What Dr. S. Got Right About the Abnormal Drinker – Wayne B.

race that Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob told us about, and in my own experience, I'll share some of that in a little while, but first, some disclaimers. I want to first say a prayer. In a lot of AA meetings, it's not accepted because of the religious nature of it, but this is a workshop, so I would like you to just listen. You don't have to participate, but it's called the set-aside prayer, and the set aside prayer doesn't ask me to permanently dismiss or reject anything I already know. think feel or believe especially about myself it asks only that i be willing to set aside my ideas my opinions my judgments my attitudes in this precise moment for this occasion so i may capitalize upon an opportunity to have a new experience in which i may grow and learn here's the set-aside prayer dear god please help me set aside all that i think know feel and believe about myself my life my illness the big book the fellowship all spiritual terms and especially you god so that i may have an open mind and a new experience in all these things please help me see the truth about these things that is revealed to me during the course of this process amen and what that says is i'm not the one going to do the revealing i'm just going to share a lot of experience that I've had in my own struggles. How many of you die meet Miami? I've seen a number of your faces that I know I met in Miami when that love fun. Yeah, we're gonna try to have some fun this weekend at Sean's expense. Yeah. Absolutely. Just get some disclaimers out of the way Sean and I are not paid to do this. Sean actually gets a little bit more kudos than I do. I drove here from St. Petersburg. Sean flew here at his own expense from Washington, D.C., to do this workshop for you guys. Thank you. Thank you, that's cool. Don't give him too much, he can afford it. He's a lawyer, he's one of them. How about that? I used to be a cop and he's a lawmaker. He's not a lawyer. All we need is a passenger. we're not paid to do this we do it for fun and for free we have the privilege of participating in this specific design of workshop a friend of mine named Willie Bingham from Houston, Texas passed away yesterday she and a counterpart did the 12 and 12 study and they didn't gear it so much towards emotional sobriety but they did a really fine 12 and 12 study the advancement of the steps as Bill Wilson worked with Father Ed Dowling she passed away yesterday so let's have a moment of silence for Willie okay she wouldn't want any more than that any more than that she'd say I got an ego problem okay which would probably be true but okay I want to thank everybody who participated I know Jay just drove here from Akron, 17 hours to come to this workshop. I think that's pretty cool. Don't applaud. He'll drive back tonight. I know other people come a long ways. A couple of my mentors and good friends are in the room. I call him the Pope, sitting over there. I call Him the Pope and I don't mean that maliciously. I do that because I look to Him for guidance and direction. I have a sponsor, my good friend Chuck S. Chuck and I used to be roommates together. He went so far as to give up a leg just so he can be in the big book. Yeah, like I'm going to grow new teeth, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I have just – what I do now for a living is I'm – I have a job outside of here. I didn't always have a job like this, but I have a job now where I'm involved in a non-profit corporation of which I'm the executive director. Sean? I'm a corporate attorney at an international law firm in Washington D.C. That's not meant for ego that's just to tell you that he's a big shot. He's a big cheese. His office overlooks the Washington Monument and the White House. Ain't that something? Who cares? That and a Buck 61 will get him a cup of Starbucks. That's right. Sean came along to, I used to do this workshop alone. A good friend of mine named T.J. Minogue in Chicago, Illinois came on board because I, in the year of 2000, I was invited to participate in an AA function in Akron and I had a spiritual experience that weekend where I realized that we don't ever do anything alone in AA if we don' t want to. So my friend T.J. started participating in this workshop with me, and when T.j. got married, what, five years ago? Yeah. T.ej. got marred five years at the tender young age of 45. He married a Catholic woman. They now have two kids, Mary and Joseph. So it's brother, Mary, and Joseph, and so he doesn't do this anymore, And then Sean was out of his ever-loving mind. When was that, eight years ago? Yeah. How many pills were you on? Oh, two. Is that all? Yeah. No, he needed Medicaid, let me tell you. We're going to talk about that. He was not bipolar. He was tripolar. One of the reasons I like to do this workshop, I want to read something out of the big book before I get started too far, before I tell you what that picture is. In the second edition, by the way, My favorite edition of the big book is the second edition. My favorite addition, I used this, all those fourth editions because it's big. I'm older. I can see it. But my favorite edition is the 2nd edition. My original grand sponsor, Clarence Snyder, his story is in the 2rd edition of the book, Home Brewmeister. He sponsored my sponsor, William Barney Barnett. And, of course, Dr. Bob sponsored ClarenCEnyder. And so it was pretty cool. That didn't mean nothing. It didn't make me any better. I'll tell you that right now. As a matter of fact, I think Clarence wanted to dunk me just a little bit. You're going to hear a lot of people, as I have, and I'd like to debunk that myth this weekend, if I may. You hear a whole bunch of people say, you hear a ton of people around the rooms suggesting that our success rate is very puny, that our successful rate is really not good anymore. I'm going to read this to you, and I'm gonna submit to you that I believe it's absolutely true today, 75 years later. says of alcoholics who came to AA and really tried. Really tried. Thank you, Chuck. 50% got sober at once and remained that way. Those bother me a lot. They really do. They're so wonderful. 25% sobered up after some relapses. That's why I don't like the others. Because they've been sober ever since your last drink. we had a guy in my home group named Big Book Bob I hated his guts he would always say my name's Bob I'm an alcoholic I've been sober 5,000 years and I haven't found it necessary to take a drink from that day to this and I thought you know Bob you might want one and then he'd look right at me the slipper of those who came to AA and really tried. 50% got sober once remained that way. 25% sobered up after some relapses, and here's Bill's hopeful nature. And among the remainder, those who stayed on with AA showed improvement. I ain't even going there. I submit to you that statistic is still 100% true today. There's a caveat. There's an condition. And this is the condition that drives me and motivates me to want to do this aspect of AA service for. You want me to stop dancing? Shut it off. Okay, now she's just doing that on purpose to remind us to shut our phones off. Okay. just give them an extra ten bucks in the basket okay there's a caveat there's a condition I don't I don' know how many of you are big book students I mean I love this book I don''t worship it but I love it I'm not a registered thumper so to speak but I live my life to the best of my ability according to this book in the 12 and 12 I wear it as a loose garment just like it was suggested but it's divinely inspired i believe that that ends that discussion uh i think that a lot of people come to aa and don't really try for whatever reason and i really want to talk about that this weekend because a lot OF US MYSELF SPECIFICALLY COME INTO AA AND WE DON'T KNOW WHY WE GET WORSE ANYBODY IS THERE ANYBody IN THE ROOM WHO CAME TO A GOT SOBER AND YOU GOT just a little worse. A little bit emotionally charged. Got any emotionally charged people in the room? Come on. Any rocket ships? Any nuclear? Those of you who didn't raise your hand, I saw you. Okay. There's kind of a neurotic glow. Now in case you're wondering what this is, this is an iceberg. I think it's a very eloquent iceberg and this is the SS Wayne B get it this is the SS Wayne B and I am full steam ahead I only know two speeds all out and stop anybody relate to that come on this is show and tell play along with Wayne Okay. It's full speed. Now, that's an iceberg. Which part of that iceberg sank the Titanic? The part they saw or the part they didn't see? I submit to you that when people like myself have a little slippy poos over, it isn't the obvious it isn't the obvious that sinks me is the part that the human eye can't see and I believe that's why in Bill Wilson's writings he suffered for many many years sober I believe that's what he said that's how I suffered many many years sober not meaning to I wanted to get well there was something going on down here below the level of my consciousness that I didn't understand and that's referring to the aspect and the component of an emotional sobriety i didn't know that let me tell you a little story on november 8 1977 i took what i think and hoped that god was my last drink in the meantime i'd gone through treatment by the way i want to i want to give a disclaimer i am not putting anything down i am not disagreeing with anything outside of aa i'm not against anything as a matter of fact no matter how futile many of their efforts are thank god they try to help us because for many years How many of you know the history back in the 1800s when they tried to treat alcoholism by bleeding you? Remember that? That method was pretty good. They would open you up and try to bleed just enough out to get the demons. The problem is, is they often overshot the mark and you bled to death. Now, you didn't die from alcoholism. They still do that, only it's... Never mind. Okay. i was going to go there chuck okay i've been through treatment i've been through therapy i want to repeat i'm not putting if you're a therapist don't come up to me and say i put therapy down i'm not what we're going to do is we're going to put it in perspective according to a spiritual malady as opposed to a scientific study now some of you are going to start thinking before long that i am not keeping it simple i wantto suggest something to you knowing what's wrong with me, it doesn't get any simpler. You hear me? When you don't know what's wrong with you, how can you keep it simple? How many of you, don't raise your hand on this, how many of your like me, you come into AA and you're sitting at a table and I'm thinking to myself, what the hell is wrong with him? Why can't I be like Bob? He's happy doing How about Tom? Tom. Oh, Tom. I love Tom. Tom was new when I was sleeping. Oh, Dom, he had 14 days. Told the group every day, my name's Tom and I've got 13 days. I swear to God, Tom would have drank if you'd have stopped clapping. I hated Tom. I told my sponsor, I hate Tom. And Tom said, well, dummy, pray for him. So I did. And I told Barney, Barney your God doesn't work for me. He says, why not? I said, because I prayed and it ain't working. He said, what'd you pray for? I said I prayed for Tom to die. He says maybe you're overshooting the mark. So I started praying again. A week later I said Barney God ain't working for me he said now what are you praying for? I said well I'm praying for him to drink. no i'm sure none of you ever done that like that i've been to every kind i've been to talk therapy i've experienced pharmacology i've experience every form of human therapy you can to overcome an illness that i did not know i suffered from even after i came to a i was convinced that my problems had nothing to do with alcoholism i was told that i had outside issues just because I would drink and go to a psych ward. Any other psych ward attendees in the room? Come on, I want to see it. Thank you. There's more. You just don't want to know, do you? I want you to know that I've been psychiatrically institutionalized only 17 times. Twice by my own family because they said they loved me. I suggested to my mom, I wish she didn't love me so much. and then I was a self sign in 15 times I want to tell you why if you're out on the street you're drinking like I'm drinking you're acting like I'M acting and you're smelling like I' m smelling I can't get a date I couldn't get at date in a women's prison with a fistful of pardons could not get a date but you put me in a co-ed psych ward now i'm a pretty charming fella and the psych ward i went to how many you've been on a psych ward really come on the one i was on they bring the med cart right on the floor and then they line you up like little ducks with your paper cups and then i noticed psycho sober civil was at the head of the line getting her pills and i knew she was taking thorazine because i noticed the drool and i thought she was kind of cute so so i worked my way to the back of the line and i start plotting i'm gonna bust a move i watch her take her meds and i'm i'm timing it now because i know in about a half hour i got a shot so i walk up and they give me my pops of pills, and I forget there's Thorazine in mine as well. And just as I get ready to bust a move, mine kicked in. See, you guys have brought meetings into the psych ward. I'm the guy you saw. You know when you come into the community room and I'm sitting at the end chair in a posy? How many of you know what a posie is? Okay, that wasn't enough. Then they had to put me in a straitjacket and a posy over it because I tried to bite one of the AA members. I didn't like AA so much. I'm going to submit to you that I do not have problems other than alcoholism. I thought I did. I've been diagnosed by it, and by the way, if you have a diagnosis, I am not rendering a contrary opinion to what you think. I'm not a doctor, but I have volumes of experience in my own life, and I'm going to share a little bit about that. In the next session, I'm gonna have Sean share a Little Bit About His because Sean's a, I'm an alcoholic. You hear me? I'm a alcoholic and I've been through treatment, I've done a lot of therapy, I've gone through therapy, talk therapy, group therapy, pharmacology, psychology, psychiatry, all trying to get me to stop drinking it would work for a little while and then i would find my way back to budweiser god i love budweiler anybody else like budweicher i love mudweiser i miss budweizer i'm sober 33 years one day at a time i haven't had any booze pills potters potions or lotions that alter my emotions from november 8 1977 to and including this day that's not brag that's gratitude I think back on all my trips all my tours of duty if you will all of my treatments all of the things all of me therapies the religion how many of you have been sprinkled dunked and damn near drowned they call that baptism Pentecostals held me under till I bubbled i think they was trying to drown me so my wife would get the life insurance i'm not putting down religion that's my perception anybody else got a perception problem in this room come on anybody else here funny in here anybody else here's how hearing funny goes let's just assume me and oj there who's on his phone are you november 8 1977 me and jay are having a conversation me and Jay are having a conversation and Jay's a perfectly reasonable educated man are you not he's very educated and I rode the short bus I was diagnosed retarded that's just the truth did I mention that you know a lot of times we alcoholics get diagnosed everything but alcoholic don't we we do people mean well people try to help When I was in eighth grade, I grew up in an alcoholic home. Who else grew up at an alcoholic home? You guys who didn't and had a wonderful home, bully for you. I just want you to know it makes my life more interesting. I grew up in an alcoholic home. And if you can just imagine whatever might have happened to me in an alcoholic home, it did. It scarred me. I used to be able to make myself cry at meetings. Because I knew I could get a date. You know what I mean? There was something really wrong with the cracker up here, let me tell you. I've been diagnosed. Are there any psychiatrists in the room? This is not a joke. Are we on the DSM-IV or the DSМ-V? And DSM IV. Okay. I was diagnosed everything in the DSMM-III, but one thing, schizophrenic, and I just couldn't pretend that. I tried. I was telling the psychiatrist once I was hearing voices. And he asked me a few questions. He said, you know, that voice sounds an awful lot like yours. Well, how would I know if there's three of us? By the way, that's called a tell. I got diagnosed, everything you can be diagnosed with is in three and I will guarantee if I hadn't got sober, I would probably have covered the DSM-IV. When I got sober November 8, 1977, after going to AA for five years drinking, I could not stop drinking. I met you guys, could not stop drinking. I so appreciate the old timers in AA because every condition I came to you in, you had one thing to say to my face. Keep coming back. Now I know you were saying other stuff when you were out having coffee but to me you said the most important thing. You said keep coming back and then I heard you don't got no rules in AA. So I tested them. I heard that you couldn't be thrown out of AA. day. That's a bad thing to tell a psychotic person like me. Anybody else come into meetings late and leave early? I'm not busting you out, it's just I did that. And it always seemed to be when the speaker was speaking. I don't know if I like attention or not. One night I'd been drinking, going to meetings for about four years. I walked into the meeting late, speaker was speakin', I walked right in front of him, made some noise, one of the old timers got up about a guy your size i don't know where they found him he came from detox or somewhere i never saw him big god don't hurt me i'm sensitive he said to me you got to quiet down and i looked at him and i said i don'T want to another guy got up said you gotto sit down you're disturbing this meeting i said I DON'T HAVE TO ANOTHER GUY GOT UP AND SAID YOU GOTTA LEAVE WE HAVE A RIGHT TO AN UNDISTURBED UNDESTRACTED MESSAGE OF HOPE FOR THE NEWCOMER and you are disturbing this meeting, you have to go. Now, you can come back tomorrow if you can act accordingly, but you are going tonight. And I said, You can't make me. Oh yes, they can. Four guys about Tommy's size, each one grabbed arm and leg, threw me out the front door. And just as I land on the sidewalk on 16th Street, I heard my sponsor yell out, keep coming back man something's wrong with me religion isn't working they tried and by the way I'm going to button this up in the next session about how even they said to us we can't help you it's so there's so much I think dilemma for us in AA those of us who are activists especially in AA there's so much stuff filtering into our fellowship that has nothing to do with our AA work. And I don't mean to be negative, it's just the truth, isn't it? And it has the power to dissuade a newcomer from giving up and giving in to the degree necessary, not only to live this way of life, emotionally sober if you will, but to just go one day without a drink safely. And I want to touch on some of those things this weekend because I've had those experiences. I want to repeat one more time, I'm not putting anybody down. I just would like to put it into perspective so that we as AA members can spot it and adjust to it and help that newcomer that doesn't know any better find our way of life unadulterated by the people outside who think they have a better way for us to stay sober than we have right here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm here to report to you that I think we've got the finest thing going just right here in AA, don't you? Yep. I do. And we're going to make note of that. That doesn't mean that we can't get help from those people. But I also want to add when we talk Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon, we're gonna take a look at some situations where we allow those voices to overcome ours instead of join them. It's one thing to cooperate, but it's another thing to be taken over by. And it's innocent. I don't believe there's any maliciousness at all. But I'm an alcoholic of the variety that is emotionally sensitive. Anybody else? Are there any sensitive people in the room? God, I hope so. I'm not sensitive. I'm just clear. I can tell when my feelings are being hurt all the time. Anybody get their feelings hurt a lot real easy? Any proclivities toward ultra-sensitivity? You know what my number one ultra-sensitivity is? Alcohol. I want to talk about that. But first, let's finish the iceberg. Here's the iceberg, treatment, therapy, familial therapy. Oh, my God. I was in family therapy forever. My ex-wife tried to cure me, didn't take. It was like a bad vaccination. Gee. If I would have been in my right mind, this therapy would have worked. Are you listening? If I were to be in my heart, I would be in the right mind. If I had been in the heart, if I would've been in my right mine, because therapy is geared for people that are a little bit strange, but in their right mind are you, you hear me? It's like, well, we'll talk about that tomorrow. I'm heading for this iceberg and my mind, I tell myself, I got it. I'm the captain and I'm the crew. I'm also the navigator without a compass. I have got it from the folksle to the aft of the ship, from steerage to captain's table, I'm in charge. I see that iceberg, it ain't no big deal. I'll just get around it. But I don't know what's lurking underneath the water. Does this make sense to you? I don't know what's lurking because I don' t see it. It's like alcoholism and those things that I believe precipitate a relapse into drinking. I think they're like a minefield. I just think they lay right below the surface of the water and I can't see it Probably no human power could relieve us of our alcoholism I don''t see these minefields so I'm navigating that iceberg and I don't see this minefield this emotional minefield has anybody been undone by their emotions sober sober let me tell you we're going to talk about that because I think and by the way if you if you don't have a proclivity towards this I suggest you hang in there because you may one day work with an alcoholic of the type and you'll know what to do i promise by sunday you'll know what they did for our own co-founder bill wilson who survived his own debacle with what they thought was emotional problems very interesting i didn't know that you see i've been dealing with emotional problems since i can remember it's always been diagnosed as so when i met sean when did i meet you bonehead uh seven years and nine months ago I met Sean when he was out of his flipping mind. He was. I'm not a doctor, and I'm not a therapist. When I met John, he was crazy. He actually came to a workshop. I won't let him tell that story. But I saw his emotions were like on 300 miles per hour. You can't slow somebody down like that. And they had him medicated and he was still 300 miles an hour. His mind couldn't stop. Why not? Science couldn't do it. Science tried to figure it out for him, just like they did me. Science tried. Religion tried. Therapy tried. Psychiatry tried. It isn't their fault they couldn't do it. For example, most of that is limited to the material world, isn't it, for study? Science can't solve this thing. I wish they could. I wish science could solve my dilemma. I wish scientists could come up with something to give me that would solve my dilemma. For example, I didn't know I was allergic to lemon juice. Anybody else got any allergies other than alcohol? I have an allergy to lemon use I didn�t know I had. My mother was a stout little German woman who liked to make lemon meringue pie. And I'm out there nosing around because I want some of that lemon meringue pi. I want to lick the bowl, you know, you know i'm just a kid and there's this green bottle sitting on the table i don't know what it is i'm a guzzler any other guzzlers in the room come on all you guzzers oh i know you're here you don't want to show off do you intimidate all these lightweights i literally grabbed that bottle of lemon juice and i drank the whole thing down almost died I mean, it's kind of bitter. And then all of a sudden, something happened. I didn't know what hives were, but I was soon to discover. My throat began to swell. My heart began to palpitate. I began to break out in a cold, clammy, full-body sweat. I dropped to the floor. They raced me to the emergency room and they saved my life. I had a severe allergy to lemon juice. I want you to know something. From that day to this, I haven't even sniffed lemon juice. No sponsor. I don't need to call no sponsor. Tommy, I'm about to have lemon juice Nope, don't got to do it. Don't got work, no steps. Don't go to no meetings, nothing. I am not in the least bit interested in lemon juice but Budweiser king up here let me tell you about that in 8th grade I was acting peculiar it was the beginning of the diagnoses none of which were alcoholism because I hadn't drank yet and it's awful hard to diagnose the ism when they don't know what that looks like clinically because they're coming from a perspective of a clinician. We are coming from the perspective of spiritual. There's a difference. You know, ever since the disease concept gained traction and it's probably a good thing it has because it's brought a lot of people into A where we can try to help them. But ever since the disease content took hold the spiritual malady got what? Obscured. Obscure. We don't hear about that much anymore, do we? Yeah, we don't hear too much about the spiritual malady anymore. We hear about the disease day after day after day after meeting after meeting after meeting. We talk fluently about this disease and I'm not banging that down. We talk about this disease but we don' t talk about the spiritual malad. We don' T talk about this internal spiritual maladjustment that the old timers talked about back from 1930 to 1955 I want to talk about that because it was that that allowed Bill Wilson to get free of his emotional debacle in 1949 through 1955 I'll tell you that story in a minute you don't mind I'm an eighth grade I'm acting funny if you came from an alcoholic home them you'd act funny too. And at that time I was a potential candidate for Alateen. I was working on Al-Anon as I got older. Hadn't a drank, I'd have been in Al-Anaon probably if, but I drank. In eighth grade they didn't know what to do with me so they started testing me. How many people have been tested? I mean tested, come on. MMPI, Cal State Poly, 20 questions. Any kind of test? I've been tested. I have been tested Well they came out with a test in 1962-63 called the IQ test How many of you have taken the IQ Test? Come on. The Intelligent Quotient It's an interesting test Has pictures and puzzles and everything They gave me that test to find out what was wrong with me Now I want to submit to you that if you score a 120 or above you're a smart cookie if you score a 150 you're a genius your Mensa material you know what Mensa is they put you in a think tank in DC and pay you to think kind of want that job if you scored a 180 or above just stay home you're too smart to drive I want you to know that I got a score that I was very proud of at the time. I scored 57, and I didn't cheat. And I got diagnosed mentally retarded. Make no mistake about it. Not organic, obviously. Back then, they didn't understand Down syndrome even. They diagnosed me mentally retarted, put me in a retarded class, rode the short bus. For four years. Rode the short bus. Played putt-putt. Played miniature golf. You guys were doing homework, I was playing putt putt. Why is that important? I'm not going to drink because I saw my dad drink that brown whiskey and I saw him beat the heck out of my mom. I saw me drink my mom drink tequila and she beat the hell out of my dad. Trouble followed brown whiskey and tequila but not too much was following that beer stuff I didn't know too much about that went through school in that special class we didn't read books we played putt-putt and tried not to bite each other see where they got the I got problems uttering alcoholism they put me in a group home I was glad to be in that group home because it got me out of the madness of the alcoholic home and then I started shifting back and forth between the madness of that home and the special classes in the group home okay Tom what a guy who was a brown noser you know the brown nosers in school that bring the teachers apples and they do things for acting credit you know like these sponsees to get their sponsors coffee black okay Tom was my guy Tom protected me from the bullies now I want to talk about that for a minute I have victim issues just telling someone don't be a victim isn't qualified for recovery I I have victim issues. However, victims don't get to stay sober. No. We don't give them that privilege because we're so busy living in the pain of the past and afraid of the future, we can't wrap our arms around today and we lose it and we drink again. So I had to find an answer to solve that, and I did right here in AA. I'll get to that in a little while. We'll take care of that over the weekend. Okay. Okay, so Tom, one weekend, three wrestlers on a Friday night, our school had gotten these tall lockers in. And these three wrestllers got a hold of three of us kids from the special class and they locked each one of us in a hall locker. And they didn't find us until Monday. They found us by the urine on the floor outside the locker. I want you to know I came out of that locker different than I went in. It did not make me an alcoholic, but it did teach me about something that's really important in AA. Resentment. Do you know how long I can nurse a resentment? That happened in ninth grade. I nursed that until Vietnam. And when I came back from Vietnam, I went and found all three of them and exacted my revenge. I didn't know that resentment. I just thought that was getting even. My sponsor said, nope, that's resentment. That's called inventory and that's called making amends. If I didn' t know what I was going to have to make amends to him, might have forgave him. To make a long story short, Tom, who was my brown noser, went and beat the living bejeebers out of those three wrestlers. And Tom became my best friend. He protected me just like Budweiser was to protect me. We're going to really talk about that tomorrow morning because I had discovered for me what the real fatal nature of the obsession really is once we're sober that fatal obsession that nature of the fatal obsession missed us for so many years a lot of other type of therapies think they found that but they haven't found that because this is 100 a spiritual dilemma and by the way it may sound like i'm okay with god now but i'll tell you what when i was new i wasn't okay with it we're gonna we're going to talk about that tomorrow morning. So Tom takes me to the senior dance. I haven't drank yet. I need a drink, wouldn't you agree? But I ain't drinking brown whiskey and I ain'T drinking tequila. Tom took me to the senior danc. I'm the only one in the special class that got to go to the senior dance I now know it's because the rest of those kids were afflicted with Down syndrome I was the one that was bizarre They couldn't get a read on me. Tom took me to the senior dance. I'm standing up against a wall. I'm watching all these boys and girls dance. I don't understand what's going on because I've never been to a dance. We play putt-putt. By the way, that's one of the reasons I moved to Florida. You got lots of putt putt here. I can't drive, but I can sure putt. So Tom took us to the junior dance and I'm watching these kids dance there's a part of me that wants to go back home where i'm safe i'm scared tom walks up on me he opens up his jacket and he's got something hidden in his jacket it's a long brown bottle with a red white and blue label budweiser he said here kid drink it it'll make you feel better i'd have drank battery acid for tom so would you if he'd have done for you what he did for me and of course i guzzled it down i'm a guzzler i guzzle that whole bottle down let out a big old belch and i said tom that tastes terrible i want a pepsi cola tom goes like this it's okay kid you'll get used to it now here's what tom meant and by the way tom is a friend of mine today we have stayed friends this entire time we have never lost contact with each other. Tom does not understand why I'm here this weekend. He does not understand why I go there. He thinks, hey, he's a de-retarding program. He really does. No offense if you have a child with special needs. Tom meant what happened to him. By the way, we're not the only ones who seek to identify, to relate. What Tom meant was the first time he got drunk, he went home got disorientated thought he was in the bathroom he was in his bedroom peed in his dresser and then almost went insane trying to flush it and he said to himself i ain't doing that again and i'm here to submit to you by his word to my ear he has never done that again that's what he meant by i would get used to it but you see what happened to tom would you raise that yes tom doesn't have this proclivity that i have you see tom can pick it up and put it down he he doesn't drink more than he should 90 of the time and that's what tom meant something different happened to me somewhere between four or five budweiser i got some good looking i couldn't stand it. Anybody else? Man, I went from being retarded to super smart and pretty hip, I might add. I looked out on the dance floor and eyeballed me a blue-eyed blonde dancing with some loser. I sized him up and knew I could take him. I walked down to the dance floor and asked if I could cut in. I never danced in my life. And she was a junior. You can always get over on a junior and she gave me a sympathy dance how many of you know don't raise your hand we all know about sympathy dances if you know what i mean and then she danced with me again and then we started chatting and she's i think she started liking me we danced the rest of that night. Found out later that night, sex meant two people. I didn't know that. They weren't teaching us sex ed in that class. They did not want to give us a clue about reproduction. Next day, you see something was planted right here. In my mind something was planted. I didn't know it, and I'm going to submit you can't possibly know it. And there's no x-ray? There is no x‑ray. There is not a blood test. There is a blood blood test that can spot it. You hear me? Yep. Something happened inside me that altered my perception of reality. Alcohol done something to me. for me that I was to pursue to the gates of insanity, death and beyond. Anybody else? And I didn't know what that was because there's no qualified valid scientific test that can prove with 100%. The best we got is the 20 questions isn't it? In AA we've only got 2. If when you really want to can you stop drinking entirely? if when you want to can you stop can you control and enjoy your drinking you know when I'm being honest why would I take that test okay something happened to Wayne Butler something in a sense that has to be spiritual it has to because it hit me down here and altered how I see me and it was real you know what they told me It was an illusion. They said that didn't happen. Anybody ever been told that? That you really didn't think that? That it's just in your mind? Didn't you just want to slap them? Here's Wayne without booze. I am unplugged. And I'm a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. He has something wrong with me. I feel like I don't fit in, I don' t belong, I'm not a part of it. What's wrong with be? why am I so emotional? Why do I get mad at the drop of a hat? Why do i pretend not to be mad when I am? Why do I go around people pleasing and approval seeking people I don't even like you ever done that yet any of any people pleasers in the room thank you for raising your hand and pleasing me I'll never get another hand up now any approval seekers Oh, let's see. We'll talk more about that later. There's something wrong with me and I'm in AA and I don't know what that is. And it all started back that day when somewhere between four and five Budweiser's that magic happened for me. An effect was produced. An effect produced. and doesn't Dr. Silkworth say in our book Alcoholics Anonymous that abnormal drinkers such as myself drink essentially because I like the effect produced and what is that effect produced I want to talk about that very interesting my sister is one of those critters called a social drinker don't they just bother you they're very annoying They say the stupidest things. Like after they've had a drink that they've been nursing for an hour, they say, I better slow down. Right? Right? They've been drinking that drink for an hour. I better slow down while I'm starting to feel it. Feel what? Good God Almighty I can't be around those people they commit alcohol abuse they do you ever seen a mixed drink of a social drinker that's got first of all they put ice in it why you hear me they put Ice in it and then they get into a conversation and they don't seem to need to drink it before the ice melts and when the ice melts the water floats to the top of the alcohol and drowns it do that to a good shot of whiskey for God's sake that'll be shot in my opinion an effect produced took place in my mind that empowered me And does not our book say that lack of power, lack of power is what? Our dilemma. Dilemma. Dilemma is defined as a problem seemingly incapable of solution. Dilemmas. A problem seemingly incapable of solution. Lack of power was my dilemma because it didn't seem to me like there was a solution for it and for some reason i kept going back to the drink when it was not in my best interest for example i was in the united states navy any other military people here come on some of you are gonna some of your guy identify with this i was an united states navy i'm not ashamed of it i loved it i love the esprit de corps uh i loved all the snap salutes i became a boatswain's mate became a boat's mate gunner's mate i was decorated I loved my military service, but I drank. And I gave up everything that meant everything to me just because I wanted to drink. I became a ship's pipesman. Any other sailors? We got one here. Any other sailors? You know what a ship'S pipesman is? That's where I got to use this little boatswain's pipe, and I got the signal of the Admiralty aboard on the ship, and that's all I did. I had a gravy job. I played baseball for the 7th Fleet until I hit an umpire with a bat. Another resentment. Budweiser. Budweisher. It looks so innocuous. You know, I still sometimes look at it and it looks innocent. Even after 33 years I look at it and the bottle looks innocent and to a person who doesn't have alcoholism by God it is and they cannot understand why i can't have just one and if they can't how am i going to wrap my mind around the idea i can'T HAVE JUST ONE right i think that is mind-boggling now i understand why i sat in meetings and could not stop drinking it was mind- boggling to me i had no idea why i was drinking beyond my control i hadno idea why when my wife said if you drink don't come back I'd need two and she said if you drink again I'm calling the police call them I can take them you ever tried to take the police you might get one or two but they just keep coming they do they just don't stop something happened to me at the age of 17 when I took my first drink of Budweiser that was to change my reality you know what the damning part of it is i didn't know we're the last ones to know anyway you see something you see i thought something happened here because i was misinformed that that's where the problem is in my head now i'm going to say something that might agitate some of you guys i don't mean to it's just reality the problem is not my thinking. The big book does not say, my problem is my thinking. That's been misstated for years and years and ears. Nor the big book says the problem centers where? Problem centers in the mind. I got to tell you, I found some history that saved my butt. See, the problem centers in the mine. When that was written, he was using the Oxford English Dictionary circa 1936. He was working with some very astute people of his day, Bill Wilson was and what he when he wrote the problem centers in the mind he was talking about the mind's eye how many of you understand the mind'S eye the mindS eye the soul the soul of man and woman the soul if you look up remember where bill wilson wrote we have a soul sickness see i've already had the effect produced what is the effect reduced it's an alteration in my perception of reality it altered a soul sickness in me there's something wrong inside me by the way if you're annoyed with the idea of god put your mind at rest we ain't going to go into a sermon here we're going to look at it the aa way we're not going togo outside aa at all this weekend we're gonna stay right there in the book he said the problem centers in the mind he's talking about the soul he said soul sickness does he not in our book alcoholics anonymous i'm gonna stay in our book, I promise. It says, I've suffered from a soul sickness. And the soul is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as the seat, the seat of man's, and I would presume woman's, thoughts. Follow this. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitudes. Let me ask you something. Has anybody in this room had any ongoing problems with their thoughts, feelings emotions or attitudes? Come on tell the truth. Make me be the only slacker in the room. Anybody else in the room think funny? I think funny all the time. I do. I still do. That's why I have a sponsor today and mentors, because my thinking gets interesting. Anybody else? 33 years sober. Anybody else get interesting after 10 years? Come on. We're the ones who commit suicide. We don't drink. That's what I'm saying. That's how I hope if you identify with me this week and you'll grab a hold of this work we do in AA, because we don't drank. We commit suicide, just had one commit suicide he would not or could not see our way of life he committed suicide not by his own hand but by the drugs he chose by god if that ain't suicide i don't know what it is when you know drugs will kill you and you take them that's suicide as far as I'm concerned. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitudes. I don't mean to yell. I get excited. Not bad for a 57, huh? Okay. Thoughts feelings emotions attitudes deceit the soul the soul the seat of man's and woman's thoughts feelings emotions attitude. So it isn't that I've got a thinking problem thinking it's not my problem. But it appears to be symptomatically. My feelings are not my problem, but they sure seem to be, don't they? You know, when someone says, my feelings aren't facts. Yeah, well I feel like slapping you bucko. Emotions. Any other criers in the room? Woo! oh my god red on the head cried like a baby i'm telling you right now oh my God he was a ball baby and I love that commercial thank you you know what they say if we got the issues you got by the way he's my corporate attorney too okay so the seat I've got thinking issues. I think funny. Anybody else? Come on. How many of you make a problem worse by trying to solve it? How many of us have been lost and knew we didn't need to ask directions? You know, women go, oh, hey. My friend TJ, excuse me. You know what? I'll tell you what. We have an ask it basket. Throw it right in there. We'll get to it. This is all memorized. You'll make me forget. Really, it's not. I don't know where I'm going next. Okay. My emotions. Oh my God. How many of you have had your feelings hurt just by a glance of a stranger? Have you ever had somebody look at you and say, what are you looking at? I'll kill you. How many of you have, okay, forgive me for this. I'm going to go outside our signal as a purpose just for a moment. How many OFU did speed? Come on, tell the truth. How many OU had paranoia of a speed freak? Okay. Some people will tell you it's the same. It's not. Let me tell you the difference between drug-induced paranoia and alcoholism. If you're doing drugs and you're looking out the window, they're there. And they're coming in shortly. I have alcoholic paranoia. Here's how it works. I'm driving. I see the car in front of me, and I know he's following me. You ever do that? You ever see him looking at you in the rear view mirror, and you think, what are you looking at? What are you look at? I'll run your ass off the road. Then it occurs to me he might be following me. So I start thinking, I start thinking with my emotions and I develop an attitude. So in the event he's following me, I turn off to see. And now I can't see him anymore so I go looking for him. To see if they're following me If you're laughing, you are so screwed. This ain't funny. This is traumatic. So I suffer from what I now know is a soul sickness. I didn't believe this when I was new. I didn' t believe it. I didn''t believe that when I took my first drink of Budweiser, somewhere between number one and number five, I had no idea that I was to seek and get a relief. That doesn' t happen to the ordinary drinker. Nine out of ten people, nine out of ten people drink safely. That's why alcohol is not addictive. You're going to hear a lot of people tell you it is, but that's just a bunch of crap to get the insurance paid I believe. Because the truth of the matter is, nine people can drink without getting afflicted, can't they? Now have you ever seen those people? They just bother me. They're all happy about it. Why can't you stop? Why can't you just have two? Because I'd be boring like you. I would be dull, Bob. Bob, there's nothing interesting about you at all. Now I need two more because of you. So I've got a dilemma. I drink alcohol. and I just want to have enough to get to that spot that I don't consciously know I'm chasing anybody else and then I get there and I want to hold the glow okay I'm good now everything's fine and then for some stupid reason I say I'll have two more and then I shoot past this mark and i can't get back then i sober up the madness comes on me i'm not physiologically craving to drink yet because i haven't drank enough folks come on alcohol is not addictive by its very nature i'm craving something else that our book talks about i'm craving something that goes way past addiction i'm raving an illusionary effect produced that alters my perception of reality myself is that not accurate why would i want to quit drinking i don't care what you tell me sell me whatever bill of goods you want why in god's name would i wanna stop drinking and feel that feeling i felt before remember when i was eight or nine years old i remember looking in my mirror and thinking to myself butler it's too bad pal it's gonna be a long life and it's going to be lonely because you are butt ugly pal now i don't know where that thought came from mother butler never one time sat me down and said oh you you poor little son oh god well kid you are so ugly just out of mercy alone i'd put you back if i could now that is not what my mother said but that's what i heard that's what I heard by God that's what I heard when she said Wayne I love you anybody else ever heard funny things when somebody says I love you do you hear challenge do you hear fear when someone says I love you do you feel obligated we're going to talk about that Sunday when we get into steps 10 11 and 12 three simple words can terrify the toughest guy in the room three little words I put terror my soul but i couldn't accept it i'm a person who doesn't like criticism at all anybody else not like criticism and i can't stand praise it's like praise me why are you doing that what do you want from me now oh now you want more now some people may suggest that's got nothing to do with alcoholism i submit to you it does and here's why when i ingest ethyl hydroxyl into my body. It takes all of that and turns it around and makes me okay with it. Why would I stop drinking? Why? Now see, this is all, I'm on a need-to-know basis, and apparently I don't get to know. All I know is give me another drink. You hear me? And then pretty soon the phenomenon of craving develops in my body, and now I've got a double-edged sword. Not only am I drinking for the effect produced, but now i've gone past that place where now i'm drinking to satisfy also the phenomenon of craving isn't that what dr silkworth says many of us relate with the phenomenon of craving but once we get sober we forget about the effect produced the thing that if i want you ladies and gentlemen know if i ever drink again you can bet your bippy that wayne butler drank begin to satisfy a deep spiritual need, a deep spiritually void. I wouldn't have believed that 30 years ago. But because I suffered sober... How much time we got left here, Sean? You have, sir, six minutes plus five. Okay. Can you tell he's a lawyer? Yeah. I mean, really. Plus two, minus two. Okay. So, okay, we've got 11 minutes. Let me do this and then we'll take a quick break. How many smokers have we got in the room? No offense. How many smokers? Okay, we're going to take breaks throughout the weekend so you can smoke and I can think. Okay. Let me – I want to show you a little formula if you don't mind. The formula, it's not in the big book. It's one I made up in my head, so feel free to dismiss it. until you see how it is in the big book in actuality, which is not the way I'm going to lay it out. Here's a foreman I got from Father Martin. How many of you know or heard of Father Joseph Martin? Father Joseph Martyn did a thing called chalk talk. He is one of the people who treated me back in the day. I sat in his room at Rock Island on the Arsenal Island. Father Martyn himself was trying to treat me. And he's given me this foreman. It didn't make sense to me. it took me to get sober to actually do this workshop to come to understand how it related to my type of alcoholism. If you remember, he did this formula. It's the only thing I'm going to bring in from outside AA. But that formula is incredibly important if you're an alcoholic of my type. There's a human nature. Excuse me? I need a new marker. I think you're way back there, aren't you? come to the front of the class I got three empty seats come on let me have control back I don't want to have to go to Al-Anon okay I overeat can you see that okay I overeate Father Martin was brilliant with this I just took it a step further NAA you know Father Martin did treatment for priests and clergy and he limited it to that theology if you will and he went through the route of the addiction and I've just chosen to avoid the route of addiction and stay in the route of obsession and allergy so that stands for intellect over emotion and e over i stands for emotion or over intellect okay every human being is born one or the other you're either a thinker or an emoter I'm an emotive thinker how many of you in this room think with your feelings how many OFUS say I feel when it's really a thought we just learn to say I field probably because people can't challenge it. That's why I talk about God all the time. Everything that came out of my mouth was about God because I know you can't challenge anything I say about God.