The Brentwood Beginners Workshop Part 4 of 5

Dennis, I am an alcoholic. Can you hear me? With those of you who care too, please join me in opening the meeting by reciting our AA prayer. God, grant me the serenity, to accept the things I can understand, I've always been glad to get try to get through these preliminaries, but, they have to be gone through, so that we all get on the same wavelength here. Number 1, I I wanna remind you this again and again because there's nothing more important in AA to be reminded of that I nor any other member of this fellowship speak officially for Alcoholics Anonymous.

In fact, there is no official viewpoint for Alcoholics Anonymous. We hear we hear very often the book referred to as our only authority quote, But even that, quote, only authority, constantly reminds you that it is meant to be suggestive only. What I'm doing up here is what every other member of this fellowship tries to do, and that is to share my opinion, my convictions, my beliefs based upon my experience with you. They are my opinion. They can be held against me, but not against AA.

And if you keep this in mind, then nothing I say up here needs to stress you at all. So please always remember that that is the premise upon which any member of AA speaks to you whether he remembers to tell you that or not. Number 2, if you're a beginner and you haven't been around for but a few can't hear it all? Where was I? Not a good If you are a beginner and when I start talking to you about here tonight is brings to your mind the question that's not something I wasn't devalued to be talking about, and I came here to say how to stop drinking.

If you're under a comment, all you have to do, you're all only you have to remember for a long time It's all you have to do is stay away from 1st trip, and, you're gonna have how that's done. That is done one way and one way only. You don't take any food through your mouth. Any other open value of being sober more than we value the being drunk. And we can't give that motivation to you.

And we tried to keep the scene going by asking ourselves such questions. And I I won't get where I wanted to get if I try to review each one of them. So I'm only gonna review where we left it all last week. Last week, we asked ourselves the question, what are the until we let go absolutely. So we we tried to define what our real idea is because we found out we had to do it.

We had in the previous weeks, we've gone through the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th steps. We had taken our inventory as well as the new house. We had activated this by admitting to God, to ourselves, and to another human being with that nature of our realm. And we found that it's a common experience to practically everyone that after the initial euphoria and practically a shedding of weight that takes place when this is done, the old drive, the old computer, the old neurofeed, the old self determination, the old troubles return little by little by little. So last week, law to which we thought we were entitled and that we had somehow made the reason we had failed was because it was our fault and that there was something that we were were was either missing in us or we were doing wrong.

And when this guilt got to us pretty good, we tried to spread it. We tried to test whether we try to express this anger because anger will not go away. And something has to be done by it or assigned to an outlet won't go away, we found out that what he really begins to do very, very early in the time is to both match the anger, to try to express it in different ways, but mainly to turn it in the body as well. Because it does feel guiltful, because it feels that it fails, it doesn't feel that he is an unworthy person in his own right. And to make the subjective guilt which he is caught and codified real, he begins to rebel.

He begins to be to it, which grows and grows and grows and is mainly a true variety, the fear of punishment and the fear of discovery, the fear of being found out. Now that's where we left off last week. This is going to be the soil can we here tell you that it is the appeal of AA, like most of us, that's now the whole thing. And this is what motivates the Now, let us say that at this time the child, having been nurtured on his 3 turrent, that the breath of his 3 turrent, and how angry mainly he is at himself. So when you you have 2 groups, those who hate you and those who don't like you, you're going to have to have some kind of way to survive.

And generally, classically, all neuratics start out about it the same way. They play 2 games. One game might be called, if I can make them loud, they won't hurt. And this is the name of the game. Knows in this little tiny childish mind, you've been around long enough that you're not really gonna get all of your headaches to love you even though you're never going to give up time.

But there's no use having just one class of time. We balance this with another game and this game might be called if I am stronger than they are, then they can't hurt me. So we've got to stop the brain comes in and says, Jesus got all the blessings came from in the first place by as always in the cold that you want. Now this has very successful names in our environment, in our culture, in our society. It's called competing.

It's called being an honor group. And he's not sure that all mannequins should be ahead of them. So it's just very, very mixed up on this thing. Now this is the plan of survival, which can be right with your alpha, our embargo. It's obvious that we a little do it yourself survival kit.

I did call it a technical kit because he thinks that's the way it is. And that's the bottom thing. There's a state route. All these things really the ultimate result of the sensor too dry, the dry for approval and the dry for dominance. The drive gets you to love you and the drive gets people to fear you, wipe each other out constantly.

Except me, you're always this way. This is why there is such as the doctor's check or mister Hyde patents and the life of most neurotics and motels. Now what are some of these, in my mind this afternoon or it's not. There's probably a lot more, but these 9 came to me because they were all all of them in my review it yourself kit. Now I will not I will not name them in any particular order.

I have my ideas of what are the number ones and also on that. But, you can put them in whatever order you want to. I'll just throw out a few and see see if this makes any sense. Sure. I'm gonna start on first on one that might surprise you, and that is religion.

Most of the people, a very good statement over the years that have reverberated from the walls of A. Amy. Probably you will hear it left at St. Louis, I don't know. I still hear it from the podium again and again.

And the day says, I tried religion and it failed. Now this would lead me to believe that, a, most of the people who come into a a have some kind of religious background that I can only speak about these Christian religions because that is the one which I was born and which I was raised. And so there's a great thing that became fascist and wrote once. He said, Christianity has not been faith, anybody else's religion. What I'm talking about here tonight is how it becomes adaptive as a school in Parkinson's because of the way that it is presented to the child.

And I'm afraid that this comes about because all too often religion and God being submitted to the child, presented to the child by the figures of authority who represent him and with whom he is forever going to be identified in the child's mind. He did not just a minute, not as a support, not as as a refuge, not as a and not as somebody that will protect you in your own right. He is more or less submitted a depositor, a judge, a code, and a scorecard. It's basically, one time, keeps hardship, we constantly keep going around saying, I can't do it. I tried.

I can't do it, but he doesn't listen to me Through my eyes, ask God. You know, get out the prayers. Get out the accidents. Get out Pentagram is not really ever gonna make it. The body of the sun, at least of me, and the beautiful story of the in the Bible, the body of the sun becomes false, I got back, I got it.

I don't really belong here. He doesn't really like me. I'll never make it. So I'll get it all under the power again. Now this is one of the tools.

Let's move on to another one. It's obvious that the neurion is survival. This in any territory is going to have to have some multipurpose use weapon. Some things that are concerned a lot of surfaces and be adaptable to a lot of use can be set up awfully quick. Now let's take one of the 2 of the problems here, food.

You keep the mind the word food in your mind, and let's see how multipurpose it is. Let's let's just as you think about those in all the different circumstances and environments that we'll use this, let's ask ourselves, let's go down the list of some of the years that we've been developing over the years and how we spread them. The need to celebrate. The need to be back. The need to relax.

The need to express anger, the need to find the curve, the need to blot out your mark, The need to get our nerves through while we didn't have the nerve to do so. The need to forget that they got drunk to get What is the letter word sex? And ask the same question. Do you want to say sex? Is a multipurpose, true, in the device, or a the need to dominate, the need to humiliate, the need to degrade, the need to withhold, the need to punch.

There's a little green word, letter word, say it again. I was talking to the neighbor guy on his line. I said, I everything you say is at a certain moment, do you love me? Am I bad? I'm sure you all know people like this, but I'm glad you're that you probably don't recognize yourself as you do.

But the critics, I find I very, very every time there's an alcoholic who as a matter of fact, there are a lot of medical men and psychiatrists and psychologists who've made a study over, the alcoholism over the years, and they seem to have seen that hyper criticism, a hypercritical attitude towards everybody around you is unfailingly present in every, in the makeup of every alcoholic. But you see, the 3 remember, he's got a tool that he uses himself. I mean, the fact this methodology which is an implement of a state. The tool that is used is humiliation. Humiliation.

Because that is what is used against him. As a child, this is really where the punishment, this is really where the anger started. But not so much the physical punishment. It was withholding and loss, the result from the people that was being told that we weren't made redundant. As a matter of fact, after 70 years of clinical experience, the world's philosophers, psychiatrists, psychologists are almost unanimous in the belief that modern may Thank you.

And, obviously, I'm not gonna be held against again. Now I remind I want I went to your number on the same one that's that's gonna be all that's what we got through. But that's, these preliminaries. We get There's a what? I just do it.

I've been here all the time, world, to try my best, trying to do what I could, world. And all the while, you've been out there flopping. That when 2 people are whispering, they are talking about you. I could be in a room where it was really I would it was a big crowd and it'd be hard to see me because I'm not very far. I'm not very I've got to, move on to this.

It's withdrawal. Now this is another phrase you hear in AA over and over. I'm a loaner. Why don't you loaners? I'm old.

God, how I've used them over the years. I all I went around saying, I only felt a hard trial, and I purchased many back up. I'm blessed with other people. I think maybe we're dealing phrasing for what I really meant and that was that I was unacceptable to, not apart from. I was unacceptable to.

Now how do you see people from finding out that you are unacceptable to me? You say a part from this. This way, they're in the wrong and they don't find out that thinking about you. Withdrawal, again, all these things again and again as we go through, we try to refer them back to those dreamy things, the guilt, the anger, and the fear. Do not are inexplicably intertwined.

I think this loaner business is nothing at all but this guilt, this feeling of unworthiness, this feeling that we really do not matter in our own right. We have no importance of our own. We have no self approval. We have no self esteem. And we do not want this found out.

So therefore, we have to be able, we have to be apart from, we cannot risk being vulnerable. We cannot risk being found that we are anything less than perfect. Another one would be oh, this one. Again, is that, We have done new about this event. And we hear about how do I get a bit of event?

Again, we've come up to this this this magic formula that must be found. I went back in and I took my inventory, and I took my inventory on about 5th day because I read the book. And, I've been to Tupperbeating, which I thought I could improve on. And, there was no use pointing any time about this. I was gonna good thing I did say to my, employer to them because I'm afraid I'm glad to speak.

I never would have gotten through the inventory because we did that and we could have started with God, worked through Adam and Eve, Why was I so violent? Why is it but on the other hand, why did so many other people pick it out and say, right, what do you represent? I think it's because they express itself in 2 different ways, I just realized what I thought I'd come to believe in. That is an indispensable threat, it might ring the wrong dispute, and I don't want the other word view. So, what I mean by posing a threat to you is that this person Lindsay.

These are pretty Lindsay. These are pretty accurate words. Now in Lindsay, the person knows the threat because the person has something you want. So they threaten your security. They threaten your opinion on yourself.

They threaten your being successfully able to conceal from the world the fact that you do not have what this other person has. So, one of the things is the same way. The person is posing a threat, It is only somebody who matters a great speech. So that person in some way poses a threat. That person can harm you in some way by withdrawing from you, by punishing you, by denying you in some way, denying their friendship, denying their love, withdrawing from you, punishing you.

That way, they pose a threat. You do not resent unimportant people, people that are unimportant to you, brother. I could maybe fire a firefight that. Now that is, to me, is the way to begin to get with resentment. I don't believe, and I'm not saying not to try it.

I'm just saying if it weren't me, I was gonna pray away resentment. I don't think you can smile them away. I don't think you can go along saying things like, it's really not the person. It's the principle of the thing. You know?

You just make these speeches and they crawl, and they say that really well inside of you. You know how powerful they are. I hope you have a space of head on. You know how powerful they are. I think you have to say this head on.

What is this? What is this church doing? What are you saying today? And finish this up, but that's the deadline. Now another one is and this one is not quite often, recognized.

But it plays a very great role. It ties back to religion. It ties back to a lot of in other words, it has different phrases. And in fact, I'm going to use a different way of saying it, and I see this makes it even clearer. And as I call it, the neurotic means or tolerability, you've heard it referred to.

It's the same thing. We talked about the same thing when you talked about perfection. What it is, it works in many, many ways. But it just comes back to this this original guilt, the original some kind of perfect, perfect entity. Somewhere in this world, there must exist something That's where in which there is no law because this becomes security permission.

This represents salvation. This is 5,000,000 and this is the thing I'm going to win through with in the end. A lot of times it's religious. A lot of times it's it's comfort. A lot of times it's AA.

I'm coming here with, this is the thing that's been found, so their brother, you know, criticism. A lot of people have the same answer, charge that type of thing. Any other name, whether it's free love, hippies, hot LSD, name it. That's why we are trying that out because they think it is the perfect answer. It is going to be the solution.

It is going to be perfect. It is going to have no flaws. And you know what the perfect answer is? The final security is the final security, if you live long enough, work long enough, face it hard enough to find out that there is So there is no perfect organization. There is no perfect formula.

There is no perfect man, no perfect woman, no perfect therapy, no perfect anything. Your final security lies in trying to do what you can with what you have and what you are. This leads us to the last one. All along, what we've been talking about is a human being who is living his life on the defensive. Right?

The little tiny child who embarks against this giant enemy, the 2 groups, those with hailing and those who didn't like him. He's been living his life on the defense. And now if you live your entire life on the defensive, it follows at the night today that you must have to defend again. If you don't, you're out of business. All of your partners and Defense.

This is how you are surviving. Of course, it is how you are dying, but you think it is the way you are surviving. So there comes this need for crisis. The neurotic need for a crisis. If things are going well, my god, I'm gonna die.

Now there's something wrong. Self best definitions of a neurosis is the fact that you are enacting a child with drama over and over and over again. You write the same script. It's like the TV series. Larson always be writing.

But what you do is you change the name and change the locale and you change the path of the characters, but it's always either the waterhole or the barbed wire or the guy who doesn't want to draw, give he likes 1, and we thought about that next week. I counteract that with a much more constructive thing. But the need for prices the need for a practice, not long ago, some months ago, I thought we would sat down to the guy that was really going out of his mind. He was falling up the wall. And we went down 1 by 1 by 1.

We've done a lot of work, so it wasn't it wasn't difficult. We went into all of this stuff. And finally, I heard this and I said, do you know what you are suffering from? I really believe. This is what's that.

I said, you don't have a crisis. Nothing's a problem with your life. So you are here red in your mind, you know, and saying, Alan, what should I do? What have I missed? Where have I failed?

What did you do when you felt like this? I get to say the exact amount, so that we would have to have work and then I could come along. And they can't pay me and fix it up. They, well, I did it again, and they go home and say they don't appreciate me. They don't pay me.

Okay. That's dialed. Okay. That's Diana. We have the best today.

We've got 10 minutes for questions. Any questions out there? Somewhere? You got any questions? Alright.

Angler that has been diverted, fast, stressed in other ways. It comes up this time as the real thing angler. And it's right here because you think to love control. And, I found that if you can see from heard of this stuff, you can go home. I generally Sometimes I did it.

Sometimes I hurt people. Sometimes I wiped out. This is a very common thing. You cannot anger does not go away. It has to either be understood and expressed on what we've mapped, push it down, come up in some other way.

I think, you had a question? Alan, I guess, I'll drive you next week. If I tried it, if I started on the antiques now, they would be very incomplete and I I really don't have the time for it. I think the place down here would not get to you. Yes.

I wanted to place you out here, but I'll get to you. Yes. You have a question. I wanted to ask how how does the newcomer go about just taking the right sponsor? Okay.

Perfect. How does the newcomer go about taking the right sponsor? Well, I would I didn't choose the sponsor who chose me. Oh, 2 of them do. They never let me out of their site.

I would choose somebody who's who's proposing to our AA, who's approach to our society, who's approach to our life at not being loved, at not being loved by yourself alone. Frank, thank you that your work is based upon your performance. It is a false sense, a false frame of reference that we've been hearing from all these years. It's ideal that our work, each god's eyes and convection mind building. And the cons, the frame of the dry frame of reference, the dry and slow, We think we are on the skate route.

We are saying we're trying to survive. What we are trying to do is failing. We are defending against intolerable fear, intolerable ill, intolerable anxiety by punishing ourselves. We are embarked on a self destructive course and it is turning this around. Then the sea thing as a survival kit is is is true, a destruction kit that we turn this around and Well, anger is always a good No.

I would, maybe you're giving yourself a little break there. I would call. When they come along, get ready. Muddling up the whole process by, getting this all more done than it was. And, actually, so I got I believe that everybody has found that these things have been very, very helpful retroactively.

Anything that they have done, this has certainly been my case that, every every day in AA and every day of my sobriety, I drew on things that I had done before, but as I had said they had not worked. I think there's time for one more question because we gotta let you start.