed this. I thought what happened is you came into Alcoholics Anonymous and you suffered for about five or ten years. and you just held on and after five or ten years God dumped the answers on you and now you lived in Shangri-La well let me tell you that's not the way it works and if you came here looking to hear somebody that has a magic answer it's not me I'm a journeyman and alcoholic synonymous I try the best that I can try Bill Wilson wrote something it's the reason I brought these books Bill Wilson wrote something in Pass It On about people that have some time in Alcoholics Anonymous and I don't know how many people have read this book Pass It On just by a show of hands just a few okay okay what But Bill Wilson was a depressive. When he was sober 10 years, he became a depressor. First 10 years he was okay because he was so excited about being sober. But after 10 years she became a depressor. And it says, Bill always concentrated heavily on walking and breathing as an antidote to depression. When he could, he walked five miles a day in the wooded trails around Bedford Hills, which is where he lived. Above all, Bill believed that his depressions were perpetrated by his own failure to work the AA steps. Thus, the already painful depression was deepened by the added sense of guilt. He wrote, I used to be rather guilt-ridden about this. Why, I asked myself, considering all the advantages I had, should I be subject to this sort of thing? At other times, I blamed myself for the inability to practice the program in certain areas of my life. These and many more reasons for self-downgrading constantly put in an appearance. He said the prescription he kept returning to, part of the answer lies in a constant effort to practice all of AA's 12 steps. He said, persistence will cause us to sink in and affect the unconscious from where the trouble stems. I used to be ashamed of my condition and didn't talk about it. But when he started to admit that, he started work with other people that had those same problems. When Bill wrote The Twelve and Twelve, he said, first there was the writing of The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. Bill wrote the big book. Just out of curiosity, just so I have an idea as to the audience. First, how many people here are members of Al-Anon? Good, a few. Al-Anon is a great program. It's a very, very important program in our lives. I have a wife who's not an alcoholic, a member of Al Anon. Two daughters. One is sober seven years and the other is four days as of today. so between a wife and two daughters that are alcoholics you can see my wife's a carrier of this disease it's all her fault but Al-Anon's a great program that's the reason when Lou asked me to do this I said invite Al-Anon I love the program, I think it's a good program but I love Alcoholics Anonymous I'm a member of Alcoholics Aanonymous as I said. How many people here are in their first five years of sobriety? Most, most. How many People here are five to 20 years? And how many over 20? Okay, great. Let me talk a little bit about me and for the people that are sober five years. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, as I said, September 21st, 1976 is the day I got sober. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because I couldn't stop drinking without doing a long drunk love because that's not the purpose of this. I grew up in the 60s. I was part of the hippie revolution. I got thrown out of my house. I just turned 18 years old. I lived in Greenwich Village. I was on the streets and in hippie communes for the next two years. And then my grandparents took me in, straightened me up. I got a job, a little job, sales job in the Empire State Building or a sales trainee job. Left that, got a jobs as a salesperson and had a lot of talent in that area. When I lived on the street, I did a lot panhandling back in the 60s and I developed these good sales skills, I think. But they saw I was a good sales guy, and within six months, they gave me a little promotion as junior manager, and then another promotion followed that, and another promotion following that. And I grew up in a middle-class area, a place called Rockaway Beach, New York, and it's similar to like El Dorado Hills. It's just a nice middle- class area. But I'd get in one promotion after another after another. When I was 25 years old, I started there when I was 20. When I was 25 years old, after all of these promotions, they named me national sales manager of that company. It wasn't a huge company, but they had six offices around the country, a few hundred people at work there, and I ran the whole show for them. I was married to that Al-Anon by that time, but I ran The Whole Show for Them. I'm 25 years older. I'm making more money than my father ever dreamed of making in his life. I've got several hundred people that work for me, andI think, man, I'm doing good. Well, I came to Alcoholics Anonymous at 28 years old, three years after being promoted to national sales manager. I was unemployed, I was unemployable, I'd been that way for a year and a half. I had hair down in here again just like when I was living on the streets. I had a long beard, I didn't bathe every day and I could not stop drinking. For the last two years of my drinking, I tried to stop almost every day. every day. I would come out of drunks, day after day, and I'm not talking about once or twice, I'm talking about hundreds and hundreds of times this happened to me. I would comes out of a drunk, and I was a blackout drinker. I was the guy that took a drink, took the second drink and now I come to the next day or four days later or whatever it is and I've got no idea who I've been with, what I've done nothing. The only thing I know is I'm coming too because I have a headache. And it feels like pins just shooting off in the middle of my brain. And then I get this feeling in my stomach, and it's the booze waiting to come out. And then I crawl off into the bathroom, and I'm sick. And I remember I'd stand up next to the vanity mirror, and I'd look in my own eyes. And if I was heaving that morning, there'd be tears coming down my face. And I'd be crying. And I think to myself, I'll never do this again. I'll never be this sick. I'll never be this hungover. If a lot of mornings I was in a lot of trouble, I'd say, I'll never be in this much trouble again. And I didn't swear off to anybody else. I didn' t care what anybody else thought. I swore off to me. And that was whatever time I came to in the morning. It might be 10 in the morning. I might be 6 in the morning. And sometime that afternoon, I'm thinking to myself, you know, Ron, it really wasn't all that bad last night. tonight you can drink and get away with it it's not going to happen again the problem was the third drink man just stop with two you'll be fine the first two felt good you took the third one that's when you lost your memory just stop with two and I do it over again and like I said that didn't happen to me once or twice or three times or something like that in two years there are 730 days I will swear to God I will bet every penny in my pocket that happened to me somewhere between 500 and 600 of those days where I swore off and I'm drunk by the end of the day, and I don't understand why. And finally this one day, September 21st, 1976, I go on a drunk. I come off it the next morning, andI remember saying to me, because all those mornings before that, I said to me I'm going to stop. I learned my lesson, and on the morning of September 22nd of that year, I said to me, I can't stop. I'm going to be drunk today, and I don't want to be drank today, and that scared me to know I had given up any choice as far as whether I was going to drink or not. And I thought back to a telephone conversation I had with my mother years earlier than this, and she had told me about a friend of hers that went to Alcoholics Anonymous and stayed sober, and I thought if she went to Alcoholics Anonymous and stayed sober, maybe I can come to Alcoholic Anonymous and all I wanted was three days because my last drunk was on a Tuesday I figured I'd go Wednesday, Thursday part of Friday, party for the weekend but at least I stopped shaking for a couple of days that's what I came here looking for and that is 39 years and 7 months ago so alcohol I'll clap for you because I can't stay sober two days, much less 39 years. Alcoholics Anonymous and doing the stuff I'm going to be talking about and having a relationship with a power greater than myself that I call God and having an opportunity to talk to you and having relationships with people like you is what's kept me sober. AlcoholicsAnonymous works. I've been talking to that youngest daughter a lot over the last few days. You know, as much as she can absorb, I mean it's been fun well not fun that's the wrong word but we sat in a meeting you know Monday night and she's up she's down she's over here I gotta get coffee throw the coffee cup away gotta get another cup of coffee I'm thinking you remind me of me the only difference is I was like this on my first one you know but Alcoholics Anonymous works but I came into Alcoholics Anonymous thinking something that I think most of us believe. And what that is, especially if we're newer in sobriety and sometimes a long time into sobriete, and what that means is that the disease of alcoholism and a drinking problem are the same thing. And they're not. And they'RE NOT. Okay? Most of us come into Alcoholics Anonymous, and I know I did, because I couldn't stop drinking and I got in a lot of trouble when I drank. Not every time, but every time I got in trouble, I was drunk. And I came here and I truly believed just stay away from drinking and everything will get better. And in a Lotta Ways, the drinking problems all got better. All of them got better! I was able to eat breakfast in the morning, I went back to work because I had a good sponsor, and he said to me, part of sobriety is responsibility, and you've got to go to work. When I got here, all I did was bet horses all day long and bowled matches and played cards and gambled for a living. I was very, very successful as a successful gambler and a successful drunk. One night, one morning My wife wakes me up out of a drunk Starts screaming at me Get up, call the Pasadena Police Department Somebody stole her car And I remember I called the Pasadaena Police Department and I start screaming Because you know how y'all when somebody wakes you up Out of a drink, hungover and everything And I start streaming at her Last night while the damn cops Were in the donut shop Eating free donuts on my Taxpayer dollars which I haven't paid in years, but my wife's paid for hours. Had to clean that up through the ninth step. Somebody came in and stole my wife'S little yellow common gear. And she says, hold on, Mr. D. You like how I got rid of the last name there? She says, Hold on. She comes back on the phone like three, four minutes later, and she says no, your car was repossessed last night for nonpayment. So I was very, very successful as a gambler. I'll show you some more success three or four weeks after that on a Saturday morning just like this. We got a knock on the door. These two big guys came in and repossessed her refrigerator. And, you know, I say this a lot, but, you Know, there's some young guys here right over there. See them? And let me just clue you guys into this, okay? This is not a relationship builder, okay. There's women sitting here, they will tell you, they don't forget. My wife and I in July, and we have a good marriage, we'll be married 46 years. That's a long time. We get in a fight, she brings up the refrigerator. They don't forget. So I am not what you call a high-bottom alcoholic. Alright? And I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I went to meetings all the time, almost every night. I tried to do the deal to the best of my ability, but I still had a lot of problems that I didn't understand because I didn' t understand the disease of alcoholism like I understand it today. See, to me, I believe... and I didn't bring the book, I forgot it. But there's some writings in the book A.A. Comes of Age, which is an excellent book. If you haven't read it, it's one thing you should definitely read is A. A. Comes of Age. Great book on the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. And there's some writings in there in Medicine Looks at Alcoholics Anonymous by a guy by the name of Dr. Bauer. And when Dr., see the doctor's writing notes. Dr. Bauer, when he wrote this, he was the head of the American Medical Association. And what he wrote, he said, after studying the disease of alcoholism for many years, we've come to the conclusion that alcoholism is a disease of the emotions. Alcoholism is a disease of the emotions. What that means is an alcoholic, when the person is not drinking, becomes overly sensitive to life. We become frustrated with things. When things aren't going our way, we push and we shove trying to make things happen. And I don't, you know, all I can tell you and all I kan share with you is my own story. Nobody else's but mine. But I can tell you, I never knew that. I never understood that. But what happened to me is because I had such a low bottom and I brought the same wife into sobriety through the drinking, when I was drinking, I had a lot of guilt and shame. I believed something then, and when we talk about step four, I'll talk about belief inventories. It's in the big book, it's called Principle. Principle is a truth, okay? It's a truth. If I drop this book, gravity's going to have it hit the table or the ground. It's goingto fall down. That is an absolute truth, OK? Well, I don't know if you ever thought about it or not, but anything we believe, we believe is true. You ever think about that? Yeah. I mean, just as an example, show of hands. Anybody here have any beliefs that they know are true as far as the opposite sex is concerned? Just show of hands. Only one person in this whole room. Is this Liars Anonymous or what? Okay, we'll ask again. Anybody have any believes as far the opposite's sex is concern? Yeah, we got most of it now. Okay. Question for you. Does that help you or hurt you in your life? I can tell you it hurt me. Anybody have any beliefs as far as how parents should act? Yeah. Help you or hurts you in you life? Yeah, exactly. So if it hurts, wouldn't it make sense to learn how to inventory that through the big book, through what it says, and see if it's true or not? Because if it's true, I may not like gravity. I may say, God, every time I fall, I get hurt. Well, there's nothing I can do about it. That's gravity. But I might as well learn is something true or is something not true. And I think that's one of the purposes of doing that. So anyway, I come to Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm sober. And at four years of sobriety, my life fell apart. And I think – I truly believe this. I think that – how many people here are in their first year or two? Congratulations. And there's a lot of people that are. I'm going to tell you – this is, again, just my own opinion. But I think in the first year oder we grow like weeds around here. We really do. I mean, the drinking problems stop. We're sober. We're doing a lot better. We really are. But I think somewhere between years 2 and 10, 2 and 15, we start to hit some dry spots. We start to get some dry spot. And that's what happened to me at four years. at four years of sobriety going to meetings every night part of the service structure being on committees for things and like I said secretary of meetings and doing all the stuff I'm supposed to do my life just fell apart right around me and I couldn't understand why my marriage was in shambles it was in shamboles because I truly believe this one you know in fact one of my And a sponsee called me this week about this. He says, when does it get better at home? You know, because that's the area that gave him the most problems. And I'm going to tell you, take it from a guy that sponsors a lot of people. I sponsor probably 40, 50 guys. That's a lot. A lot of them are a lot more people. And every one of them, myself included, the hardest place to work, Alcoholics Anonymous, is at home. By far, the hardest place to work, Alcoholics Anonymous is at home. And my marriage at four years of sobriety was in shambles. We fought like cats and dogs, just like cats and dogs. I couldn't be in the house three minutes without seeing something wrong. Something was wrong, and I had to let her know. So that area of my life was problematic. My work situation was bad. It wasn't that I wasn't making money, I was doing well at work. But I couldn't get along with the people I worked with. One day I'm your friend, the next day I'll be your enemy and I don't understand why. Emotionally, I'm either having anxiety attacks where I feel like I'm jumping out of my skin or I'm so depressed I can hardly get out of bed and go to work the next night. And I don' t understand that. part of my alcoholism my eldest daughter was born by then I got sober she was six months old and part of my alcoholismo is I would get in a fight with my wife and I'd put this little girl in the middle of it because if I get in a fight with Lee I'm going to go up to Ed and explain where I'm right and you're wrong buddy you know and I did that to this little girl all the time so my parenting was horrible and I couldn't understand why I couldn' t understand what was going on I got to a point where I seriously thought of committing suicide because I didn' t want to drink I knew I couldn''t drink but I couldn ''t shut my head down I couldn?'t stop the behaviors don' t get me wrong, the behaviors weren' t horrible the best example I have and a lot of people have heard me tell this story I was sober for four years and I'm secretary of a meeting it's Thursday night and this is when we have all these marriage problems going on I can't be home for 20 seconds and we're not fighting about something something's wrong and anyway, Thursday night comes I go to work, I come home and I expect dinner on the table Mr. Sobriety's home dinner should be there and I walk in and there's no dinner my wife was busy that day or whatever it was and and i let her know how wrong she was making me go to the meeting his secretary set it up make the coffee and all that stuff hungry she shouldn't do that to a giving member of alcoholics anonymous sober four years and um uh i go to The Meeting I set it Up make the Coffee and i remember i sat there There's nobody in the meeting hall except for me. And I remember thinking to myself, Ron, you need to really listen tonight. Maybe all these fights aren't her fault. Maybe they're your fault. Maybe you'll hear something good tonight. And I did. I heard two people talk about their home lives. A woman spoke first. She spoke about her home life. And I Remember saying, bingo, you just do what she said. Everything will be fine. Fights are off. Half a dozen people later, they call on a man. he talks about his home life, the way he treats his wife, his kids. I thought the same thing. You just apply what he says, you'll be fine. Meeting ends, I clean the coffee pot, gone. It's 15 minutes from the time I held hands with the people next to me saying the Lord's Prayer till I get to the front door. And I'm a neat freak. I think things should be in their place. And I walk in the house and the first thing I see is a sock laying on the floor. and I look at my wife and the first words that came out of my mouth I looked at her, I said Ann, I am sober for 4 years and you can't clean the damn house fights are right back on again and I don't understand why I'm a member of alcoholics I'm secretary of that meeting why do things come out of my mouth that shouldn't come out why can't I watch it other people can do that because you push certain buttons in me and out it comes and I'm back in trouble again. I'd love to tell you with 39 1⁄2 years of sobriety that the name of this disease is alcohol wasn't. I started this workshop off saying you're not going to hear any magic answers. If you think with 39 years of sobriety that when my daughter called me on Monday and said, Dad, I can't stop smoking pot. And this is a kid who was an overachiever her whole life. She's 32 years old. Our granddaughter is one year old. Six months ago, I got a call from work. Her boss called me and said Ron, get to the hospital. There's something wrong with Michelle. And I got to the house and she had had a stroke at 32 years old. six months later she and she has messed up about this we've gone through stuff as a family I'm trying to take care of her every day and she's got a great husband and an infant daughter I've got another daughter that's alcoholic six years you know sober six years if you think I don't hurt because I'm sober 39 years or you could tell me hey go read page 26 and apply that in your life. Click your heels, you'll wind up in Kansas. Bull. That is not true. That is not the way it works. Okay? What I believe is that I try the best I can to apply this stuff in my life. Our founders believed the same thing. I was telling you about Bill when And he wrote the 12 and 12, and I use the 12 and 12 a lot. He says, first there was the writing of the 12 steps and 12 traditions. Now, understand this. He wrote the big book. He was sober three years. He wrote The Twelve and Twelve. He was sobre 18 years. It was 15 years later. How many people in this room are sober over 18 years? Okay. Do you know more at 18 years than you did at three? One, no. He says, first there was the writing of the 12 steps and 12 traditions. But sometimes he had been planning to produce a volume of essays, one essay for each step and for each tradition. These essays would expand, expound, and explain the meaning and application of each principle. if the 12 steps and 12 traditions is a small volumes in terms of length it is large in its depth and content whereas the big book written in 1938 radiates bill joy bills joy and gratitude have finally founding a way to stay sober the 12 and 12 reflects an entirely different mood In 1951 and 1952, when Bill wrote the second book, he was suffering almost constant depression and was forced to confront the emotional and spiritual demons that remained stranded in the alcoholic psyche when the high tide of active alcoholism recedes. The 12 and 12 provides a highly practical and profoundly spiritual prescription to help exonerate these demons. During Bill's 15 sober years, he had ample opportunity to become intimately acquainted with some of the unprotective and often negative attitudes and traits that are frequently part of the disease of alcoholism, continuing into sobriety. By now he knew well that apart from alcohol, alcoholics have other problems for which they must find solutions if they are to live comfortably. See, I believe, and I'll throw this into the first step. And I didn't know this in the beginning. When I talk about steps, I'm going to tell you some of the things that I believed then and some of The Things I Believe Now. If you hear me do another one of these workshops a year or two years from now and you say, God, Ron, you changed some things, It's because I keep trying to learn more about the 12 steps. When I first came here, I thought what the first step said, I admitted I was powerless over alcohol. My life had become unmanageable. And I thought that meant, because I always heard this in meetings. They used to talk about this a lot when I sobered up. They said if you're hit by a train, it's not the caboose that kills you. It's the locomotive. And they said it's the same thing for an alcoholic. It's the first drink that gets you drunk. Just choose not to drink. And if you look at your life, your life is unmanageable because of the way you drank. And I thought, God, I went from national sales manager of a company to an unemployed bum. My life is non-manageble because of the way I drank and if I pick up a drink I'm in trouble. I no longer look at the first step that way to me the first step is a four part step and I never knew that in the big book Bill writes this he has two questions it's in the first page of we agnostics if when you honestly want to you find you cannot quit entirely is on page 44. If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely. Well, that's certainly my story. Very rarely in my life did I set out to get blitzed. Normally it was, let's just have a drink or two and, you know, get rid of this feeling in my gut because I'd take a drink and it'd be like, and now I'd overshoot the mark so 100% true in my life if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take and if when you try to stop drinking you cannot quit entirely again, my story coming out of drunks over and over and saying, I'll never do it again, being drunk by the end of the day. So those two things are true, 100% true. It says, if that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. So part one of the first step is, once I start drinking, I cannot guarantee you as to when I'm going to stop. Once in a while I may be able to say, okay, I'm going to have one and that's it. But a lot of times I go to the bar to have one and I close the bar. So I can't guarantee it. And I can not stop on my own. Now that is the part I could not understand. And that is what I believe Bill was referring to here in the 12 and 12 where he talked about having to find a way to live comfortably. See, in the big book, Bill writes this. And he says, if we be alcoholic, we have no choice and no defense against taking the first drink. Okay? And for people that have a big book, if you want to see where that is, just so you know, it should be on page 26. What a luscious. 24. Thank you. There it is. Okay, the fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Okay, lost the Power of Choice. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. See, I thought in the beginning once I took the first drink, I was without defense. This says I'm without defense against the first drink Now one of the other things I learned through trying to get a better program through trying to work and rework this stuff through reading a lot of literature, talking to a lot of people, is most of us and this was certainly true for me when I really got into AA I started to show up at book studies, step studies, etc. And I had a little yellow highlighter. And if you looked at my big book it was highlighted all over the place. Okay? What I learned with years of sobriety is I should also get a second colored highlighter and highlight everything I question or anything I disagree with and talk to my sponsor about that. Like, we are without defense against the first drink? Why would they say that? Because what that's saying is if I admit I'm an alcoholic, I have no defense against taking the first Drink. That's saying, hey bud, you're going to drink again. You have no choice. You have no defense. I thought all I had to do was show up and sit my butt in the meeting chair and listen. Yet it says I have no choice and no defense, so I asked my sponsor. I said, well, why would he say that? And he went back to the doctor's opinion, and in the doctor'S opinion, Dr. Silkworth writes this. It's on page 26 in Roman numerals, and what he writes is men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. See, that's the reason an alcoholic drinks, is we like the effect. The sensation is so elusive that while we admit it as injurious, we cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. But the alcoholics in the room, do you think your life is normal? Yeah, we think it's okay. I mean, that'S our lives, okay? But then he writes that an alcoholic is restless, irritable, and discontented unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort that come at once by taking a few drinks. Drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, the phenomenon of craving develops. That's what happens once I take the first drink. So we pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again. But this is repeated over and over. And unless this person can experience an entire psychic change, there is very little hope of his recovery. You know, a lot of people have heard me say this because I'm proud of it. I made it up. the analogy I came up with it's like me sitting here and a mosquito comes down and bites me on the arm and a mosquitobite comes up and it itches like crazy and Ed looks at me he said Ron we've been friends for years I'm going to tell you something I've lived in this community a long time you don't scratch that mosquito bite if you do we take you to the hospital they will amputate your arm I go, okay Ed, but it itches J.R. says the same thing to me we've been friends for years, man, don't scratch we rush you over there, they will amputate it itaches I go home, my wife sees a mosquito bite she says, you don't stretch that last time you scratched, you lost your job you got my car repossessed you got our refrigerator repossess go back to another meeting tomorrow they'll tell you not to scratch the mosquito bite some more what do you do if it keeps itching day after day, week after week and you have a couple of days where it doesn't itch anymore then it comes right back what do you do you hit it right on the head eventually you go like this and then we wonder when we sit in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that's been going for 30 years why less than 10% of the people have 30 years. Because we drink for the effect of alcohol. I have a drink or two and I get a sense of ease and comfort that come just like that by having a couple of drinks. So I'm powerless over alcohol when I don't drink it. When I don't drink it and i personally don't think that aspect of alcoholism is spoken about enough at least it wasn't where i got sober you know we'd hear things like you know go to me go to a lot of meetings today we had 90 meetings in 90 days go to the dance on friday night maybe you'll get lucky there just you know just keep showing up at meetings the miracle will happen well there the miracle is in the steps. Through the steps, what we find is a way to live comfortably in here and not pick up a drink. That's what Bill wrote here. This is our founder writing this and saying I'm sober for 15 years and I'm suffering from crippling depressions. And they talked to the people that know him. They didn't know if he was going to make it. They didn't Know if he Was going to take his own life. He couldn't get past it. Because if you read bill's story he never worked the steps when bill got sober ebby took him through what at that time was six steps bill sober three years he's writing how it works he gets down on his knees he comes up with 12 steps you said you got less than a year anybody here got three years we got one person with three years would you please rewrite our book and come up with 24 steps that'll help us? Because that's what Bill did. He went from six to twelve. Nobody had ever worked them. They had to be divinely inspired because there are millions of people that are sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, and there's over 150 different 12-step programs that use the same 12 steps. But Bill never did them for 15 years. When he did the steps, the depression's left. Read his story. When he did the steps, the depression was left. I'm sober for four years. My life is coming apart. I run into this man that had an answer for me. Became my sponsor. Was my sponsor for the next 17 years. He said, your answer's in the steps. I said, no, I've done the steps Bob. I did them when I was sober a year. See, I was under a belief when I got here because we're not supposed to give outside opinions, especially political ones, but I'm doing it anyway. I think we live in the greatest country in the world by far. And in my opinion, one of the things that I learned growing up was that you achieve things. you go to school, you start as a freshman and you graduate and then you go on from there you go to work, you get promotions they call it the ladder of success because you don't start at the top, you star at the bottom you work your way up, you got promotions and so on and so forth and everything has a beginning and an end you read a book, you started page one and you get to the end of it I think a lot of us grow up that way, well I thought the same thing with the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I thought what you do is you start at step one, and I was over about 10 months. And I said, okay, you start at step 1, and you work through the 12 Steps. And, I run into this sponsor at four years who said, no, Ron. He said, look at your life, man. Your life is a mess. You tell me you're sitting on the edge of your bed with a loaded gun out because you can't shut your head off? you tell me you're so anxious you feel like you're jumping out of your skin you're asking for a divorce every other day he said not the way you've worked the steps you've got to go through them over and over keep working them try to apply them try to learn more about them that you can apply in your life and I've tried to do that ever since I've trying to do it that ever since and what I've gotten is a level of peace doesn't mean that every day's at 10 no no I would love to tell you that it is not the case not the case I have character defect I'm probably the only one in the room that has it so I shouldn't even mention it but I will what I do when I get angry I mean I'd give you a good example I have a deal at work I worked for a huge company three years ago they let me retire and they said you just pick a hundred clients or pick and I didn't even say a hundred they should pick as many clients as you want to work with and just work part-time you know and all of that they came up with this thing in the last two weeks or so where they want me to come back and do more work than what we originally agreed on in fact my boss said why don't you come back as my assistant I really need you more full-time. Now, that's not in my plans. We worked it all out yesterday and it's fine. But I have worked the steps countless times, do a lot of speaking in a lot of places in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm a very active member. This is far from the first workshop I've put on. So you would think if you're new, there's a guy with an answer, right? Okay? My head says to me at 3 o'clock in the morning, wake up Ron let's talk about what's going on at work. Told you I'm the only one with this character defect. And we rehearse the conversation that's going to happen on Friday. We do this on Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night. Sometimes it's early a day but there's a reason. I'm over 60 and I get up every two hours to go to the bathroom. I try to go back to sleep and all of a sudden it's they can't treat me that way. I'll say, he'll say. You know, all of that. All of that, you know. So that's what you got to do in the workshop, guys. I mean, you don't... But the thing I will tell you is I try. Is I try it. You know that's a good lead-in into something. I told you the first step is a four-part step. Okay, I talked about the first two. The first two deal with alcohol. once I take the first drink I cannot control it but left to my own devices I cannot help but take the 1st drink ok then there's a little dash and it says our lives are unmanageable ok now everybody sitting in this room has to be interested very interested in sobriety otherwise we would never be at a workshop the people that are here are in the 10% that are saying or 20% whatever the correct number is that they're saying man I want to enhance my sobriety I wanted that's the reason we go to workshops and things like this okay and I looked for that from the beginning I loved Alcoholics Anonymous from day one but as I didn't see this for four years That sponsor pointed it out to me. It's read in every single meeting, and yet I never heard it. And I went to meetings almost every night of the week. And we read chapter 5 in 99% of the meetings that I go to. And what it says that I never hear is this. A description of the alcoholic, the chapter 2 of the agnostic, And here's the part I missed. In our personal adventures, before and after, make clear three pertinent ideas. I missed that before and After because that's before I stopped drinking and after I stopped drinking. Idea A, I am an alcoholic and cannot manage my own life. After I stop drinking. Now, that's tough for a guy like me to accept. That's a very materialistic person. Okay? Because I came to Alcoholics Anonymous unemployed, unemployable, owed all kinds of money, all kinds of troubles, etc., etc. But now I'm sober and I'm working again and I'm starting to do a lot better. You know, I started buying stuff. I had bought a house and it wasn't a zero down deal or anything like that. I'm starting to doing well. So when my sponsor said to me, your life is unmanageable, drunk or sober, I had a problem accepting that I don't know about anybody else I had to accept it I had no problem accepting that and my sponsor helped me with a couple of things as far as that's concerned one he said to me something that I had never thought about he said Ron do you realize that there's a difference between a living and a life and I said no Bob and he said if you're sober your living is manageable I said well what's my living he said you have the capacity to set an alarm clock get up, go to work, make money stuff like that he said but your life is your emotional life and that's unmanageable I said really he said well as an example he said next time you get worried about something Just tell yourself not to worry. He said, or I asked you to, you asked me to sponsor you and he said, and I'll do everything I can to help you so the next time you really get angry at somebody where you just want to tear their heads off, he said you just call me. He said I'll say live and let live and you'll be fine. Yeah, that's what, I laughed. That's what I did. You know, it's like what? He showed me something in the 12 and 12. I never saw this. I never thought of this. Okay, my life is unmanageable. He says we know, Bill writes this, we know and he's sober 18 years when he wrote this. We know that little good can come to any alcoholic who joins AA until he has first accepted accepted his devastating weakness and all its consequences. Period. Bob looked at me and said, this doesn't say a word there about a drinking problem. What is your devastating weakness, Ron? What does your self-honesty tell you it is? You haven't had a drink in four years. How's your marriage? He said, how's your emotional well-being? He said how many really close friends do you have? Not people you're trying to impress, but really close that you really care about. How close is your relationship to your family members? He said, how do you feel about you? He says, you look at the mirror, you like what you see? I looked at him, I said, Bob, I'm in a lot of trouble, man. He said、 Have you ever tried to fix those things? I said、 A thousand times. A thousand time. You ever think to yourself, I'm going to have a better marriage. I'm gonna be a better husband, a better father, a better wife. I'm gonna have closer relationships in my life. I'm gonna do better. I'm gonna start to have more compassion. Anybody here just by a show of hands ever have those feelings besides me or am I the only one? Great. Here's a question you don't have to raise your hand for. But, you know, if you're like me, Bob asked me, you ever tried to fix those things? I said a thousand times. He said, how's that going for you? I said, not real well. Not real well, man. He said exactly. Your life is unmanageable because people push certain buttons and all of a sudden you react a certain way. That's the reason. That is the reason that you must have help from a power greater than yourself. He showed me another reason that my life was unmanageable. And I know I'm spending way, way too much time on step one, but this is going to go wherever it's going. He helped me a lot in that there was a psychiatrist that worked with a lot of the early members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And his name was Harry Thiebaud. Harry Thiebaud was the only member of Alcoholics Anonymous in history that was not an alcoholic. He was voted into AlcoholicsAnonymous in 1939 by proxy. He worked with a lot of our early members. Marty Mann, who started the National Council on Alcoholism, she used him. Bill Wilson went to him. A lot of Our Early Members went to Harry Thibaud. He did a lot of major talks to the American Medical Association on the disease of alcoholism, on ego, and on what he deemed, and I think he was 100% correct, was the solution to alcoholism. Alcohol being the emotional illness as well as the drinking part of it. What he deemed the solution, which to me is surrender. I think that is what the 12 steps are designed to do, is to surrender us. And Dr. T. Bolt writes something for people that are analytical, and know there's people here that are, as to why our lives are unmanageable. And I love what he writes. Basically, I'm going to paraphrase this just because of time, and then I'm gonna move on. But what he writes, he says there's two parts of the human mind. There's the conscious mind that we can do something with. If I want to drink a water, it's my conscious mind that says pick it up, take the top off, take a sip. And then there's the unconscious or subconscious part of our mind that we an do absolutely nothing about. Absolutely nothing about it. Well, Dr. Thiebaud writes that every human being has an ego. okay and that ego is constantly forging ahead it's like my old sponsor Bob used to say he'd say I got two diseases Ron he said one is alcoholism the other is you pat me on the back my head swells I understand that loud and clear I want my way you don't know who I am I'll show you who I am now. This inner feeling, I'm married to the same girl almost 46 years when we get in an argument, you know what my head tells me? 45 plus years later, you know why she's not doing it my way? Because she doesn't really know who I am. Now I'll show her who I Am. Doesn't ever work, doesn't ever work. So he says this ego is unstoppable. It's like an unstoppable force. And he writes this. He said there are two parts of the ego that are kind of unique to alcoholics. One is defiance, that an alcoholic will actually defy the facts. We all did this drinking or most of us did this drinking. I drank, I got in trouble. I drank I got into trouble. Then all of a sudden hey I can have a drink I won't get in trouble this time. Getting in an argument with someone that didn't work I'll do it again. That didn't work I will do it agian. Well this time it will work. That's defiance we just defy the facts. The second thing that he believes is with alcoholics is we have this capacity deep within us for grandiosity that we really believe inwardly. Clancy says this, this is the best I've ever heard it. Every alcoholic that he's ever met says, yeah, I'm an alcoholic, but my case is just a little different than yours. I'm a little special. I'm a little smarter I've got more sobriety or less sobriery or more money or less money or more education or less but I'm special different and what Dr. Thiebaud writes and this is how our lives are unmanageable for the analytic he says we are now in a position to discuss how these qualities operate in alcoholics That's the defiance and the grandiosity. On the one side, the defiant says it's not true that I can't manage my drinking. Now, in my case, I've been very lucky because from the time I got to Alcoholics Anonymous to today, I haven't really had... Right in the beginning, I fought booze for eight, nine months. But from that time on, I really haven't had too many occasions once in a while where I fight booze. but what I really fight is the fact that my life is unmanageable that I really need to surrender that I realmente need to do this God's way not my way that's the part that's given me problems so I'm just going to change this a little bit because this thing is supposed to be on emotional sobriety on the one side defiance says it's not true that I can't manage my own life On the other side, the facts speak loudly and with increasing insistence to the contrary. Anybody ever get that feeling? Maybe our spouses tell us that. Again, on the one side, grandiosity claims there's nothing I can't master and control. And on the other hand, the fact is that the facts are not the same. On the one hand, on this side, the facts demonstrate unmistakably the opposite. The dilemma of the alcoholic is now obvious. The unconscious mind, the subconscious, rejects through its capacity for defiance and grandiosity what the conscious mind perceives. Hence, realistically, the individual is frightened by his or her drinking or our unmanageable lives and at the same time is prevented from doing anything about it by the unconscious activity that can and does ignore or override the conscious mind. Why does he say that? Anybody here ever go to a meeting and you hear somebody say, God, I'm in trouble, I haven't been in meetings in a while or I talk to my sponsor and I'm really going to step up my game. I'm going to 90 meetings in 90 days. I'm calling my sponsor every day. I'm gonna rework the steps. Anybody ever hear people say that? You ever wonder where they are 30 days later? Because what happens is exactly what Thiebaud talks about. It's exactly why our lives are unmanageable. Our conscious mind perceives something, but every one of us go to sleep at night. It's the conscious mind that sleeps, correct? Conscious mind goes to sleep. Subconscious does not go to sleep, correct, okay? The ego lives in the subconscious. You know what it's saying all night? Man, you're making a lot out of nothing here, buddy. you know more than she does he can't treat you that way you can figure your way right out of this it's like he says because the subconscious the ego overrides what the conscious mind perceives my life is unmanageable And then part four of step one, and then we're going to have a 10-minute break. Part four of Step 1 says this. Why all this? This is on page 24 of the 12 in 12. Why all these insistence that every AA must hit bottom first? The answer is few people will sincerely try to practice AA's 12 steps unless they have hit bottom. so the question becomes if that's true and I believe it is how do I bring that bottom into today if you're sober three years, five years, thirty years makes no difference what this says is I can't go back thirty years ago or thirty nine years ago and say man I hit a bottom thirty nine years ago what does that have to do with today I'm willing to bet $10 right now there's nobody in this room sober say 10 years that can say hey you know the knowledge I learned 10 years ago will help me today it's what am I doing today that's the thing my sponsor Bob impressed on me so strongly he said Ron what I'm going to teach you is a way to how to apply this program today this day as an alcoholic. So that you get to live comfortably. Doesn't mean every day is going to be a 10. It really doesn't. But what it does mean is I live reasonably okay, reasonably okay even with unsolved problems. That's a gift. That' s a gift because I can't talk for anybody else here, but I will sure tell you for me, my idea to solve any problem was let's get ripped. We'll worry about it next week. And I don't do that anymore. So let's have a 10-minute break. Great word. Abnegation. Self-abnegation is self-denial.