Why the Mind of a Chronic Alcoholic Cannot See the Truth – Michael H.

push this button all right so tonight we're going to be covering doctor's opinion i'm going to tell you ahead of time what we're covering and why so you'll see and if i run over talk too long it's because of the message i'd really like to get from what we finished reading and finished the doctor's opinions and the thoughts all tied together and it's powerful stuff this was written by Dr. Silkworth and this was written and incorporated the first chapter of the first book and it's his opinion and then it became he signed it in the second edition he put his name in the first edition he didn't because it was it wasn't completely accepted by the medical community what was wrong with us and he says my men have cried out to me and sincere despairing appeal were an XXIX, doctor I cannot go on like this and if you relate to that I have everything to live for I must stop but I cannot you must help me. I saw a lot of alcoholics in my work I don't know if anybody ever said this they tell me they were going to quit and that got everybody out of the room and made everybody feel good you know the nursing staff the other doctors but now that I I've been around a while. I know that a lot of them didn't mean it. When I was younger, they'd want to quit when they were really sick and then they'd get out and then I'd be wheeling them up to their room two weeks later and they'd say, oh, I'm never going to drink again. I'm going to quit. I'm so miserable. And then two weeks after that, two weeks late, and that never occurred to me, their powerlessness. When you're young or when you're health professionals, they think that we're just stupid. there's something wrong with us but the doctor presented how we didn't have any power and he says faced with this problem if a doctor is honest with himself he must sometimes feel his own inadequacy now doctors don't like to feel inadequate a lot of people don't but it just you have to understand your helplessness although he gives all that is in him it is often not enough one feels that something more than human power you see the therapy is needed to produce the essential psychics change so that psychic change the change in the personality sufficient to overcome alcoholism is what's described in the spiritual experience remember and it's a change in our personality so that we have a power in our life so we can see the truth about alcohol right and it says that the aggravated recoveries resulting from psychiatric effort is considerable we physicians must admit we have made little impression upon the problem as a whole And some of those people recover through a psychiatric effort were heavy drinkers. And remember, heavy drinker can drink if they have sufficient reason to quit. And it says, I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control. Now we do have mental control, alcoholics, but we're controlled by our mind and that is the problem in our thinking. And Matt said it the other day that he realized that he cannot trust his own thinking. And I've had many men who had, for example, worked a period of months on some problem or business deal which was to be settled on a certain date favorably to them. Now there does come a point when you can trust your thinking and it's on page 85 because now you're in relationship with God and if you stay in fit spiritual condition then it It says you can use your willpower and your mind all you want because it'll be God's will for you. And so we have to go from the point of no mental control to being able to use our minds to serve God's Will. And it says they took a drink or so, and then the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount to all other interests. Anybody relate to that? These men were not drinking to escape. They were drinking to overcome a crawling beyond their mental control. So you can't control how much you drink once it's in your body. Your mind can't do that, right? And you can'T control the choice not to drink. There are many situations which arise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than to continue to fight. Then they talk about the classification of alcoholics. I'm not sure how helpful it is. Psychopaths who are emotionally unstable. I think almost all of us were emotionally unstable when we came in here. They're always going on the wagons for keeps. Anybody take a solemn oath or promise? Over-remorseful. Anybody make many resolutions but never a decision? Anybody relate to that? There's a type of man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink. These are the ones that think that they can outfox this. They're going to drink differently. They're not going to change the brand. They're now going to get drunk before 11. They're going to not drink before 10.55, then it goes to 10.30, 9 in the morning. Then there's the type who believes – here's the one that's the killer, who believes that after being entirely free from alcohol for a period of time, you can take a drink without danger. Now, that happens to everybody who comes in here because everybody comes in here and stops drinking for at least a day usually. And so they say, well, I stopped for a day. I can drink now. But what his ego is really saying is, I can do it. Your mind says, it won't hurt me this time. It's okay. You don't remember the humiliation and defeat of even a moment ago. That's page 25. But we're just in doctor's opinion tonight. There's the manic depressive type. I think most alcoholics when they come in here are extremely depressed. If not, there's something wrong with you. And then here's the one that I don't know who is this. It's entirely normal in every respect, except in the effect the alcohol has upon them. They're often able, intelligent, friendly people. Now here's the deal. I was going to say hooker, but I'm on tape. Here's the thing. Now you're good. Quiet. They seem normal to the doctor, right? The doctor thinks that these people are normal. We could be friendly and intelligent, right, but what's going on in here? What's going one in their life? See, the doctor only sees them for 10 or 15 minutes and they seem okay. But when you get to see the chaos of their life, you know, you can see the truth about it. It says all these and many others have one symptom in common. They cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon craving. Now, the reason he emphasizes this is because if I cannot drink without developing the phenomenon of the craving, it says this phenomenon is a manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people. So if you have a phenomenal craving, you're an alcoholic. Normal people don't have it. Normal people wave over the glass. Normal people go on airplanes, stir the glass, and they let it sit there. It's just sitting there. Now, it doesn't bother anymore, but I mean, that's just ridiculous. Drink the damn thing. And you understand what I'm saying. They've had enough. It has never been by any treatment which we're familiar permanently eradicated so there's no relief for our phenomena craving think about that so here's a simple phrase it says the only relief we have to suggest this entire abstinence entire abstinent and so some people say well if my problem is the phenomena craving then just don't drink right now if that works for you you don't need to be in but it may work for month, it may work for six months. It may work five years but if you're an alcoholic you'll drink again. So then it says this immediately precipitates us into a seething cauldron of debate there was a cauldon of debate in in 1938 much as when written pro and con that but the general opinion seems to be that most chronic alcoholics are doomed. This is the opinion when this book was written Remember what Dr. Young said to Rowland, you are doomed, you have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. Now what do they mean? The mind of an alcoholic cannot see the truth about alcohol right before they drink and they will drink again and they're doomed. Now Dr. Jung said that you can have a psychic change, you can Have a rearrangement of your personality and it has to take place from a spiritual nature. Dr. Young was really the first person to go outside the field of psychiatry and say that it's a spiritual solution, but he didn't know how to get there. So he told Roland about the spiritual, the solution was spiritual, but he did not know the steps. Roland went to the Oxford Group and took the steps, Roland saved Ebby from prison and took Ebby to New York, Ebby went to Calvary Church and worked the steps and Ebby went to see Bill in November 1934 when Bill W. was dying of alcoholism. And we're here today. So it says, what is the solution? And he says, perhaps... That's a good question, right? If entire abstinence is the key and you can't keep from drinking, what's the solution ? It says about one year prior to this experience a man was brought in to be treated for chronic alcoholism Now you know what he's doing here He's doing the first speaker meeting He's during the first AA meeting in the book because AA meetings are where people like Carl say what it was like nine months ago and how they could stay sober today, and they have a power in their life. He says he had partially recovered from a gastric hemorrhage and seemed to be a case of pathological mental deterioration. See, that's how we seem. He had lost everything worthwhile in life and was only living, one might say, to drink. He frankly admitted and believed that for him there was no hope. following the elimination of alcohol there was found to be no permanent brain injury and here's what happens he accepted the plan outlined in this book that's why this book is so powerful before this book there was no plan and this book was written out of god's love for us so that we don't have to die and one year later he called to see me and i experienced a very strange sensation i knew the man by name and partly recognized his features but they're all resemblance ended. From a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck had emerged a man brimming over with self-reliance and contentment. I have talked with him for some time, was not able to bring myself to feel that I'd known him before. See, we are the best example of the change in us. And Carl, when he came in, his mind was a mess. He couldn't formulate his thoughts. He's a brilliant guy, electrical engineer. And he was just such a nervous wreck, really is the best way. And now look at him today, and he's helping others, and he is serving God. Hi, Carl. To me, he was a stranger, and so he left me. A long time has passed with no return to alcohol. Here's another one. When I need a mental uplift, I often think of another case brought in by a physician prominent in New York. The patient made his own diagnosis, deciding his situation was hopeless. You can see how that would be, right? and had hidden him in a deserted barn, determined to die. I think it's a key thing that we do at meetings is if we can always be reminded of our period right before the end, right at the end. We never want to get away from that moment of complete despair and that hopelessness because that's a gift because the people who can see that, they'll ask for spiritual help. Clinton and I was reading it says to be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not easy alternatives to face so I thought well that's really silly, so I'm standing here and I got two doors, one's an alcoholic death and one's a spiritual life and I'm gonna have some problem choosing, but that's not what it says, see the writing is very complicated what it says is the alcoholic can't see that there are only two alternatives he can't face the two alternatives and so he won't give up and if you see the alternatives then you've and i think hitting bottom is when you see the alternative and you ask god for help and you come here so it ties together he was rescued by a searching party in desperate condition brought to me following his physical rehabilitation he had talked with me in which he frankly stated that he thought treatment was a waste of effort. I'm sure that happens today, unless I could assure him, which no one ever had, that in the future he will have the willpower to resist the impulse to drink. His alcoholic problem was so complex and his depression so great that we felt his only hope would be through what we then called moral psychology, and we doubt if even that would have any effect. Now listen to this. Tell me how powerful it is. However, he did become sold on the ideas contained in this book. He has not had a drink for a great many years. I see him now and then as the finest specimen of manhood as one could wish to meet. See, the meetings are supposed to be this, the big book in print through us, showing what's happened to us by doing this. And he says, I earnestly advise every alcoholic to read this book through and though perhaps he came to scoff I can't imagine that happened right, you know how could this help me he may remain to pray so that's what we want to be able to do we wantto bring new people in here and help them remain to do this the other thing is that being sober a while doesn't protect you from your alcoholism you have to continue to remain to pray and outline the program but this was powerful stuff, this was what 1939 this was William Silkworth and so this is the deal do we want to open it up now people comment on this anybody want to comment on this before we start Bill's story anybody find this information useful anybody think that they should read the rest of the book exactly you see why it was written as the first paragraph. Ed Eklund, alcoholic. Ed? Yeah, that denial like it was talking about and that craving. And God's favorite prayer was, God, just get me out of this jam, and we'll stop drinking tomorrow.