The Program of Alcoholics Anonymous in a Secretly Coded Book – Cliff B.

The Big Book. What we're doing here is introduce people to one of the missing elements of our fellowship today. It's called the Program of the Alcoholics Anonymous. And the only place we can find a program of the alcoholics anonymous is in a book that's secretly coded. It's titled Alcoholics Annonymous. And if you have a book, it's got a desk cover on it, on the front of it, it tells you what this book is. It says this is either the third or the fourth edition of the big book, The Basic Text for Alcoholics Not In. If you don't have a desk cover, look at a Roman numeral 11, the second paragraph tells you exactly the same thing. Roman numere11. That's an accident I had still wondered who on earth came up with an idea to put Roman numeral in a book where alcoholics were trying to figure out how to get that lid open. Somebody wasn't thinking clearly. So we'll start out on the foreword to the first edition, Roman Emile 13, second page after the title of content. And right underneath the title it says, This is the Foreword as Repaired in the First Print of the First Edition, 1939. And Endell wrote, We have Alcoholics Anonymous and more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. For them, we hope that each patient will prove so convincing that no further authentication will be necessary. We think this account of our experiences will help everyone to better understand the alcoholic. Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person, besides we are sure that our way of living has its advantages for all. And that paragraph tells us everything we need to know about this book. First of all it tells us who authored this book and unlike any book I've seen authored in modern times, it has been authored by more than a hundred hopeless, helpless alcoholics who had found the solution for alcoholism. As far as we know, it's the first time in the history of mankind that this has happened. They thought what they had learned to do was so important it ought to be preserved. And the second sentence tells why they wrote the book. To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. And the word precisely sort of indicates that we don't have the freedom to add to, take from, or rearrange this thing. We do it precisely, exactly, specifically the way they did and we'll give it precisely. Specifically, exactly what they say they got. The next sentence says that no further authenticating will be necessary for those who really have a problem with alcohol. That's a true statement. The only thing you might want to add to this book is a dictionary to make sure you understand the message that Bill is trying to carry to us through his writing. He's very, very precise in the use of the English language And very often, looking up the definition of the word will give us a new slant on that meaning. The next two sentences tell us that this book is for those who care about it as much as it is for ourselves. If you've been around to think about it during months, you realize the hell and agony you put those through that you cared about. That was meeting across the hall tonight, they call them Al-Anon. This book is per them as much of it is per us. And the last thing I'm saying besides we're sure our way of living has its advantages for all, and again, it's an amazing thing. Because over the 50 years after this book was first published, it gave birth to over 200 anonymous fellowships that had nothing to do with drinking alcohol. If you flip the page, you'll see what it takes to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, second line down. The only requirement for membership is an honest desire to stop drinking. Somewhere along the line they dropped out the word honest probably because they recognized that the alcoholics who are ready to come to AlcoholicsAnonymous haven't much of an understanding of honesty anymore. pretty much a done deal. But still, if you want to be successful in sobriety, you'd better be a heaven on earth as I am. A burning, a longing, a yearning to never take another drink as long as you live. Now, the next part of the book, the fourth or second edition, gives us a little historical account of what happened the first 20 years after Bill sobered up. How he wound up in Akron on a busted business deal that could not fail but it did. And out of desperation to preserve his sobriete, Bill went in search to another alcoholic to tell his story to you. Took him 12 telephone calls to find one lady who said, yes, we know somebody we'd love for you to talk to. Please come on out. And the next day Bill met a guy named Robert Holbrook Smith, MD. Dr. Bob. Dr., Bob had been crying for two and a half years to figure out how to live sober. Bill had been sober five months. And what Bill did, he sat down with this doctor and explained the exact nature of alcoholism to him that Dr. Selfworth had explained it to Bill. And Dr. Dobb realized how hopeless his situation was, and for the first time he recognized it's not a bad habit, it's no lack of willpower as such, it is a horrible disease that was beyond his ability to handle. He realized the necessity of working with other alcoholics, and they immediately got in search of others. And they were so successful in doing this, it wasn't very long before they started tracking the attentions of our leading citizens. Herbert Hoover, the President of the United States, thought Alcoholics Anonymous was a tremendous fellowship. We know all about Rockefeller. We've had some outstanding endorsements. But we also had some real fine publishing on Roman Italy things. It talked about the article that Jack Alexander wrote in the Saturday Evening Post in March 1941 that really made AlcoholicsAnonymous an institution in this Out of that came 20,000 inquiries and 8,000 members. And all of a sudden we had a tremendous influx of people, none who knew anything about how to live together. Bill recognized very early on he was going to have to come up with a set of guidelines, a code of conduct for this fellowship or we would not survive. And out of that became the 12 traductions. Over on Roman numeral 22, Bill gives us a statement of fact that I think is awfully important. Now bear in mind the book was written in 1939, and here in 1955 we're going to tell how well we're doing. They sent out a flyer or questionnaire to members of the Fellowship and said what have we missed? What can we add to this book that will make it more effective, and the answer came back we can't think of anything. It's as good as they can get. So to put sidelines down from the top, Bill gives us what he considered to be a reasonable estimate of the success rate of those who come into Alcoholics Anonymous for help. What he said was, of those that came to Alcoholics and really tried, 50% got sober and wanted to remain that way. The key is really try. How the 50% went out, half of them came back. One thing I always ask when I get to this point, how many in here have only one sobriety day. How many have only one? Do you have one single sobriety day? See, if we were doing as well as they were back then, well, half the hands would go up. But the simple truth of the matter is our fellowship has gone so far away from the program that very, very few people come to Alcoholics Anonymous Day and find sobrieti on their first pass. Most of us have to go back and hear it again and again. He said we're doing 75 percent. People like Dr. Bob Clarence Snyder and Andy, some of the other early ones who took sponsorship very seriously were getting better than 90 percent. My sponsor old Joe McHugh gets better than 90%. I get better than ninety percent. Of those that really try, I have yet to have one person go back to drinking, of those who really try. And I've seen hundreds and hundreds the people come in and half-ass this program and be unsuccessful in sobriety. But I have never yet seen one person who came in and followed the direction of this book ever lose their sobrietry. But remember, in 1953 Bill had published the 12 and 12s. In 1950 the traditions had been adopted by our fellowship. Pull up a chair and sit down. And he realized he had to give some additional information on the twelve traditions across the fellowship, but he was also encouraged to do a little bit on the twelfth set because there was a little book floating around this fellowship at that time called The Little Red Book. You can buy that from Hazel and Jay. It's still the same publication. It really is a great book. It was kind of becoming very popular. It wasn't conference approved, quote-unquote, so people said they'll have something in the book you're going to write about the traditions about the sets, So the 12 and 12 came out. The Alcoholics Anonymous family in 1964 and 1965, our success rate dropped to 50 percent because what had happened is people would put the big book away and go on to 12 and twelve. Alcoholics are not known for their interest in reading. Have you noticed that? Now you give it a choice of that sucker or one this thick which we're going to take the 12 and 12. And that's exactly what happened. When I got here, this was the road. And we were head drop that month. Along about 1968 or 59, the grapevine said, we need discussion meetings. Discussion meetings where we people can talk about topics, and we're going to give you topics to inject into these meetings. And all of a sudden, we went from the big book and the 12th and 12th of whatever happened to be on people's minds from the 1980s, we were down to about a third. 2002 in Dallas, Texas, Houston, Texas and Memphis and a lot of other places around the country—and this is not accurate, this is only an indication of what's happening within our fellowship—of the 22,000 who said, I never want to take another drink, less than two percent are here for a ten-year medallion. What has happened is and you may have been a victim of this as our meeting have gone from the program which is in the big book to talking about whatever somebody has on their mind who has never taken a sip. We like to talk about our issues right? They make good discussing meetings topics. Well you see if we're going to deal with issues the problems left untouched then. But if we come into Alcoholics are not going to take the steps and the problem is solved. Now, what kind of issues do we have? Ain't got none. They're gone. There are no more problems to deal with. So you've got to make up a decision within yourself. What do you want to do? Do you wantto rely on the fellowship and meetings, which Bill told you on page 17, if that will not do it? Didn't back then. It won't today. Or do youwant to rely on something that's been working for 64 years? Time sets the experience proven. It will not fail if you do what the folks there wrote this book. It's your decision to make, so there we are. You can either get into the winters and be a part of the program and adopt the program as a way of life or you can sit in meetings and piss and moan about how bad your life is and what happened to my life today and how my wife is not treating me right and my in-laws don't appreciate my problem and so on. That's not negative talking. That is the reality of what's going on in our fellowship development. Now, let's go to page 30 a minute. Real numbers, never coming back. Because on page 30, right in the middle of the page, is a very, very important statement. And what it says is we learned that we had to fully concede to Irma O'Sullivan for our college. Why? What's the next sentence say? It is the first step in recovery, is that what it says? So if you really have a desire to quit drinking, the first thing you've got to do is understand the problem. And again this is something we don't put nearly enough emphasis on. The first step of recovery defines alcoholism. So let's go back where we find that information, it's in the doctor's appendix. If you've got a third edition, you go to Roman numeral 26, two X's of B and an I. If you're using a fourth edition, you need two more I's on there. The forward to the fourth edition has advanced the numbers in the doctor's opinion by two. Now, Dr. Silkworth was a man who was trained in neurology, lost his practice as a result of the soft market crash in October of 1929. Brant injured a guy named Charlie Towne. Charlie had a little hospital off of Central Park that treated alcoholics and drug addicts. Charlie needed a doctor to run that place, and he met Dr. Silkworth, and he offered him the job as medical director and paid him 40 bucks a week for that job. Dr. silkworth had every intention of going back into private practice but became so fascinated with what we were about that his record shows that somewhere between 60 and 70,000 alcoholics were referred to Alcoholics Anonymous by this precious little doctor. The Dr. Silkworth opinion is the basis of our recovery, because you guys have got a problem, and the problem we call alcoholism. And he said it's unlike anything I have ever seen in medical practice. He said it was a compound problem. He said that there were problems with the body, which was a new idea. And it's a problem of the mind, and nobody ever had any problems figuring out we were crazy as hell. Watch any alcoholic in action, and you can tell there's something wrong with their thinking. Nobody felt distressed if they're okay up here. But what he said was these people have got an unusual reaction to alcohol. He said these allergic types, excuse me, he said we believe in folks who just a few years ago had their vaccine alcohol and these chronic alcoholics manifest facial analysis. And his definition of allergy was an abnormal reaction to any food or chemical in or on the human body. And what we know today is, according to medical science and what we believe, that only one out of ten of us has what it takes to be an alcoholic. Nine out of 10 ain't got it. And I'll bet you've been around some of those nine out of tens. You ever been around a party where people are doing a little bit of drinking and somebody drank a little too much and the future guessed that? And what did they do? If they're not alcoholic, what do they do? They go home. Could you get them back to another drinking party in the next few days? What does an alcoholic do when we puke them up? If you're an alcoholic, you know the answer is that. What do you do? Get one right now, don't you? Hell, we don't even get the strings out of ourselves before we reach into that bottle. Only 1 out of 10 of us has got what it takes to be an alcoholic. The rest of them just give up and go home An allergy, an abnormal reactionary food or chemical Anybody here allergic to penicillin? There will be one, two, three. My God, we're at four. Well, maybe we all start penicilling anonymous tonight. Last time they had penicillon, they told them one thing for damn sure, don't you ever say penicillar again because if you do, it may kill you. Is that what they said? And what happened to these folks when they had Penicillan was their hearts started going very fast. Their strokes started constricting and they had broken out in a race which that doesn't kill them. The rapid heartbeat and the strangulation are the two things that will bring about death or have an allergy to penicillin. How do we know if we're allergic to alcohol? He said, the phenomenon of cravings. Phenomenon of craving is one this class has never occurred in the average day for drinking. Anybody in here sat down before they came today and never get enough when you start drinking? Now, if you got enough, you quit, didn't you? Did you always drink too much? Did you ever get enough? I hadn't even thought about it until I was with old Joe and he said, you said something about liking buttermilk. He said, did you have a glass or two of buttermilks? Is that enough? And I said, oh, God, yeah. He said he had a shot or two at booze. Is that Enough? And I thought, oh hell no. And he said there we are. When you start drinkin', do you always drink more than you intended to? Every time. He said, you always drink way too much. And I said, always? That is a phenomenon of cravings. And the end result of that is, don't get intelligent on me, what happens when an alcoholic starts drinking? Hmm? No, go on, what's their end result? We get drunk. Anybody have a problem with that? If you haven't been to a counselor and too much time in treatment, you know what happens when we drink. We get drunk. Once in a while? Every damn time. Well, true or false? Now, if anybody here just gets drunk once in a While, you're in the wrong damn place, people, I'll tell you. There is a solution for that, whatever. Don't drink. See how simple this thing is? And that illustrates the simplicity of our program all the way through. Medical Medical science tells us we have a liver and pancreas that don't produce enough of the chemicals necessary to handle the ethanol through our body, just like the pancrea doesn't produce enough enzyme called insulin to handle carbohydrates through a diabetic's body. The liver and the pancreates of the alcoholic don't handle the alcohol. That is our reaction. One of the chemical components for decomposition is an acetate, and that acetate in our body produces that craziness beyond our ability to control it. Nobody has come up with any pills to solve that problem yet even though they advertise it. I have seen too many who have had those pills and it didn't work. So if this is a problem then all we have to do is just don't drink. And there are people in the world who know if they drink they are going to get drunk and they don't. In fact, there's a story about a guy on page 32 of the book. He didn't drink without getting drunk over 25 years. He just didn't drunk. Something else goes with it. The next sentence says these allergic types can never say to use alcohol in any form at all. I understand some of the folks in our fellowship think it's okay to drink non-alcoholic beer. That is a misleading statement because there is no such thing as non- alcoholic beer. It has alcohol in it. half percent anyhow. And hell, if you've got a half percent, well, let's have a little point of 3-2 before you serve. We're going to do 3-3. Hell, that's half of the 6. We're doing 6. Let's get a jug of wine and do 12. We'll just throw it away and let's get a jug and get busy. A little Smirnoff or Cheap Bobkin and we're on the way, right? How about Listerine? Is that okay? How about Niacin? Bix 44D? How bout Vanilla Extract? Anybody here try that stuff? Besides Brad. If it pours, Brad's been there and done it. He's my kind of guy we're both on. Anybody ever tried Day Room? That stuff smelled, I mean tastes as good as it smelled I'd still be drinking that thing. That's what we used to sober them up on years ago. How about bitters? Hmm? Bitters. I can get careful and try bitters right out of the bottle. Oh, hell yes. Why not? If it's got alcohol in it, it has to be labeled. And you are responsible for your sobriety, so you make damn sure you read the label of anything it pours because you know you'll live very well if you've been around any period of time. You can go in Sunday morning when the liquor store isn't open and get what you need to carry you through until 10 o'clock the next morning. Something that we have to deal with now that they didn't have to do with so much back then is called pills. We have a line of medication today that doctors love to prescribe to their patients because it makes them feel good. There are things like Librium and Xanax and Valium, a whole line of pharmaceuticals that are prescribed. The normal people at the firing range for people like us, it lights a pylon light to get us ready to go back and drink again. Now you are responsible for your sobriety, nobody else. And what you need to do is make sure that everybody that can prescribe medication for you knows that you have a problem called alcoholism, and they're very kind. They flag your file with these letters real big. ETOH, symbol for ethanol. That's on the front of the file so people are aware of the fact this is an alcoholic. Be very mindful of what you prescribe. Now, that takes care of this apple. You obviously were here because you probably made up your mind you weren't going to drink again, but you didn't. I'm presuming that's why you're here. And so Dr. Thorkeworth said the real problem over here is our mind. Anybody have any questions about what will be covered in the first part of this thing? The second part of it is the part of guilt. Last paragraph on enrollment in the 26th or 28th read men and women drink especially because we like the effect produced by alcohol now that's true only for alcohol I'm sure you've been around people who had a few drinks and said I think I better quit I'm beginning to feel it do you ever hear those words and then my query responses that is well what the hell are you drinking for if you don't want to feel how about I need to quit I'm getting that I'm going to lose control or how about this done when I got to go home I told my wife I'd be home for dinner at 8 o'clock. Or I've got to go to work in the morning and I think I'd better head home. Alcoholics don't worry about dinner and going to work the next morning. What is the effect of that? Oh, they need to put the word alcoholic in front of men and women. Now we've got a true statement. We love the effect full enough that we'll give up everything in God's decent life to try to get that effect one more time. Probably you don't really know any more than I did while I did what I did. Let's go back to page 83. And we'll begin to get a clue on what the effect was that we got out of alcohol. I would imagine that most of you have been asked a very stupid question early in your drinking career when things start getting out of hand. Why do you do it? Anybody have an honest answer for me? I don't know. I don' t know. Did you try that one? These cats across the hall said, Yes, you do. And all of a sudden we came up with an answer for them, didn' t we? We became world-class liars right on the spot. And from there on, we went on and on and On. I had stories that I told back in the 60s that bring tears to your eyes and there wasn't a damn bit of truth in them. And this is the program's honesty, and I lied and I got done. So there you are. But on this page 83, the last paragraph says that we've been painstaking about this phase of our development. We'll be amazed before we're halfway through. We're going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We'll not regret the past if we shut the door on it. We'll comprehend the word serenity. We'll know peace. It goes on down describing recovery from alcoholism. Well, we're talking about why we drink, so let's put it in front of these words. When I had a few drinks, I knew there was no freedom and no happiness. Did you? When I hade a few drinks, I didn't regret the fact that we should shut the door on them. I hadn't thought about that until Joe asked me, Have you ever come to a place you hadn't planned to be with people you hadn' t planned to be with having done some things you wish you hadn''t done? And I said, God, did I ever. He said, were you full of shame, guilt, remorse? And I said, yes, I was. He said was that a secret that you wanted to take the grave? And I say, yes it was. He said you walked into their bar that night or the next night and see someone with only soul and sat down and had to buy them a drink and tell them the whole damn thing? And I says, yes I did. That's what alcohol will do for us. How about the next one? When I had a few drinks, I comprehended the word serenity and I knew peace. Did you? How about when I had few drinks no matter how far down the scale I'd gone and I'd seen how my experience could benefit others. You been there? One of your buddies just got out of jail, got fired, wrecked a car, all kinds of good things because they're drinking and they want to tell you about their problems. And you need a loving, considerate soul. You already gave them about 45 seconds and shit. If you think you've got trouble, let me tell you about mine. We'll give them a life story. That afternoon, when I had a few drinks, I see one of the beauties in South City would disappeared, did it? Sitting around there without a drink in us, how do we feel? Useless, full of self-pity. Give us a couple of drinks and what? Man, I got a purpose in life. I can't tell you what it is, but I know I got to be here. And I ain't feeling sorry for me. I'm feeling sorry for you suckers that ain't got what I got. I think I'll have another drink. How about come on down? When I had a few drinks, that feeling or the selfishness disappeared. Did you get pretty generous with a couple of drinks early in your drinking career? Want to go buy everybody in the house a drink? And some of you guys, I know you never did, but I've heard about some that you see a lonely gal in a bar right now and decides she needed somebody to take care of her all night and buy her a motel room and keep her warm. Right? Generous, loving, giving people. Come down to that one. When I had a few drinks, fear of people and economic insecurity would leave me. Did it? Did you like to go to a social function without a couple of drinks in you before you came to AA? Would you? If you got caught in one, how did you feel? Miserable as hell, didn't you? God, I can't stand these fuckers. If I could just have a couple o' drinks and finally get a coupleo' drinks, then what happened? Man, if somebody's going to get talked to, I've got to go explain things to somebody. And how about dancing? Anybody like to dance solo? You can't get us on the dance floor at Sober Canyon. Get us two or three drinks and what have you. Tell the band we're in home and we ain't free dancing. We're just going to stay right there and hang out. Financial insecurity. Hear all these damn bills, I missed a few days of work because of my flu this past month and I'm worried about how I'm going to pay them. Think I'll go do a little cogitation. We go have a couple of drinks and do we worry about the bill? Not at all, do we? I love the story Bill tells about himself. One of those days in October, he was worth a pretty good piece of money. And that's when the stock market went down, down, and down. And Bill said he walked in, and he looked at the ticker, and he was in deep trouble. He went from having a pile of money to $60,000 in debt in one day. A lot of people did, and they said people were committing suicide. I remember that vividly. I was five years old when that happened. I can remember kids coming down the street asking for help. People were jumping out of buildings and committing suicide, flattering themselves over the sidewalk and taking them. What Bill did? Anybody remember? He went back to the bar, didn't he? Hell, he had a solution for his financial loss. And after this one, most of you will pick up on this one. When I had a few drinks, I intuitively knew how to handle situations that used to baffle me. Get a little smarter with a few drink? We get wise, don't we? We get answers that nobody's asked questions to yet. But look at the last one. We'll suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we couldn't do for our family. That describes a program that I call ex-mountain. We are people who call it self-help. It's not self-health. Never has been and never will be. It's a God-help program. We come in here and do this thing and nobody in their right mind would ever do it. And we find a quality of life that we never knew existed. those are the promises and that is the effect alcohol can get out of alcohol now you may have been able to pick up on a little bit of that but we're talking about the effect of drinking we will not suddenly realize that alcohol was doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves because if we get more and more in the program and learn to be honest with ourselves we'll recognize that's exactly what it's about alcohol was our solution it made us what we could not otherwise be until it became the most severe problem we've ever had to deal with back to Dr. DePenny. Next sentence has three parts. The sensation so elusive is what we admit us injuriously cannot after a time differentiate the truth and the false. We've already covered the first one. Why do you do it? I don't know. We didn't know, but we admit it's injurious, and I thought for a while that meant the bugs and bruises and whatnot. Just no, I don' t think so I'm going to get the problem. And he started enumerating some of the problems that we kind of pick up along the way. Anybody ever have a public intoxication rap? How about a DWI or DUI? How about drunken disorder? Did you do that? Damn. The only gals, I mean, the only people I've seen who were consistent with that were the gals. They got enough guts to whip up on a cop. We don't. We just give up and go with it. In fact, my second sponsor's wife did a cop on the arm when he tried to arrest her. And he went ahead and put her in. She just celebrated 36 years of sobriety. Anybody ever wind up in a hospital because they're drunk? Anybody ever go to treatment for drinking? What are you doing here? Didn't work? Turned up a gun. Didn't worked for me either. Anybody ever wreck a car? Anybody ever lose jewelry, money, property of significant value? Anybody ever loose a job because they're drinking? Anybody ever loose any friends? How about a family or kids? How about self-respect? How about freedom? Want me to go on? No. Can you imagine anybody in their right mind seeing how many of these things they could get for whatever came to them? I would imagine most of you, since you've got more than one sobriety date, have probably hit certain points in your drinking career where you said, Man, this is it. I ain't never going to do it again. And you may. What happened was, the day came after you came to Alcoholics Anonymous and got dried out, that something became more important than your surprise. It was a job, a relationship, a car. I don't know what the hell it was, but it was something. And maybe you can remember that day when you said, I'm not going to bother with the meeting. I'm going to go take care of business. And I see it happen all the time. That happened to be the day that you ordered your next drink. How long will it take for it to serve? I don' t know. Mine was 10 or 11 years. But it was served. you might do yourself a real big favor and take a little piece of paper and mark down, just the way as I have here, the things you experienced as a result of your dreams. And where you did make a commitment, I am no through forevermore for the start of that. And hang it right there on your mirror in the morning to look where you see yourself, brush your teeth, comb your hair, trim your beard, whatever it is, put it on your face. And look at that because a day very likely is going to come when you're going to say, I've got something more important to do than take care of my sobriety. You may not use those words, but you'll understand what I'm saying. There's something out there that I need to go take care and I'm not going to worry about a meeting. I haven't talked to my sponsor in a while. I'm really not sure exactly where my big book is. I haven' t been doing any praying in quite a while." If you can remember if this happened before and what it cost you, get your duck to a meeting, call your sponsor, dust off your big book, do some praying and see if you can help somebody. If you do, you won't drink and then maybe the one day will save your life. Now one thing I've got to really try to impress on you. You lose your sobriety this time you may never ever have another chance. You understand what I'm saying? This is the most deadly thing that I have ever seen us have to deal with in our society. And I see people all the time putting things in front of their sobriety and the severe consequences of disobedience to the pro-alcoholic synonymous are so severe that if you value your life and sobriete you cannot afford to put anything in front. I'll make you a bet some of you had something more important to your body like a relationship or a job and that came first and that's what you went after and what was the first thing you lost after you started drinking this thing was so damn important, right? You betcha. Nothing is more important than your life and sobriety. Nothing was more important to your drinking. If you put the same emphasis on sobrietry that you did on your drinking, you'll be okay, and if you don't, you've probably got a lot more moving, and you may never make it back. When I was able to have a 24-hour club on a regular basis every week, I met kids every week that are never going to make it back. There we are. Let's go on to the last part of that sentence. We cannot after a time differentiate the truth from the false. What a weird way to say we've got a mind we can never again rely on to keep us from taking the first drink. Cannot differentiate the truth? What is the truth? The truth is that I have an allergic reaction to alcohol that producing the craving that gets me drunk every time I start drinking. That's the truth. But I've got a mind that remembers that when I ain't feeling too good, it's going to feed me some information. So the last sentence on that page. If you're a real alcoholic and you haven't got any booze in, you're going to find yourself restless, irritable, and discontented with only one thought on your mind. Unless you're getting a good experience, that's it for these encumbered. It comes at once by taking a few drinks. Everybody recognize that? Can you remember how great it was with that first couple of drinks? Oh, God, that was great. But I've got to have another one. And the next one said, man, that Was good, but I've Got to have Another One. And along about the fifth leads to another fifth and another fifth and another sixth, and here we go. The truth is that I cannot drink without getting drunk, and if the fault is that i've got a mind to remember, this makes me feel a little bit better if I'm not feeling good. Oh, it does also. Today I started drinking again after 15 or 16 years of sobriety. It was a wonderful day. I'd been hunting all day, couldn't have felt better. I was sitting in the motel room in Tyler, Texas on the side of the bed and I heard a little voice in my head say, Wouldn't a beer taste good? And the committee said, You bet your ass it wouldn't. So I drove to Kilgore, 70 miles round trip for a six-pack of beer and I didn't even like beer. But I took care of it. care of it. I bought some beer nuts to make sure that I had something on my stomach before I started drinking. Anybody understand that? We won't put a name on it right now. What is the problem here? Well, he goes ahead and he says, once we have succumbed to that desire so many of us will do, the phenomenon of craving develops. We pass through the well-known stages of free emerging remorseful with a national anthem of every alcohol economy. I ain't never going to do it again until we help me God. And we mean it. But what's the next sentence? This is repeated over and over. Unless you and I as hopeless alcoholics can experience an entire psychic change, we're not going to live. We're not going to survive. Why do we have to have an entire psychic change? Because when we drink alcohol, we have an entire psychic chance. What happens in the mind of an alcoholic with a couple of drinks is a complete change in the way we think and the way we feel. And we just described that back on page 83 and 84. Pretty well nailed it, doesn't it? So there we are. Unless we can experience an entire psychic change, well, it's quite obvious that here is where the problem is. It sets up here in this bone that sets on top of our neck. Inside this skull of ours is some tissue. And that tissue completely completely controls our life. You take a brain out of a human being, what have you got? Dead meat, everything. That's all. So this whole thing up here is our whole life, our mind. Well, God created all these creatures. He gave them three basic instincts. He gave us a social instinct, he gave us the security instinct, and he gave us the sexual instinct. Every creature has all three of them. If you pay any attention, the birds and the squirrels and whatnot, you've seen God saying it's time for you to do your thing. And they go do it. He gave us something he didn't give them and he gave us a thing called self-will. We can exercise each of these instincts as we see fit when we want to. And in doing so, we abuse a lot of people. He came up with one other thing that animals have to one degree or another and it's called a memory. And we get an idea from something, and we'll give it a try. We like it or we don't like it. If you like it, you're going to keep right on doing it, if you don't like it you're never going to do it again. The thing we did is that we love the effect produced by alcohol, so that's something we're going keep right onto doing. But one day we find ourselves in big, big trouble. Let's go back to page 24 of Real Numbers, and then we're coming back. Look at on page 24, the first paragraph is all in italics which means this is exceedingly important information. Everything in a big book except a couple of very minor things are something you need to bet your life on. If it's in italic, it's exceedingly important and something you needed to be keenly aware of. That paragraph starts off saying for reasons yet obscure, the alcoholic has lost the power of choice and drink. Does that describe alcoholism? You bet it does. We've lost the power to choose how much we drink because of the allergy. But there's also a loss of power to decide whether or not we will drink because of this mind. And we'll get into that in a moment. You see, the so-called willpower becomes practically nonexistent. Is that a true statement across the board? We're the most bullheaded people on earth, aren't we? We are so determined we're going to have our way in every area except one. What is it? Where has willpower gone? Where it comes from. Is that right? Our so-called willpower becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable at certain times to bring us to our confidence with sufficient force, the memory and suffering of humiliation of what? What does your book say? Your book say a week or a month? Think about it. We wind up in real deep trouble and we hear that little voice say I'd like to have a drink And we look where we are in the consequence and we say, hell no, I'm not going to drink. Never again I'm through. How long can we manage that decision and not take that drink? What does it say? A week or a month. A week or a month. Have you ever heard anybody tell a newcomer to go to 90 meetings in 90 days? Do you suppose they really understand what we're dealing with here? How can a right-thinking person never tell a newcomer, You go to 90 meetings in 90 days when you've only got a few days after your last run to remember how bad it was. When are we most willing to do whatever we have to do to not die? When we think we're going to die, right? When do we think мы're goingto die? When we've got our head in that porcelain bowl and we can't get it out of there. Nothing will stay down. Vibrating, sweating, our eyeballs are bleeding. Nobody will have anything to do with it. We think the bad even sucks wouldn't have anything TO DO WITH IT. What are we willing to DO at that point? any damn thing on earth, right? And that's what Bill's telling me. The last sentence in that paragraph to me is the most devastating one sentence in this whole book. What does it say? On our own we are without defense against the first ring. Try to do it on your own and see how successful you are. If you can do it, you're damn sure you don't need us. If you wind up drunk you better get your ass back here or get a big book and a sponsor's role that will let you introduce you to the big book and get on with living. Make any sense? Anybody have any argument with what we just read? Have you found yourself without defense against the first name? Everybody in this room has. Okay, let's go back to the doctor's opinion. Well, let me tell you what. Let's do something else. Let me make a comment here. I forgot to do so. Little gals down in Houston doing research on brain tumors found out that we have the ability of manufacturing a very highly addictive drug called tetrahydrolyte of quinolone. During World War II, the armed forces came up with a joint project to try to come up with an non-addictive painkiller because we were getting hooked on morphine. And what they came up avec was reducing this stuff from heroin with tetrahydrolyte or quinolones. Highly addictive. A little gal down in Tucson doing researches on brain tumor is using an awful lot of those That's Fetman. Dad dropped Dad down around the marketplace, sent a meat wagon down to pick him up, haul him in, take his brain out and do her work. One day she's over at the lounge and the doctors are in the hospital and the doctor asks her how she's doing and she gave him a report. But she said, one of the things I find so interesting is so many of these guys are heroin addicts. And the doctor said, why on earth would you consider them to be heroin addict? She said, because I'm finding they have an awful lot of THIQ and crystalline form right down in the middle of their brain. And the doctor said, well, these guys aren't heroin addicts, they're about 65 a day. Why not? And they started out a little research project and what they've learned is that one of the chemical decomposition elements of ethanol through our body combines with the painkillers in our brain fluid and manufactures itself and deposits it right down the middle of our brain in crystalline form. And every time you have a drink that has that or alcohol in it, you manufacture more of these molecules and there finally comes a time when we're beyond human age. we're beyond alcoholics none of things would be on all eight so there we are now does anybody have any questions or comments about will be cut yet yes you can have a phenomenal president without taking that first drink if You're a real chronic alcoholic. The occurrence of drinking is that rest of the cerebral disc and then a demand of the mind that I drink. If I don't get a drink, I'm going to die. But you know, the other paragraph kind of says that after you have a drink and you have the phenomenal... Right. The mental problem, we're going to get into that in just a moment. Okay? Stick with me just for a moment here. This now is leading us back. We've gone through what Dr. Selfworth gave us, And this is where we need to put the emphasis to see if, in fact, this is our problem. If it is, then we've got to know what the problem is. Until we understand the problem, we're not going to be able to do anything about it. An illustration I use that's so simple that most people get insulted doing it, but you walk out of here getting a car, put a key in the ignition, and flip the switch, and nothing happens, you've got a problem? Why don't you sit on your ass next to me in a car for 90 days and talk about it and see how far you go? Do you have any idea what the program is? But if you get out and all raise the hood and look down there and the battery cables corroded and falling apart, do you know what the problem is now? Do you know what's the solution is? Are you any better off? No, you're not because you ain't got another battery cable yet, have you? You know the solution to the problem. What do you have to do? Get off your butt, go to that store, buy those battery cables, come back, put it in. Are you okay? Now you've got a solution. And that's exactly what we've got here. What we're looking at in this is the program of our public service because what we're look at here is step one. Step one is our problem. It says we admitted we We were powerless over people, places, and things, right? I wonder how that crap got started. Anybody have any idea? Isn't it amazing how much time we spend in meetings talking about people, places, and things? What drove me in here is I got drunk, and I couldn't figure out how not to get drunk, and I got tired of getting drunk because my wife was getting unhappy at me. Powerless over alcohol. Why am I powerless over alcohol? I'm powerless over alchohol because I've got an allergy. If I start drinking, I am going to have a craving and I'm going to get drunk. Every single time I drink that's what happens. And I made up my mind I'd never do it again. But the problem really happens over here. One more time, how many of you here said, I'll never ever do it so help me God doesn't really matter? Did you? you could manage that decision, would you be here? What's our problem? Our life is unmanageable. Because I do not have the power to manage that disease. I'm powerless over my body because of the allergy. I am powerless over in my mind because of the pure insanity produced by an alcoholic mind. But I'm not insane. The hell you're not. Anybody here a cold sober walk into a liquor store and say I had too much fun losing my job, getting a divorce, wrecking my car and going to jail and losing my driver's license. It's just a lot of fun but I want another bottle will you sell it to me? They ever turn you down? Is that a sane act? Was it a sane act after I spent 15 or 16 years without a drink trying to send him out for a six pack of beer when I'd been hospitalized seven times previously to keep totally insane wasn't it? That is the product of an alcoholic mind. If you'll study chapter three real carefully, you'll see where the alcoholic mind produces the insidious. Insanity. insidious means. Laying in wait to ensnare. Have you ever heard that definition? I haven't. But I looked it up in the dictionary and I thought, holy crap! Isn't that exactly it? Laying and waiting to ensnaire. The insidius insanity of alcoholism is that patient element of alcoholism, they will wait until we've got our cigars down and then we're going to go into a liquor store or a bar. Make sense? There you are. If you understand that this is your problem and you're ready to get on with it, if you're not, cut. Until you really understand the hope that you have in mind you can never again depend on the key people to start a drink, you're now going to be successful in sobriety. That's all there was. We'd be We do what people have been doing up until 64 years ago, wind up in a morgue or an up-house. But we've got a solution. The solution is the same thing. It is as we came to believe. It doesn't say I'm going to believe anything. It says I'm only going to come to believe it. What am I going to become to believe? That there is some kind of a power in this thing that will give me the sanity to be able to really live without drinking. Because all I've been able to do is the most insane thing I could do, try to solve my problems by drinking. Never again could work. He said, I'm going to come to believe. And as we go through the process of taking these steps, we will move from the beginning of this thing to where we really believe. Where do we start out with this? Anybody got any ideas? Anybody here ever hear a recovered alcoholic tell their story? Did you get any hope? Have you read the stories in the big book? Did it give you any hope ? That's why the stories of the big books are so important anymore. It's awfully hard to find speaker meetings anymore. That's what we used to live on. During a recovered, alcoholics stand up and tell us what they were like, what happened, and what their life's like today. And from that, We got the hope that maybe, by God, if it works for them, it'll work for me. Just saw your doctor and he said you've got lung cancer. The guy across the street had lung cancer five years ago. What are you going to do when you get home? Go across the streets? You better believe you will. What did you do? And that's step two. Start off with a hope. And what's step three? Too simple for us smart folks. It says we made a decision. To do what? Turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we have it today. Our will is everything we think. Our life is everything that we do. We're going to turn it over to God. I'll bet some of you have already done it. Anybody ever find themselves in real deep trouble and say, Dear God, you bailed me out of this damn mess, and here's what I promise I'll do. And he did and you didn't. Well, you're screwed now because you're going to do it or you're just going to die a drunk. What is the simplicity of step three? How about finding a recovered alcoholic and say what would you be my response? What did Bill do when Abby brought the whole of that news two months over? Abby, tell me what you do. Didn't he? Sure did. Bill was laying in town's hospital third day care. Abby came back and told him one more time. Bill said, get out of here. And he got on his knees and said, if there is a God, let him show himself now. He had a spiritual experience. Bill lived 36 years, never had another drink. What did Dr. Bob do when Bill showed up? Bill told him what alcoholism was, as we've covered here. And Dr. Bob looked at him and said, Man, you understand me. Look at you and look at me. What did you do? He was Dr.Bob's sponsor. And about three weeks later they went out to the hospital and got ahold of Dale Donaldson, that attorney. If you read the book in Chapter 11, you know on the third day he said, I want to do what you guys do. Dr.Bob became his sponsor. Isn't that what we've done? Go to a recovered alcoholic and say, will you be my sponsor? And that is step three. To turn their will and life over to a covered alcoholic. Now find out if you've got the right one, they're going to make sure you've got a big one. And you know the word study because they're not going to say you studied this thing. If you start out on Roman in 11 and you study up to page 43. All right, let's go to page 44 and find out. Over on page 30, it said we learned we had to fully concede to our innermost self for alcoholism. Over on Page 44, let's see what it says. In the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism I went to thousands of meetings and learned a damn thing about alcoholism sat down with Joe in a matter of minutes I knew what alcoholism was and knew I was one 19 years after AA found me I hope we make clear the difference between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic. Who is Alcoholics Anonymous for? Alcoholics. Why on earth do we encourage people who are not alcoholics to come to our fellowship? We don't want to hurt their feelings? It's okay, I don't wanna hurt your feelings. It's Okay if you go out and die, but I don' t wanna hurt you feelings. Is there something wrong with that thing? No. Got 200 Non-Alcoholics Fellowship for non-Alcoolics. But let's see if you belong here. If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit the car, give or promise yourself you'd never do it again and you didn't, your life's unmanaged. Or if, when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you're powerless over outcome. Step one in reverse. If that be the case, you'll suffer an illness with... The last sentence on that paragraph, what does it say? If that is the case you may be suffering from an illness with only a spiritual experience... Only what? Only a spiritual experiencing... How many meetings do I have to go through to get that to happen? How many meetings do I have to go to for spiritual experience if that's the only hope I have? This. How many steps do I have to take for that to happen? Don't answer, I'll show you. I don't like God. He said, I don't care damn what you do or not. You're going to sit down here and you're going to go through chapter four from page 44. That's page 57. Go to page 58. You've got to promise God, don't sweat it. Just go ahead and read chapter 4. Find out you've got everything you need to have a relationship with Him and He really doesn't care. He just would like to see you follow directions in this book. If you do, you'll find out. Look at the very first thing on page 58 what does it say? Have you ever heard anybody say I don't know how they work? It suggests they read the big book. Because the very first things on page 58 tell you how it works. It works awfully damn well, doesn't it? Rarely have I seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed the directions in this book. And you go over to page 63 and now you're faced with a decision. And the big book tells you when to take a step, how to take the step, what the results will be and from here on gives you one or more prayers for each and every step. Go over on page 64 though. Your response is going to say okay. You've made your decision. You and I have gotten on our knees, we've prayed the prayer, and your problem is you're powerless, and you've got to find some power for what's going on. And the way we're going to do that is we're going to go to page 64 in the big book, and you're going learn how to do step 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 on page 83. How many pages is that? Page 64 to 83, how many? That takes you, these pages will take you from a hopeless alcoholic to a recovered alcoholic. Is that too much? Twenty simple pages of directions on how to get there. And once you're there, you have recovered. Now, from page 84 up to 103, you learn how to do step 10, 11, and how to sponsor people. No part of step 12. By the time you get up to 12, you are promised you will have had a spiritual awakening. You've recovered here. Spiritual growth starts with steps 10 and 11 and 12. And since you're going to be working with others, you've got to fight out what's on page 104 to 164. And that's it. Everything I need to know. And the only thing I'll talk about in the Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous is between Romans 11 and page 164 of this book unless we're talking about traditions. And then I'll go on back there and we'll get into it. Any questions or comments? Anybody got any hope tonight? See how simple this thing is? Isn't it awesome? Too damn simple for us smart folks. We've got to jazz this thing up, rearrange it at our brilliant intelligence. And I don't know about us. We're so damn stupid that we have to come to the biggest bunch of losers on God's earth and say, will you help me? Want to put that one on your resume? That's it. Want to make a contribution to the group? Drop some money up here on the table, grab somebody's hand. We'll pray and get out of here and join the rest of them. It sounds like they've already cleared out on us. I'm the lucky one tonight. You're a dirty old man. And if I embarrass you, I apologize from the bottom of my heart. We're going to pray the Lord's Prayer. He looks after us all. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses and forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Keep coming back. It works if you work it, but you die if you don't so work it. But that's only a suggestion. Sure thing you're here, so we are. Thank you very much. I thank you.