The Phenomenon of Craving and the Myth of the Moderate Drinker – Bob D.

My name is Bob Darrell and I am an alcoholic, and I'm sober only through the grace of God that I've found and been able to maintain in my life through the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'd like to welcome anyone who's new. I'd love to open with an opening prayer that I use a lot for these workshops, if you'll join me after a moment of silence. Lord, help me to set aside everything I think I know about you. Everything I think I know about myself. Everything I think I know about others. And everything I think I know about my own recovery. For a new experience in you, Lord. A new experience in myself. A new experience in my fellows and my own recovery. Amen. Uh, I'm going to try to get through as many of the steps as we can. Usually this workshop takes about 13 to 14 hours, so we've got five hours today, so you're going to get an abbreviated version of the workshop. We're going start with step one, and this is all going to be right out of the big book. Step one, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. And I want to take a look at how are we powerless. And I'm going to touch on a couple things in the big book. We're going to start with some things in Dr.'s opinion, which I've come to really value Dr. Silkworth's contribution to Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know that we would be here if it wasn't for him. He was one of many elements that were necessary for this program to fall into place. and on page XXVI, for those of you that want to follow along in the doctor's opinion Silkworth talks about one of the aspects of our powerlessness and he says we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy I remember hearing that and thinking I didn't get it because I knew about allergies He said, I knew about being allergic to strawberries or being allergic to cats. And it didn't seem to apply. But Silkworth goes on to say in the next line he talks about the way this allergy manifests itself. And he says that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average tempered drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. In any format all. And once having found the habit and found they cannot break it, and once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. I remember in the early 70s as I was a chronic relapser and alcoholic synonymous for a few years, coming in and out of AA and listening to people talk about this phenomenon of craving, and I didn't get it. I didn' t know what they were talking about. I had seen The Lost Weekend and Days of Wine and Roses, and I didn't identify. I mean, I drank and got drunk, and I was in detoxes, and I had DUIs, etc., but I didn' t see a craving. I mean I didn''t take a drink and then claw the walls to have another drink. But oddly enough about a craving is you don' t realize you have it until it's interrupted. Everybody in this room at this moment is in the grip of a craving that you're not aware of, the craving to breathe air. But if somebody were to sneak up behind you with a plastic bag and put it over your head and interrupt your ability to breathe air, you would all of a sudden realize you have a craving. And one of the reasons it was hard for me to see that I had this phenomenon of craving is that I went to great lengths in my life intuitively to keep myself out of positions where I could only get one or two and then were cut off. and I didn't do it because I knew I was alcoholic, I just intuitively knew that even in junior high school if you invited me over to your house for the afternoon to spend the whole day watching football games and there was two or three of us there and you had one six pack of beer that you found somewhere I probably would pass if I knew I could only have two or 3 beers and be stuck there for the rest of the day. If you had 10 cases I mean I'm with you and I couldn't see so I couldn't see that I had this phenomenon of craving until I was sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and I heard a woman share some of her experiences and I remembered an instance in my life where my drinking was interrupted and it happened when I was about 18 years old and when I Was 18 Years Old in my mind there was absolutely no way I could have been an alcoholic I was going through my long haired protesting the war better living through chemistry phase of my alcoholism right but alcoholism doesn't care what your politics are and alcoholism does it even really care whether you believe you have it or not and I had alcoholism and I was dating a gal and she invited me over to her house for dinner she wanted me to meet her family and it was going to be one of those all-night deals stuck with there in that house and I don't like that stuff but I went trying to be a good guy and at the dinner table, they brought out a bottle of wine. And it wasn't a big bottle. It was just a fifth. And I always drank quickly. I think evaporation must be a childhood issue with me or something. I don't know what the deal is. But because I drank quickly, I got two glasses out of that bottle of wine. I'm done the two glasses. They're still sipping on their first glass. And I'm sitting there. I am 18 years old and I have never read this book. I don't know anything about alcoholism I was yet a year or so away from my first treatment center I don' t believe I'm an alcoholic but I'm sitting there I have two glasses of wine in me and I'm getting a little squirrely and I want another glass of wine I want something else to drink and I finally said to them boy that was really good wine do you have any more and they said no and they went back to talking and I am sitting there getting a bit crazier you know how you talk to yourself in your head it's getting a little panicky in there you know what I mean just the voices that chatter just and I want to drink and I don't want one real bad I finally blurted out sure like beer and they just said well that's nice Bob but they didn't have anything and they said they were real nice about it they said the next time you come over we'll have something they went back to talking and I'm sitting there at that table and I've got I'm going crazy and I got two glasses of wine in me and I Don't Know What's Wrong With Me I just want another drink real bad, and I can't think straight. My head's going 100 miles an hour. I feel like I want to just jump out of my skin. I finally excused myself, went to the bathroom, and like a maniac, went through the drawers and the cabinets and the medicine cabinet, and found a bottle of cough medicine that was 35% alcohol with codeine and turpentine hydrate. And I sat there on the edge of that bathtub, and I chugged that bottle of coughing medicine, and I got what it talks about in the 12 concepts, singleness of purpose. All the voices in my head just got real focused and they came up with a plan and the plan was to get out of there and I went back out to that dinner table and I explained to them about this thing I forgot about and I was so sorry, went and got in my car, drove like a gentleman 20-25 miles an hour down to the end of their street, turned the corner and then drove like a maniac 70 80 90 miles an hour to get to a friend of mine's house who had a bar in his basement because i had two glasses of wine now silkworth also says here that uh that this never occurs in the average temperate drinker and that's true i was the only one at that dinner table as an alcoholic those other people have been alcoholics who'd all been in that goddamn bathroom looking through those cabinets but something happens to me when I drink that doesn't happen to them and Silkworth goes on to talk about it a little bit further on down at the bottom of the page and what he says down here is very important because if if the phenomenon of craving was all there was to alcoholism then AA would only need a one-step program of recovery. Step one, don't drink. Except that once I try to initiate a step one program of discovery, something happens to me that drives me insane. And Silkworth mentions it at the bottom of the page. He talks about us and what happens to us when we quit. He says men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. And that was really true for me. As the progression of my disease went on, and as I went to lower levels of degradation, as I spun down into this abyss called alcoholism, The saddest part of alcoholism is that I just adjusted to the ride. As it got worse and worse, I just accepted it. And I remember the first time I ever drank so much beer that I passed out and wet the bed. How humiliated and disgusted I was with myself. I was so ashamed I couldn't imagine anything worse. And three years later, it's just a part of my life. I don't like it, but I've accepted it. To me, my alcoholic life starts to seem the only normal one. I mean, some of us realize that after a couple years of flipping that mattress, you can get about an even yellow after a while. And as we go down, we just adjust to it. Our alcoholic life always seems like the normal one, And we surround ourselves with people who drink like we do, so it makes it even seem more normal. And to me, it seemed like it was okay. But if you would have asked my mother and father what they thought of the way I was living, my mother would have broken into tears that her son was living like an animal. But to me my alcoholic life seems the only normal one. And this next line is what really destroys guys like me. It says, to them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable, and discontented unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks. Drinks which they see others taking with impunity. So what does that mean? I stop drinking and I enter into a state where I become restless. And what that really means is I never, I never really feel settled anywhere. Not really. I may pretend like I'm okay and I'm in the right place but I always have this gnawing sense inside me I should be somewhere else doing somewhere else, doing something else. I'm restless, I'm kind of antsy all the time, just a little bit nervous. I'm irritable, which means I stop drinking and one of two things happens to me. I either get real withdrawn or I get on the muscle with people because life, when I'm not drinking, rubs me the wrong way. It irritates me and I don't know how to stop that. I don' t know how to make that different but people irritate me. I get a feeling like they're looking at me and thinking stuff about me. Nobody really does things my way. Employers, nobody. So I either get real uptight and kind of assertive and on the muscle around people or else I get real withdrawn and distant. People think I'm snobbish and, you know, like I won't talk to anybody because I get so locked up in here. Restless, irritable, and then the last one, and I think it really cuts to the core of my disease. Discontented. As I heard alcoholism one time described as the disease of chronic malcontent, that I stopped drinking and I'm really never satisfied. As a matter of fact, I'm sad to say that in my whole life except for times in sobriety when I'm connected. Except for those times when I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, working with newcomers, I'm connecting here. Except for those time the rest of my life, the sense that I was really...I had never prior to those times ever been in a spot where I would say to myself and really mean it that everything was just right in my life. I'd never been there. I've known that since I've been sober, but prior to sobriety, and even fortunately sometimes in sobrietry, it's like I have a sense that there's something missing. A sense that there is a hole somewhere in my heart or in my mind or in the way of my life and I can't really put my finger on what it is. And I think because of that, alcoholics of my type develop a case of the when-eyes. you know are you happy now Bob no but when I get that job man look at that guy he's he's making 20 bucks and now man he's if I I boy if I had that job I mean I'd be it'd be you know I'd there I would you know I'd me there and the problem with alcoholism in alcoholics of my type is that we're good manipulators and I I remember one time being in that exact same spot and thinking If I could get that job in that steel mill, man, I'd make almost 20 bucks an hour. I'd be it. And I remember getting that job. And what happens to me on a subconscious level, now this is not a conscious thought process, but emotionally somewhere on a unconscious level, I start after several weeks or several months, start comparing what it feels like to have that job to what it felt like to have five shots of Jack Daniels and now all of a sudden I don't want the goddamn job no more. And I start noticing how they're taking advantage of me and I start working harder than everybody and I started doing that I started creating that separation between me and those people and eventually I'm leaving and I worked a lot of places prior to Alcoholics Anonymous and even in my first four or five years You know something? I never worked anywhere where they did it right. But I was always the guy that was leaving. Restless, irritable, and discontent. I think sometimes I would do it with relationships. You know, you see that person across the room or you see, you know, you see a couple and they just look so happy and you just think to yourself, man, if I could have a deal like that, I'd be whole and complete And then you meet somebody And you think to yourself Man, that's the one That's it, that' s it And then You get with that person And three weeks or three months later Subconsciously You start to compare What it feels like To be with them To what it felt like To have five shots of Jose Cuervo Now I don't want to be with her anymore And I start doing What psychologists call blemishing Same thing I did at the job I start finding something wrong with her because I'm restless, irritable and discontent. I think to have this spiritual malady of alcoholism for a guy like me is it's like being destined to walk through life with a stone in my shoe. And it's a very little, tiny, gnawing stone that just is an annoyance. and you walk and if you're like me you take your shoe off and you shake it out you put it back on and it's kind of there again and you wipe your shoe out and you put a bag and it still kind of still something is wrong and then you go to foot doctors and foot clinics and you get doctors to anesthetize your foot and the anesthetic wears off and it is still there and I went to a lot of therapy back in the 70s my family helped me to go to some of the best psychologists and psychiatrists in the world. Because there was something wrong, even though I came from a good family, I didn't come from an alcoholic family, there was nothing wrong with me. And I believed that I had a sense that maybe I would uncover that one thing that maybe somewhere somebody said something bad to me as a kid or something or whatever it was and this stone would finally be out of my shoe once and for all. and I spent years in therapy and never accomplished that and came into Alcoholics Anonymous with a secret hidden agenda my first 10 years and the secret hidden agenda was with AA one day I was going to have the ultimate surrender or do the fourth step, not like the other 30 but the real one where I'd uncover the thing you know the thing we look for that would make me whole like a kid's toy helium balloon when I uncovered it. I'd instantly sail into mental health. Never found out what it was. And I came into Alcoholics Anonymous thinking that was going to happen to me, and what I discovered here, oddly enough, is that that wasn't what AlcoholicsAnonymous is about at all. Alcoholics synonymous is not about getting to a point where I no longer have alcoholism. What it is to have alcoholismo and to be an alcoholic synonymous is to surround myself with whole bunches of people that all have stones in their shoe, and I get so caught up listening to you whine about your stone that for long periods of time I forget that I have one in mine. And that's really true. I mean, to give you a good example of that, I remember in early sobriety coming off of work one day and had a good day. I mean, had a good day, not, it wasn't an uptight day, it was a good way to have a good work. Everything's kind of going smooth. I'm going to, I had coffee and dinner with a bunch of people, I'm going to this late night meeting and I'm walking into the meeting, the meeting's about to start and there's this old timer comes up to me and he says, Bob, looks me right in the eye and says, Bob, how are you doing? How are you really doing? And I sat down, the meeting started and I thought, what does he know? You know, I thought I was doing good. I must be in denial. You know now that I think about it, I don't feel very good. You know, and I started looking around the room and everybody all of a sudden is doing better than I am, you know, they're just more successful and I start realizing everybody's making more money than I and they seem to be a little happier than I am. And that job that I told everybody last night was such a great, the other meeting, what a great job it was. It becomes real apparent to me that I'm really going nowhere there. I'm just stuck and they're taking advantage of me. And I just started sinking into this abyss because I was once again focused on the stone. When I stopped focusing on thestone and I start focusing on you and God's grace in my life, the stone seems to go away. Silkworth goes on again to say that after guys like me are like that, we're restless, irritable and discontent for a long period of time and we're watching other people take a few drinks which they seem to do with impunity, we eventually succumb. And it says, After they have succumbed to the desire again as so many do and the phenomenon of craving develops they pass through the well-known stages of esprit. emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again this is repeated over and over and over and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery i went to therapy trying to get an entire psyche change i came into rehabs And I had members of Alcoholics Anonymous say things to me like, Bob, if you don't change, you're going to drink again. And I would think after four or five rehabs and a lot of relapses, I'd start thinking, yeah, I know, but how do you become different? The knowledge that I need to become different is not enough. There's people, there's alcoholics as we sit in this room, dying of alcoholism, knowing that they need to change and absolutely unable to do it. Dying. If you are active in AA, you know people in your own group that are in and out that are dying of alcoholism that know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they must change and can't do it? How do you change? I mean, what do you just make up? Is it like bewitched where you just do that and just become different? I mean I can't do it There's nothing I can do that's going to allow me to go out in that world and emotionally respond to life differently than I've ever been. I have an inability to change me. And what we're going to get into a little later today is we're gonna get into the process that's designed to create this psychic change, something that no human power can do for a real alcoholic. Bottom of page XXVII, Silkworth goes on to say, I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control. I have had many men who, for example, worked a period of months on some problem or business deal which was to be settled on a certain date favorably to them. They took a drink a day or so prior to their date and the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount to all other interests so that the important appointment was not met. these men were not drinking to escape. These men were not drinking to escape they were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control back in the 70's it was very early 80's it was popular in the field of alcoholism treatment to hypothesize that alcoholics drank to escape to escape their feelings to escape their responsibilities and that and I understand how they could come up with that because sometimes it looks that way and sometimes it would look like I was drinking to escape because I would I would drink when I lose a job I would drank when somebody died I would drunk when I got rejected I would drink when i was frustrated but I would also drink when things were going my way and I would also drink when I got into a new relationship and I was on that cloud nine. I would drink when I had more money in my pocket than I never had and I was elated. I would drink on good days and bad days, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Thursdays, Friday. I just drank. And the escape thing is not an accurate picture because alcohol was my lubricant for living. It was not only did I drink to get away from my problems. I drank to get into life also because alcohol connected me to other people and life in a way that I never could do on my own. Where were we? These men were not drinking to escape, they were drinking to overcome and craving beyond their mental control. There are many situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than to continue to fight. And I have watched that happen unfortunately too many times, and they're talking about suicide. Just a year ago, a little over a year go, a guy that I've known for 20 years put a plastic bag over his head with rubber bands and he suffocated himself with almost 24 years of sobriety. and what had happened to my friend was twofold he died of untreated alcoholism but he also died of what something that silkware is talking about here as a result of untreated alcoholism as a resort of diminishing amounts of involvement in the 12 steps in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous over a period of years my friend Frank got to a point where he was had no mental defense against this disease. And he ended up in a dentist's office getting a root canal one day, and the dentist asked him if he wanted a prescription for Lortab's, and he said yes because he had no mental defence. And He started taking them, and The Phenomenon of Craving kicked in, and He could not stop taking them. The next thing He knows, He's stealing prescriptions, and He's in a lot of trouble, and it's snowballing, andHe can't stop, andH He can't go on, and he can't imagine life without it, and he cannot imagine life sobering up again. So he took an extra few of them one day and put that plastic bag over his head and took his own life. Rather than, Silkworth says, rather than continue to fight. I understand that. I thought about suicide a lot at the end of my drinking. And I thought About It because the alcoholic of alcoholics of my type eventually we get into a trap we can't spring and the trap is is that we we lose alternatives and we feel like we're backed into a corner because we i got to a point where life was unbearable drinking i could not get the fun out of it that i got when i was 16 17 years old i couldn't get that back and yet abstinence was unbearable. And when drinking is unbearably and abstinence is unbearable, I mean there's no door number three. And that's where I started really seriously thinking about suicide. Silkworth goes on to say the classification of alcoholics seems most difficult and in much detail outside the scope of this book. There are of course the psychopaths like Brian who are emotionally unstable. We are always familiar with this type. They're always going on the wagon for keeps. They are over-remorseful, and many make resolutions but never a decision. And I would do that. I'd come off a run, and I would be over- remorseful. I mean, I would just, people in AA just say, cut it out. No, just cut it off. Just go to the media. Get a sponsor. But I don't want to do anything. I just want to beat myself up, right? And I'd be over remorseable, but I could never make a decision. And then there's the type of man who, as the book says, who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink. He plans various ways of drinking. He changes his brand or his environment. And that was me for a while too. I had an inability to make a very simple connection that anybody who watched me could make instantly. I could not make the connection that the first drink always equaled the way I felt coming off the run. I could not make that connection. All I could ever see was the first half hour or 20 minutes or whatever of enjoyment and excitement. All I Could Ever See Was The Anticipation. What I was like is I was a guy that's stuck on the roof of a 30-foot building. And he works up there, And he's stuck up there 8 to 12 hours a day, every day. And he is bored up there. And he Is bored and there is nothing to do. And it is a nice view and he keeps looking down. And there is a guy up there that he works with who also happens to be a stuntman. And the other guy is bored too. And one day the other guys says, you know this is terrible just hanging out here. There is nothing To do. And the guy says, yeah you are right. He says, watch this. and the stuntman runs and leaps off the side of the building does a double flip in the air lands on the ground like voila and he said yells up at the guy that was a rush the guy goes yeah man i bet you that was and after a little bit more boredom he thinks to himself i'm gonna do that and he leaps off the building the problem is he's not a stuntman so when he gets out of the hospital and he's all banged up. He's thinking, and they're telling him, don't leap off the roof no more. And he's going, you know, that first 29 feet really was pretty neat. I mean, it's that last foot that just is a bitch. Man, if I could get away from that lastfoot and he starts thinking, what do I need to do? Maybe I'll jump up into the air three feet. I'll get away form the last foot. And he gets out of the hospital and he is healing up and he up on the roof again he's bored and empty and lonely. He starts thinking, didn't he roll when he hit the ground? I think he rolled when he... And he cannot make a very simple connection that to step off the roof always, always, Always means to go splat. He cannot make that simple connection and neither could I because I could only see the first 29 feet. I could only see the beginning, the possibility for making new friends, a possibility of conviviality and a sense of intimacy with people. All I could see is that compared to the loneliness and desolation of my abstinence. I could not see the end because when you're focused so intently on the need for relief, it's hard to see the consequences just as it's almost impossible to see the moon in the sky when the sun's in the sky at the same time right next to it. It's not that it's not there. I just keep focusing on the first 29 feet. The book goes on to say, There is the type who always believes that after being entirely free from alcohol for a period of time, he can take a drink without danger. It talks about that in chapter 3. there's this the book talks about we're victims of three delusions and we're not going to get into that right now is we'll get into it a little later but the second delusion is about this the delusion that uh that we are the the illusion that we're like other people like people who can drink normally that don't need a or presently maybe like other people like after i mean if you're you think for sober for 10 years you know that'd be enough i I mean, anybody can stay sober for 10 years. Doesn't have a problem. Then there's the manic-depressive type who is perhaps the least understood by his friends and about whom a whole chapter could be written. There are some manic- depressive type alcoholics, but I'll tell you from my experience, it's the most misdiagnosed thing there is in alcoholic synonyms. If you take someone in early sobriety that has not worked these steps, the symptomology of untreated alcoholism can mimic manic depressiveness very closely. Very closely. And on rare occasions it really is manic depressiness and in a lot of cases people are prescribed antidepressant medication that I have watched people stop taking it and do the steps and found out they didn't need. And that's not, if there's people here that are legitimately manic-pressed, I'm not telling you to stop doing it. I'm just, I'm sharing with you observations I've made that sometimes this is misdiagnosed. But because it says in here they're the least understood by our friends, when I do these book studies and people get to that line, I see people all of a sudden go, yeah, that must be me because nobody really understands me. Then there are the types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect alcohol has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people. All these and many others have one symptom in common. They cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, that's us, and sets them apart as a distinct entity. It has never been by any treatment with which we are familiar permanently eradicated. Sets us apart. What Silkworth is saying here is that we have this thing that people like my sister and non-alcoholics never experience the thing that we experience once we take a drink. and I came into Alcoholics Anonymous in 1978 the last time and I couldn't have put it in words I couldn'T have said phenomenon of craving I hadn'T studied this book yet but I knew after almost seven years of trying to beat this thing on my own and in various rehabs and relapses I knew that I had that thing that when I started I couldn' t stop I finally got that but I secretly suspected And I think for the same reason that Silkworth talks about earlier in the book, that we think our alcoholic life is the only normal one. I think because of that, I secretly suspected that everyone must surely get the thing that I get when I drink. You know, you have a drink and that fired up feeling, ooh, like I've got to have another one of these. I thought everybody got that. I just thought that for some reason, some people could control it and other people like me were weak-willed or something in that area and couldn't control it. Silkworth says that is absolutely not true, that this phenomenon of craving differentiates us and sets us apart as a distinct entity, that those people never experienced that. And I didn't really get that until I was sober about four years, maybe a little over four years. And I started, I was dating a gal that wasn't alcoholic. And we'd go out to dinner and she'd order a drink. And I swear to God it would take her a half hour to drink one drink. She told me a story one time that just blew my mind. She said that she'd been at a party and somebody had given her a marijuana cigarette from Thailand. And she took two hits off of it and she was saving the rest of it for New Year's Eve. I mean, why? I mean you might be dead by then. I mean the world might end. You don't save stuff. She would take a sip out of a drink and then talk for 10 minutes and forget the drink was there. I've never forgotten a drink was there. I know where my drinks are. I know what your drinks are! I mean, you know, right? I don't forget where a drink is. The ice would melt right before my eyes. Like, that's alcohol abuse. You know, I mean that's terrible. I never saw her, and the whole time I knew her drunk, I never even saw her finish two drinks. Sometimes she'd order a drink on occasion. She'd drink a third of it or half of it, and then she'd push it aside and she'd say, I don' t want any more. I'm starting to feel it. I mean, it would be easier for me as an alcoholic to have sex and after two strokes say, I don't want any more of that. I'm starting to feel it than do that with two drinks of alcohol. I mean... I mean I don' t get it. And see my friend, when she pushed the second drink aside, she wasn' t trying to prove a point. Most of us have done that. I mean when you're with your mate or your folks or your boss or your neighbor or your running partner and they're on your back about your drinking, and they are starting to indicate you might have a problem. We are capable on occasion to have two to show them. I mean it takes an extreme effort of will, and we can't do it a lot, and usually later on that day we got to get away from them to go finish the deal. But we can do that on occasion to prove a point. I did that with my folks one time when they were threatening to put me in another rehab. I showed them I didn't have a problema, I could have two. I was there for about an hour, and then I had to get out of there and go do it. My friend wasn't trying to do that. When she took two drinks, she got a feeling that she was losing control. I take two drinks. I get a feeling like I'm getting control. It does something fundamentally different to me right down to the core of my spirit. It affects something inside me that it never affects in other people. and then silkworth the last sentence in this paragraph he says the only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence well abstinance never felt like relief to me i mean really not that it's like isn't there something else? Entire abstinence. So the name of the game in Alcoholics Anonymous becomes you don't drink no matter what. Because unfortunately, this is a disease that can only be treated in a state of abstinance. That's why it's difficult. I tried coming to meetings back, the popular medication for alcoholics back in the 70s was Valium. And as a matter of fact, it was just a matter of course back then if you were an alcoholic and you'd stop drinking and you were nervous and you're depressed, they put you on Valium and I tried coming to AA on Valuum and actually I kind of liked you people a little better when I was on Valrium, but I could never do this thing. So the name of the game because you don't drink or take anything no matter what. I mean, you don't drink if your old lady sleeps with a trash man. You don't drank if you sleep with the trash man, I mean you just don't drunk. And if you can stay in this unnatural, desolate, lonely state of abstinence, what Silkworth says here is true. That in Alcoholics Anonymous, in these steps that we will find relief. Let's jump over to page 20. very important part of the book page twenty and twenty one it talks about the difference between moderate normal drinkers hard problem drinkers and real alcoholics it is absolutely important for me to know what i am i think that now are the membership of alcoholics anonymous today includes real alcoholics and hard problem drinkers. Somewhere when we abandoned the long form of the traditions and went from the long-form of Tradition 3 to the short form, and also what it talks about in the 12x12 back in the 50s when we started raising the bottom in AA, we started opening up Alcoholics Anonymous to anyone who has a desire not to drink. That's the short-form or the third tradition. Remember, desire not-to-drink. The long form says that our membership should include anyone who suffers from alcoholism. There's a big difference between having alcoholism and having a desire not to drink. My mother had a desire nicht to drink because she wanted to lose weight, so she just quit drinking beer. It doesn't make her an alcoholic. Even though she may have been considered to some degree a problem drinker because beer was giving her a problem with her weight. It created problems in her life. So the book talks about the difference here, and it's really essential that I know what the difference is because the program of recovery and the path that I have to walk is different for me as a real alcoholic than it is for the problem drinker. Bottom of page 20, it says moderate drinkers. Moderate drinkers have little trouble in giving up liquor entirely if they have good reason for it. They can take it or leave it alone. My sister is a moderate drinker, She has a glass or two of champagne on New Year's Eve, one or two margaritas one or two times during the year possibly. And on a rare occasion if it's very hot outside and she's working in the yard, she'll come into the house and go to the refrigerator and if there's a six pack of beer in there and a six Pack of Coke, she will grab whatever is colder. She can take it or leave it alone. She is a moderate drinker. Then we have a certain type of hard drinker. Now this guy sounds like alcoholic, but check this out. He may have the habit badly enough to gradually impair him physically and mentally. The habit. So he's drinking habitually. Not good. And it may be bad enough that it may impair him physically and mentally. That's not good. It may cause him to die a few years before his time. That's not good either. And this is the difference here. It says, if a sufficiently strong reason, ill health, falling in love, change of environment, or the warning of a doctor becomes operative, this man can also stop or moderate, although he may find it difficult and troublesome and may even need medical attention. He may even need detox. If you drink enough alcohol habitually, If Mother Teresa were to drink, I don't think you could get her to do it, but if she drank a pint of vodka every single day, when she stops after a year of doing that, she's going to be shaky. She might need medical attention. But this guy can stop or moderate on his own. So the hard problem drinker looks like alcoholics, but if he has a sufficiently strong reason, ill health. If he goes to the doctor, and the doctor says, Bob, your liver panel's off the scale. You're getting signs of pancreatitis. If you don't quit this stuff, you're going to have some serious problems. And he goes, really, doc? Man, I don't want that. Okay, I'm going to quit. And he just does. And he doesn't become restless, irritable, and discontent. He doesn't go crazy. He just stops drinking. I grew up with guys like that. Or it says falling in love. I grew up with guys that they'd get married and their wife would say, you know, you're partying too much with the guys. You've got to make a choice. And they would just say, sweetheart, I'm never going to do that again. And they wouldn't. They didn't become restless, irritable, discontent. They didn'T become withdrawn and judgmental. They didn' t become uptight. They just went into normal living. They were a problem drinker, a hard drinker. They were not real alcoholics. Because a guy like me, the doctor says, Bob, your liver panel is off the scale. you better quit drinking or you're going to die. I got to go get a fifth of vodka to digest the information he's just given me. Or my PO says to me, if you take another drink, you're gonna go do two years in prison. And I don't want to do the two years and I hang on until I can't stand it and then I gotto go take a drink. Or I was in a relationship one time and the gal said, she says, I've had it. You come home, you get drunk, you bump into things, you break stuff, you're just a mess. I'm tired of cleaning up after you. I won't put up with it anymore. I just, I'm fed up. It's either me or the drinking. And I'd sit there and I'd think, oh man, I don't want to lose her. And inside myself, I would swear to myself, okay, that's it. I am just not going to touch this stuff anymore. And i would make a promise to myself and I would mean it and I will make a promise to her and I would mean it that I'm never going to touch that stuff again but I lack the power to fulfill the promise. I can't carry it out because the emptiness of my abstinence starts to eat my lunch and I don't drink day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out and I just get it up to here. With the loneliness and the desolation and the feelings of apartness and separation that I feel when I stop drinking, I become so restless, irritable, and discontent that abstinence is a very unbearable and unnatural state for me because I have alcoholism. For all practical purposes, my alcoholism starts where the bottle ends. then the book goes on to talk about but what about the real alcoholic that's me he may start off as a moderate drinker never did he may or may not become a continuous hard drinker but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control over his liquor consumption once he starts to drink I was an alcoholic from my first drink and I don't know if that's unusual or not. It's just my story, and I know that because I cannot remember one instance in my whole life where anybody's ever been passing me a bottle, or I've been sitting at a bar, and the bartender comes by after I've had several drinks and asked me, Bob, do you want another one? And I would sit there and do what normal drinkers do. I'd sit there, and think about it, and go, no, you know, this is just right. This is just, I don't need another one. This is just, I've never been just right. When I start drinking, it opens up a vacuum inside of me that demands always more. And if I'm still conscious and I'm drinking, I need another drink. That's the kind of alcoholic I am. Here's the fellow who has been puzzling you, especially in his lack of control. He does absurd, incredible, tragic things while drinking. He is a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. First time I read that, I didn't know what they meant because all I had ever been exposed to was the Hollywood version of Dr.Jekyll and Mr Hyde and the Hollywood Version depicts Dr. Jeckyll as being kind of a mild-mannered, quiet, sort of humble altruistic guy who in his search for knowledge and to help humanity discovers this potion and he takes this potion and he becomes Mr. Hyde who's an awful, mean, terrible monster that does awful, terrible things and it's just awful well, I went back a few years ago and went to the library and got the original version the only version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyd that was available in 1939 when this book was written and I read it and I was amazed that it was really a lot different than my preconceived notion of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the book it talked about Dr.Jekyll being very withdrawn sullen distant self-righteous judgmental uptight didn't mix very well with people and when he became he took this potion and he became Mr.Hyde and man he could just come out and play and he did some as Mr. Hyde he went too far and he heard a lot of people and then at the very end in the confessions of Dr. Jekyll he said something that touched me he said after all the pain and the tragedy after all the harm and the hurt that I've done others I still liked being Mr. Hyd better than I ever liked being Dr. Jekyll, even with all of that. And the problem with me as an alcoholic is I could sit in a county jail and be totally ashamed of myself for what I've done. But the truth was, you know, I still liked myself better as Mr. Hyde than I never did as Dr. Jeckle. If you've ever seen the Bill W. story, there's a scene in there where after Bill's sober and AA started to roll, he's standing at this window and Lois is in the room and he says, I can't remember his exact words, but he said something to her along the effects of, after all of this, he said sometimes, and after all the problems in the hospitals and everything, sometimes I still miss it. He still missed being Mr. Hyde. That's what it is to be a real alcoholic. the book goes on to say he is mild he is seldom mildly intoxicated he is always more or less insanely drunk his disposition while drinking resembles his normal nature but little he may be one of the finest fellows in the world yet let him drink for a day and he frequently becomes disgustingly and even dangerously anti-social he has a positive genius for getting tight at exactly the wrong moment particularly when some important decision must be made or engagement kept he is often perfectly sensible and well-balanced concerning everything except liquor, but in that respect he is incredibly dishonest and selfish. He often possesses special abilities, skills, and aptitudes and has a promising career ahead of him, uses his gifts to build up a bright outlook for his family and himself, and then pulls the structure down on his head by a senseless series of sprees. He is the fellow who goes to bed so intoxicated he ought to sleep the clock around yet early next morning he searches madly for the bottle he misplaced the night before. If he can afford it, he may have liquor concealed all over his house. To be certain, no one gets his entire supply away from him to throw down the waste pipe. As matters grow worse, he begins to use a combination of high-powered sedatives and liquor to quiet his nerves so he can get to work. Then comes the day when he simply cannot make it and gets drunk all over again. Perhaps he goes to a doctor who gives him morphine or some sedative with which to taper off. I know meetings where they couldn't if this guy were to share his story, they would have told him he couldn't share because he just talked about sedatives and morphine. Then he begins to appear at hospitals and sanitariums. This is by no means a comprehensive picture of the true alcoholic as our behavior patterns vary but this description should identify him roughly. In 1939, in the United States of America, this was a pretty accurate description of someone with alcoholism. And at the end of the century, in the late 1990s in the US, they'd put a whole lot of other stuff in there too. But the essence of the picture never has changed. Since the beginning of time, since the beginning of recorded history in every society on the face of the earth for some bizarre reason there's always been a small portion of the population that for some reason just didn't seem to fit and those people when they encountered anything that would change the way they feel and allowed them to feel more like they were okay or more like THEY FIT those same people for some reason couldn't couldn't stay away from it and they couldn't stop doing it and they would do it to their own self-destruction and I as far as I know Alcoholics Anonymous is probably has been the second most effective program of recovery for misfits like that who have started taking something to change their misfittedness. And AA is the second most effective one. The most effective one, oddly enough, happened earlier, not too many years apart from AA. The earlier part of the, early 1900s, like in the 19, I think 30s, I'm not sure the date, in China. When the Communists took over China after the Communist Revolution, they discovered that they had one of the world's largest opium problems. So they came up with a program of recovery. They gave you one chance to clean up your act or they killed you. Ten years later, it's virtually impossible to find an opium addict in China. I'm glad that I didn't live in a century where they were doing that for alcoholism. They had to shoot me because I'd have sworn off and they got me in some hospital and detoxed me and they'd say, you can't drink this stuff anymore. And I'd say Yeah, you're right. I can't. I'm not going to. And within six months, the emptiness would overwhelm me and the loneliness of being sober would eat my lunch and I'd have to start sneaking that stuff and they'd just put a gun to my head. Because that's what it's like to be an alcoholic of my type. Let's jump over to the bottom of page 22. Actually, let's jumpover to page 23. this is after the description of the alcoholic it goes on to say these observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion therefore the main problem of the alcoholics centers in his mind rather than in his body alcoholism is the only disease i know of that if you have it it uses your own mind against you. And the bad thing about that, for a guy like me, is that when I'm scared, when I am frustrated, when I hurt or angry, the first thing I do is I go up in here and think. I go here to this control center where I can get away from the world and judge the situation and figure it out, I go up to the source of my problem to try to figure out my problem. I'd be better off calling Charles Manson on the phone asking him for spiritual advice than trying to think my way out of a problem. And I've never come up with the right solution. I've ever been frustrated or angry or uptight or just had problems in my life where I sat down and analyzed them and came up with a truth. I can't see what's really wrong because what I'm looking for, I'm looking with. And I can' t see what' s going on because I' m the problem and I' M right in the middle of it. So therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic center is in his mind rather than his body. Do you ever watch corporate brainstorming when there' s a problem and all of a sudden they all sit around this boardroom and they all throw stuff out? That' s what it' s like in my head. Except that there' S one guy in there that just keeps going, Let's drink. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good. That's the graphs. Great pie graph. Really good presentation. Let's Drink. He just keeps doing it. No matter what's going on, he just keeps saying it. Let's Drink. Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than his body. And the voice keeps saying let's drink because it's the only solution. It's the one thing that part of me ever found that worked. Or I could walk into a bar and just be up to here with life. just so fed up and alone and distant and uptight and have five shots of Jack Daniels and I can come out and play. The main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than his body. Next paragraph says, once in a while he may tell the truth. Even if stopped broken clocks right twice a day. Once in a While He May Tell the Truth and the truth strange to say is that usually he has no more idea why he took that first drink than you have. Sometimes 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. Back in the 1940s there was a doctor who I guess was considered one of the pioneers in the treatment field of alcoholism. He worked for one of Ivy League universities back east. His name was Dr. Jelinek. And Dr. Jelinek came up with a lot of theories and things about alcoholism. And one of the things that Dr. Jelineks came up with, and it's used, I think it's probably still used in alcoholism rehabs around the world, is the Jelineck chart. And the Jelenik chart is like a horseshoe. And at the very, it shows the progression of the disease as you go down into the abyss, getting to the bottom where you either recover or die, and then the progression back into recovery. And at the bottom of the Jelinek chart, right before the very bottom when you're going down, there's a little thing on the chart that says the collapse of the alibi system. That's what the book is talking about and that was my experience. I got to a point where I had used the excuses for drinking up. I'd used them so many times over and over again that they didn't even make any sense anymore and they had no validity, even to me. And I wanted to have an excuse to drink. and I had by this time I had drank away a lot of the reasons why I used to drink I could no longer blame it on the boss because I was unemployed I could not longer blame on the relationship because I had none I can no longer blaming on my folks because I hadn't seen them in several years I got to a point where there was nothing that I could hang my drinking on and I started to know the truth and the truth was I had to drink because I couldn't stand myself sober that I was the alcoholic of this type. I was The Dr. Jekyll type of alcoholic. I couldn't stand myself as Dr. Jekyl and I liked Mr. Hyde, even though Mr. Hyde was killing me. Let's jump over to page 30. More about alcoholism. Some of you must think, no, no more. No more about alcohol. No, please, nothing, anything. well more about the book this book spends a third of the working text over a third of the work on step one and it does that because if if you don't got that like it talks about in the 12 by 12 it's the only step you got to take 100 percent is the first half of step one because if you do not have that there is really no use in even doing any of the rest of it so this is an important part of the book where it talks about the first two delusions or illusions. Page 30, more about alcoholism. Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. If there was something, if there was another name for alcoholism, maybe they could call it the I'm not quite like you disease or the my case is different disease because there's something about me that doesn't want to be with you. It doesn't want to be part of you. It goes to great lengths. Matter of fact, and I think that's a pretty common experience in alcoholism. If you were to poll a thousand members of Alcoholics Anonymous sober a reasonable period of time, five or ten years, they would all have three things in common. The first thing that they would have in common is that there was some time in their life prior to getting sober were looking back, they are absolutely convinced that they had alcoholism at that time in their life and yet at that time in their life they believed they didn't with everything in them. The second thing that they have in common is that they went to great lengths to keep from coming to Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean we go to great, I mean if this is a typical gathering of alcoholics, I bet you there's stories in here. I bet you there's people that have tried all kinds of bizarre things to fix themselves in order not to come here and stop drinking. I mean, there's probably everything in here from getting baptized a dozen times to coffee enemas. I've heard the most bizarre stuff in the world, and we try great stuff. Who do you think buys all the self-help books? I mean, really, who buys them? I mean normal people don't buy them. They don't even care. We're the people who buys. And the Al-Anons, the Al Anons buy them also. We're not the ones that buy them, but we're the ones who buy all the self-health books. We don't want to come here and do this. And the last thing that everyone would have in common is that after coming here working this process, they would unanimously agree beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the best thing that has ever happened to them in their whole life. Best thing in their entire life. And yet the first two things look at the great lengths we went to to keep from coming here. I guess it shows us we really don't know what's good for us. Most of us have been unwilling to admit we are real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. I was going through this one time with a new guy, and he says, oh yeah? He says, at what point are we no longer bodily and mentally different from our fellows? I says, I don't know. I looked through the book. I got back to him two days later. I said, you know, there's nowhere in this book that it ever says that we stop being bodily and mentaly different from ourselves. And everyone I've ever seen that thought they were no longer bodily and mentally different from their fellows has relapsed. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. And this is the first illusion or delusion. The first illusion is what keeps me from getting a foothold in Alcoholics Anonymous. The second delusion is what keeps me from staying in Alcoholics Anonymous for the rest of my life. And the third delusion would keep me from ever getting comfortable here. The first delusion says, the idea that somehow, someday, he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death. the idea that somehow, some way, I'll control and enjoy my drinking. When I took the 20-question test from John Hopkins University, I answered 19 questions yes, and oddly enough, the one question I answered no was the question, do you ever try to control your drinking? And I said no because I didn't understand what they meant. I thought they meant, did you ever have only two? I never did that. And I couldn't see that I was trying to control my drinking, but I lived a life of damage control. My whole life was about that. My whole Life was about trying to make sure I didn't end up in jail because if I went to jail, they would stop the party. A lot making sure I did not lose my job because if lost my job, I am going to lose my income source and they will stop the Party. If I am not getting so embarrassed or humiliated around you because if I do that, you're going to say something to me about my drinking and try to stop the party. I went to great lengths to keep this thing going. I lived a life of damage control. Back before I ended up homeless in the years when I had a car, I'd get up in the morning and just as a matter of course, I would just look around the car to see if there's any new dents because I want to figure out what I did the night before that I don't remember that I've got to deal with today. i lived a life well i lived a life of damage control and the idea that someday some way i'll control and enjoy my drinking the idea that i'm going to be able to drink and have fun like i had when i was 17 18 years old and yet the reality of my drinking as it went over as the years went on is i as the disease progressed, I seemed to get an inability to do that. Alcoholism is a disease of diminishing returns. As the disease progresses, and when I started in the beginning, there was a whole lot of fun. There was a full lot of enjoyment. I mean, it was. It was incredible. Alcoholism, alcohol in the begining of my alcoholism was a treatment for alcoholism. I could walk into a... I remember in ninth grade walking into a party at some kid's house where His parents were out of town. Walking in there and being sick to my stomach with separation anxiety and loneliness. Sick to my tummy with that walking in there and watching all these kids over here on couches making out and these other kids dancing and the guys in the football team around the keg of beer in the kitchen laughing and carrying on and having that sick feeling that it was all of them and then there's me. After about five or six drinks, man, I'm dancing. I got a girlfriend. I mean, I'm connected. Alcohol was a treatment for that. There was a tremendous amount of enjoyment. Tremendous amount of employment in those days. But as the years... And there was a little bit out of control, but it wasn't too bad. I was getting in some trouble, but it was within acceptable parameters. Right? Just like they talk about in war. You have acceptable casualties. I was having acceptable casualties in my life. Acceptable limits. But as the years progressed, the fun diminished and the problems increased until by the time I get to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1978, the truth is I haven't had fun drinking in a couple of years. It's not party time anymore for me. I drink by myself and I drink with a lot of self-pity. And I drink and sometimes sob uncontrollably and hope nobody sees me. i feel awful and i yet i start every run out thinking it's going to be like it was when i was 18 years old and it never is anymore it never ist have lost the ability to and by this time my life is so out of control i mean it's just it's it's insane i've lost the ability to control and enjoy my drinking yet i still have the illusion that i can get i can go out and have some fun and get away with it and until that illusion was smashed i could not get all the way in alcoholic synonymous because i still had an emotional vested interest in the bottle it was still an option for me until that illusion was smashed as long as i thought that you know if i ever got bored enough or lonely enough or uptight enough i could probably go on a drunk for a weekend have a little bit of fun get some relief and getaway with it as long as i still had that i was doomed to keep trying it i've watched guys i'm working with two guys right now that i just i i bite my tongue all the time i just want to give them a hundred dollars and haul them up in a room somewhere with a couple cases of vodka and get it over with because they go out for just two days and come back real quick and they get away with it and i just wanna say why don't you just go out and if you don't die we'll get you right but i don't say that because if they went out and they died, I wouldn't like the way I felt if that happened. So I keep my mouth shut. First illusion. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death. And this is the first step. We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves. Innermost cells that we were alcoholics. this is the first step in recovery now that says it different than what it says it on the shades the shade it says we admitted we were powerless over alcohol our life had become unmanageable i like this better because it says мы learned that implies an ongoing process i heard a guy not too long ago he was talking about a 20-year marriage and how through the 20 years he learned how to have a marriage, and the implication was that it was a process that took a lot of time. It wasn't just something where you read it in the book and went, oh yeah, I got it. And that's the way alcoholism, I learned, I'll tell you something, I am more of an alcoholic with coming up on 21 years of sobriety than I was when I was 15 years sober. I am much more painfully aware of my alcoholism and more aware of what it is to be an alcoholic today than I was then, and I was more aware of it at 15 than I was at 10, and more at 10 than I was at 5. I'm engaged in a process. We learned that we had to fully concede. It doesn't say admit. I can admit just about anything. You put the pressure on me, get me in some rehab and group therapy situation, I'll admit anything. Just like me. Just like be. But that doesn't mean I believe it. Doesn't mean I believe it. We had to fully concede, no doubt, absolute, fully conceded to my innermost self that I was an alcoholic. This is the first step in recovery. And then this is the second delusion. The delusion that we are like other people or presently maybe like other People has to be smashed. What do they mean by other people? I think they mean non-alcoholics. The delusion that I no longer have alcohol, or I presently may be, like maybe, you know, 10 years of sobriety, you'd think, wouldn't you? You'd think if I went to AA every day for 10 years and didn't think about drinking anymore, you would think that I would have less alcoholism, or must have less alcoholism. And what I watch in Alcoholics Anonymous, and it's frightening to watch is I watch people come into AA and their first year or two of sobriety, they act like someone who really has fully conceded to their innermost self that they're alcoholics. They act like someone who has a terminal disease that needs help. Then at five years of sobrietty, instead of going to seven meetings a week, now they're going to three meetings a year. They're talking to their sponsor about half as much as they did in their first year. They really, they're too busy in their business and their marriage to really go on 12-step calls or do service. And then at 10 years they drop in to get their cake, see the guys, pop in once in a while. AA to them has now become like the sober elks. You know what I mean? It's like, right? And no matter, and the problem is, I see a lot of these, I go to this detox where I see the long, the old timers that have relapsed. And the problem with that is, is that most of these people, right a week before they had picked up their first drink, if you would have stopped and asked them, and you would've said to them, what's the matter you don't think you have alcoholism anymore they just said oh you're crazy I got alcoholism I'm never going to drink again I know I'm an alcoholic I remember my last drunk they give you the whole litany but yet if you look at their feet their feet define the actions of someone who must surely secretly believe that they have less alcoholism today than they had when they were one year sober.