The Lying Ego – The Big Book and Steps of AA – Part 1 of 3 – Local AA Speakers

Thank you. My name is Bob, an alcoholic. My sobriety date is May 28th of 1973, and for that I'm truly grateful. I'm a little hoarse. When I come, I live at about 6,000 feet in the mountains, and when I come down to this elevation, for some reason I start losing my voice. But we'll get over it at some point. I'll adjust. Thank you for inviting me. There are two sessions tonight. Can you tell me from when to when? Where's Glenn? 7 to 10 is one session. Is there a break in the middle of it? Yes, 7 to ten is our break. Okay, and the break is at 8.30 or at 815? It's about 7 to10 now. I've been sober for a long time and I'm a member of a group in Englewood, Colorado called the Happy Way Group. And I didn't pick the name. Sounds like a bunch of people on Thorazine. It just, my group is 50 years old, my home group. And I've been a member of that group for the better, I think 30 years now. We are a group that encourages people to go through the steps once a year. and i have for the most part been going through the steps once a year for 36 years which means i start at one and go to 12 and do all the stuff in between we work directly out of the big book we're kind of a fundamentalist group i've been fortunate enough to lead a wonderful life i have way more than i ever expected if i had chosen my life uh 36 years ago i would have been so far off the mark i couldn't even tell you. What I want to do this weekend is I'm just going to tell you what I've done, but I want this to be a dialogue. I have no intent of sitting here and just talking all weekend. What I wanna do is I wanna know what you think. I wanna if you have questions and I will show you what I have done. And that's what the big book says. We will show you what we have done. The tense in the bigbook isn't, we'll show you what you ought to do. The sense in the Big Book is, I'll show you what i did and then you make your own decisions. So that's why I want to do this weekend. Part of having gone through the steps that many times is that at some point you're going to learn more. The book talks about growing and understanding and effectiveness, and the truth is that if you'll give yourself to this simple program, if you've given yourself to the recovery program and engage in these spiritual exercises that we call steps, and do it over and over again over a long period of time, it will have some real effect on what you believe, how you live, what kind of a life you have. All of those things can happen. The thing that's most troubling to me in Alcoholics Anonymous today is that no matter how many times people engage in the recovery program, it's that sometimes they just never touch themselves. And I have never ever met anyone in Alcoholics Anonymous who didn't come into this program with a head full of nonsense about who and what they are. and the problem is that if you keep that kind of insanity in your head no matter how long you're going to be sober you're gonna be just as crazy as the day you came through the door and so the real thing that I want to do this weekend is I want to show you what I have done what you can do if you choose to to get rid of that kind bad information. You know, everybody in here has suffered from this idea of I'm not good enough. People don't come into Alcoholics Anonymous with their self-esteem intact. By the time we get to AlcoholicsAnonymous, we're not people that think we're the salt of the earth. We think we are the scum of the Earth. And the idea that somebody just comes in here yippy skippy going, well, I'm just one of the finest people you'll ever meet, is just BS. So what I want to do is I want to talk about what do you do to change your mind about who and what you are? And if you have all these self-defeating beliefs about I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not swift enough, I'm not attractive enough, I'm not whatever enough. Those are all lies. And in the beginning I'll tell you that there are two antagonists that are floating around in all of our heads. And the two antagonists are the egos, the ego and our intuitive thought. Now, the ego, Bill Wilson talked about the ego. So if you think I'm wandering off into psychobabble, I'm not. Bill Wilson talks about ego deflation at depth being the point of this program. And if the point is that the ego deflates itself, and the point to this program is ego defamation at depth, we better define the ego? What does that look like? the ego is a loud voice that tells us that you know everyone thinks the ego is telling us well i'm you know i'm really something special i never met a drunk that thought that maybe someone has but the real truth is that my ego tells me that i'm not worth anything My ego tells me that I can't succeed. My ego says, if you go try that, you're going to look like a fool and everybody's going to know it. My ego does not have enough talent to pull that off. Here's what the ego does. The ego lies. The ego never ever tells the truth. It always wants something and it's never satisfied. My ego told me one time I ought to buy a new Corvette. So I did. And I went out and I bought this brand-new white Corvette, and a couple of days later I'm sitting there going, oh, this was a mistake. And then I'm sort of looking around to see if my ego was feeling better now that I was driving a Corvette And the argument the ego had was, ladies are really going to like you when you're driving this. And see, I drove that thing for about five years and it didn't make a damn bit of difference. I figure if they don't want to have anything to do with you, driving a Corvette is not going to make anything better. So it always wants something. It's never satisfied. It always talks in a loud voice and it always lies. No. There's another voice, but it's quieter. And that voice is intuitive thought. And the book talks about that at some length. And it says that we gradually learn to trust that it becomes a working part of the mind. And it's a quiet voice. And it say, yes, you can. And don't be afraid of what the ego tells you. You can still pull it off. And why don't you try it instead of being frozen in place? The ego's greatest tool is fear. And if fear doesn't work, terror comes next. Right? And so your ego's screaming at you that you'll never pull it off, and your intuition is saying, go ahead and try. You're a talented person, and you have the ability to succeed beyond your wildest imaginings. and that's true about everybody in here see and the thing that just kills me in alcoholics anonymous is listening to people talk about who they are because they're almost never right because they almost always underestimate themselves and when you look at people all these self-defeating beliefs are like dragon anchors and so we're walking through life and we have all this silly information in our heads about not being able to do this and that so we never become the person that God intended us to be and so what we're going to do hopefully in a rational and progressive sense this weekend is start talking about how do the steps take us to a place where we don't have to believe that bullshit anymore, ever. And how can we get to the point where we can get fascinated with our own ability to succeed? I'll give you an example. People thought I was nuts from the time I was about 12. And I was engaged in all sorts of antisocial activities. My stepbrother and I were rolling drunks when we were 13. We were involved in boosting warehouses. We did all sorts OF antisoical behavior. He got caught, was sent off to a boy's home. um and they uh when i was 17 i was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and told i could either spend four years in the wisconsin state penitentiary or i could go in the military for four years and if i got out after four years because i was 16 at the time they would expunge my record if I got an honorable discharge and killed a number. So I did that. I went in the military. They thought I was crazy. They made a forward observer out of me, which means that you were expendable. Yeah, put him up there. If somebody gets shot, he'll be the one. And then I went to work as a bill collector in Chicago. I went up to 240 pounds and kicked in people's stores and bounced them up against the walls, and was generally um a psychopath and i did that for quite a while uh i became so good at it that i even collected juice loans for gangsters um because i was just really good at was totally antisocial was probably sociopathic now why am i telling you all this because god can take people like you and i and make us useful members of society. And so today, my company, the one I own, is one of the largest providers of psychiatric care and therapy for the Colorado Department of Corrections. How'd that happen? How'd I get from where I was to where I am? I still work. I'm probably the largest provider for the Colorado Parole Division. And I get to work with inmates, and I understand them. So God can find a job for all of us. The only thing that we need to do is to get well enough to take it. So the point of this thing this weekend is to talk about how do I get from here to there. if you tell me well i don't have any of those self-defeating beliefs because i got past it a long time ago you're wasting your time here because that's what i'm going to talk about i'm gonna talk about getting well emotionally physically spiritually talking about going from where i am which involves believing all this silly stuff to believing that I truly am worthwhile in this life. And I'll tell you what the secret is right now, because there's no point in hanging on to it, I guess. The secret is when I look at all these things that are preventing me from doing what I want to do in life and becoming the person that I want to be, they're all lies. They're all from the ego. And the truth is that I am a child of God and an equal to anyone on the face of this planet. No better or no worse but and equal. And as such, I can go out and do things that I had never dreamed of doing. I'm considered an expert in Colorado by the Department of Corrections in working with people who have psychiatric problems and drug and alcohol problems. And I'm 71 years old. I'm still working. I'll probably work another five years. and and the reason why is because i have i have the respect of the people that i work for and see you can have all that same stuff so so how do we do that now if at some point in here you have a question or you want to say something And please step up to that microphone because, as I said, I'm not just going to talk all weekend. I don't think I'm up to dat. So if you have questions or if you want to say something, just stand up there and say something. Don't have to be embarrassed. It's all just fine, okay? And this really ought to be a dialogue. So what do we do? First of all, if you're going to practice a spiritual program that says that I need to overcome alcoholism, you've got to be an alcoholic. All right? Now, that sounds a little silly, doesn't it? Do you think everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous is an alcoholic? Huh? Say something. You think everyone in Alcoholic Anonymous isn't an alcoholic, Not even close. Why are there people in Alcoholics Anonymous that aren't alcoholics? Huh? Yeah. Amazingly, yes. Now, anyone who would want to sit in a room full of drunks, they have to be crazy, right? Well, they are. So there is a type of marginally mentally ill person who will come into Alcoholics Anonymous because they can't establish social platforms anywhere else. Because if they try and do that in general society, it doesn't work. People will reject them out of hand. But most of the time, if people come into AA meetings and say, I'm an alcoholic, everybody goes, right. If you say you are, you are. You want to know the truth? They're not. And sometimes that can be dangerous. And the reason why is because they'll sit in there and go, hey, I take medication and I'm just fine. So I don't have to do all the rest of this stuff. And that's toxic to a real alcoholic. So what is a real alcoholic? How do you define a real alcoholic? What has to happen for a person to be an alcoholic? Huh? Hit a bottom. That for sure. Right, but how do you recognize it? Alright, let's start right here. The phenomenon of craving. Can't stop with one drink. The phenomenon of craving only occurs in an alcoholic. It doesn't occur in anything else. It doesn'T occur in heavy drinkers. It doesn' t occur in average temperate drinkers or social drinkers The phenomenon of craving only occurs in the alcoholic. That's what it says in the big book. What else? Okay. What kind of attitude? Yeah. Here's one, here's one. I don't know whether it was mentioned or not. I have lost the power of choice in drink. All right. That defines an alcoholic. I have lost the power of choice. As soon as I lost the power of choose, I have stepped over the line. Have you lost the power to choice and drink? I go through the steps once a year and I have to start with the first step and when I start with a first step I do something that just makes other people crazy Some other people crazy. And that is that I take the attitude that I may not be an alcoholic. I may not be. Maybe I've been deluding myself for 36 years into thinking that I really have a problem when I don't. And then I have to go out and redefine my alcoholism. That's a scary prospect, isn't it? See, if you don't do the steps, you're going to spend your whole life running around trying to avoid the drink. And we'll get to it, but there are 10-step promises that said we become neutral to alcohol, and they're true if we do the recovery program, which means people will say, well, aren't you afraid that you're gonna take a drink? No. You know, looking at alcohol for me is like looking at dog food. I don't have a dog. It's just irrelevant, okay? I don'T think about drinking. I DON'T fantasize about drinking I DONT romance the idea of drinking I DON' do any of that and I'M as bad a drunk as anybody you'VE ever met I drank a fifth actually my drink of choice was brandy I drank a fifth of brandy every day for about 15 years. I was a chronic alcoholic by the time I was 21. So how do you define an alcoholic? And if you're going to go work with someone, make sure they're drunk. I mean, the kindest thing you can do is say, I've got good news for you. I don't think you're an alcoholic. I think that you just had a set of circumstances that brought you to the program, but you don't show the earmarks of alcoholism, which is having lost the power of choice and the phenomenon of craving. Can you do that if somebody wants to be a drunk? It's the kindest thing you can do. You know how you can really tell when people are recovered? They have the courage to do things like that. They have a courage to sit in the middle of a meeting and say, I can show you precisely how to recover. You ever hear anybody say that in a meeting? Why not? That's what the big book says. In the foreword to the first edition, it says to show others precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. Okay? Why doesn't anybody say that? part of being well is having the courage to be really clear with people and um you know is uh at some point in the book talks about growing and understanding and effectiveness but And at some point, we have to have the courage to take positions that other people may be offended by. So if you see someone come into your meeting and they're dying from alcoholism and it's just crystal clear, and if it's some of the meetings around where I live they'll be in there and they'll all be huddled over and there will be people stroking them and they will be going you're ok, everything is going to be alright just keep coming back don't drink and you won't get drunk keep the plug in the jug so what just happened huh nothing nothing if you see someone dying from alcoholism do you have the courage of your convictions Can you go up to that person and say, if you're sick and tired of doing what you're doing and looking like you're looking, and if you just can't stand drinking for one more day, I have a solution for you. And if you don't want it, I understand. But if you do want it, tell me and I'll help you. Can you do that? Can you? Don't just nod. At some point, you're going to remember this and then you're gonna have to say to yourself, well, I said I would. And, you know, we have this thing where we just soon let somebody else do it. I was in a meeting with a woman who'd been in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous for about 10 years. She came in and she was about half drunk and people were stroking her and they were going around the room and saying keep coming back honey and it gets better and all the rest of that stuff. and when it got around to me I said well I'd like to say something to that lady over there everybody's stroking and the first thing I want to say is why don't you pull your head out of your ass you know and then I didn't know what happened to her but her head popped up I mean just popped up like a jack-in-the-box when she heard that And I ran into her about six months later, and she said, do you remember saying what you said to me in that meeting? And I said, yeah. And she said the next day I put myself in a treatment center, and I've been sober ever since. And see, I alienated everyone in that meet-up. when I said that? Because they're going, what an asshole. Right? Are you willing to be one? Huh? Can you? The point here is to have the courage of your convictions and to have a courage to step up when somebody's dying right in front of you and tell them the truth. and if you're unwilling to do that they're going to wander off and die because you didn't tell them the truth see and part of this thing is is about taking unpopular positions just to help someone putting your own ego at risk with this whole this whole goofy idea about oh my gosh people aren't going to like me. I can tell you that today I really don't care. I don't know I don' t care if you like me You want to know the truth about that? If you if you look at all the people you know there are these people over here that really like you and then there's some people over her especially if you have strong opinions there are people over here that really aren't going to like you and then there's a whole bunch of people in the middle that are indifferent okay and if you go to these people over here that really like you and try to make them not like you they're probably going to be they're not going to like you anyway and if you go to these people over here who don't like you, and try to make them like you, you'll probably be unsuccessful. And all the people in the middle are going to remain indifferent. So what's the point? You know, just lay that whole business to rest because we have no power over other people's opinions. And for me to spend my life trying to make sure that other people like me is a total waste of time. You know, they will or they won't. Now I'll tell you what, if you'll go through this program and you will carry a clear message without fear, not everybody's going to like you but almost everyone's going to respect you and i would much rather be respected than liked so here we are on this life and death mission where god has pulled us up helped us become sober is showing us the truth in direct proportion to how hard we look for it and can make us useful in helping other alcoholics. I think he takes the worst of us. I'll tell you something that I believe about drunks. I think all the really tough drunks die. and I think it's those of us that just caved in and said, I give up. I've had enough. All us weak drunks that survive. Okay? Because at some point we give up, and I've seen so many drunks die from this disease that just won't do it. They just keep going and succumb to the disease. So, the big book says we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we're alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. The delusion that we are like other people or presently may be, which means wherever it will be, has to be smashed. So are we like other people? Why not? Because we what? The power of choice. Right, so we are different. What does that mean? What's different mean? Does that mean better? Does it mean worse? It just means different, right? So I can be different without being some sort of social pariah, right. I'm just different. It doesn't make me a bad person. It doesn'T make me A good person either. It just makes me different, Right. Okay. So how do I come to terms with the idea that I'm an alcoholic? When I go through the steps, I go true and I look at it, and I drank copious amounts of alcohol, but it doesn't make me an alcoholic. Lacking the power of choice in drink does. Having the phenomenon of craving does. um there's a there's an exercise in the book which will also define an alcoholic and that says if when you honestly want to you find you can't quit entirely what's that mean yeah so how do you find your choice You can't quit entirely. What's that mean? You make a decision that you're going to stop drinking, and maybe you stop drinking for six months. Or you go and sit back at it. Or you say, I want to have two drinks. And maybe for like two days, three won't happen. Two drinks and drinks is not worth it. Yep. Please do that. Yeah. Yeah. because he wants to record it and actually we should yeah we should get used to that and i'd like you frankly to participate as much as you can in this because it'll work better for you frankly go ahead I forget what the original question was sorry um I think we were talking about you if when you honestly want or you find you can't okay what that means to me and my history of drinking was that I said I can control this I'm going to stop and it would be an all or nothing for six months, and then I'd start drinking again. And I'd think, well, maybe just discipline myself two drinks, and I'd be successful at that for maybe two nights. But invariably, I would always land back to the not being able to stop drinking once I started. I had no control over that. So at one point you go completely out of control. Out of control, yes. That's the hallmark of an alcoholic. Anybody else? You can get up. Go ahead. Yeah, the lie that I always told myself for 25 years was I'm only going to have one or two. And, of course, I could never stop. And I also really appreciated what you said about it's life and death, you know. And I do sometimes kid around about my drinking, but I always remember that it's a killer disease. And it is life and death in here. And I get upset like you. People just keep coming back, and they think AA is going to be here. But one day, you know, they're not going to Be Here to come back. And that's all. Thank you. We just buried a 38-year-old woman this past week. Five years ago, I took her through the steps, and her life turned around. She got married. She had a little boy. They bought a new house out in this really nice subdivision. It was just wonderful. Her husband had a nice job and all the rest of that. And then about two years later, she hooked up with this new sponsor who told her that she seemed terribly depressed and ought to go on medication. now this lady that she who became her sponsor is one of those people who comes into Alcoholics Anonymous whose alcoholism is seriously in doubt and then decides that she's going to make everybody else like her to give herself credibility And because this woman's heavily medicated that sponsored her, she went, well, you're just like I am, and clearly what you need is to be medicated. And as soon as she got medicated, she went off like a Roman candle. And the next thing I knew, she was in the Denver County Jail. The next thing after that was she was mulling drugs out of Mexico. And the next thing I know, they're telling me about her funeral. Be careful who you hook up with in this thing because not everybody has the best of intentions and not everyone has a clear message. You can define that by just looking in the book. and if somebody's blowing smoke up your backside about being heavily medicated or whatever else or decides to take you off on some sort of sightseeing tour into the mentally ill or whatever, get the hell away from them. Get people that have a solid program. Yes? I guess for me, my powerlessness or my loss of power of choice was that when I put alcohol in me, I never knew what was going to happen. You know, I'd say I was going go for one drink and I'd drink the whole night and end up someplace not my home that I didn't particularly want to be. I've never heard that described as nicely as you just did. I was trying to be nice, too tactful. But I was somebody that never wanted to quit drinking. I mean, I was completely surprised when it was suggested to me that I needed to stop drinking. In fact, I wanted even a second opinion at that point. It was the therapist who told me that. But I think I realized pretty quickly that when I put alcohol in me, I never knew what was going to happen. And the whole idea of one drink to me was like, what was the point? But I just never knew what would happen to me. And I think in the chapter to the agnostic, they have that little short thing that if you're probably alcoholic, there's like two little things you probably about. If when you honestly want to, you find you can't quit entirely, or if once you start, you have little control over the amount you take. Right, I never had the control over the amount I took. Thank you. Go ahead. You had something else to say? No, I was just going to thank you for being here. I'm delighted to be here. Go ahead Hi, I'm Anita and I'm an alcoholic Well, I found my power of choice I've been a year and two months ago I had put myself into rehab and, uh, I knew I was powerless over alcohol. My, I, you know, my sponsor has been working with me for a long time and I was praying and everything. And then it was like, I got my 60 day chip by relapse. And Then it was every 30 days I'd relapse and I didn't know what I was doing wrong. And at Christmas when we were going through a really financial hard time. I finally said that in the AA meeting, things were really bad and all the people brought me gifts for my daughter, food, and it, I couldn't handle it. It was way too much. I was like, why are these people doing things for me? I'm a terrible person. So then of course I isolated myself and would call my sponsor every so often drunk. Um, and then this last time in April when I relapsed and passed out while taking care of my daughter. Because when I drank, I had went through a part where when I tried to self, I tried to, instead of drink, I thought if I smoked pot, I wouldn't drink. So I did that. And that didn't work. I just ended up drinking. And if there wasn't enough alcohol, I'd go to the Listerine or anything else I could get in me because I had to have the alcohol. and when I passed out while taking care of my daughter and I had wrecked the car with my daughter all kinds of things, they weren't my bottom but when I past out this time and woke up at 7 o'clock in the morning or when the sun came up and my two year old was huddled on her bedroom floor and there was salt and pepper all over the house I was like what is wrong with me why can't I do this And I finally surrendered. And when I surrendered and left go and left God, it was a whole new ballgame. I mean, I missed two meetings two days in a row. And I woke up this morning and I was like, oh, this isn't good. My old thoughts were coming back to mind, like isolation and hiding. And I wasn't sure if I was allowed to use the word pot because I was at a meeting last Sunday And I had called myself an alcoholic and an addict because I am an alcoholic. But the lady had said that I had to call myself an alcoholic because in AA you only discuss alcohol. And I thought, well, Bill was addicted to pills. You know, I was kind of confused about that. But I didn't know because it didn't bother me. But I know that's when I found myself. I've got 44 days. I had to ask my sponsor if I could come up and talk, but I've got 44 days today, and everything that you had said, my sponsor said to me. She's an excellent sponsor. I have a great sponsor, but yeah, I'm definitely an alcoholic, and I found that when you surrender and let go and let God, God really does help you. He's really helping me out now. It was like a light switch went off. Are you going to be here tomorrow? Yes, sir. I'm going to show you how to write inventory tomorrow to get all that bullshit out of your head. Okay. Because you don't think you deserve anything. You don't thing you deserve a good relationship. You don' t think you de serve success. You don''t think you deserv e to be a good parent. You don ''t think any of that stuff. Am I wrong? Yes, but today I went and I took my GED. Wonderful. Well, I just took the practice test to see, and when she asked me what was my furthest grade, I went, and I was like eighth because my parents were alcoholics. I had a horrible childhood. And she didn't expect me to do as well as I did on it. But so she said it might take a little longer for me to get ready for the test. But, yeah, I went in and did that today. Come tomorrow. I'll be here. Because we're going to talk about inventory tomorrow. Okay. And I'll show you how to challenge all that silly stuff that you believe about yourself because you can succeed in any of those areas way beyond anything you consider. and all you have to do is to engage in this process and you can find the truth. Now, we'll get into that. The real thing about inventory is not about finding the truth particularly, it's about finding what's going on. It's about understanding the lies. And so, thank you. Thank you. Let me ask you a question before this next lady starts talking. When should you start, if you're going to go work with somebody new, when do you start them in the process? Huh? You're saying right away? Anybody say anything different? The 12 steps. Please use the microphone. When their brain is somewhat cleared? Somewhat? When's that? Let me, okay, this is a trick question. And then we'll have the lady in the yellow sweater come up. But here's what the book says. The book says, with all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start so when do you start people in book first day you meet him first day i start working with somebody say bring your book and we start at the forward to the first edition and people go well you know he he's pretty messed up yet. Right? Okay. So was I. I don't care if they're messed up, you know, either God works or he doesn't. And I don'T care if there's still be fogged from alcohol. I just DON'T care. If you're going to get them, the kindest thing you can do is to get him into recovery as fast as they'll sit down with you. And if you do what I do, you will tell people in the very beginning, here's what we're going to do. I sit down avec people and I describe all 12 steps to them. It takes about 30 minutes and say, that's what I'm going to ask you to do and I'm not going to have to do it again. I'm just going to be able to ask you to go ahead and ask you to do anything I haven't done and that I haven'T done a whole lot. And so you don'T have to be afraid of being hurt in the process. But if you want to work with me, you will start your recovery program now. Thank you. I just wanted to say that I really appreciated the last thing that you said about how to check, you know, how to determine if you're really an alcoholic. Yes. Because for me, when I came in, I really couldn't fully admit I was. And I said to my sponsor at the time, well, I hear everybody say that if I can't fully admit it, then I'm going to go out. You know, so I'm just going to have a brick fall on my head anyhow. So should I just go out now and, you know, make it bad? And she's like, well can you admit that your life is unmanageable? And I says, it's ridiculously unmanangeable. She said, well then we're going to break it in two parts and focus on that. But that specific question, if when you want to stop completely you find that you can't, I think that is really what saved me because my denial was so strong and I was like a binge drinker. So when I came in and I heard people saying that they drank every single day, I couldn't relate to that. Of course, I tried to compare myself out. And then, you know, I could go the majority of a week. You know, I'd get up Monday morning and the fear would set in that I wasn't in control of my life and I wasn'T looking good enough. So I'd pull my act together for the week. And then it was like as soon as the Thursday night or something came, you know, I earned this drunken, nonsensical weekend that, I mean, talk about a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And these psychotic episodes just kept, you Know, that maybe only happened once or twice a year. Then they started happening every three months and then every two months and dann every one month, You know? And that's what really scared me. But at first it was Like, Well, I can go several days without a drink. and I can go to work all week and I only get drunk on the weekends you know, all bets are off and I surrounded myself with great enablers to watch me so I could just let go but it was that last question that really hit home for me because when I tried to stop doing anything on the weekend that's when the reality came in that I really couldn't long term so I just wanted to share that Thank you just to get your perspective on this because i'm curious because yes found where i was thinking of it says um you know we work out a solution on the spiritual as well as the altruistic plane we favor hospitalization for the alcoholic who is very jittery or befogged more often than not is imperative that a man's brain be cleared before he is approached as he then he has then a better chance of understanding and accepting what we have to offer so it's a specter i mean like you know you're hearing them you know you're getting the message to them right away but um you know i guess this has some place in there yeah i mean it can be you know introduced and you know being told but you know well maybe they're not walking yet when that book was written and nothing's really changed but except the process and what's when that book was written, they put almost everyone in the hospital. And they did that to sort of segregate them out, actually sort of control them. So they put them in the hospital and when people, this was in between 1935-1940, and what they would do is the only people that came to Alcoholics Anonymous back then were people that were just outrageous, fallen-down drunks. And so physically they needed to be detoxed. And so they'd put them in town's hospital like Bill Wilson or they'd putting them in the hospital where Dr. Bob worked. And so it was very common for people at that point in time to have to be detoxed before anybody could, before they made any sense at all. Yes? Question because I'm interested. Is it true also that in the beginning, you know, they kind of weeded out who was willing to go through the process and who wasn't, So when they did put them in the hospital, you know, two, three, four days and, you know, came and visited them, you know, around the clock. Yeah. That if the person basically did not go on, you know, through the, you know, completing the work and went out and relapsed again, that that person's sponsor was responsible for their hospital bills. So therefore, you know, that, you know, they're really going to, you know, check to see are you willing, are we going to put our time into you, you in order to bring you into the fold, come to the meetings, et cetera. I remember hearing that on a tape, a speaker tape somewhere. I've never heard that in as long as I've been sober. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Well, the point of all that is that when I first got sober, we 12-step people in their houses a lot. So they'd call up. There weren't treatment centers back then. Well, there may be one or two. So people would call up like an AA clubhouse, and they'd say we need to have somebody come out and talk to whoever. So we'd go to people's houses and 12-step them in their houses. Then the treatment centers came along. And then it became popular to go in a treatment center, and then when the treatment centres would let them out, that's about the time they'd run into us. So they'd, at treatment centers, tell them to be a part of AA, and they'd go to an AA meeting. By the time they got to us, they were detoxed. Most of the people that we see today, unless you're way different than we are in Denver, most of the People that we See don't have to be detoxed Occasionally we do, but we'll take them to a detox. So we still think if there is a medical problem, that the first thing we ought to do is, I mean, if we think they're going to go into convulsions, we're not prepared to handle that. So we'll take them to one of the local detoxes and then go visit them and then try and get them into the meeting when they get out. so to some real degree in 1935 or 1937 or 39 or whenever they were faced with a little bit different problem and so most of the people that we see are not medical emergencies today even if they came in after having drank for a while so we get them right into the steps And is there a danger that they won't understand? I don't see it. Let me refer to something else, and that was what this one lady said about alcoholic and whatever. Okay? That violates the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. People in AlcoholicsAnonymous are well served to identify themselves as an alcoholic. If they say that they're an alcoholic and a cocaine addict, if they say that they are an alcoholic and a drug addict or an alcoholic and an overeater or a gambler or whatever the hell it is. The truth is it's irrelevant. And the tradition that it violates is outside issues. Everything besides alcohol in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting is an outside issue. It makes about as much sense as me saying, I'm an alcoholic and a Norwegian. Or I'm an alcoholic and an oxygen dependent. It just doesn't make any sense. But people, that whole business came out of the treatment centers and they said, well, I multi whatever the hell it is. So that's somebody trying to put their thumbprint on Alcoholics Anonymous, and Alcoholics Anonymous bought alcohol. Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't people who have had drug problems. That doesn't means that people who are mentally ill can't come in here and get sober. We have people who are schizophrenic. We have people who are bipolar. We have people who have Tourette's syndrome. We have all sorts of people with medical issues, with mental health issues that come into Alcoholics Anonymous and can get sober. But they have to be alcoholic too. If they're not, there's just no point. So is there anything else you want to talk about, about the first step? Does anyone have any questions? Yeah. The first step to spiritual malady, unmanageability, if you could talk about that. Actually, if it's spiritual, it comes after the first step is just about i'm an alcoholic and i'm powerless when you start talking about spiritual things you have to start talking above god and that comes in the second step which is what we're going to do next so you want to talk about unmanageability unmanagability then yes that would be good okay well i've never met a drunk that had their life together stay up there because i may You may want to ask you a question. Unmanageability is having your life out of control. And it's, well, let me think about how to approach this. My first six inventories were about lack of control, where my life wasn't what I wanted it to be, and it had spun off in a bunch of different areas. when we drink we do a number of things that are antisocial it's not unusual to run afoul of the law you're nodding yes and so those are all evidence of unmanageability I don't know I'm trying to think of any drunk that I ever met that came in here and said that my life's just perfect, I drink too much. Have you? No, personally, I have not. That was not my experience. So what's your question? I know it's the second part of step one in our lives that become unmanageable. My experience was that I came to realize that I'm a really bad manager of my own life. I just can't seem to make my life come out how I want it to come out, no matter how good my intentions are. It just doesn't seem to work. You know, I'm a well-intentioned person, but it never seems to happen that way. Okay. Most of us have not learned life's lessons by the time we get here. That means we don't know how to handle money. That means that we may have some employment problems. That means that we are going to have difficulty in relationships. Those are all functions of life that we seem to be doing something else when we should have been standing in line. So sobriety becomes a work in progress, and we get to learn all that. And, you know, I was way in debt when I got sober. And I had been the manager of a consumer finance company at one point, and I knew how to manipulate money. And so I was in debt up to my ears. And I finally went to my uncle, who was a banker, and I said, take a look at this. And he said, how did you get that far in debt? And I said it's because I'm an alcoholic and I needed to buy lots of alcohol. And I said, the problem, Uncle Leif, is not that I'm in debt that much. The problem is how do I get out? And he said, it's fairly simple. And I was pleased to hear that. And I says, so what do you do? And he said, what you do is you start paying now and you pay until it's paid. And I said that wasn't exactly the answer I was looking for. And what I did was I started paying then and I paid until it was paid. It took three years. And I'll tell you a funny little story about that. I grew up in Wisconsin, as I mentioned. And you know on the Minnesota license plate it says 10,000 lakes? You know that there are truly closer to 20,000 likes in Minnesota? And there are approximately 10,00 likes in Wisconsin. So I grewup around the water. And when I was a little kid, we were in pretty rank poverty. I lived in a little two-room house that was up on cement blocks on the west side of Madison. And so we never had any money, and I used to go down and sit by a river or by the lake and see people in speedboats. And I thought if I ever become successful, I'm going to have a speedboat. And I carried that all the way into adult life and all the rest of it. So I'm getting sober, and I had paid, well, I hadn't paid, God had paid off all of that debt in three years with the exception of $2,500. This was in 1976. And I took my wife and kids to a boat show because of my fascination with boats. and I'm in there and the Bassmasters have a raffle on this really slick Rebel bass boat and it was like three chances for ten bucks. And they had ten bucks of my money before I knew I had it out of my pocket and I felt like Jack and the Beanstalk where I just sold the cow for three beans. and i went home and i was complaining about how stupid that had been for me because i'd become really cheap in the process and uh and the next day they called me and told me i won the boat so i went down there and i talked to the rebel bass boat dealer and i said what's the wholesale cost on that boat? And he said, $2,500. Then this Texan came up to me and said, I'll give you $2.500 cash for that boat. So what do you do? Well, do you take the $2500 and pay your bill or do you keep paying off your amends? And I had my two sons with me, the two sons that I had at that time. I'll end up with five, but I had my two sons with me and they're climbing in and out of the boat. So going, oh dad, we're going to go fishing and water skiing and we're gonna do all this stuff. And did I have the courage to say no? Did I have, I mean, I was paying off my amends. It would have been maybe another year before I had it all paid off. And should I just take the boat and make my kids happy and continue paying my amens or should I sell the boat? The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. So I sold the boat to that guy, and I promised my two sons that they would have a boat for fishing and water skiing and all that stuff. And two years later, I bought a 17-and-a-half-foot Cobalt with a Boss 302 Ford V8 engine in it that you could troll at 60 miles an hour. So, thank you. Does that answer your question? I don't know. For the most part, it does. Unmanageability comes with alcoholism. It's a natural progression. How about for the person who really doesn't present a lot of the typical things that people get sent to Alcoholics Anonymous for, like DUIs, out-of-anger management problems? What about the person Who doesn't really present all that? How do you get them to see there is still unmanageability in the way that they're thinking and their continued behavior in their life? How do You get them To see that? We're going to talk about The second step a little bit to answer that. But it comes after Lack of power is our dilemma. Okay? So when you have someone like that, I never had a DUI. I didn't have a lot of the things that were symptomatic of alcoholism. But the business about lack of power is our dilemma, is this. Take someone like Dan and go, how's your relationship going? Does that work for you? How are you doing financially? Um, having any problems at work? What happens when you drink too much? You ever get in trouble? How do you feel about yourself? Ask them those kinds of questions. So you think that has anything to do with alcohol? They asked me one time, they said, well, you haven't had these things happen. Have you ever been in jail? And I went, hmm, a couple times. And they said, did it have anything to do with alcohol? Well, I was drinking. Do you know that every time you wound up in jail it had something to do mit drinking? I used to walk into a restaurant, show you how crazy I was. Because my wife, after a while, wouldn't go to a restaurant with me because I'd walk in there and see somebody and I just didn't like them. Honest to God, I'd look at somebody and just go, I'm going to mess him up. And then I'd go over there and pick a fight with them. And thenI'd go to jail. And my wife would go, please, Bob, please don't do that. Because I'd start looking at somebody and go, time to go. And, I mean, that's just unmanageability from Malcolm. And by the same token, I was a vice president of marketing for a Fortune 500 company at that point. Thank you. Thank you, sir. So, all right. Do you have any other questions about the first step? I'm Mike. I'm an alcoholic addict. I never really looked at being powerless over alcohol or being an alcoholic at all in the past. I thought I was just an addict for drugs, but then I went on the alcohol maintenance program for a while where I put drugs down, but I figured, oh, I can drink because you can't be powerless over something that's legal. And I started out where it would be like a couple people said, I'd start drinking maybe on a Wednesday and a Friday, and I'd put it down. But the next thing you know, it was like, well, I can drink really heavy on Wednesday and Friday, but I'll have a six-pack or something during the week a couple times. And then it wouldbe like the mornings when you wake up and you feel like crap, and i'd putit down, and i'D be like, I don't want to drink for a couple days because I don' t want to feel like this. And then I got the bright idea of somebody told me, well, you get rid of a hangover by drinking a little more. So then that started that whole process. And right from that I went from back to I drink and then wake up feeling like crap, drink a little bit more, and smoke some pot on top of it. And then it just led to the fact of the matter that � and another thing, I didn't think I was powerless because I always hear people about blackouts and trouble. Never had that kind of stuff. I'd actually push myself to drink more to see, I want to see what this blackout's about. I never had one before, you know. I mean, come on, if that's not an alcoholic in itself, I don't know what is. So then, like I said, I went to smoking pot again, figured I'd go on alcohol and pot maintenance program for a while. Still wasn't doing my drug of choice because it was okay to do this other stuff because it's illegal and I do it with my wife and my friends. They're okay with that as long as I don' t go back to my drug o' choice. And then it would lead right back to the drug o'. But I never put the alcohol down. I would keep drinking on top of everything else. and it'd just break out in all kinds of different problems, not with the law and stuff like that, just in life in general. Like I couldn't keep anything because, I mean, it's another thing I thought, I don't spend that much money on alcohol, but I was blowing my whole paycheck by the end of the week. You know, what makes it different if you blow it in one day or in a week? You're still blowing it on something you can't show for. And I'm not really too materialistic on things and stuff like that. But it's nice to have things now. It really is. you know, the things I need and stuff like that because I didn't have that in the past. You know, I mean, I had custody. I have custody of my son, but he's living with his mom right now while I'm in recovery. I had food stamps and stuff. I was out there selling food stamps, you know? Something that was given to me to help me and my family, I'm over there selling it to go get alcohol and drugs. And I never put alcohol down, you Know? Just justified it with the fact of the big thing was it's legal and everybody does it and it's on TV. Come on, this isn't a problem. But it was. It was a big problem for me. What happens when you drink? I get drunk bad. Always? Always. Always. I cannot just sit down and have one beer. Like even going to restaurants with my family and stuff like that, they can have one Beer and put it down. I'd have to have six, ten more. There were times that I couldn't even walk out of there. And I thought that was okay because I could still drive my car. Could you stop? No, once I started, no. Once I started. So what are you? An alcoholic. Then just say that. I am. Completely. If you're in an Alcoholics Anonymous, if this was an NA meeting, we could talk about being an addict. But if this is an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting, it sounds like you're drunk. But if you're going to come in here, tell them what you are. And that's what it's about. Okay? if you're an alcoholic and it sounds like you lost the power of choice that once you took a drink, you were off to the races. Pretty much. If that's the case, then you're now calling. I also was that person that you said, I'd walk into a place and I'd look at the first person that looked at me and be like, he's mine and I'm getting him somehow. You know, not in a way like, oh, I want him, but I mean, like I was going to fight him. thank you for clarifying that yes i had to i had to that sounded a little bad coming out there at first thanks thank you okay thanks for listening