The Doctor’s Opinion and Physical Allergy – Big Book Workshop – Part 1 of 8 – Joe C.

Hello, everyone. My name is Joe, and I'm an alcoholic. I don't look like one, but I am. And I've been sober ever since I can remember. Which is shortly after I quit drinking. But this is the purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous. AlcoholicsAnonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem to help others recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution. It does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. I went to the restroom there a while ago, and this lady tapped me on the shoulder, And she said, are you Joe of Joe and Charlie? And I said, yes, ma'am. And she says, do you ever get nervous? And I say, no, not really. She said, well, you're in the ladies' restroom. So I hope to settle down here in a little bit. Before we get underway, though, I want to thank David and Laurie and everybody on the committee for putting on this thing. They did an awful lot of hard work doing this. Thank them for that. And I especially want to thank each and every one of you for being here because it would be a lousy meeting tonight if it was just Charlie and I, I can tell you that. So we need each other, and thank you for being here. Hi everybody, my name is Charlie Farnley, and I'm a very grateful recovering alcoholic. Because I'm a member of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and with the grace of the power that I found in the 12-step program of AlcoholicsAnonymous, I haven't found necessary to take a drink for 11,846 days today, one day at a time. And for this I'm very grateful. God, you guys look great. I wish you'd be up here and just see the smiling faces and hear all the laughter and the chatter that goes on in one of these good AA functions. Catcher, about the best looking bunch of sick people we've seen in a long time. You look great! We always like to start one of these things with a little story, a joke of some kind. We love to laugh and we love to hear other people laugh. Our book says we're meant to be joyous, happy, and free, and I believe that 100%. I love to tell the story about the brain surgeon because it deals with people like us. This brain surgeon had developed a way to transplant the human brain in its entirety. They've been doing it with other organs of the body for years. He figured out how to do that with the human brain. This older fellow went to see him, and he said, Doc, I've been having trouble with my brain. I can't think anymore, and I can' t reason, and I ca' n't remember anything. Is there anything you can do to help me? And the surgeon said, Well, let's give you a good physical examination first and see what kind of shape your body is in. So he gave the old fellow a good psychological examination, and he says, Oh yeah, your body's in great shape. He says, I believe I can transplant a brain into your head and everything would be great. The old man said, well, great. What do you have to offer? And the surgeon said, let's go up in the display room and I'll show you what we have in stock at the present time. He took him up there and he said, now in this case over here I have the brains of an attorney. He said, I transplanted this in your head. Everything would be great. It cost you $25,000. The oldman said, will you have anything else? And he said oh yeah. In this case, over here, I have the brains a doctor. He said I could transplant this in you head. Everything would great cost you 50,000 dollars. The old man said, well, do you have anything else? And he said, oh yeah. In this case over here, I've got the brains of an alcoholic. He said, I'd transplant this in your head and everything would be great and it would cost you $100,000. The oldman said, I don't understand this deal. $25,000 for the attorney's brain, $50,000 from a doctor and $100k from an alcoholic's brain? The surgeon said, Well, hell yes, man. It's brand new. It's never been used before. I think most of us will go to the grave with at least 50,000 miles left on the original one table. We always like to say as we start one of these that we do not consider ourselves to be the gurus of the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. We don't consider ourselves the experts on anything at all. We're two old drunks met several years ago. found we had a mutual interest in the big book, studied together for quite some time, and hopefully we've learned a few things about it. And those few things we've learnt about it, we'd just love to be able to share them with other people. Do not attempt to speak for AA as a whole, and you are most certainly free to agree or disagree with anything that we say as you see fit to. In fact, if you hear us saying things that can't be reconciled with what's in the Big Book, we suggest you don't pay any attention to those at all, and we'll try to keep most of our comments on the big book itself. We'd also like to say as we start one of these that we know that the mind will only absorb about what the rear end will send. Some of these sessions do become quite long. Tonight, we're not going to attempt to take a break. If we do, we'll just be here too late. But if you feel the need to get up and move around during one of These Sessions, please feel free to do so. That's not goingto bother us at all. If you feelthe need toget up and go out and smoke a cigarette or have a cup of coffee, please feel free to do that. It won't bother us at all. Or if you feel the need to go get rid of a cup of coffee, please feel Free to Do That. Let's don't sit there and suffer in silence. I also like to take the time to thank Laurie and thank Dave and thank all the other people that's had anything to do with putting this thing together. I know it takes a lot of work and a lot OF time and a LOT of sacrifice to do this. And I certainly thank them for doing so. And as Joe said, I thank you for being here. If we're going to study the big book, which of course we are this weekend, I think we probably need to go back and look at just a little bit of the history behind the book. And by looking at some of the mystery behind the big books, see how it got to be here in the first place, I think it's going to make it much easier for us to understand the book as we go through it this weekend. So let's go forward to the second edition of the bigbook, Roman numeral 15, and let's begin to look at a little piece of history behind it. Let's start with the history of the book itself, Joe. There's a little formula that Bill used that might be helpful to you. It was to me. In all of Bill's writings, he does basically three things. The first thing he does is he explains what the problem is. He'll give us a solution for that problem. And then he'll give some practical program of action to implement the solution that he just described. He does that over and over andover throughout all his writings. And keeping that in mind, it helps us to see and understand Bill's writing. Do we have any empty seats anywhere? There's still two or three people standing back at the door. Do we have any? Here's one empty seat up here. Here's another one over here, a couple of people. Another one over there, two of them over there. So we can handle three or four of them in here still sitting down. I don't think anybody ever dreamed we were going to have that many people here tonight. Great to see you guys. Okay, the bottom of Roman Nubal page 15 is the beginning. He said the spark that was the flare in the first AA group was struck in Akron, Ohio in June 1935 during the talk between a New York stockbroker and an Akron physician. We know this New York stop broker is a fellow named Bill Wilson. I think we're treating Bill pretty good when we call him a New Yorke stop broker. He really wasn't. He was a New york city stock speculator. He made his living out of selling fast talking to slow thinking people. I don't want to take anything away from Bill. He was great man, but we all need to realize he was a real alcoholic just like all the rest of us. And understanding that it's going to make it easier to understand the book. because, of course, Bill is the primary author. The Akron physician is this fellow named Dr. Bob Smith. We'll be referring to them from time to time throughout the entire weekend. He said, now six months earlier, the broker had been relieved of his drinking obsession by a sudden spiritual experience following a meeting with an alcoholic friend who'd been in contact with the Oxford groups of that day. A little later on or a little further on in the book when we get into Bill's story, we're going to see where Bill met with a fellow named Evie Thatcher, an old alcoholic friend, a guy that Bill had drank with back when he was in school, an old drinking buddy. And Evie Thatcher brought to Bill two vital pieces of information. He sat down with Bill and he said, Bill, people like you and I, if we are powerless over alcohol, if we're to recover from that condition, we're gonna have to have the aid of a power greater than ourselves. and he said, I've been attending meetings with a group of people called the Oxford Groupers and they told me that if I could have a vital spiritual experience that during that spiritual experience I would find the power greater than human power and I would be able to recover from alcoholism. He also said, Bill, they gave me a practical program of action and they guaranteed me if I would follow that program ofaction I would have the spiritual experience I would be able to recover from alcoholism. And he said, look at me, Bill. It's been two months since I've had a drink. And this made a great impression on Bill. Bill knew Abby. He knew how Abby drank. And he knew that if Abby had recovered from alcohol, somebody something greater than Abby had to be working in Abby's life. So Abby gave Bill two pieces of information. He gave him first the solution, the vital spiritual experience. Then he gave him the program of action necessary to have that vital spiritual experience to find that solution. But that's not all the information Bill had to know in order to recover. He had to learn some other stuff, too. He's also been greatly helped by the late Dr. William D. Silkworth, a New York specialist in alcoholism, who is now counted no less as a medical saint by AA members and whose story of the early days of our society appears in the next pages. From this doctor, the broker had learned the grave nature of alcoholism. Again, as we get into Bill's story, we're going to see where Bill was placed in a town's hospital in the summer of 1933, withdrawn from alcohol by Dr. Silkworth. And after Bill's mind cleared up a little bit, Dr. silkworth sat down with him and explained to him his ideas about alcoholism. And he said, Bill, I do not believe alcoholism is a matter of willpower. He said, I don't think it's a matter or moral character. And he says, I really believe it's not. I don' t think sin has got anything to do with it. He said, I really believe people like you who are suffering from alcoholism are suffering form an illness. And he said it's a very peculiar illness. It's a two-fold illness. An illness of the body as well as an illness of mind. And he says it's been my experience in working with many of the alcoholics and watching them and seeing what happens to them when they drink that when one of you guys puts any alcohol whatsoever into your system it seems to create an actual physical craving that makes it virtually impossible for you to stop drinking after you've once started. And he said because of that physical craving that develops after you have the first drink, you'll never be able to safely drink alcohol again as long as you live because a craving will always occur. You'll end up drunk and sick and in all kinds of trouble. And he says that's why you can't safely drink alcoholic. But then he said you also have what we call an obsession of the mind He said, An obsession of the mind is an idea that overcomes all ideas to the contrary. And it really doesn't make any difference how badly you want to stop drinking. It really doesn'T make any different how hard you try with your willpower. From time to time, your mind is going to tell you that it's okay to drink. And he said, You'll really believe that this time it's going to be different. And you'll take a drink. You'll trigger that craving and you'll end up drunk and sick all over again. He said, you can no longer safely drink alcohol because of the body. And you can't keep from drinking alcohol because of the obsession of the mind. And he said, if you can drink because of the body and you can stay sober because of the mind, you become absolutely powerless over alcohol. So in the summer of 1933, for the first time, Bill knew what his problem was. You see, up until that time, he'd always thought it was willpower. He thought it as moral character. He thought he was saying, why would he not? That's what everybody had told him up until that time. And for the first time, when Silky sat down with him and explained the exact nature of the illness, Bill understood his problem. And he said to himself, now that I know what's wrong with me, I'll not have to drink anymore. Self-knowledge will fix it. We know that shortly thereafter, Bill took a drink, triggered the craving, couldn't stop, ended up drunk, sick, and in all kinds of trouble. A year later, in the summer of 1934, he's back in the town's hospital. Dr. Silkworth this time pronounced him as incurable, told Bill's wife, Lois, that this guy is going to have to be locked up somewhere or you're going tohave to hire a bodyguard to go with him if you don't. He's going to die during DTs or he will become a wet brain within a relatively short period of time. And Bill said he overheard that. And he said fear sobered him up for a bit this time. We also know on our missed day, 1934, his mind told him it was okay to drink. And Bill took a drink, triggered the craving and couldn't stop. Eddie came to see him then in the latter part of November of 1934. Knowing the problem did not solve it. It's only after Eddie brought him a solution and a program of action necessary to find that solution that Bill was able to recover from alcoholism. So he knew three things that any alcoholic who is going to recover needs to know. Number one, what is the problem? Number two, what is the solution to that problem? And number three, how do you find that solution? And knowing that information, then Bill was able to recover from alcoholism. And he began to take Bill to these Oxford Group meetings. And our book says, though he could not accept all the tenets of the Oxford Groups, he was convinced of the moral inventory, confession of personality defects, restitution to those harmed, helplessness to others, and the necessity of belief in and dependence upon God, which were the tenet of the Oxford Group, which later on where they were expanded into the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. And one of the things that he liked real well about the tenants was his helplessness to others. He wanted to help somebody else as he'd been helped. He said prior to his journey to Akron the broker had worked hard with many alcoholics on a theory that only an alcoholic could help an alcoholic but he succeeded only in keeping sober himself. Bill liked to help other people so he went about trying to gather up these people and take them to these Oxford group meetings. He would send them up out of their gutter and take him to the Oxford groups. He'd go into the bars, and he'd pull them off the bar stools and take them. Most of them didn't want to go. But he was taking them anyhow. He was enthused about helping people with a solution. But after about six months of this activity, nobody was sober but Bill. And so Bill went to Lois and said, Lois, I don't know, I must be doing something wrong. You know, they don't seem to want to stay sober like I do. He said, well, why don't you go talk to Dr. Silkworth and see what he has to say. So he went to see Dr. silkworth and told him the same thing. But he was trying to help drunks to stay sober. Nobody seemed to want what he had. And he said, well, you know, I've heard about some of those shenanigans that you've been pulling out there on those streets, been trying to cram that great white flash of spiritual experience down their throat, and they just won't accept it. He said, why don't you do for them the things that I did for you? Why don'tyou talk to them about the illness of alcoholism? Explain to them through your experience about the physical allergy and the obsession of the mind. And if you can get that through to them, then maybe you can talk to them about spiritual experiences. Dr. Silkworth said, Bill, every alcoholic I know has two questions. Number one, why can't I drink like I used to without getting drunk? And number two, why cannot quit now that I want to? And he said, if you will explain to them the exact nature of the illness as I explained it to you, you will get their attention. And after you get their intention, then you can tell them what's wrong with them first. and we don't think it's by accident that the very next person Bill talked to happened to be Dr. Bob in Akron, Ohio. Said the broker had gone to Akron on a business venture which had collapsed, leaving him greatly in fear that he might start drinking again. He suddenly realized that in order to save himself, he must carry his message to another alcoholic, and that alcoholic turned out to be the Akron physician. We all know the story of Bill standing in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel. The business venture had fallen through. Everybody had left him. All of his business partners were gone. He's standing in the lobby of the Mayflower counting the money in his pocket, realized he didn't even have enough money to pay the hotel bill. And, of course, he was very low and very sad and very depressed. He happened to look through a door off the lobby into the bar. And I would imagine the lights were probably low in the bar, music was probably playing, the smoke was thick, the laughter was great. And Bill said, I believe I'll go in there. I'll be with people of my kind and I'll feel better. But as he started to go through the door, his mind began to think about taking a drink. And he said to himself, if I go in There, I'm going to get drunk just sure as anything. So in desperation, Bill made some phone calls. Came in contact with this fellow named Dr. Bob Smith. And I think we all need to remember that Bill didn't go there to sober up Dr. Bob. Bill went there to keep Bill Wilson from getting drunk. This physician had repeatedly tried spiritual means to resolve his alcoholic dilemma, but it failed. Bill was surprised to find out that Dr. Bob was already a member of the Oxford group. Dr. Rob already knew of the need for the spiritual experience. Dr. Robert already knew the practical program of action necessary to have it. But he had never been able to apply it to the depth necessary to recover from alcoholism because he didn't know what was wrong with him. He thought it was willpower. He thought he ought to be able to do that on his own strength. He thought it was moral character. He thought if it was sin, why would he not? That's what everybody had told him up until that time. But when Bill sat down with him and explained to him the exact nature of the illness, for the first time Dr. Bob understood the problem. And the book says that when the broker gave him Dr. Silkworth's description of alcoholism and its hopelessness, the physician began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his melody with a willingness he had never before been able to muster. He sobered never to drink again up to the moment of his death in 1950. And Bill did something with Dr. Bob that he'd never done before. All those alcoholics back in New York City he had tried to work with, he talked to them about the spiritual experience. But with Dr., Bob, he sat down with Bob and he didn't even talk to Dr.Bob about Dr.Bob's drinking. I'm sure that Dr.Pop expected him to do that. That's what everybody else had done too. But Bill said, let me tell you about my drinking. And Bill began to relate his own experiences when it comes to alcohol. He began to talk about the many, many times that he was going home from work and just wanted to have a drink or two and then go home and have dinner with Lois. And he said something would happen in my body and I would be unable to stop drinking and decide to end up drunk and I may not even get home that night or the next day or the last week. And Dr. Bob said, my God, Dan, that's what's been wrong with me. And Bill said, well, there's a doctor in New York City named Dr. Silkworth that explained to me that this is not a normal reaction to alcohol, that alcohol in our body produces this phenomenon of craving, this actual physical craving, and after we once started, we can't stop. He also told him about the many, many times that he'd sworn off drinking. And he said, I've got a tremendous amount of willpower. And Bill did have. Self-made man, everything he'd ever done, He had done on his own strength, unaided. And he said, I tell myself that I'm not going to drink anymore. I'd swear off that I'll never take another drink as long as I live. And he says, that afternoon, I might be sitting in a bar drunk, wondering how in the hell did I get here this time? Dr. Bob said, my God, man, that's what's been wrong with me. And for the first time, Dr. Bob understood his problem through Bill sharing Bill's story with Dr. Bob. And as soon as Dr. Bob could see the hopeless condition of the mind and of the body, then he began to apply the spiritual program of action to a death he had never applied it before. He had a spiritual experience recovered from alcoholism. Now then, we're in the summer of 1935. Two guys there. Both of them know the problem. Both of?? know the solution. Both ofthem have applied the program ofaction. Bothofthem have had a spiritual experience and recovered from alcoholism let's see where we go from here now this seemed to prove that one alcoholic could affect another no non-alcoholic could also it indicated strenuous work one alcoholic with another was vital to permanent recovery the two things that our fellowship is built upon today one alcoholic working with another is vital to our own permanent recovery one night bill and bob were sitting in the living room and dr bob said bill if we're going to do this thing we better get busy he said get busy doing what he said well you said helping other alcoholics will help us and we need to find some drunks to work with. And Bill said, well, I don't know any drunks. Do you know any? He said, Well, not really. He said but I know a nurse down at the city hospital who happens to know some drunk. Surely she does. So he called up the head nurse down there and asked if she had any alcoholics there in the hospital. She said, Yes, we've just got a corker up here just now. As a matter of fact, he's blacked the eyes of a couple of nurses. We've got him locked down in the ward. And he said, Well, I have this friend of mine from New York who seems to have a solution for alcoholism. and we'd like to come up there and try it on this fellow. And then she said, well, by the way, Dr. Bob, have you tried this on yourself? Because she knew that he had a drinking problem too. Now back in those days, and some of you can remember, back in Those Days the ward of a hospital, any hospital, was at the end of a hall. And they'd put some little fences around you there so that you could get curtains there so you could be somewhat private. You couldn't afford a private room or a semi-private room, so the ward was the end-of-the-hall. And if it looked like you were going to die, they would take you off the ward and put you in a private room. Well, Dr. Bob asked the nurse to take him off the board and put him in a public room. And he was sure that he was going to Die. So the next morning they showed up there, Bill and Bob, and they sat down there and they did the same things that Bill had done with Dr. Bobs. They didn't talk to Bill Dodson about Bill Dodsen's drinking. They talked to Bill Dodge about their drinking. And he began to identify with these two fellows and said, You fellows really know and understand what you're talking about. He said, I drank just the way you fellas did. He said hence the two men set to work almost frantically upon alcoholics arriving in the ward of the Akron City Hospital. In their very first case, a desperate one recovered immediately and became AA number three and never had another drink. And this was a fellow called Bill Dotson. And they sit down and we see this picture in AA rooms all over the world, the man on the bed, and that's Bill and Bob sitting there sharing their stories with Bill Datson. And sure enough, Bill Stodd, Bill Dotson saw his problem immediately. As they talked about this physical craving that develops in the body after we've had a drink, Bill Datson said, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's like me. When they talk about this obsession of the mind that ensured that we would always go back to drink. And he said, man, that happened to me countless, countless, countless times for the first time. Bill Datson understood his program or his actual problem. Then they talked to him about spirituality and Bill Dpson didn't particularly like the idea either. Like so many of us didn't particularly care for the spiritual answer to our problem. But two days later, Bill Dotson said to his wife, get my clothes out of the closet, I'm going home. And he got up and dressed and went home and began to apply the little program of action in his life. And sure enough, next thing you know, he recovered from alcoholism. Now we've got three of them there in Akron. This work in Aklon continued through the summer of 1935. There were many failures, but there was an occasional heartening success. We have to go back sometimes and think about that summer of 1935. And these three guys are trying to help other alcoholics there in Akron, Ohio. And they really don't know what they're talking about. You know, it's brand new to them too. And they tried many, many things with different alcoholics. And anything that worked, they would retain it. And if it didn't work, they Would discard it and try something else. One of Dr. Bob's favorite things, knowing that the body needed vitamins, One of his favorite things was to fill them up with sauerkraut juice mixed with K-roll syrup and tomato juice. Can you just imagine trying to drink that crap? They tried that amongst many other different things that summer, and every once in a while one of these guys would fall over dead. A normal seabill turned to Bob and said, oh shit, let's not do that again. And so as we look back at that time, we always give credit to the first 100, which we should. But we should give credit also to those that they failed with. They probably learned more that summer from their failures than they did from their successes. When the broker returned to New York in the fall of 1935, the first AA group had actually been formed, though no one realized it at the time. When Bill went back, there was just a few people there in Akron that would stand sober on these three pieces of information. And they were actually members of the Oxford Group. Now, the Oxford groupers were a group of people practicing first century Christianity to the best of their ability. And from the very beginning there was trouble between the Oxford grouppers and between the alcoholics. The Oxford group were not in the business of sobering up drunks. That really wasn't what their main aim was. And the alcoholcs would go to the Oxford groups meetings smoking cigarettes, telling nerdy jokes, spilling coffee on the floor. And the Oxford groupers didn't much like that. Also, the Oxford groupers had a thing they called the Four Absolutes, where you were to practice absolute love, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, and absolute honesty. The drunks were having a hard time being absolute anything except drunk. So they separated themselves from the Oxford groups. They called themselves the Drunk Squad of the Oxford Group. That's what Bill left behind him in the summer of 1935 when he went back to New York, a few alcoholics who were staying sober that were known as the Drunk Squad of the Oxford Group. No AA at all. By late 1937, the number of members having substantial sobriety time behind them was sufficient to convince the membership that a new light had entered the dark world of the alcoholic. They began to see that maybe this is what they were doing that was helping people and maybe they'd found the solution to alcoholism. And they begin to wonder what they might do about it. The second small group had promptly taken shape in New York and besides there were scattered alcoholics who picked up the basic ideas in Akron or New York and were trying to form AA groups in other cities, but remember there were no AA groups at that time. They were just a drunk squad of the Oxford Group and they're all members of the Oxford Group. Summer of 1937 He said it was now time that the struggling groups sought to place their meshes in unique experience before the world. Bill went back to Akron, again on a business venture, and he thought I'll go by and visit with Dr. Bob and see how things are going. They sat down in Dr. Rob's kitchen, and they counted the number of people that they knew were staying sober on these three little pieces of information. And to their amazement, they found about 40 people sober when Bill went back to New York City and he began to do there what he did with Dr., Bob. He immediately began to share his story with other alcoholics, and they could see their problem through Bill's story. And they began to recover from alcoholism in New York city. One or two or three had started in a place called Cleveland. Ones or twos scattered around the northeastern part of the United States. And I think for the first time they began to realize, you know, maybe just maybe we have really found the answer to alcoholism. And almost immediately the question arises and when they've found the answers, then what are we going to do about it? Are we going keep it? Are we gonna franchise it? Or are we gonna sell it? Are we're gonna give it away? What are we going do with And thank God, Bill and Bob didn't want to make that decision. This may be the beginning of the group conscience in AA. They said, let's call a meeting of the Oxford Group. Let's put this question to them and see what they think. And they called a meeting. There was 18 people attended the meeting. And most of them were not alcoholic. Most of them are regular members of the Oxford Group. And they said, look, these three pieces of information that we have found just might be the answer to alcoholism for countless thousands and thousands of people. What should we do with it? Coming out of the Oxford groups always with the idea that if you're going to keep it, you've got to give it away. So the question really wasn't are we going to Keep It and Sell It or Keep It Selfishly. The main question was how do we carry it to the largest number of alcoholics, period. And that night they voted upon and decided to do three things. Now remember this is in the midst of the Depression. Nobody's got a dime anyhow. But they decided that night that they were going to build a chain of hospitals stretching all the way across the United States where any alcoholic that needed detox would be able to go in the hospital. Surely Dr. Bob was going to be the head doctor too. They also felt that this message had such importance that just not everybody would be able to carry it to other alcoholics, that they needed to hire and train a group of people and let them spread out across the country in order to carry this message to other Alcoholics. Surely Bill Wilson was going to be their head missionary. There sure is anything. and the thing that they decided to do that was really important they said look already in two years from 1935 until 1937 this message that we're trying to carry to other alcoholics is already beginning to change that as we carry it by word of mouth one to another to another to another it's becoming more and more and more garbled and they said eventually if we keep doing it the way we're doing it it's going to reach the point where it will be of no use to anybody at all They said, we really need to get this information down in the written form so it will be there for alcoholics of the future as we know it today. And they said, besides that, if we could write a good book on alcoholism, nobody's ever done that before, and if we can write a Good Book on Alcoholism and Recovery from Alcoholism, surely it would become one of the world's best sellers almost immediately. We could take the profits from the book and then we could build the hospitals and hire and train the missionaries. Well, thank God when the book was first written, it didn't sell very good. And they didn't make those profits. And thank God they didn'T get to build hospitals, nor did they get to hire and train the missionaries with what they did do. They took their information that they'd been carrying one-on-one, word of mouth, one alcoholic to another, and they put it down in a written form so that you and I could have it today just exactly as they knew it in the summer of 1937. and they came out with a big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. I have to make an announcement. Room 335, they found your key out in the hallway there. Room 375, it'll be here after the meeting. So this determination bore fruit in the spring of 1939 by the publication of this volume. The membership had then reached about 100 men and women. And then after they wrote the book, they decided to meet and determine what they were going to call the book. You've got to have a title for a book, right? So they met and somebody come up with, let's call it The Way Out. That sounds like a pretty good title for a book. So they did some research on that and found that there were some 12 or 13 other titles called The Way Out, so they discarded that. Somebody said, let's call it Comes the Dawn. Now that sounds like an interesting name. Good, yeah, great. But they talked about that for a while and discarded that, but finally somebody said, Let's call It A Hundred Men. Now the men really liked this idea. A hundred men, that sounds good, doesn't it guys? Well then a woman joined the group. Well they couldn't call it A Hundred Man and a Woman. so they discarded that bill was getting a little perturbed by now he said well let's just call it the bill w movement right they voted on that in about five seconds and killed that and there was some fellow there who uh this is a story that i heard and i don't know how true it but i like it he was sounds good yeah sounds good seemed like this fellow was from a nut house and somebody brought him to the meeting, an asylum. And he was sitting there kind of mumbling around and he said something like Anonymous Alcoholics, Alcoholics Anonymous and that kind of caught on. And they said, well let's call it AlcoholicsAnonymous, that sounds good. So another house named AlcoholicsAnalymous. She's apropos, isn't she? First Alcoholicsanonymous that the world ever saw was a book called AlcoholicsANonymous and contained in the book Alcoholics Anonymous is a story of how the first 100 men and women recovered from alcoholism. Now, the fellowship didn't have a name. They were still drunk squads of the Oxford groups. So the first AlcoholicsAnonymous was a book called AlcoholicsAnalymous that contained a program of recovery from alcoholismo. My book says this fledgling society, this drunk squad of the Oxford group, which had been nameless now, began to be called Alcoholics Anonymous in the title of its own book. So the second AlcoholicsAnonymous, the world never seen, was a group of people called Alcoholic Anonymous. So we had two Alcoholicsanonomists, didn't we? We had a book called Alcoholical Anonymous and then we had a fellowship called Alcoholice Anonymous and in the beginning the fellowship and the program in the book was one and the same. No difference between the two. The first 100 people who put the book together They use the same program that's contained in the book. So in 1939, the program and the fellowship and the program in the Book were just exactly the same. Now the Book began to go out across the country and slowly, slowly people began to buy this Book. They began to read it and study it and do what it said to do and they would recover from alcoholism and they Would start a new AA group. The first one in California started that way. The first One in Texas started that Way. The first one in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and practically every state started through somebody getting the book and reading it and studying it and doing what it says and recovering from alcoholism and starting a new AA group. So the fellowship began to grow and expand from the information contained in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. And for several years there was never any question about the program and the fellowship and the program in the books not being the same. But as AA got bigger and bigger and larger, They begin to notice something that the first 100 didn't have. They begin not to notice the great strength and the great power that comes from people joining together who have a common problem and helping each other and supporting each other. Lots of power through that kind of fellowship. And they begin to question the need for the severity of the program that was in the book. And somebody said, you know, I don't really think we have to do everything this book says. He said, maybe we could treat it like a cafeteria. And we could take what we want and leave the rest and everything would be okay. And somebody said, you mean we've got to turn our entire will and life over to the care of God as we understand Him? And somebody else said, well, maybe let's just give Him the alcohol and we'll keep the rest. And they said, You mean we got to get rid of all of our character defects? Well, hell, we wouldn't have any personality left at all if we did that. And almost immediately, they began to water down the program. And the program and the fellowship slowly, slowly, surely began to change. And as the program and the fellowship began to change, it got in some cases where it really didn't resemble the original program at all. You know, some AA meetings you go to today, they talk about everything except alcoholism and recovery from alcoholism. They talk about sexual dysfunction or they talk about meaningful relationships or they talked about this and they talk about that. And if they didn't read the preamble before the meeting, you wouldn't even know you were We're in an A meeting in some cases. So what we're going to do this weekend is we're going to talk about the program not in the fellowship, but the program in the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. Now let's look and see how successful this program in this book used to be whenever everybody was expected to follow the program in the book. Let's look at the recovery rate. I remember years ago I called my sponsor Franklin Williams and I said, Franklin, my program's not working. And he said, well, tell me about your program. And I told him, well I'm mad at my wife and I'm mad at some people in the group and kind of mad at my boss and other people who are at work and my program is not working at all. He said, Well, Joe, your program's doing exactly what it was designed for. He said Have you ever tried working the program? So there's a lot of difference between my program and the program, I can tell you. Let's go to the top. I have a little pamphlet here and this is my feeling that every alcoholic and the Alcoholics Anonymous, I ought to get one of these and read it. It's written by Bill Wilson. I didn't write it, he wrote it. And it's called Problems Other Than Alcohol. And on the third page there's a little excerpt there that I like to read and it says this He said, Sobriety, freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practice of the 12 steps is the sole purpose of an AA group. There's only one purpose. He said sobriety freedom from alcohol through the teaching and practice of the 12 steps is the sole purpose of an AA group. And we challenge you this weekend to go back to your group and see if the sole purposes from the comments you hear are about the practice and teaching of the twelve steps of our God's Anonymous. Because that's the only purpose for an AA Group. Let's go to the top of Roman Numero 20. Let's see how successful this thing really used to be when a program and a fellowship Yep. The program and the book were exactly the same. So while the internal difficulties of our adolescent period were being ironed out, public acceptance of AA grew by leaps and bounds. For this, there were two principal reasons. The large number of recoveries and reunited homes. Now these made their impressions everywhere. Of alcoholics who came to AA and really tried, 50% got sober at once and remained that way. 25% sobered up after some relapses. and among the remainder, those who stayed on with AA showed improvement. Other thousands came to a few AA meetings and first decided they didn't want the program, but great numbers of these, about two out of three, began to return as time passed. If my math is correct, that 75% of those people who came to AA and really tried got sober. I don't think in my area, I know in my era, we can't even fantasize about 75 or 50 or 25% of Those people that are coming. I don' t think we can even talk about 10, maybe less than that. But I do know this, that in some areas that I have seen, including my own area, the people who are getting back to the program that's in the book, their recovery rate goes up. I have seeing that all over the country. And that's what we're trying to do here today is to try to get the fellowship to go back tothe program that is in thebook and the recovery rate will go up. You know, I'm quite sure today that we can say without any doubt that less than 10% of the people that come to AA are recovering from alcoholism. And I wonder why that's true. It's very simple. They're not using the program designed to recover from alcoholismo. Now, why aren't they using it? Well, Hank, it's very simply. I don't think anybody's telling them about it. You know, we're telling them to come to 90 meetings in 90 days and everything will be all right. Yeah, we tell them just keep coming to meetings, put the cork in the jug and everything'll be okay. And I'm wondering how many people we've killed by telling them that. you know i think one thing that's happened in aa and i've watched it over a period of years is it's slowly slowly slowly people coming to us from other areas and other different kinds of programs come in here and they want to talk about the program that they've learned out there wherever they were which is natural that's what i would want to do too and a lot of the older members are saying well we can't identify with those new people at all so what we're going to do is we're going to stay home. And when the owner member does that, we abdicate our responsibility for AA and we say, look at what those people are doing to our AA. We turn it over to the sickest of the sickest who are the newcomers and we're blaming them for the problem. No, I think our problem is that we don't have nerve enough to stand up and say, Look, whatever you learned out there is probably great information, but that's not AA information. Here's AA information. And we sit down and we start talking about what the problem really is. We start talking to them about the obsession of the mind, about the physical allergy of the body. We start helping them see the hopeless condition of mind and body. If we don't tell them that, who's going to tell them? And we talk to them about the solution. We take them by the hand. We walk with them as they work the steps and apply them in their lives so they can recover from alcoholism also. I don't believe it's a newcomer problem. I think it's an old-timer problem. Now, we're not going to preach anymore. We're through. No more preaching all week. I hope you don't bleed that. Now that we know a little bit about the history of the book and how it came into being, let's go over to the table of contents, Roman numeral I. And let's see if the book isn't really laid out in just about the same way that Bill and Bob and all the first 100 had to do in order to recover from alcoholism. You know, I've been in the printing business all of my life and I have been involved in designing and printing books just like this one. And I knew a little bit about the nomenclature of a book. And I never dreamed that this book ever had any rhyme or reason to it. I thought, well, a bunch of old drunks wrote it, so what would they know about a book? But come to find out they know an awful lot about the layout of a book. Because this little book is laid out in such a manner, it takes you from what the problem is all the way through the solution one page at a time, one paragraph at a time one chapter at a time one line at a time one line leads you to the next to the next to the next paragraph to the next chapter all the way through it's a textbook a classical textbook so this particular book has three goals in it first goal is to show us what the problem is we're going to put a picture up here on this screen and in your little handout sheets you've got a picture that matches it so if you can't see it too clear we'll have it up here and we're going to have to have a volunteer. Usually I get up and go do this myself, but it's going to be too hard to get through there, so let's pass that back to our volunteer up there. Yeah, great. Thank you. So if you'll refer your book there, it'll show you what we're talking about here. And goal one in this book is to tell us what the problem is. And they're going to tell us what The Problem Is through the doctor's opinion and Bill's story, so that we can identify with another alcoholic who has the same problem that we might have. Goal two is going to tell us what the solution to that problem is. He's going to tells us in chapter two that there's a solution. He knew that we weren't going to like that solution any better than he did. Remember when Abbey presented Bill with a solution, he was aghast at that solution. He knew then we were going to be aghasted at that solutions too. So he gave us a little more information called More About Alcoholism, more about what would happen to us if we didn't accept the solution that he described. He knew, too, that we were going to have problems with that solution as he did. Remember, his mind snapped shut against that series. He knew that we Were Going to Have Those Same Kind of Problems. So he wrote a chapter called We Agnostics. Agnostic means knowledge. You put the ag in front of it, it means without. Those are us who are without knowledge. And he knew that We Were Going To Have Trouble With That, So he gave us some more information so we could better make a decision about that solution. And also on Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 and 7, the goal three is the actions necessary for recovery. And beginning with Chapter 5, he said how it works. He's going to tell us how this solution works. In Chapter 6, he's going give us a little chapter called End to Action. Now this is not end to thinking. It's called End To Action. And action is a magic word now called synonymous. Chapter 7 is working with others. He's going to tell us then how to carry this message to other people. It took me years to realize that this book was written in a certain sequence and lay ideas in that particular sequence in order. Remember, the Dr. Silkworth told Bill, he said, Tell them exactly what's wrong with them. Explain to them the exact nature of the illness. Talk to them about the physical allergy, about the obsession of mind. And he said if you do that, if you'll do that you'll get their attention. Well you'll notice the first thing in our book is the doctor's opinion. And through the doctor'S opinion and Bill's story we identify with Bill just like we identify with each other on a 12-step call. But the new alcoholic remember in 1939 didn't have an AA group to go to. They had to make their identification through the big book. So through the doctor's opinion of Bill's story, we're able to see for the first time as a practicing alcoholic what our problem really is. We're ableto see this physical allergy to alcohol, this phenomenon of craving. We'reable to see the obsession to the mind. We'reable to see another alcoholic who has that problem through their sharing of Bill story. So in those two chapters, we'reableto see everything we need to know about what ourproblem is. And we're really looking at step one. And step one is simply that we're powerless. We're powerless over alcohol, our lives have become unmanageable, and there's for the first time for the new alcoholic he's able to see that information and see it in their own lives. Now if the answer is powerless, then obviously the answer to it would be power. So it's not by accident that the very next chapter in the big book after Bill's story is there is a solution. and in that chapter to the solution we'll see two powers we see the power of the fellowship that supports us we see a power the vital spiritual experience which changes us and Bill knew as the same as he that we're not going to like that idea of spirituality most alcoholics really don't like that idea at all when you first approach them with it so he wrote us another chapter called more about alcoholism and in this chapter and in each chapter he tells us just exactly what's going to happen to us if we don't find that power. And then in the fourth chapter, He gives us a power that we can begin to accept in our lives. So through chapters 2, 3, and 4, we see everything we need to know for step two. Now, if the problem is powerless and the answer is power, then the only other thing we need it always is how do you find that power? And in chapters 5, 6, and 7, we see steps 3 through 12. The program of action that came out of the Oxford groups expanded and rewritten by Bill for We Alcoholics so we could understand it and accept it in our lives. And we have laid out in the book in perfect sequence Steps 1, Step 2, Step 3 through 12. I always kind of laugh when I hear people say I'm going to go to a step study and they're always talking about going to the 12 and 12 for a step story. Well, anytime you're reading in the Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous you're in a step theory. Part of it is for Step 1, part of it for Step 2 and part of it for 3 through 12. Exact, perfect sequence. It amazes me when I look at it. And that's the same sequence Bill had to know it. Same sequence Dr. Bob had to know it, same sequence Bill Dotson had to knew it, same sequence all the first 100. So they just took their information and put it down in a written form in the sequence that they found it necessary to be able to do this stuff and then gave it to us to use today to recover from alcoholism. Of course in step 12 it says having had This spiritual awakening has the result of these steps. So if we follow it as they did, then I think we could expect to get what they got out of it too. Recovery from alcoholism. Let's go to the preface for just a moment. There may be some changes. If you've got the fourth edition, we're both working from a third. My preface is on Roman numeral 11, X1. It's the same as on the fourth addition. Is it the same in the fourth? Right. Okay. Second paragraph. He said, because this book has become the basic text for our society and it has helped such large numbers of alcoholic men and women to recovery, there exists a sentiment against any radical changes made in it. Therefore, the first portion of this volume describing the AA recovery program has been left untouched in the course of revisions made for both the second and third editions and now the fourth edition. The section called The Doctor's Opinion has been kept intact just as originally written in 1939 by the late Dr. William D. Silkworth. our society's great medical benefactor. So I see two ideas there I think we need to look at. Number one, because this book has become the basic text for our society, you know, we have all kinds of books in the world today. We've got novels, novels written on fact and novels written purely fiction. We have concordances, we had biographies, we've got autobiographies. But we also got a thing we call a textbook. And most of us, as we look back in our lives and remember a textbook, we're not too crazy about them. Because remember, you used them in school. And you had to read and study and take tests and all those things we didn't like to do. A textbook always caused me to want to cheat for some reason. I don't know why. But if you look at a textbook in its simplest form, all in the world it is is a means or a way to transfer information from the mind of one human being or a group of human beings through the written word to the mind of another human being, thereby increasing the knowledge of the one who's using the book. It's simply a way to transfer knowledge. That's what it is. Now, a textbook is nearly always written in a certain sequence. Nearly always assumes that the reader of the subject matter will know very little about it. Normally starts at a simple level As you progress through the textbook, the information presented becomes more and more difficult as the knowledge of the reader of the book increases. Let's take, for instance, a textbook on mathematics. Let's say my friend Joe here knows nothing at all about mathematics. He can't add, he can't subtract, he Can't do any of those things. Oh, he could count. Probably count to 21 if he's standing there naked and got everything where it belongs. Twenty and a half, actually. I think he's bragging now. Complaining. I'll walk up to Joe and I'll say, Joe, here's a textbook on mathematics. I want you to go to chapter 5 and work the algebra problems. Well, not being a good fellow, Joe will go to Chapter 5, but remember, he can't eat mad and subtract. And all he sees are just a bunch of marks on paper, period. No way he can do that. But if I say, Joe, the first chapter in this book deals with addition, subtraction, the value of numbers. If you'll read it and study it and ask questions and let me help you when you need it. By the time you're through with chapter 1, you'll know how to add and subtract. And sure enough, he learns how to do that. And I say, now based on what you learned in 1, you can now go to 2 and learn how to multiply and divide. And he does that. And I said, now then you can go to chapter 3 and you can learn about fractions and decimals. And he knows that. We gradually prepare his mind for the algebra problems in chapter 5. I think the greatest mistake being made in 8 a day regarding the big book Alcoholics Anonymous As a newcomer comes in the door, we hand them the book. We say go to chapter 5 and do what it says and you'll be okay. They go to Chapter 5 and they read a whole series of algebra problems. Step 1 said we admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable. The newcomer said, man, I ain't powerless over nothing. They have no idea what we mean by that statement. Step 2 said came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. The newcomers said, men don't tell me I'm crazy. Yeah, I do stupid things when I'm drunk or when I'M sober. I'M much like other people. They have no idea what we mean by that statement. Well, if you're not powerless and you're not nuts, then you don't need to make a decision to turn your well in life over to the curse of something you don' t understand in the first place. We present them with an almost impossible situation. If we can do nothing else all this weekend, I hope we're going to be able to see the value of the doctor's opinions in the 1st 4 chapters. How they give us the information necessary to be able to do chapter 5. You see, chapter 5 really starts with step 3. And it's damn near impossible to start with 3 unless you've got 1 and 2 behind you. And we're going to see that's what the doctor's opinion in the first four chapters are all about, to give us the knowledge necessary to be able to accept steps 1 and 3 in our lives. Standard textbook theory. I think the other thing we need to look at there that is so important, one of the greatest miracles in Alcoholics Anonymous, when he says because this book has become the basic text for our society and helped such large numbers of alcoholic men and women to recovery, there exists a sentiment against any radical changes being made in it. Therefore, the first portion of this volume describing the recovery program has been left untouched. And I think that's the greatest miracle in Alcoholics Anonymous. We're now into the fourth edition and so far we've never found it necessary to change the actual recovery portion of the book. Page Doctor's Opinion page 1 through page 164 and I think that's a real miracle because you know how we love to change things and everybody that's ever read it has rewritten it in their mind at least twice but collectively we've never found it necessary to change it. I wonder why Anybody care to venture? Because it works doesn't it Now why does it work today the same as it did in 1939 Three reasons, I think. Number one, alcoholics haven't changed. Alcoholics are doing the same thing they did today that they did in 1939. They get drunk. They get in car wrecks. They get into knife fights. They get on divorce courts. They get to penitentiaries. They're still doing the fun things today that you did in 1939. They haven't change a lick. Alcohol hasn't changed, Oh, the names of it and the colors of it and the shapes of the bottles and containers have changed. But alcohol is exactly the same thing today as it was in 1939. Human nature never changes. It's the same today that it was 2,000 years ago. And that's what this book really deals with. Alcoholics, alcoholism, and human nature. And thank God we've never found it necessary to change it. Or just as good today as they did in 1939, Joe. One more announcement. Small white slash yellow pickup with Oregon plates on top of hotel parking, your lights are on. Lack of power will be your deliverance. Okay. Let's go to the forward of the first edition on Roman numeral page 13, XIII. Forward to the first addition. And it says we. And that's probably the biggest word in all of Alcoholics Anonymous, we. can do what i cannot do we have alcoholics anonymous and more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body that's two different things a seemingly homeless state of mine and body and we're going to separate the mind from the body a little bit later on tonight and they want to talk about them individually now this is to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book and when you see little italic words in here i call them italics charlie called them squiggly writing but they're really italics and when you see italics in this book it's very very important it says to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book later on in our book we'll see words like specifically exactly with clear-cut directions so this is a book that's going to tell us precisely specifically exactly what we need to do and what we're going to do with clear-cut directions on how to recover. And if I want to recover from alcoholism, guess what? I need to do precisely, specifically, exactly following the clear- cut directions or I may not recover the way they did. Again, I see two ideas in that little part that Joe just read. Number one, we are more than 100 men and women. Most books I read are authored by one person. And when I read a book that's authored by one person, if I see something in there that I don't agree with, I usually say, well, who the hell are they to think they're smarter than I am? And I just ignore it. But if I do that with a big book, I must realize I'm not arguing with one person. The first 40 told Bill, they said, Bill, we want you to write the book. You know more about it than any of the rest of us. You've been sober longer than anybody else. And that was just a little over three years at that particular time. But they said Bill, this is not to be your book, it's going to be our book. And as you write the chapters, we want to see them. And we'll add to, we'll change around, we will delete from, we will do whatever is necessary. And through it, it will be the collective knowledge, experience and wisdom of all 100 of us. So when I read this book today, I must realize I'm not reading a one-person book. I'm reading a book which has been authored by 100 people. And also that 100 people have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. The same thing that's killing me is a practicing alcoholic. So it makes it a little harder for me to argue with the book when I realize it's written by 100 of them, and also if they recovered from the same thing as killing me. And that brings up the word recovered. You know, we hear fights going on about this all over the country. Can you recover from alcoholism or can you not? Well, I hope we can. If we can't, we're going to be in bad, bad shape. You know, before I came to AA, I could not successfully drink alcohol without getting drunk. Nor could I keep from drinking alcohol, left on my own resources. The result was that I lived in a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. I came down to AA. You gave me a book. I followed the directions in the book. I've had a spiritual awakening. Now, I still cannot successfully drink alcoholic. but I don't have to drink anymore. I've recovered from that seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. I will always be alcoholic, but I have recovered from a condition known as alcoholism. And you're going to see the word recover used all the way through the book. Recovered from that seeming hopeless state of mind-and-body. I think it's important that we let the newcomer know you betcha you can recover from that condition. You'll always be an alcoholic. You'll never be able to safely drink. But if you do what we did, then you won't have to drink anymore. That's what this thing is really about. To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. It's kind of like making cake. Let's go to a potluck meeting and somebody brings a strawberry cake. And that's my favorite cake. If you ever make me one, that's what I want. And that strawberry cake is just perfect. The texture is right, the taste is right. The moisture content is just perfectly. And I bite into that cake and I say, who made this cake? And you being a good cook would say, I made it. And I'd say, well, would you tell me how? And you'd say I'd be glad to. And you'll sit down and you'll write out for me a precise set of directions on how to make that cake. You'll tell me the ingredients to put in it, the quantity of the ingredients to put it in, the sequence in which to mix it together, the temperature at which to bake it, and how long to bake. Now if I take your directions in my kitchen and I follow them precisely as you've laid them out, When that cake comes out of the oven and cools off and I take a bite of it, I think I can expect it to taste just exactly like your cake tasted. But if I take those directions in my kitchen and my keen intellectual alcoholic mind begins to work, it might say, well, I don't know about four eggs. I think it ought to have six. Instead of two cups of sugar, that's too much. Maybe it ought just to have one and a half cups of water. Two cups of butter. Instead of baking at 375, I'll bake it at 450. Instead of baking it at 18 minutes, I'm going to bake it for 32. Now when that sucker comes out of the oven and cools off and I bite into it, you betcha I'm gonna be biting into a piece of cake. But I wonder how closely it would resemble your cake, which was my reason for making it in the first place. A precise, specific, clear-cut set of directions on how to recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body known as alcoholism. That's what this book is about. It says, But then we hope these pages will prove so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary. We think this account of our experiences will help everyone better understand the alcoholic. Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person. And besides, we're sure that our way of living has its advantages for all. And I bet you there's some people in here who are just like me. When I first came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I had become everything I detested in a human being. Everything. And I was so ashamed of what I had becomes, I wouldn't even sit at the tables. I'd sit in the back of the room and I'd look down at my feet I was ashamed about being there because I'd become everything I detested I did not like me I'd been married and divorced to two women seven times and I had lots and lots of problems would you say that again? two women, seven times my present wife she says only twice but I divorced her once and it wasn't even my turn and i had no idea that i might be a sick person they didn't talk about the illness of alcoholism in the bars that i went to so what would i know about it so i said i am a no good rotten sob and that's the way i felt deep down with inside and that's why i stood in the back of the room and looked down at my feet ashamed lots of people in a like that today uh for me i stayed in a way too long before I found out what my problem was. A lot of people today don't know about the doctor's opinion at all, which we're going to talk about. I had one fellow I mentioned the doctor'S opinion one time and he was one of those old timers in AA who protects AA through the traditions and would be glad to tell you if he thought you were doing something wrong. And he come up after the meeting and he said, What were you reading? Quoting out of. And I said, Well, the doctor�s opinion. He said, Where did you get that? I said well, out of the big book. and he left and the next day he saw me and walked up to me and he started crying before we got there and he said Joe I've been in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous for 39 years and I didn't know the doctor's opinion was in that book that's really a shame and I'll tell you why he didn't know it in the first edition of the big book the first 16 printings the doctor his opinion was chapter 1 page 1 Bill's story was chapter 2 when they came out with the second edition of the book They took the doctor's opinion and they put it in the Roman numerals. And they started chapter one, page one, Bill's story. They don't read Roman numerials, do they? Nobody reads Roman numerables in a damn book. Nobody reads it. They quit reading the doctor'S opinion when they did that. It's amazing how many people today have never read the doctor�s opinion in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous. It gives us a condition that the rest of the book shows us how to recover from it. That's right. It's hard to practice a recovery program unless you know what's wrong with you. So I guess you could say the first 173 pages instead of the 164, eliminating the doctor's opinion. Very, very important. As Charlie said, and I agree wholeheartedly, the rest of this book is going to tell us precisely how to recover from the condition of the body and mind as described in the doctor'S opinion. And we don't know what our problem is, as I didn't. I thought it was a moral issue for such a long, long time, and I didn' t understand what my problem is. It's important that I understand what my problem is if I am going to recover from that condition of the body and the mind. And that's why the doctor's opinion. Okay, let's go to Roman numeral 13, or 23, excuse me, Roman numerel 23. And the fourth edition is Roman numerald 25. And let's start looking at the doctor'S opinion. Let's start look at what our problem really is. You know, I think we alcoholics today are the luckiest alcoholics in the world because we're the only alcoholics that knows what's wrong with us. All of them out there still drink them. They still think it's willpower, moral character, sin, etc. But today we know what's wrong with us through the doctor's opinion. And as we look at the doctor'S opinion, I kind of like to think back about Dr. Silkworth. Dr. silkworth, when he went through medical school, he became interested in alcoholism at that time. But back in the early 20s, in that era, you couldn't hardly make any money treating alcoholics. The doctors said then, they said, you know, we don't really like to work with alcoholics, and they still don't like it much today. They say one reason we don' t like to w ork with them is they'll never do what we tell them to do. And certainly that's the truth. They said another reason we d on't like to wor k with them i s they'll lie to you all the time. Certainly that's true, but then they said the real reason we don't like to work with them is they won't pay their bills. And Silky, even though he was interested in alcoholism, he had to go into a different field. And he was successful in the field that he went into. 1929, when we had the great stock market crash, Silky lost everything he had, just like most people did in those days. He was forced to go to work for a fellow named Charlie Towns in the town hospital, $30 a week in room and board treating alcoholics. And he was just tickled to death to get to do it because that's what he really wanted to do anyhow. Now, between the time he went to work there in 1930 and the time he met Bill Wilson in 1934, he had worked with many, many, many, many alcoholics He would withdraw them from alcohol. He would see them leave there in a relatively good condition. And the next time he'd see them and they'd be right back in there in worse shape than they were the first time he withdrew them from alcohol. But he also noticed some people that came in there with a drinking problem who withdrew from alcohol didn't come back. And to begin to bug him, the difference is between these non-alcoholic drinkers and the alcoholic drinkers. And there's where he began to develop his theories, his ideas, that the body of the alcoholic is different from that of a normal person, plus the mind of the alcoholic is different than a normal person when it comes to alcohol. And through treating literally hundreds and hundreds of us, he developed the theories regarding the illness of alcoholism. So it wasn't by accident that he was able to tell Bill Wilson what was wrong with him. He learned it by working with drunks. You know, today they weren't going to do all this stuff working with rats. Silky didn't work with rats, he worked with drumps. And there's where he learned this information, and then he gave it to Bill, and then Bill, of course, passed it on to the rest of us. We owe Dr. Silkworth a great, great debt of gratitude. Prior to 1930, nobody knew anything about alcoholism. Prior to 1930, very few alcoholics ever recovered from alcoholism Prior to 1920, they couldn't come up with a decent program of action because they didn't know what the problem was to start with. And it was always the non-alcoholic people who decided what alcoholism was. The non-alkoholics are the ones that said it must be weak will. The non?alcoholics said, that guy is a sinful human being. The non�alcoholists said, That guy has a moral problem. We alcoholics didn't say anything. We didn't give a damn. We just kept on drinking, you know. But thank God Silky, being a non? alcoholic, could come up with this information by working with alcoholics. Many years ago, Charlie and I first met. We would meet at conferences from time to time. I met Charlie in 1974, and we would sit down and talk about this book. And then later on, we'd meet at another conference a month or two later and get together somewhere with some of us and talk About This Book. Well, in early 1975, we were in a hotel room somewhere in Tulsa, I think. And Charlie said something that night that really got me. He said, this illness that we're talking about is not one of moral character. It's not one if sin. It's not one of willpower. It's Not That You're a No Good Rotten SOB. He said, it's an illness. And, of course, I said, well, if it's not one of those things, then what in the hell is it? Because I don't know. See, I'm dumb as a bag of hammers when it comes to alcoholism at that time. And he explained to me out of the doctor's opinion what the exact nature of my illness was the first time that I heard it. And then I began to get over that idea that I'm just a no good rotten SOB and, of coarse, I know today that unless an alcoholic can find a way to get over that feeling of being a no-good rotten SOB, those type of feelings will drive you back to drink. The guilt, shame, and remorse will drive us back to drinking. So I think if tonight, if we can look at this thing as an illness rather than a moral issue, we will have accomplished our goals for tonight. You know, a lot of people would have you believe today that alcoholism is a disease of denial. And I don't believe that. You can't deny something you don't know. I think it's an illness of ignorance. We didn't know what alcoholism was. And Silke tells us what alcohol is, period. And I don't think he's going to use the word denial anywhere in the doctor's opinion. Let's look at it. Let's see what the problem really is. He's not going to used the word disease either. It's not used in our literature anywhere when it comes to talking about alcoholism. He said the physician who at our request gave us this letter had been kind enough to enlarge upon his views in another statement which follows. In this statement, he confirms what we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe. Now, there's no must in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous that I'm aware of. No one can tell you what you must do or what you muss not do. But there's a lot of musts in this book. And there's one of them right there. As a matter of fact, there are some 73 musts. In this book, he said, We must believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. This is the first time we can find anywhere in written history a reference to the fact that the body is quite as abnormal as the mind. Everything up until this time, they always talked about the mind, willpower, moral character, sin, and et cetera. This is The First Time We See A Statement Anywhere In Written History That The Body Is Affected As Well As The Mind. That came from Dr. Silkwood. and we're going to separate the body and talk about it in great detail, and then we'll talk about the mind in great details. Two different things, and we'll separate them so we can understand. Not only is he saying also that the body is abnormal, but the mind is abnormal too. And we're gonna talk about both of those abnormalities. First one will be the body. He said, They did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life, that we were in poor flight from reality, or without right mental defectives. Now, these things were true to some extent, in fact, to a considerable extent with some of us. But we're sure that our bodies were sickened as well. In our belief, any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete. The doctor's theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us. As lame in our opinions to its soundness may, of course, mean little. But as ex-problem drinkers, we can say that this explanation makes good sense. It explains many things for which we cannot otherwise account. Now, if the purpose of a textbook is to transfer information from the mind of one human being through the written word to the mind of another, increasing the knowledge of the user of the book and I think that's what a textbook ist for, then it stands to reason that the transfer of the information is going to be made based upon the understanding of the words that are used in the book. If the writer of the work uses a word and has one understanding of it. The reader of the book reads that word and has a different understanding of it the information that comes through then is going to be garbled and incomplete information there seems to be a few key words in the big book that many of us have had difficulty with them, and I think one of the first ones is the word allergy you know most of us when we come to AA we assume that we know what an allergy is. I know when I came here I knew that if you allergic to something and you got around it or you ate it or you drank it there would be some physical manifestation or a physical indicator of that allergy that you could see for instance if you're allergic to strawberries when you eat them you break out in a rash the rash being the physical manifestation of that allergy if you allergic to milk and you drink it you'll have a bad case of dysentery the dysentering being the physical manifestation or indicator ofthat allergy if you're allergic to certain plants such as ragweeds and you get around them your eyes itch your nose itch they water and you begin to sneeze the itchy watery eyes the sneezing are the manifestations of that allergy so I knew if you were allergic to something there had to be some physical manifestation to show you that they came to me when I came to AA and they said Charlie you're you're allergic to alcohol you'll never be able to safely drink it again and I said how in the hell can I be allergic to alcohol I'm drinking a quart a day. How can you possibly drink that much of something you're allergic to? And I said, besides that, when I drink alcohol, I don't break out in a rash. And I don' t always have a bad case of dysentery. Once in a while I would, depending on what I've been drinking. But usually I didn' t. It didn' d make my eyes, nose, itch, water and cause me to sneeze. I said I don''t understand what you' re talking about. You need to explain that to me. And their answer was, well, you don' d need to understand. All you need to know is you just can't safely drink it anymore. Well, today I think I know why they told me that. I don't think they understood it a bit better than I understood it. Now, if you've got a keen intellectual alcoholic mind like I've got, and you get a question like that dangling out here in front of you, if you don't get the answer to it, sooner or later it's going to drive you out of your mind. And I went from person to person to old-timer. People have been sober for years asking them to explain to me, what is this allergy thing? Yeah, it's here. Well, what is it? And the answer always was, well, what difference does it make? You just can't drink. That's all you need to know. Another one said, forget the damned allergy. Just keep coming to meetings and you'll be all right. And finally, finally, one day in sheer desperation, I went to a source of information that's never failed me since that time. I went through a Webster's Dictionary and I looked up the word allergy and I found several definitions for it, the same as you do with practically any word depending on how you use it, but I found the one I think fits me exactly It said an allergy is an abnormal reaction to any food, beverage, substance of any kind. An abnormal reaction. So immediately I began to look back through my drinking history to see where I was abnormal. And to my amazement, I realized, hell, I don't know what's abnormal and what's normal. The only thing I know about drinking alcohol is the way I drank it and the way those people who drank with me drank it just like I did. And if they didn't, we didn't drink together. So in order for me to find out what's abnormal, I have to go to the normal social temperate moderate drinker. And I ask them to describe to me, how do you feel when you had a drink or two? And they usually said something like this. They said, well, we can come home from work all tired, tense and wrought up from the day's work. And we can have a drinker or two before dinner. And we'll get kind of a relaxing feeling. And we will go ahead and have dinner. And then we won't drink anymore that night. I don't know about you but I don' t feel that way when I drink alcohol I take a drink of alcohol as it crosses my lips my lips begin to tingle immediately hits my teeth and they kind of chatter up and down strikes my tongue and I can feel my tongue begin to grow and expand and swell and get bigger and bigger hits my cheeks and they come to flutter in and out at the same time it's passing through my sinus cavities into my forehead and I begin to get a feeling in my forehead which is absolutely indescribably wonderful And I haven't even swallowed the damn stuff yet. I've just got it in my mouth. When I swallow it, you know what happens? As it goes down through my esophagus, I can feel my chest begin to grow and expand and get bigger and bigger and thicker. It hits my stomach and it just literally explodes like a bomb. Immediately I can see that it's going to explode. I can hear it racing through my arms and they're getting longer and longer. It hits My hands and fingers and they begin to tingle and vibrate. At the same time it's racing through My arms is racing through my legs. They're getting longer and longer. I'm getting taller and taller and it hits my feet and toes and I get a hot, intense, burning, exciting get-up-and-go-somewhere-and do-something feeling. I don't understand the relaxing feeling when you have a couple nights of alcohol. These people told me two things that literally blew my mind. They said, Charlie, when we have a cup of coffee or a couple of drinks, we begin to get a slightly tipsy, out-of-control feeling. And they said, we don't like that feeling. Therefore, one or two drinks is all we want to take. And today I realize that is the normal reaction to alcohol. For the normal person, alcohol is a depressant. Thanks for listening.