The Mental Obsession – Awakening Workshop – Part 1 of 18 – Local AA Speakers

Leanne Alcoholic. So this recording is an addendum to last Tuesday's workshop. Apparently during the workshop I forgot to record myself so I'm going to record what I covered last week which is the second half of There's a Solution from about pages 23 through 20, the top of 26. The second recording that you hear in this series will be Pat covering that the last half of there's a solution. So that's just a little tidbit as to what's going on and why you see two separate recordings for last Tuesday's workshop. With that said, last week we talked about the physical allergy and all up to this point it has been a discussion on the physical allergy. When we get to the top of page 23 we are now entering the mental obsession of this disease in the first part in the second part of step one. So as we're looking at the second part of Step 1, the paragraph begins These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than his body. So we learn in the first half of this first step that I have to have the physical allergy in order to be the real alcoholic and hopefully by this point we've determined that whether we do or whether we don't. Whether I have the physical addiction, the physical dependence to drugs and alcohol, it's going to require that Ihave that in orderto qualify myself as the realalcoholic and or the real addict. So then we think well then if this problem is just in my body why don't I just quit quit drinking or using. So that would be great if it wasn't accompanied by this mental obsession that we're going to talk about. See, because every other sickness or every other allergy doesn't have a mental obsession attached to it. Such as we use the analogy all the time as an allergic reaction to peanut butter, right? If I have an allergic reaction to peanut butter and my throat closes up and I can die from it. We don't obsess and wish that we can have peanuts or peanut butter like we do, say, for a period of time that I'm separated from drugs and alcohol. My mind, I have a mind that's going to take me back to that drink. It's going to talk me into thinking that, oh, I got a little time under my belt. I can have a drink again I can do drugs again I'm doing so much better maybe this time it'll be different we don't have that same type of attitude with any other allergy other than drugs and alcohol so we're going to see that as we go further in this chapter so this is why it's just not a physical addiction this is Why it's so important that alcoholism centers in my mind that's the crux of the problem. That's the insanity of this disease. See, later we're going to figure out the 10 most insane things that we did when we were drinking and the problem is the most insane thing that I did when I was drinking is not on the list of the crazy things that I Did. The most insane thing that i did when i was drinking that over a period of time sobriety i picked up a drink again. That''s the insanity in this disease so if you ask him why he started on his last bender I can never give you a great answer. My reasoning behind why I pick up after a period of sobriety may sound like a good believability to me, but the reason is because we're going to learn again further in this chapter and further in our steps, is that I suffer from this spiritual disease because when the spiritual malady is overcome, then I straighten out mentally, right? Stop obsessing and then if i stop obsessing i'm not putting alcohol and drugs back in my body so then again i don't have the physical it doesn't set off that physical allergy which starts the whole ball rolling again all right so if you draw this false reasoning to the attention of the alcoholic he will laugh it off or become irritated and refuse to talk when when we try to figure out why we drank once in a while he may tell the truth truth as plausible as it is to me and the And the truth, strange to say, is usually that he has no more idea why he took the first drink. See, I could come up with all these reasons why I took the First Drink, but the real reason is that I failed to enlarge my spiritual life because I'm going to learn that I'm beyond human aid to a certain extent. And I'll get into that a little bit more. Some drinkers have excuses with which they are satisfied part of the time, but in their hearts, they really do not know why they do it. Here it says right here, once this malady has a real hold on me, right? I am a baffled lot. I'm confused. There is the obsession that somehow someday they will beat the game. But they often suspect they are down for the count. That one day maybe I could pick up again. See, I was thinking that when I quit drinking, maybe if I just got some months under my belt, that I'll be okay to drink again and that was my plan at the time because I thought after a period of time that maybe I might I might be okay how true it is if you realize in a vague way that their families and friends sense that the drinkers are abnormal right my friends and family have no idea if they're normal drinkers they don't understand what it's like to experience that feeling physically obviously and also mentally. They can't understand why I just can't push my willpower, make my will power a little bit stronger. Why can't I just push the drink away? But everybody hopefully awaits the day when the sufferer will rouse himself from his lethargy and assert his willpower right? Have you ever had friends and family that thought well now that she's got a littlebit of time you know you should be okay now right? I think for the most part most of our family and friends have realized that that's just not the truth when it comes to the person who's the real alcoholic. Because it says right here, the tragic truth is that if the man be a real alcoholic, the happy day is not going to arrive. He has lost control. So this next page, when we get over to page 24, gets into what I think is the substance of the obsession of the mind. At a certain point in every alcoholic's drinking, he passes into a state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. But yet it tells us in our program, in the Rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, is what? What is the only requirement for membership? A desire to stop drinking. And here the book is going to tell me a desire to stopped drinking is absolutely no available. So a desire may get me into the rooms, but the desire is not going to keep me in the rooms. Interesting. The tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it is suspected the fact is here we go first the first full paragraph on page 24 italics right so when we see italics what do we think of we think a neon signs so the writer is trying to get my attention on something that is super important and so this next paragraph is in italics the fact is that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure have lost the power of choice and drink how many meetings have you been to where you have been in a meeting and someone says, I chose not to drink today? Well, that's just great. Maybe they did make a choice not to drank today, right? But I know what keeps me sober each day. And I know that I don't have the power of choice to drink. I don' t have the pow er that once a drink is in my body, I can't choose the amount that I'm going to drink. I can't choose what I'm going to do. I can't chose how I'm gong to react. I've lost the power of choice in drink. I have the ability to make choices in other areas of my life. I have an air, I have t eability to make a choice of how much coffee I drink. I have ability to m ke the choice of how many cookies I eat. But when it comes to alcohol, I lost the power of choice and drink. And that's the question that we have to ask ourself. Have I lost t epower to choose once I put alcohol into my body or once I put drugs into my body. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existence. There smashes that idea that our friends and families think that, oh just have a little bit of willpower. I have no willpower in this area. I have no Willpower when it comes to alcohol. That's the question you have to ask yourself. Do you have the power to choose? And do you have Willpower in the area when it comes to alcohol or drugs in your body. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago, maybe even an hour ago. I've woken up at eight o'clock in the morning and swore and meant it with every bit of my heart that I wasn't going to drink again. I wasn'T going to take another drink again and something happens between 8am and noon and there I am off to the races again, I pick up. I seem to have lost that memory of what had happened the night before, the day before, the moments before, the humiliation, the pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization that I have just experienced within a short period of time ago, yet there I am picking up again. We are without defense against the first drink. The first drink pushed in front of me without being spiritually fit. I am without defense against it. I have no willpower, I have no power, I have no control over myself and what I'm going to do and I have no choice. The almost certain consequence that following taking even a glass of beer does not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare or basically the old idea that this time I can handle myself differently right? How many times have I thought I'm gonna to do it different this time. I'm going to write down everything that I'm doing while I'm drinking so I can remember the next day what I did. You know, just the old plans and the old ideas that I think I can handle it. I think they can do it differently. See, the trick is this, and this is what happens with us. And this is what tricks our mind that we may have a day that everything is fine. We may have A day when we drink and you know what? Nothing happens. We May have A Day when we drink and we don't end up in someone else's bed, end up doing anything pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. And what happens is we live on that day. Yet I can have 20 days after that that are horrible, blackout drunks, but yet I'm still living on that date that was a good day. Because see, I must not be alcoholic because you know what? There was a time when I I was able to manage my, there was a day when I was able to mange my drinking. And that's what I've lived on. The alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way, it won't burn me this time, so here's how. Or perhaps he doesn't even think at all. Like, I can't tell you how many times I just didn't think at All. I couldn't even tell you why I picked up. How often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way and after the third or fourth one then we pounded on the bar or pounded our heads thinking, how did I get to this point? But yet kept drinking. Didn't stop. Well, I'll stop at the sixth drink or I'll stopped at the seventh drink. Yet then all of a sudden two days later there you are in a blackout. When this sort of thinking is fully established in individual with alcoholic tendencies, he has probably placed himself beyond human aid. This does not mean that we don't need humans in our life. We have to, we have a fellowship that requires human aid to a certain extent. However, human aid is not necessarily going to be the thing that's going to keep me sober permanently. The only thing that can keep me so sober permanently for good and for all is a power much greater than myself, which this book is insinuating all from the very beginning, from the Roman numerals, all through all these pages that that's what this book has been telling me this whole time. But not so much until we get to the later chapters, but that's when it's basically telling me I'm beyond human aid. Not that I don't need a sponsor, not that I do not need the fellowship, not that I dont need any outside human contact because through human power we can gain access to a power greater than ourselves. Because this isn't a sponsor reliant program is basically what this book is telling me here. It's not a sponsor reliant program, it's not a human reliant problem, right? I need to be God reliant in order for myself to stay sober for good and for all on a daily basis. I need to be able to exert my willingness just to pray and to meditate and to get into closer, much greater contact with my higher power. So even though it's saying I'm beyond human aid, we still need humans in our lives, obviously. We still need sponsorship in our lives. We just can't go off and become monks and maybe we could, I don't know. But the point is this, that I'm Beyond Human Aid to keep me permanently sober. And unless locked up, may dire go permanently insane. These stark and ugly facts have been confirmed by legions of alcoholics throughout history. But for the grace of God, there would have been thousands more convincing demonstrations. So many want to stop but cannot. But guess what? There is a solution. And that's where this chapter starts to tell me how the solution is. So the solution is going to be outlined on page 25 and here's how it's going to sound. And yes, it's going to talk a lot about God. Almost none of us like the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings that the process requires. I, you know, we, nobody wants to admit that they're a real alcoholic. Like I wasn't, I didn't grow up thinking, oh, I can't wait to, as a little girl, that was not my goal was that one day I'm going to be an alcoholic. I'm so glad that I've able to find out and tell everybody that I'm alcoholic. See, we have this is such a humbling process. And this is such a leveling of our pride that oh my gosh, because it it's somewhat feeling like we've failed ourselves. We've failed everybody else. I've become alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic. And there's something about this program where humility gives us the ability to become stronger and to gain access to this this power so yes leveling of our pride the confession of shortcomings right that means having having to make amends to people nobody we don't ever want to have to do that this isn't anything that we that we wanted we wanted or or hoped that we would be as we were as we Were younger kids and hoping that one day we would Be alcoholic but this is what the process requires for successful consummation is to be humbled and to suffer some humility in order for me to gain access to God that's going to bring me, that's gonna gain more power in my life. But we saw that it really worked in others. So yes, so here's what I'm seeing. I came into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and even though the first four years I lived in basically untreated alcoholism, I saw something in some people that was working for them. I saw people that were working a program and I was gravitated towards those people. And I saw something that worked in them. And so what was it that worked in them? We had to come to believe in the hopelessness and the futility of life as we had been living it. That's the purpose of us spending so much time in this first step is I got to see the hopelessnes of my situation in this first step. I need to have a gut level experience with this first step in order for me to see that I need something much greater than myself. In order for me to say that I'm beyond human aid and it's more than just human aid that's going to keep me sober. So we had to come and believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it, right? The way that I was running the show wasn't working. When therefore we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved. So the problem had been solved in others. And I'm going to skip over to page 45, which is the first part of the second step. And i want to read where it's going to repeat this again. It's going to say this. Well that's exactly what this book is about, right? Prior to that it says that lack of power was our dilemma. We had to gain a power. It had to be a power much greater than ourselves? Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Page 45, middle paragraph. Its main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your drinking? No. Solve your drug addiction problem? No, solve your problem. My problem is no longer drinking because by at this point right now, right, drinking is not a problem. If I'm going through the work and I'm already at this part of the work, I'm not drinking anymore. So obviously my problem's not drinking. This is an internal condition. And so the book is going to tell me that there is nothing left but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. The simple kit, the simple kid of spiritual tool slated our feet of these 12 steps. We have found much a heaven and rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence. I'd always wondered what they were talking about the fourth dimension of existence I never really understood what that was and even though I read this chapter that way not until I looked at the sentence as a question and I asked myself that now I understand that what I need to be rocketed in the fourth dimension of existance is to have a spiritual experience the great fact is just this and nothing less that we had to have a deep and effective spiritual experiences, right? The next paragraph is telling me this, which have revolutionized our whole attitude towards life. I need my whole attitude toward life revolutionized because my spiritual experience was always just, I just had to believe in God and listen to scripture and understand it, but I never applied it to my life, right, and now I needed to revolutionize my whole spiritual life, which I'd never done in the past. Our whole attitude towards life, towards our fellows and towards God's universe. The central fact of our lives is today that the absolute certainty is that our creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. It will be a miracle for any of us being addicts and alcoholics coming to a place to, number one, we're no longer drinking, but now we're allowing something that is not tangible, something that we cannot see to run our lives, to enter our hearts, to entering our minds, to where we can hear God talk to us. We can hear our higher power speak to us and direct our lives in a way that's His will and not our will. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us, which we could not do by ourselves. If you are seriously alcoholic or addict as I was and believe there is no middle of the road solution, we hear a lot of middle of the world solutions in a lot of meetings. I'm not saying this happens in all meetings, but a lot of meetings are middle-of-the-road solution. A middle- of-the road solution is any solution without God. And a lot of meetings they're telling you can't talk about God in meetings. That is a middle-of-the-road solution. It is a middle- of-the road solution when there's not a solution being discussed in the meeting, when the focus is not on the newcomer sitting in the room, when the when the Focus is people talking about things that have absolutely nothing to do with alcoholism, with drug addiction. That's a middle of the road solution. A middle of the road Solution is taking God out of the meeting. The problem with our meetings today is the message in the big book is not the message in the meeting today and that's what we need to hear and that is a middle of the road solution if you're not hearing what this program was designed to do in the very beginning and that was to deliver a message of depth and weight to the alcoholic that still suffers then that's a middle of the world solution I can't live that way and if you are doing this work apparently you can't either we were in a position where life was becoming impossible and if we had passed into the region from where there is no return through human aid we had to but two alternatives we don't have three we have two the first alternative is this to go under the bitter end blotting out the unconsciousness of our intolerable situation as best as we can or door two to accept spiritual help what's your choice to be which door are you going to take and that's the question that you need to ask yourself and at this point i'll turn it over to Pat in the second recording. Thank you.