Why the Ego Is the Manager of the Mental Company – Tom B.

I guess we're ready to go now. I'm Tom, and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm real happy to be with you this morning. What I want to talk to you about this morning is the problem that we have. I find that many alcoholics and drug-addicted people do not get well because they simply don't understand what's wrong with them. Now, I'm a sober person, andI've been sober for a long time. And when I talk with you about sobriety, I do not mean just not drinking or just not drugging. When I talk about sobriety, I mean a state of being which is characterized by freedom and happiness. You see, I found a way to live where I can stay high about 95% of the time without the use of drugs and alcohol. It's a very important thing to me because as the kind of person that I am, I have to be high on something. Can any of you identify with that? And I'm high on living. I found the way of life that really keeps me high and if it didn't, I'd probably still be using drugs and Alcohol. How many of you are alcoholics? You prefer alcohol. How many are drug addicts? And how many pigs? Now, pigs are people like me. When I call them pigs, be proud to be a pig. A pig is a guy like me who drinks everything too thin to chew and chews the rest of it. And pigs make it in this program also. Now, I believe, too, that sobriety is a learning process, that we learn how to be sober people. I really do believe that to the soles of my feet. And learning is not a spectator sport. There's no magic in this treatment center, there's no magic anywhere else that's going to fix us. We have to work to recover. And we have to look at the future. We have got to work at least as hard as we work to get where we are right now. Have you ever taken the time to think how hard you have worked to be an alcoholic or a drug addict? Think about that sometime. you know i remember one time in my life when when in my underwear i stole a bicycle and rode uh rode through the snow about 10 miles to a bootlegger's house you know uh that takes strength sometimes people say we alcoholics are weak you know weak people that we have weak egos and we're among the greatest con artists on the face of the earth we can manipulate and use anybody at any time all of us can't and people with weak eagles can't do that you're going to hear a lot of things in the society says about alcoholics and drug addicts that you're going to find are not true. So when I talk with you, basically what I'm trying to do is get you to think. I'd like to wind up those rubber bands in your head. Did you know you had them? Any of you had a little model airplane, Benny? Did you have one and you wound that sucker up and you let it go and it flew, didn't it? We got them in our heads too. And we need to windup these rubber bands and get thinking real serious about what is wrong with us, really wrong with us, and how to get well. Now, most of you, if I ask you what your problem was, you would say, and I hope you can see this. If you can't, I'll write larger. Your problem is drinking and drugging, right? That's my problem. You ask an alcoholic what his problem is, he says, I drank too much and I drank Too Long. And you ask a drug addict, well, drugs are my problem, aren't they really? I want you to think about that for just a minute. Are they really a problem, okay? Kenneth, why did you use? Because you had too. But why? Why did you drink? Anybody. And why did you use drugs? Anybody? What was the reason? It made you feel good, right? Isn't that simple? I drank because I wanted to feel good. For some reason, I didn't. And in the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous, you will read in the doctor's opinion where the little doctor said men and women drink essentially because they like the effect it produces on alcohol. Feeling good. That's why we drink. Had another word for it too, didn't we? Being high. Huh? And the Greeks have a word for it. I really love this word. Euphoria. You know? Every time I hear that word euphoria, I think about a seagull just floating over the ocean, floating over the waves, floating in the breeze effortlessly. no work, okay, involved, just going where the breeze takes us. So we drank to feel good. We used drugs to feel Good, to become euphoric, because for some reason we weren't. Now, is feeling Good a problem? Anybody? Is it a problem ? No, it's not a problem, is it? Feeling Good, the effect of alcohol and drugs, is not a Problem at all. As a matter of fact, for me, and I suspect for you, it was a solution think about it for some reason we didn't feel good when we drank and used drugs we did and so we kept on using them okay the effect of drugs and alcohol very important for us to understand if we're going to understand what is wrong with us to begin with Now, let's take it a little further. If drinking and drugging are not the problem, what is? Anybody, Kenny, why didn't you feel good? Can you tell me? Oh, John? Let me suggest something. Any of you suffer from guilt? It's quite a suffering, isn't it, this guilt? This persistent feeling of being wrong. Even when there's no reason for it, you feel like I'm wrong, I'm wrong, all the time. Any of you ever feel that way? You know? And when you did something well, you felt like you didn't do it good enough, so even when you succeeded, you were a little bit guilty about not doing better. And there's a reason for that. Okay? What other reasons didn't you feel good? Come on, tell me. Why didn't yo feel good in the first place? Why'd you have to have alcohol and drugs? Anger. That's a good one. What's another? What? Self-pity. Good one. Poor me. Everybody else in the world has got something I don't have, and I try to get it, and I can't get it. Poor me, okay? Somebody mentioned loneliness. It's a good one, all by yourself. Even when you go into a bar with 200 people in it or into a party with 25 or 30 people in it, you feel like you're by yourself. They don't feel like they're by themselves. You know, they try to bring you into the group, but somehow you feel alone. You never feel a part of anything. I didn't. God knows I wanted in, and I tried to get in, but I felt I'm not like them. I'm like them, I don't fit. Even in my home when I was a kid, you know, my father was a big tall good looking man with cold black hair. And my mom had dark brown hair, you know. And my sister had dark Brown hair. And in the middle of them was me, couldn't head, you know, with a great shock of white hair. And I used to lay around even as a kid and wonder, is that wrong here? How did I get here from all these dark people? I just didn't understand it, you know. And I cried about it a lot. And I felt outside. And I felt outside in my classroom. I wasn't like them. Do you ever feel that way? I'm just not like them, I don't know what it is about me, but I'm not. Okay? Guilt, anger, self-pity, loneliness. Come on, depressives. You need depressives out there? Pretty bad feeling. You know, you wake up in the morning and you want to pull the covers over your head and put the pillow on because you don't want to go out in the world and be with them. Them, you know. Them who talk about you and don't like you and put you down and are plotting against you. And so you crawl all up in yourself like this, you know? And say, I'm not going out there and let them get me. Any other reason? Shame? Shame is a good one. That falls in the same category as guilt. And right on the bottom down here, and I hope you can see it, may be one of the biggest reasons of all. Fear. Fear. Lots of forms of fear. Always anticipating that we're going to lose something or that we'RE going to lack something, you know? Getting up in the middle of the night and walking into your child's room or running into your children's room and listening to see if your child is breathing. And then when you hear your child breathing you put your ear on her chest like I used to do to see for heart was beating because you're just sure she was going to die because of the way you were behaving. Fear. All forms of fear, little worries, little dread things like that. All the way to fear number 207, I call it. Because I read a book once and the psychologist listed 206 fears and I'd had them all. But there's one fear he didn't have in the book. Fear number 205. Fear number 206. Fear 207. But we've had it. The fear of impending doom, Kenneth. I don't know what's going to happen to me. I don't Know where it's going To happen or why or when or who's going To do it, but something's Going to happen To me and it's Going to be bad. No reason for it. But you know that, don't you? You really know that. Something is going to happen and that something is going be bad. Now the shrinks call that pre-floating anxiety, okay? Mine didn't float folks. Mine was like a stone in my gut, you know? I like what the teenagers say about pre-bloating anxiety. They say, look at him, he's wired. You know? And I was wired for a long time. That's some kind of fear, isn't it? Now if I had to put, and we could go on, and we could fill up this whole blackboard with these problems, okay? If I had to put one word on those problems, one four-letter word to describe all those problems what would it be? Huh? Hurt or pain. Right? Pain. Pain like this. A friend of mine in California says the first 15 years of my life I walked around and it was like I had a big hole in the middle of me with the wind blowing through it. And it hurt. A big hole, and it would roar around the edges, and the wind going through it was cold. They said other people had this hole and they went and got an education, and then it closed. I went and get educated, mine got bigger. Other people had that hole and then they went to church, and they closed. I went to Church, and mine got Bigger. other people got into relationships you know fell in love things like this and the whole quote i fell in time after time after god that we fall in love and the hole got bigger how many of you can identify with that got a hole in the middle of me and he said what do you tell anybody when they say what's wrong with you well you see i got this hole inthe middle with the wind blowing through it you know straight jacket time but That pretty well describes it, doesn't it? An emptiness. You understand? A void that will not be filled. And it gave me a continuing sense of dissatisfaction. Whatever I thought was going to fill that hole, I went and got it, and once I got it I didn't want it anymore. I'd say to myself, so what? What's next? There's got to be more here. And I'm a more kind of person. When drinking, if I felt good, I wanted to feel better. And if there was something beyond better, I was going for that. Nothing was enough. Now you got a hole in the middle of you, the wind blowing through it, and you got all that pain. What do you look for when you got pain? Relief. Right? There it is. Now you've got all this pain in the midst of you and one day, like me, someone hands you a bottle. and you take a couple of drinks of that flip or a couple of hits of whatever drug you're doing and the hole closes by God it closes never closed before nothing has ever done that and bingo it's closed and you're not bored and you are not lonely and you aren't afraid and you don't feel like you're angry and you really feel like you're with them for the first time in your life You know, you're satisfied with who you are and who you're with and what you're doing. Did you feel that way? God, that's important, isn't it? You walk around for 10, 15, 20, 25 years with a hole in your middle with the wind blowing through it and you find a substance that closes it. God, That's important. And you're not even going to begin to understand your alcoholism and drug addiction until you understand the value of alcohol and drugs. Think about it. What's the most valuable thing in your life? What's been the most valuable thing in your life? Tell the truth. Not what you wanted it to be. Uh-uh. See, I had values. I wanted to be a good person. I wanted To be a Good husband. I wanted TO be A good father. I wantedTo be all those things. And I tried to be those things, but alcohol came first. And you know what happened? Underneath alcohol, all the rest of the values started falling apart. But it was number one and number two were getting it. Never running out. My whole value system was dominated by alcohol and drugs. Was yours not? Be honest. We don't like it, we don't intend it to be that way, but it is. How valuable. Remember the first little girl you ever fell in love with, Jackie? What was her name? John? First little girl your ever fellin' in love wit'? Jackie, first little boy. Who? Jean. Jean got around a lot, folks. Yeah? Huh? Uh, Mickey, you remember the first little catty cat? You can picture her, can't you, in your mind? You know? That's important, isn't it? Mine was Sylvia. Sylvia, she'll remain nameless, okay? Beautiful Sylvia Blonde hair Olive skin Gorgeous I was Sylvie's paper boy And I was one of those paper boys That ride around on your bicycle With, you know, no hands on the bars Folding those papers Hitting those porches You know, I carried 400 papers every morning Before I went to school I was good at it But I didn't throw Sylvia's up on the porch. When I took hers last and when I got to her house, I parked my bike and I got off of it and I lovingly carried her paper up and put it behind her screen door. Now why did I do that? Because I wanted to see Sylvia. And when I went to school, I started with Sylvia and I dove dreams about Sylvia and I went through bed thinking about Sylvie and I ate my meal thinking about Sylvia, Sylvia Sylvia She dominated my life. Y'all remember? And 15 years later, it was alcohol, alcohol, and alcohol. That's how important it was. And see, you don't tell an alcoholic or a drug addict to give up the most valuable thing in their life. Like people used to tell me, you're a nice fellow if you just quit drinking. They didn't know how valuable that was to me. They didn' t know that without that drug, the hole came up. And I felt like I was going to fly into a million pieces any minute. They didn''t know that. And I wanted to say to them, what can you give me to replace it? I've got to have this thing. Whatever it is that closes the hole, what can you do to replace me? What can you tell me to give me and replace it And all they could tell me was I needed to quit. No replacement. And I wasn't about to give it up, were you? No, sir. No, Sir. And if I hadn't found a replacement I found today, I'd still be drinking and drugging. I'll tell you that now. But I found one. OK? Very valuable. Now, if all that alcohol and drugs did was to relieve that pain, man, miracle. Miracle drugs, you know? But that's not all. Any of you have any side effects? Hmm? You have any, uh, side effects like, uh... You staggered a lot. And you fell down. And you lost your car. And you drove your car drunk. and you couldn't remember who you were with and what you did and your family members helped you become a real good liar because the first thing out of their mouth when you walked through the door was where you been? You know, I used to go out and stay drunk three, four days come home first word out of my wife's mouth Tom, where you've been? I didn't know where I'd been but she's my wife she deserves an answer so I made up one. Huh? Who were you with? I didn' t know who I was with but I made up an answer you know but the last question on her list always threw me it was always the last questions Tom, where's the car? I never knew where the car was, okay? But you see, our family members help us to become good liars by asking all these questions. They don't know that. All right? Side effects. Getting into altercations with those guys in blue suits and those long sticks. Waking up in those rooms with the bars on them, you know? I didn't want to do that. I have a friend that says drunkenness is just a bad side effect of alcoholism. I think he's right. I didn'T want to stagger. I wanted to feel good. That's all. Just write. How about this? Any of you have any after effects? Hmm? Did you vomit a lot? I hate that word. It sounds a lot worse than puke. You know that? Did you try to and couldn't? Those dry heaves, man, they're good, you know? Feel like your abdomen's coming out your throat any minute. Huh? Did you walk the floor and shake? Did your eyeballs shake a little bit? Huh? Junk around in your head and you couldn't stop them. Not so much fun, is it? Did you hear music and turn off the radio and it wasn't playing? Did you see those 3D Technicolor movies? Of rats? Snakes? Those of you who haven't, keep on drinking and drugging long enough, you will. People think that 3D and Technicolour were invented in Hollywood. They were not. I've got news for you and I'm going to throw you in on it. Some drunk invented them when he was in D.C. All right? And if you're really fortunate, you know, you can fall down on the floor and jerk and chew your tongue half in two. Then you get up in the morning and you crawl into the john. God, how I hate it. Crawl into it because you can't walk. And shimmy up to it and put your arms around it and blaze the shimmering water, you know? And make a quick decision. My God, which angel do I put on first? Y'all have made that decision, haven't you? Have you missed? now after effects and side effects fit right into this don't they pain so isn't it funny isn't ironic the very thing that takes away pain produces more ah but you know how to get relief from pain don't you you drink again and if you want a very simple picture of addiction there it is right there you drink to relieve the pain the result is more pain and you drink again to relieve that and it's more pain and you drank again to relieve that and it is more pain there is no answer and you know what we spend our time doing in between every two binges we try to figure out how to get that effect which is so valuable without all those side effects and after effects don't we and you know we always come up with an answer and we start telling ourselves the alcoholic and drug addicts lie this time it's going to be different. This time, if I just handle it right, I'm going to able to drink like everybody else. And we do it again. Okay? Right. Now, these problems we've stated up here, do they just come up out of nowhere? What's your name? Yeah. Ginger. Do those problems just come out of no where? You just get angry all of a sudden, guilty all of the sudden, feel sorry for yourself all of sudden? No, you don't, do you? So those problems are not what's wrong with us. They're symptoms of what is wrong with them. Where do they come from? Now, let me get down to it with you. We're all kinds of people in this room. Tall, short, fat, slim, educated, uneducated, women, men, black, different religions. Okay? All these things. And we're different. And we live in a society that stresses our differentness, our uniqueness, our individuality. Am I right? I want to take a different tackle. Did you know that we're the same? Did you know that regardless of your age or your sex or your religious preference or where you came from or how educated you are, how rich or poor you are that your alcoholism is exactly like my alcoholism? That inside of us there's not an ounce of difference? Think about it. And I'll show you what I mean. Because one of the lies we tell ourselves, you see, is I'm different. When I get that bad, I'll quit. You know, when I'm on kid row, I quit. An alcoholic is a person who drinks too much, too long. You know, real drug addicts are laying back in the attic somewhere with a needle in their arm. And if I ever get that bad, I'll quit. I am different. Well, you're not different. An alcoholic isn't an alcoholic like a rose is a rose. And a drug addict is a drug addict like a Rose is a Rose. Because the problem is inside, folks. It's an internal problem, not outside. Rich people have it and poor people have It. You know that. All kinds of people have. But it's the same problem, just like appendicitis is the same problem. Now, what is it in us that's alike? Why don't you suggest a few things and see if you can agree. I'll describe myself. I'm an idealist. Are there any idealists out there? You know, it was like I came into this world knowing how this world ought to be. And I knew how the people in it ought to me, and I knew how I ought to make. and I looked around me and the world wasn't and they sure weren't and I wasn't either. And I got so hung up on what I thought I ought to be I didn't have time to be. Any of you feel that way? And I was raised as a little man. Tommy, you're a little man. Little men don't cry. Little men are never afraid. Well, I had three problems going, you see. Because I lied and I cried and I was afraid. But when my parents, the big people in my life would ask me if I was afraid, what would I say? No. Look back on your dishonesty. Most of us think we get dishonest after we start using. I got dishonest shortly after I started talking. It seemed like the thing to do. So we're hung up on ought to, you know. Ought to. I seldom use that word anymore. Oughts is a bad word. Supposed is a good word. Obligation. Duty. What I do, I do for fun and for free. Okay? Not because I got to. But I am an idealist still. Okay? I am also a perfectionist, and I'm going to abbreviate that. Are there any perfectionists out there? Everything's got to be just right at any given time, or it makes me awful nervous or angry. You know? I see a crooked picture on the wall. I cannot stand it. I go in my doctor's office and straighten up his magazines, folks. Do you do that? Do you demand perfection of those you relate to? And do you get uncomfortable when they're not perfect? Do you always go for the top of the heap in your job? Are you the best one? I'll bet you are. Are you going to get there? First place, first place, third place, spotlight, approval, pats on the back, never second place. and tell me something when you're not the best in your own mind do you feel like you're the worst that's the way a perfectionist lives like a yo-yo best, worst best, worse it'll kill you it will absolutely kill you and when things are not the way you want them to be what do you do you try to change them if it's a person you try to change that person if it was a situation you try to change that situation and the ugly thing about perfectionism is even when you get it perfect, it's not right. Can you identify with that? I'm talking inside now. Okay. Another one. I'm going to abbreviate this too. Hypersensitivity. I live on feelings, do you? I don't live on thoughts. I live upon actions and reactions based on my feelings I always have. I'm a feeling person. For years it was like I walked around with my feelings sticking out 50 yards in all directions and people were always stepping on them. I was more sensitive than I ought to be. I heard a psychiatrist not long ago and he said, alcoholics and drug addicts are stimulus augmenters. Did you know you were one of those? I didn't either. I didn' t know what it was but I always asked questions. I said, sir, what is a stimulus augmenter? He said, it's the person that makes mountains out of molehills and it seals much more deeply than he or she ought to feel. I said, I knew that. I just didn't know I was a stimulus augmenter. You know? Another psychologist told me alcoholics and drug addicts have a lot of cognitive dissonance. Did you know you had that? I didn't Know what that was either. And I asked, What, sir, is cognitive dissenance? And he said, It means you're always thinking what you don't want to think and you can't ever think what you do want to thank and you're all the time always being and doing what you don't want to be and do and you can't ever seem to be and do what you want to be. And I said, I knew that too. You know? I just didn't know it was cognitive dissonance. Now, when your family comes in here for treatment, don't tell them I told you this. But if they say, what is wrong with you? Say, I'm a stimulus augmenter with lots of cognitive dissenance. And don't you upset me. If you really want to know why, I'll tell them what Dr. Harry Thiebaud said about us. We're alcoholics and drug addicts, he said, characteristic of us as a narcissistic, egocentric core dominated by feelings of omnipotence. and send at all costs on maintaining its own inner integrity. Blow your family's mind. Don't play around. Tell them I thought I was drinking too much, but I found out what's really wrong, you know? Hypersensitive. And this. I'm a romantic. Any romantics out there? Dreamer. Fantasizer. Love soft lights and music. Love them. Atmosphere. All those things. Dreaming all the time. You know what I dreamed about? What am I going to be when I grow up? You know what I fantasized about? Being somebody else. Someplace else. Doing something else. With somebody else and saying to myself, why'd I have to be me? And why'd i have to here? and why do I have to be with them and why I have to be doing this? There's got to be something better. And I got into books, you know, when I read about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and I used to sit and wonder and this is the truth, why couldn't I be Sir Galahad? You know? And ride that white horse and ride up to the castle you know and put the lance out and a beautiful maiden comes out and puts a kerchief on the end and I ride off and kill dragons. Why couldn't I do that? I'm going to tell you even my dreams didn't work. I knew what I'd do in my britches first dragon I ever saw. I don't like me bingo I don' t like me and we all got a piece of crying music you know we walk into the bar and everybody is so happy they're swinging from the rafters we walk over to the jukebox play the saddest song on it why did we do that and each of us has a certain song that we listen to it's our crying song and we drink and play it over and over and over and over and over again don't we Jen huh Get into some Hank Williams stuff if you want to cry. Ooh, get your bottle, you know, and a Hank Williams record and sit down and listen to things like Hear That Lonesome Whistle Whistle He Sounds Too Blue To Fly The Midnight Train Is Whining Low I'm So LonesOME I Could Cry And By God You Do And you play that record again. Before it's out of the last groove, you put it back in the first groove. Get into Some Low Down Dirty Blues Some Muddy Waters Muddy Water is good crying music. Good crying music! One thing, baby, I just can't understand. Why you can't be satisfied with just one man? Tell me, baby. And tell me true. How can you love me and my best friend too? I'd rather drink muddy water. Sleep in a hollow log. God, that's a good hit down song. Take another drink, you know, and play it again. Now, my particular song was a thing by the Four Freshmen. Okay? Four Freshman. Somebody may not remember the Four Freshenen. Okay? But they sang this song and it was called Their Hearts Were Full of Spring. And it's the song that I listen to. There's a story told of a very gentle boy and a girl who wore his ring. Through the wintry snow, their love remained still warm, for their hearts were full of spring. Isn't that pretty? Well, what I loved was the chorus. Then one day they died. And their graves lay side by side on a hill where robins sing. And they say violets grow there the whole year round, for Their Hearts Were Full of Spring. and, God, I'd cry and take another drink and play it again. I was nine years sober and I found that old record and started to play it and my wife went into hysterics. Honest to God, don't play it! Don't play It! And I was a little afraid. You know, the connection? And we dream, don' t we? God, we dream. Let me tell you a story about dreaming. Any winos and wine-eth in here? Well, a story told by these two winos and they were... You know winos don't wake up in the morning. And I don't know if y'all knew that. Wino checked, too. And they shook two under this bridge, and one of them turned to the other one and said, Man, I had the best dream I ever had in my life last night. He said, Yeah, what'd you dream? He said I dreamed my mama called me home, gave me $25, and told me to go spend the whole day at Disneyland. And the other wino said, Did you go? He said yeah, I went. I had it the best time I ever have in my lifetime. Said I saw Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy. I rode all the rides, listened to all the music, went to all those shows, saw all the pretty girls. Other wino punched him and said that's nothing. I had a better dream than that. He said, oh yeah, what'd you dream? He said man, I dreamed I had a luxury apartment. Two cases of Jack Daniels. Then he came and knocked on my door and the two most beautiful women you ever saw in your life came through the door and started taking their clothes off. And the other wino was caught up in his story he said, why didn't you call me? He said I did but your mama told me you was at Disneyland. Always dreaming. I'm talking about character. A lot of people talk about personality. Personality is the outer self. It's the self you see. It's a self that's obvious. It's role that I play, the mask that I wear. It may or may not show you what I really am. And you know that as well as I do. But character is what I am inside. You see how we are like? And I could add to that list, folks, because I've felt what you've felt. I've taught what you've taught and my attitudes have been your attitudes and yours have been mine and you know it unless you're still lying to yourself and I hope you're not now is that character the problem? let me tell you something some of the greatest human beings who ever walked the place of the earth had that character can you see Lao Tzu up there? can you say the Buddha? can you think Jesus? can you save Lincoln? can you sing Martin Luther King? can you stay John of Arc? yes you can So character's not the problem We've got a beautiful character But somehow it's killing us What's the problem? Let me read down a little bit I've got an old book I've met a psychiatrist friend I know about three sane psychiatrists in the whole world And this is one of them And you know what he says? He says characteristic of every unhealthy person I've ever met in my life is that he or she has an ego that is not submitted to anything or anyone higher than itself. Let me say it again. Characteristic of every unhealthy person I have ever met is that they are not committed to anything higher than themselves. Is that he o she has a ego that is NOT SUBMITTED TO ANYTHING OR ANYONE HIGHER THAN ITSELF. Another one says, People get sick because they assume they have power they do not have. that sounds ethereal way out doesn't it how many times have you said to yourself I'll quit drinking this stuff on my own I'll quit drinking for the last thing I ever do I'll use successfully this time did you and if you didn't were you not assuming you had power or you did not have yes you were and the Buddha said you want too much for yourself and because you want so much you hurt a lot and he said the answer is real simple quit wanting so much, quit hurting so much and Jesus said you love yourself too much that's your problem you are self-centered that's hard isn't it and again let me say none of us want it to become that way but if you want to find out how self-centred you are for the rest of the day check yourself out how many times do you say the word I versus the number of times you say the word we or you. So what these guys are saying is that ego is the problem. I'm going to draw you a picture of your mind up here for just a minute. Didn't know it looked like that, did you, didn't you? Did any of you know your mind looked like this? I always thought mine was full of holes, but that's, you know, I'm just a model I'm drawing up there for you because I want to show you what happens. Now part of that mind is conscious. and it's referred to as ego. Ego is my consciousness of being an individual, separate, unique, apart from everybody else, an entity. Okay? Ego means simply I. Do you know how much of your mind is really conscious? If this whole room were your mind, about that much would be conscious. All the rest is unconscious. think about that and in the conscious mind which we usually think of as some kind of computer that spits out answers there's a lot of things in the unconscious mind is a whole set of values things that are important to us a whole set of beliefs our opinions about what's true and good and real that's what beliefs are a window that we look out at the world and form opinions about what we see and it's called perception and a whole pattern of feeling and a whole storehouse full of memories. And yeah, we have a computer. It's called the intellect, the thinker. And we have an accuser which is called the will. You ever think something was wrong with your will? Huh? The will is the ability to choose what you're going to do and do it. You ever tell yourself I'm going to drink successfully this time and try it and couldn't do it? Now, the ego has a job to do. The ego is the manager of the mental company. Do you understand that? And it's the ego's job to bring me pleasure and protect me from pain. And it is also the ego' s job to protect everything that is valuable to me. One thing that is valueable to me, I have said, is alcohol. Another thing that's valueable for me is that ideal image, what I think I ought to be. Okay? We will get back in a minute. Let's go to the unconscious mind. According to Carl Jung, the psychiatrist, the unconscious man is divided into two parts. One part he calls a personal unconscious. And I call it the basement. And you'll find out why in a minute. What do you put in your basement? One word. Junk. You put junk in the basement of your house, you put junk and you put it in your home. You put it back in the basements of your mind. Make no mistake about it. What the ego does not want to become conscious, it shoves into the basement and keeps it there. there's another part of the unconscious mind and Jung called it the collective unconscious and I call it the knower do you know there's a part of you and me John that knows things we've never experienced do you think you know there's a part of you and me Mickey that contains wisdom and experience which has been passed along to us from our ancestors in the form of chemical codes in our brain that we know things that we've never experienced. Sound far out? You ever go into a strange town you've never been there before, but you knew where every building was going to be? Huh? You never pass a, when you're driving down the road, a certain scene and you say, I've been to this scene before, but you'd never been there before? Ever sit down in conversation with a friend and knew what the whole conversation was going to beat? Ever listen to a piece of music you never heard before, hear two notes, sing the whole song? Huh. Ever take a walk in the woods, dark of night, and you walk in a straight line all of a sudden you walk around and you don't know why. And you go back in the morning and and there's a big gaping hole there you would have fallen in. Something like that. You ever get the feeling you're being protected? Huh? Believe it. And there's part of you that knows where to turn. Think back to that last drunk when you were coming off of it, and you were shaking and hurting and puking. Did you hear a voice coming out of you saying, God, oh God, please help me? Yeah, you did. And so did I. There's a part of me that knows where to return in times of trouble. It's automatic. Think about these things. We're something. You don't believe that, but we're something like the psalmist said, I will praise thee, O Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Now, if I were a Christian, I would call the knower of the Christ. If I were Jew, I'd call it the divine spark within me. If I was a Buddhist, I'd called the knowor of the Atman, the great spirit. If I where a psychologist, I call it the integrating core of the personality. But whatever it is, it's powerful. You understand what I'm saying? And it's wise. And yeah, in the knower is where the power is. And I'm sorry if you can't see this. I'm using up the board. And it is also where intelligence is. And Ginger, with intelligence, what I am talking about is intelligence is this. I can recognize what is good for me and what is not based on my past experience. Okay? now when you can't recognize what's good for you and do it and what's bad for you and not do it that's what I call insanity think about you drinking and drugging were you able to recognize what was good for me and bad for me and do what's right for you and do the right thing and bad for you and not or did you keep going back to the very thing that was killing you and ruining your life over and over again telling yourself it ain't gonna kill me it might kill them it won't kill me Now, to protect the ideal image Kenneth Kenneth's ideal image I'm going to pick on him for a minute He's a macho man Very smart Courageous Never afraid Okay That's what he ought to be And he's always believed that And see, the ego takes orders But one day He's afraid And a friend says to him Are you afraid? What does he say? No Where do you think the feeling of fear goes? Right into the basement. Through what the psychologists call ego defense mechanism, rationalization, projection, denial, all these things. I'm not getting into that. The feeling is shoved into the basements. And he remembers many times he's been less than courageous. And he thinks many fearful thoughts. And there's a lot that he doesn't know. But what does the ego do? It shoves all the things that don't support the image into his basement. And that is the truth. How old are you? 21 years of junk in his basement. You hear what I'm saying? 21 years of junk, Benny. And some days he walks around and he's so mad he can't stand it and you ask him what he's mad about and if he tells you the truth he says, I have no idea. And he walks around and he is guilty as he can be and he has done nothing to be guilty about. Do you ever feel that way? And he is depressed and there is no reason for it. Do you every feel that way? Because see when you shove these feelings and thoughts and memories into the basement you lose control of them And you might bury them, but they're not buried dead. They are buried alive. They create a lot of pain, don't they? Which demands relief. Can you see it? Can you say it? If you have these characteristics and you live in the world we live in, you're going to feel these things. And if you shove those things into the basement, but the pain will get so intense that, yes, you feel like you're going to explode any minute. You have no idea why you feel likely to do it. You just need relief. But more important than that, you load your basement, you cut yourself off from the knower. You cut yourself out from power and you cut your self-esteem off from intelligence and you can't recognize what's good for you, ginger, and do it and what's bad for you not. Am I right? And you can'T seem to make an agreement with yourself and keep it. You think so? What's missing? Am I talking psychiatric problem here? I am not. I'm talking spiritual problem. Power is, was, and always will be a spiritual concept. And so will intelligence. So you see, we're getting down to it now. Spiritual problem. I don't have the power to be what I want to be and do what I wants to do. I know, I've tried. I don't like it, but I don' t. So the ego shuts us off from what it ought not to shut us off from. And what's more, when the ego gets in that position what happens is not only do we try to put all the bad things out of our mind about ourselves, we try to put them out of our minds about other people. We try to control them, make them into what we think they are today. How about alcohol and drugs? Valuable. Do you ever have the experience of coming off one, and you're sick, and you're hurting, and what are you saying? I'll never do that again. And you mean it, don't you? I'll NEVER do that again. You know? And then you start feeling well. Feeling better. You know. And what's happening while you're feeling better is all the bad thoughts and memories and feelings about that last being are being neatly shoved into the basement out of consciousness so that five to seven days later, you know what you're saying? This time it's going to be different. This time I think I can drink successfully. Now if I'm lying to you, I'm dying. And it actually happens. Don't forget it. In many ways, my greatest enemies when I was an active alcoholic were health and success. When things got good, that was bad. Because when things gotgood, the little monkey would jump up on my shoulder and say to me, Hey, you don't need to go that deep. That's for those bad drunks. You're not a bad drunk. And when the alarm clock would go off, the monkey would pop up and say, You can sleep 15 more minutes unless you're up two hours late for work. And the monkey never shows his head while you're hurting just when you're feeling good. Think back on your own drinking. If there was a problem, I'd work through a problem. If there were a crisis, I'D work through the crisis. Then, when everything was okay, is when I'd do it. because it didn't like me, didn't it? I tore down my house. Alcohol didn't do it. I did it. Bottom line, I hated my guts. I was not what I ought to be. I was perfect. I was extremely sensitive to that. Can you see it has nothing to do with drinking or drugging? the spiritual problem. Now, I'm not going to tell you to give up the answer to your problem without suggesting a solution. I am not here to shuck and jive. I want you to know that. I am NOT here to tell YOU to do anything I have not already done. I am Not here to suggest to you that you believe anything that I don't believe in. You better put that in the bank because I've got a fatal disease and I do not want to die and you've got one and I don' t want you to die. What I want is for you to understand what is really wrong and quit playing games. No shrink can fix you. Not because they're poor, bad people, but because they can't fix you, they don't have the power. No wife, no husband, no friend can fix it. They don't know how to fix it, they don' t have the powe, no minister can fix ya. They don' have the bow. Who's got the bow? Who even says? You know it. The knower knows it. God's got the power. Am I right? Whoever or whatever he or she is, there's the power and if what Jung told us is true, part of that power is in us and we're running all over the place looking for it and there it is, closer to us than our next breath and the great spiritual teachers have said, don't look for the kingdom of heaven in Jerusalem or on the mountain or over here or beyond there. The kingdom of Heaven is right in the middle of you. My God, what have you been looking for? So in the next session when we get together, let's go into a solution to this problem. Because there is one. There really is. Okay? Any questions at this point? So the problem you see is not the character. It is that the character is under the control of I. And as long as my character, being what it is, is underthe control ofI, I am going to self-destruct. the ego the manager of the company is acting like it's chairman of the board you hear what I'm saying it has gotten inflated and that's our basic problem our ego is bigger than it ought to be doesn't mean we're in love with ourselves you think about people with a big ego oh he's conceited he's in love with himself I never was in love with myself but there's an opposite end to that I sure was in hate with myself any questions alright we'll come back and go into the solution if you're interested thank you You You Thank you.