John K. & Michael K. of the Primary Purpose group of Dallas, TX going through the chapter More about alcoholism at the Big Book Weekend in Pratt, KS

Alright. Let's get keep moving forward here. We're in chapter 3 more about alcoholism. As we go through this, especially this first part, man, we gotta look at the words Bill uses because I love the way he writes. I mean, he could've used any old word, but he uses specific words to drive home a point.

We're gonna talk about some of these. More about alcoholism. Most of us have been unwilling to admit we are real alcoholics. Ain't that kinda funny, though? Back in when I was in college, I'd tell you I was an alcoholic.

Right? I didn't know what it meant, but I I was assured I was an alcoholic. It was fun. It was great. It was an achievement of sorts.

But later on in my life, you asked me how much I've been drinking. Oh, I just had a couple. I just had little. Now meanwhile, Bach is spewing out of my pores, but I just had a couple. You know?

I don't wanna admit I was a real alcoholic. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows, the allergy of the mental obsession. Therefore, it's not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove that we could drink like other people. We got some provers in here. My god, you're gonna prove today that this time, you can drink like a gentleman.

Right? I'm gonna prove to you that I am not a stinking. I'm gonna prove to you and here's how. Countless vain events. The idea that somehow, someday he'll control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drink.

Right? There's my mental obsession. What's my obsession? Somehow I'm gonna control and enjoy my drinking. Now I don't know about you, but if I was controlling, I sure as heck wasn't enjoying it.

If I was enjoying it, I wasn't controlling it. But my obsession is that this time, I'm gonna control and enjoy it. It's an obsession. Not a good word. Obsession.

It's like in my apartment complex, if a pretty girl moves into the apartment next to me and I think she's really nice and I wanna get to know her and I take her some flowers or whatever and introduce myself, and and and I'm trying to build a relationship, and she don't wanna have anything to do with me. Right? And then I start following her to the gym and to her work, and I become obsessed with her. Stalking. They call it stalking.

Exactly. Right? That's an obsession. It's unhealthy. Right?

I can't get my mind away from it. Think back to one of those times when you when you weren't drinking. What were you thinking about? Not drinking. Thinking about how you're gonna drink.

How are you gonna control and enjoy it? And look at this next one. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing, this illusion. What's my illusion? That I can control and enjoy it.

Well, let's ask the question. What is an illusion? A lie. A lie. Story.

If I turn this book into a parakeet, did I really do it or or did I trick you? No. What's an illusionist do? He makes me see things that aren't come on. Y'all didn't thought David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear?

No. It was an illusion. He tricked us. My illusion is that I can control and enjoy it. It's an illusion.

It ain't happening. It's not real. Many pursue it to the gates of insanity or death. Again, when I was 15, started drinking, dying from it or going insane from it wasn't on the horizon. But fast forward to 1999, where was it taking me?

To the gates of insanity or death. We learned we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. I had to concede. Concede and surrender, I think, are 2 different things. Hell, Germany surrendered in World War 1, didn't they?

I don't think they conceded, did they? They started it back up 30 years later, didn't they? After World War 2, they conceded. They were bombed back to the stone age. Right?

They conceded. I gotta concede to my innermost self. No lurking notion. I got to run through all my plans. I got to concede in my little heart of hearts that I am the real deal.

Getting the job, the car, the girls, not gonna fix it. Winning the lottery ain't gonna fix it. Getting the law off my back is not gonna fix it. I gotta concede to my innermost selves. So this is the first step in recovery.

The delusion, there's another good word, the delusion that I'm like my brother has to be smashed. The delusion that I'm like a normal man has to be smashed. How did that delusion get smashed for me? Well I did a lot of smashing on my own, but where that delusion was smashed was September 4th, 1999 sitting directly across me with somebody who was just like me. And he asked me some questions about drinking, told me some stories about himself, asked me some questions about me.

He smashed my delusions that I was gonna be like a normal person. The delusion that we're like other people or presently maybe has to be smashed. We alcoholics are men and women who have lost their the ability to control our drinking. Can't control it. So we know that no real alcoholic ever recovers control.

Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. You know? You can't put the genie back into the bottle. You know? It's it's the way it is.

So as all of us felt at times we were gaining control, but such intervals, usually brief, were inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time, underline this, to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We hear a lot of talk about bottoms in AA. Well, you haven't hit your bottom. You haven't hit your I hit my bottom a long time a lot of times, but that's the good one, the pitiful and incomprehensible. It's not the DWI and all that.

It's that inside stuff. That inside that pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We're convinced to amend that alcoholics of our type are in the grips of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period, we get worse, never better. As I drink you know, you know, when I was 17 years old drinking, I could stay up till 3 or 4 in the morning or in college, do the same thing and get a couple hours of sleep, get up in the morning, shake off the cobwebs, have a little coffee, and go on my merry way.

Right? I could do that. But our bodies get older. Right? We don't react the way we used to.

We don't recover the way we used to. Alcohol is destroying our bodies from the inside out, and I don't get better. It doesn't matter how long is in between my last drink, my body's still getting older. And the older I get, the less recuperative powers I have, and I'm gonna get worse never better. It doesn't matter how long I have not drank.

My illness right here today is progressing. It's progressing. Why? Because I'm getting older. We're like men who've lost their legs.

They never grow new ones. Neither does there appear to be any kind of treatment which will make alcoholics of our kind like other men. We've tried every imaginable remedy. Hell, science is trying every imaginable remedy. They've tried everything.

Right? We're talking to people after after our last little deal. You know, talking about the LSD stuff. Right? Fast forward to the sixties, they came up with a new drug called Valium.

That was gonna do it. Then Xanax. Yeah. You know? Then this.

The hell, the only thing science has done is they've created new 12 step programs. Alright? Everything that every drug that they've used to try to fix us has just created another 12 step program. Oh, volume is booze and a pill. Same damn thing.

I tried every imaginable remedy. You god. It's insane. In some instances, there was brief recovery followed always by a still worse relapse. Remember, we get worse, never better.

That's what baffled silk were. Bill comes in to see him. Bill's in bad shape. They counsel him. They nurse him back to health, talk to him about alcoholism.

Don't drink. Don't drink. Bill leaves. I'm never gonna drink again. He leaves.

Short amount of time, he drinks. He comes back. He's in worse shape. I always get worse. Says physicians who are familiar with alcoholism agree that there's no such thing as making a normal drinker out of an alcoholic.

Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn't done so yet. I'm sure they're trying to work on it, but they haven't done so yet. Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not gonna believe that they are in that class. By every form of self deception and experimentation, they will try try to prove to themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore nonalcoholic. Right?

I'm gonna try every form of self deception I have to prove to you that I'm not an alcoholic. Oh, remember we were going to the concert in 1984 and I was the driver? I didn't get drunk. See? Or by some miracle, I, you know, at a Mexican food restaurant and only had, like, 10 beers and 10 shots of Cuervo, and I didn't throw up.

And see, I'm normal. I'm gonna try every form of self deception. Trying to, you know, take the little remember when they had the shit treatment centers back in the seventies and stuff? They did the little shit test on TV and they ask you all those questions? And I'm trying to lie to the TV, you know.

Right? I'm lying to the freaking TV. Nope. I don't do that. Nope.

I'm yes, all down the board, but I'm trying to lie to myself, to convince myself that I'm not an alcoholic. If anyone who is showing me an inability to control his drinking can do the right about face and drink like a gentleman, our hats off to me. Hey. If you can pull up and stop drinking, god love you. Go for it.

I hope it works out well for you. I am not that guy. Cannot pull that off. Heaven knows we have tried hard enough and long enough to drink like other people. Here are some of the methods we have tried.

See if you've tried these. Drinking beer only, limiting the number of drinks, never drinking alone, never drinking in the morning, drinking only at home, never having it at the house, never drinking during business hours, drinking only at parties, switching from scotch to brandy, drinking only natural wines, agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job, taking a trip, not taking a trip, swearing off forever with and without solemn oath, taking more physical exercise, reading inspirational books, going to health farm sanitariums, accepting voluntary commitment to asylums, we could increase the list ad infinit. You should he's been to my house. You should see my bookshelf, man. It is great, man.

It's so cool. Because I've got every freaking self help book there is from back in the day, man. I got I got the Tai Chi books. I've got Tony Robbins. I've got Zig Ziglar.

I got it all on all this stuff of how to make yourself into a better man. I tried everything under the sun, because I I thought if you know, if I just had the right workout program, and had the right diet and read the right books and did enough good deeds that I could beat this alcoholic, I tried everything. Failed every time. Every time. We do not like to pronounce anyone an individual or any individual as an alcoholic, but you can quickly diagnose yourself.

Hell, the deadliest disease known to mankind, alcoholism. You gotta diagnose yourself. Ain't that a trip? Gotta diagnose yourself. Hell, people were telling me I was alcoholics for years.

I had to diagnose myself. So here's a little test. Step over to the nearest bar room and try some controlled drinking. Try to drink and stop abruptly. Try it more than once.

It'll not take long for you to decide if you're honest with yourself about it. It may be worth a bad case of the jitters if you get full knowledge of your condition. I was going to a psychiatrist and that he was going on vacation for a week or whatever. And I'm trying to keep this little busted up relationship together, and we're on 101. And he says and we're getting around to all the drinking stuff, and I wasn't copping that I was an alcoholic.

And he said, okay. We're gonna do a little test. I'll be back. Your next appointment is, like, 8 or 9 days. So he says, what do you like to drink?

What's your favorite drink? I said, vodka, martini, straight up. Right? He says, great. Pick a number of drinks.

And I said, 3. He says, great. So for the next 8 days while I'm on vacation, I want you to drink 3 vodka martinis. No more, no less. And we'll talk about it when I get back.

Yeah. Great. So I go down to liquor store. I'm looking for my favorite brand of vodka, which at the time was Absolut Vodka. Just so happened that they had the 1.75 liters on sale.

I am a conscious bargain shopper. I gotta take the bargain. Right? So I get the big bottle of vodka, go put it in the freezer. I wait for the end of the day, pour my first I kinda thought I tricked him because I said 3 martinis.

Yeah. I didn't say how big the glass was. Right? So I drank that first one and then that experiment went so marvelously well that I had my second martini. And that went down so smooth that I had my third one.

And by the third one, what I realized it was a bad test day because I triggered that allergy. I ended up drinking that whole bottle and I drank a bottle thereafter till we met again. I cannot control my drinking. Can't do it. Put a gun to my head.

I'll wait till you fall asleep. I'll drink. Cannot control my drinking. There's no way of proving it. Though there is no way of proving it, we believe that early in our drinking careers, most of us could have stopped drinking.

But why? 19 years old, I was at my first counselor. They were trying and I was lying through my teeth on how much I drink, and I still came up as a normal drinker. I was not gonna stop drinking because I was not in trouble. My mama was just on my back.

I was not gonna stop drinking because booze worked. Booze fixed everything. When it was a good time, booze made it better. When it was a bad time, it made it tolerable. Booze worked.

I was not gonna stop. But the difficulty is that few few alcoholics have enough desire to stop while there is yet time. We have heard of a few instances where people who showed definite signs of alcoholism were able to stop for a long period because of an overpowering desire to do so. Here's one. So now they're gonna start giving us some examples.

Alright? Examples of different kinds of drunks. Alright? So here's this guy. He says, the man of 30 was doing a great deal of spree drinking.

He's very nervous in the morning. A lot of nervous people back in the thirties if you read this book. A lot of nervous people, man. So he was very nervous in the morning after these bouts and quieted himself with more liquor. That's what I did when I was nervous.

How himself with more liquor. That's what I did when I was nervous. Half a bottle of vodka in the morning. I'll get those nerves right back on track. Alright?

He was ambitious to succeed in business but saw that he would get nowhere if he drank it off. Once he had started, he had no control whatever. So he's powerless. Right? Don't you think?

He made up his mind that until he'd been cut he'd been successful in business and it had retired, he would not touch another drop. An exceptional man, he remained bone dry for 25 years and retired at the age of 55 after a successful and happy business career. So this guy saw that he was in trouble. He was drinking too much when he started drinking, but he had an overpowering desire to succeed. And he said, you know what?

I'm not gonna get this if I keep drinking, so I'm gonna stop drinking. Was his life unmanageable? No. He stopped. He stopped for 25 years.

It says after a successful and happy business career, it may have been happy for him but I bet he was that intolerable you know what, man. You've seen the angry drunk in the meeting. Right? Hadn't had a drink for 25 years, but god dang it'd probably help him out if he did. You know?

We know you we know they got those people in Kansas too, don't they? Yeah. We know that guy. Right? Good god.

You see those people at the family reunion. Well, Jim Bob over here is an alcoholic. He hadn't touched a drop in 30 years, and Jim Bob looks like he's about to spin out of control. You know? Pissed off, man.

Alright. Alright. But so let's see let's see what happens to this guy. Then he fell victim to the belief, which practically every alcoholic has, That after his long period of sobriety and self discipline had qualified him him to drink his other men. So after 25 years, he retired and his brain comes up with the brilliant solution.

Any man who retired as successful you and hadn't had a drink in 25 years deserves a cocktail. Out came the carpet slippers and a bottle. In 2 months, he was in a hospital puzzled and humiliated. Well, they don't tell us in the story but as far as we know, he hadn't been to the hospital before. He just knew he couldn't control his liquor.

Now he drinks for 2 months and he's already in the hospital. Sounds like it progressed, didn't it? Even though he wasn't drinking for 25 years. He tried to regulate his drink. Do we got some regulators in here?

Trying to regulate limit those number of drinks. Just drink a little bit. Try to taper yourself off. I can't taper, man. You can't do it.

Yeah. It ain't gonna work. He tried to regulate his drinking for a while, making several trips to the hospital in the meantime. So he's going to the hospital repeatedly. It's not working out too well for this guy.

Then gathering all his forces, he attempted to stop altogether and found he could not. So he put his foot down. I ain't never gonna do it again. I'm stopping altogether. I've done it before.

Watch me. He could not. Every means of solving his problem which money could buy was at his disposal. He had it all. Best best doctors you could get.

Every attempt failed. Though a robust man at retirement, he went to pieces quickly and was dead within 4 years. Wow. This case contains a powerful lesson. Most of us believe that if we remain sober for a long enough stretch, we could thereafter drink normally.

That's an illusion. But here's a man who at 55 years found he was just as where he had left off at 30. We have seen the truth demonstrated again and again. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Commencing to drink, and here's the promise.

Commencing to drink after a period of sobriety, we are in short time as bad as ever. We did that little show of hands earlier. We've had some people here with some sobriety and they relapse. Right? In a short amount of time, I'm on the rocks.

Very, very short. If we're planning to stop drinking, underline this, there must be no reservation of any kind nor any lurking notion that someday we'll be immune to alcohol. No lurking notion. Young people may be encouraged by this man's experience to think that they can stop as he did on their own willpower. We doubt if any many of them can because none will really wanna stop.

And hardly one of them, because of the peculiar mental twist already acquired will find that he can win out. Several of our crowd, men of 30 or less have been drinking only a few years, but they found themselves as helpless as those who've been drinking 20 years. And then I I remember seeing that nonsense so many times. Well, when I first went to AA in my mid twenties, old timers were telling me, I hadn't drink enough. I spilled more booze than you ever drank.

We don't say that we don't say that in our group. We don't say that. That's crap. You go to our group, we got we got some we got a kid who's got, like, 3 years sober. He looks like he's 12.

I don't know. We got some big book thumpers in their late teens. I mean, I'll stack up them against any big book thumper out there. They are a joy to be around. They hit it early, young, hard, and they got here quick.

You know? They got their entire lives ahead of them. You know, it's flat out amazing. And, you know, I'd be pretty insensitive if I look and say, I drink more than you ever drink. It don't matter.

If you're here, you're here. You know? To be gravely affected, one does not necessarily have to drink a long time nor take the quantity some of us have. Now I read a story in one of these archive things that I got. This lady was in in surgery.

You know, back in the fifties, you got out of surgery, the doctor may give you a little shot of brandy or whatever with to which, you know, to recuperate. They did that stuff back in the day. Right? Lady had never touched a drop. Alcoholism in her family never touched a drop, went in for some little surgery or whatever.

She's in the she's in her hospital room recuperating and part of the prescription from her doctor was to have a glass of brandy. Never touched a drop. She drank the the glass of brandy. They heard a commotion a little while later, and she was breaking into the nurse's closet to get more branding. From the very first shot.

Just waiting for a drink. Didn't know what was wrong with her. She was waiting for a drink, though. You know? This is particularly true of women.

Potential female alcoholics often turn into the real and are gone beyond recall in a few years. Certain drinkers who'd be greatly insulted if called alcoholics are astonished at their inability to stop. We who are familiar with the symptoms see large numbers of potential alcoholics among young people everywhere, but try to get them to see it. As we look back, we feel we've gone on drinking many years beyond the point where we could quit on our own willpower. Later on the book, they call it a tedious process.

Right? I went way many, many years beyond this, you know, just like it says here. If anyone here's another test. If anyone questions whether he has entered the dangerous dangerous area, let him try leaving liquor alone for 1 year. Just don't drink for a year.

Alright? If he's a real alcoholic and very far advance their scant chance of success, You're saying you ain't gonna pull it off if you're a real alcoholic. You won't do it. In the early days of our drinking, we occasionally remain sober for a year or more, becoming serious drinkers again later. Though you may be able to stop for a considerable period, you may yet be a potential alcoholic.

That sounds kind of confusing, but, you know, maybe we could have stopped. Maybe I could have stopped in after that first treatment center. Maybe I could have. I already got plugged into the program and did the steps, maybe I could have stopped there. I didn't wanna stop.

The truth be known was I couldn't stop. I had to drink no matter what. We think few few to whom this book will appeal can stay anything dry like a year. Some will be drunk the day after making their resolutions, most of them within a few weeks. Make a firm resolution never ever to do it again.

Short amount amount of time goes by. I'm not gonna remember how bad it was. I drink. That's what did happen. For those who are unable to drink moderately, the question is now here's the question, is how do you stop altogether?

How do you stop? That that I mean, that is the $1,000,000 question. Right? How is it that we stop drinking altogether? We're assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop.

I have this underlined. Whether such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis depends extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he'll drink or not. Page 24 says within a week or a month, I'm not gonna remember how bad it was. Within a week or a month of my last drink. See, this is why sometimes treatment centers are a catch 22.

We like the 30 day stay. It it gets them back to health. Right? But after a 30 day stay, if I'm not into the work while I'm in treatment center, by the time I get out of treatment centers, I got 30 days under my belt. 30 days of food, 30 days for my ego and my arrogance to rekindle itself, and I'm bulletproof again.

It just depend on to the point of have I lost the power to choose whether or not I drink. It says many of us felt felt we had plenty of character. There's a lot of characters in AA. There was a tremendous urge to cease forever, yet we found it impossible. This is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it.

The utter inability to leave it alone, no matter how great the necessity or the wish, that is unmanageability, the utter inability to leave it alone. That is why my life's unmanageable. How then shall we help our readers to determine to their own satisfaction whether or not they're one of us? Right? So they're giving us some tests and they're giving us these stories.

They're identifying with us. Why? So that we can determine if we belong. Makes good sense to me. The experiment of quitting for a period of time will be helpful, but we think we can render even greater service to alcoholic sufferers sufferers and perhaps to the medical fraternity.

So we shall describe some of the mental states that proceed a relapse into drinking for, obviously, that's the crux of the problem. Right? What sort of thinking dominates the alcoholic who repeats time after time the desperate experiment of the first drink? What sort of thinking is that? That's insane thinking because I'm doing the same thing.

Friends who have reason with him after a spree, which has brought brought him to the point of divorce or bankruptcy are mystified when he walks directly into a saloon. You know, that's that's why our families look like looked at us like our heads were on fire when they bell us out of jail or we lose the job or we're crashing on their couch or whatever, and we get a little clean time into us and we walk directly to the liquor store. Because they're thinking that drinking has just cost you your job, your family, your kids, and you walk right back into a bar. Why does he? Why does he do this?

Or what is he thinking? So I love this example, Jim. Alright? Jim's a good old boy. Right?

So let's see where Jim's wheels fall off on here. Alright? Because Jim Jim's got a good story. Jim's a low bottom guy. Right?

Drinking costs Jim a lot. Our first example is a friend we should call Jim. This man has a charming life and family. Sounds pretty good. He inherited a lucrative automobile agency.

That's like in Dallas. He inherited Sewell Village Cadillac. Yep. He inherited something good. That's a good thing.

Right? I mean, that'd be great too. I wish I inherited an automobile agency. Right? He had a commendable war World War record.

He's a good salesman. Everybody likes him. He's an intelligent man, normal as far as we can see, except for a nervous disposition. Old Jim's got the nerves again. Right?

On paper so far, Jim seems like a pretty sharp guy. Pretty sharp guy. Right? He did no drinking till he was 35. So he was a late bloomer.

In a few years, he ain't working out too well for Jim on that. I'm leaving the asylum. He's already going to ain't working out too well for Jim on that. I'm leaving the asylum. He's already going to asylums.

Right? He came into contact with us. So he met the AAers. Right? This is what they did.

We told them what we knew of alcoholism and the answer we had found. He made a beginning. Well, what did they say about that? I mean, we're we're taken to assume. What did he make?

Did he do a 3rd step? Maybe he'd done a 4th step. Maybe he's working on his 4th step. He made a beginning. Right?

His family was reassembled. There's another good thing. He began to work as a salesman for the business he had lost through drinking. There's a red flag right there. I inherited the automobile dealership And now I'm working there.

And now I'm working there. Oh, no. That's not gonna work for me. Yeah. I'm that that's a resentment right there.

I got a resentment for Jim. You know what I mean? I'm doing it for him. That pisses me off just thinking about it. Jim, you had it all.

You know? Let's see. Where did I okay. All went well for a time. Right?

Not all went well for a time, but he failed to enlarge his spiritual life. So Jim's a middle of the rotor. Jim ain't calling his sponsor. Jim's not working on his 4 step. Jim's not helping anybody else.

Jim's not doing any of the work. To his consternation, he found himself drunk half dozen times in rapid succession. On each of these occasions, we work with them. Right? So good AAs went to help Jim, reviewing carefully what had happened.

So they they said, Jim, what happened? Why didn't you call? Why weren't you at the big book study? Why aren't you at the hospital helping drugs? What happened?

He agreed he was a real alcoholic in serious condition. He knew now he he knows the he knew he faced another trip to the asylum if he kept on. Moreover, he'd lose his family for whom he had deep affection. Jim's got every reason in the world not to pick up a drink and to hook up with these AA'ers, don't he? Every reason in the world.

Yet he got drunk again. Uh-uh. Poor Jim. We asked them to tell us exactly how it happened. This is a story.

I came to work on Tuesday morning. Red flag. What the hell happened to Monday? I mean, you gotta ask yourself that question. I mean, my my old boss back in the day, they didn't even schedule me on Mondays.

They knew I wasn't gonna be there. Right? Jim, it sounds like he was on the schedule, he shows up Tuesday, you know. Something happened. I remember I felt irritated that I had to be a salesman for a concern I once owned.

Jim's got a little resentment going, probably a little hungover, going into the place that he used to own. You know it's grinding him. It's grinding him. I had a few words with the boss, but nothing serious. Jim, where in the hell were you Monday?

Jim thinking to himself, I used to own you. You know? But Jim, right? Look look what he says. He minimizes.

I had a few words with the boss, but nothing serious. Ain't that what we do? No facts. Oh, it's nothing. No facts.

Who sponsored a guy when he got to the 4 seven, they said, oh, I don't have any resentment. Get out of here. Hey. If I got you drunk, you'd tell me all about it. You know?

And, oh, now that you hear sober in treatment, you ain't got no reason. I was, come on. Alright. So but nothing serious. Then I decided to drive to the country and see one of my prospects for a car.

Right? So back in the olden days, we all didn't have cars. So if you had to sell a car in the 19 thirties, you had to drive to where the people were. Right? So pretty normal so far.

On the way, I felt hungry, so I stopped at a roadside place where they have a bar. They tell me back in the day, everywhere you stopped, every restaurant, they all had a bar. I mean, that's just that was just the way we did business back in the day. So everything's cool here. Right?

Normal stuff. I had no intention of drinking. He didn't. He's pissed off at his boss and his life, but he had no intention of drinking. I just thought I'd get a sandwich.

I also had the notion that I might find a customer for a for a car at this place, which was familiar for I've been going to it for years. I had eaten there many times during the months I was sober. I sat down at a table and ordered a sandwich and a glass of milk. Pretty normal, still no thought of drinking. I ordered another sandwich and decided to have another glass of milk.

Jim's hungry. Right? Two sandwiches and two glasses of milk. It's in italics. If it's in italics, it's in the big book.

You know it's important. Suddenly, He had no intention of drinking. Suddenly, the thought crossed my mind that if I were to put an ounce of whiskey in my milk, it wouldn't hurt me on a full stomach. Insane. Because if it ain't gonna hurt you, why do it?

Just insane right there. I ordered a whiskey poured into the milk. I vaguely sensed I was not being any too smart, but felt reassured I was taking whiskey on a full stomach. Or like Michael said, felt reassured that I ate some chicken and now it ain't gonna hurt me. You know, they told you.

Remember that? Line your stomach with grease and you can you know. So it sounds like Jim was insane at this moment. The experiment went so well. I poured another whiskey.

I ordered another whiskey and poured into more milk. That didn't seem to bother me, so I tried it again. Jim's off to the races. Thus started one more journey to the asylum for Jim. He was spread of commitment, the loss of family and position to say nothing of that intense mental and physical suffering, like pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization, which drinking always caused him, not sometimes caused him, always caused him these things.

He had every reason not to do it, yet he did it. Insane. He had much knowledge about himself as an alcoholic. They 12 stepped it. Yet all the reasons for drinking were easily pushed aside for in favor of the foolish idea that he could take whiskey if only he mixed it with milk.

Whatever the precise definition of the word may be, we call this plain insanity. How can such a lack of proportion, that's a great definition, of the ability to think straight be called anything else? And That's I'm done. You're done? Alright.

How you gotta love, Jim? Uh-huh. But I don't understand that whiskey and milk deal. That that is insane. No matter how you look at it.

So as you may think this is an extreme case, to us it's not far fetched. For this kind of thinking has been characteristic of every single one of us. We have sometimes reflected more than Jim did upon the consequences, but there was always the curious mental phenomenon that parallel with our sound reasoning, there inevitably ran some insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink. Our sound reasoning failed to hold us in check. The insane idea won out.

Next day, we had asked ourselves in all earnestness and sincerity, how could it have happened? How did it happen? Jim used the part of his body that was broken, his head. Anybody ever seen that sign up on the wall in AA rooms, that think, think, think? My sponsor looked at me and he said that one is not for you.

Okay. I'm sorry. That is not for you. My thinker's broken. Old Jim, how well did his thinker do for him?

Not too good. Not too good. Oh, boy. Wow. So much fun.

The insane idea one how okay. Here we go. In some circumstances, we have gone out deliberately to get drunk feeling ourselves justified by nervousness, anger, worry, depression, jealousy, or the like. And yeah there are a couple ways to go out drinking. Let's face it, Jim didn't go out deliberately.

Some people would say oh Jim set himself up the minute he walked into that place because they had a bar. Go do the research. He didn't. He didn't. I hate to break it to you that was not a trigger what Jim walked into.

He walked into a surrounding he was familiar with. It was something that he had been to many times. He didn't deliberately walk in there to get drunk. Suddenly came Colin and he was screwed. But there's also ways that we go out where we just fly that.

How do you put it? F it. The f it flag. Anybody ever flown that flag before where you just go out and and and Jim talked or Bill talked about it that that drinking for oblivion, and we have all these reasons why we do it. But even in this type of beginning we're obliged to admit that our justification for a spree was insanely sufficient in the light of what always happened.

We now see that when we began to drink deliberately instead of casually there was little serious or effective thought during the period of premeditation of what the terrific consequences might be. No matter what we downplay it, don't we? Once that fear has gone away, once that certain time has come up and that suffering and humiliation of a week or a month ago, will start downplaying it in our head. No, it isn't going to happen. This time I've got a plan that's foolproof.

You know, it just never happens right. This next story, never forget the first time I'm reading this book by myself and I read this story and I am like what is this? Why is this in the book? Let's check it out. Our behavior is absurd and incomprehensible with the respect to the first drink as that of an individual with a passion safe for jaywalking.

He gets a thrill out of skipping in front of fast moving vehicles. He enjoys himself a few years in spite friendly warnings. Up to this point, you label him a foolish chap with queer ideas of fun. Luck then deserts him and he is slightly injured it it several several times in succession. How many I could have swore the stretch of the nineties that had to be the longest stretch of bad luck anyone has ever had.

That's what I had going I just had a run of bad luck and you know here's this old jaywalker you know he gets injured, oh it was just an unlucky day, I shouldn't have been jaywalking. You'd expect him if you were normal to cut it out. Presently, he is hit again and this time has a fractured skull. Things are getting serious for this guy, isn't it? Within a week after leaving the hospital, a fast moving trolley car breaks his arm and the only question I have to that is how fast can a trolley car go?

I always wondered that. He tells you he has desired he had decided to stop jaywalking for good and for all. What's that? The old jaywalker's making the firm resolution, isn't he? I'm never gonna do it again, but in a few weeks he breaks both legs.

On through the years, this conduct continues accompanied by his continual promises to be careful or to keep off the streets altogether. First, he's gonna control it then he's not gonna do it at all. The continual promises. Finally he can no longer work his wife gets a divorce and he's held up to ridicule. The injuries come in even more not only physical but other things.

He tries every known means of getting the jaywalking idea out of his head. He shuts himself up in an asylum he goes to jaywalking treatment centers hoping to mend his ways. But the day he comes out, he races in front of a fire engine which breaks his back. Such a man would be crazy, wouldn't he? And I I the first time I read that, I'm like, what is this all about?

And then it all started to become very clear. Look what it says, you may think this illustration is is too ridiculous but is it? We have been through the ringer have to admit if we substitute alcoholism for jaywalking the illustration would fit us exactly. Now when I go up if I were to tell you my story, mine is as foolish as that jaywalker. You take jaywalking out, you put Michael in there with alcohol, and there's my story to a t.

It fits it exactly. Yeah. We wanna laugh it off. No. That it isn't the same.

That's just crazy what that jaywalker's doing. It's different when it comes to me. All that self rationalization comes in. You know, it says, where we at? However intelligent we may have been with in other respects where alcohol has been involved, we have been strangely insane.

It's strong language, but isn't it true and we're right back to have you ever wondered why people look at you the way they do? As you're coming off your last debacle, they're looking at that jaywalker. That's what our poor family members, friends, coworkers, employers are looking at. This silly fool that keeps running out in front of fast moving vehicles and gets busted up every time. There it is.

Says some of you are thinking yes what you tell us is true but it doesn't fully apply. We admit we have some of these symptoms, but we have not gone to the extremes you fellows did nor are we likely to for we understand ourselves so well after what you have told us, these things cannot happen. We have not lost everything in life through drinking, and we certainly do not intend to. Thanks for the information. I'll never forget the first time I went to treatment.