Step 1 at the Stateline Retreat in Primm, NV

Y'all nervous?

I'm Charlie Parker. I'm a grateful recovered alcoholic,

really glad to be here tonight. It's a real honor to be here. You know, I want to thank anybody that had anything to do with

with putting this thing together. You know, the hosts and you know, Kim and Andrea and everybody that was back there, you know, doing registration. And you know, if you've been to a few of these things, you know that there's a whole lot that goes in to put one of these things together. There's a whole lot of people that do a lot of work to get something like this to come together. And if it's anything like the folks in Austin, TX, there's a whole lot of people that didn't do a darn thing

but have a lot of ideas about how it could have been done just a little bit better. You know, that's the fellowship I crave, you know?

You know, this is a big honor for me to be here. It could have said fill in on the program because I'm filling in for Charlie C, who couldn't be here tonight. But it's a real honor for me to be here. And I mean, some of my heroes are deeply involved in this thing. And I've watched some of them, you know, come up here and Katie and I come to this

every year anyway. So to get to get to talk to it is, is really been a a real, a real honor, you know, and

to get up here, if you see my sponsor, Mark H, tell him that I had a coat and tie on. That's a it's real important to him.

I most of my experience in a coat and tie, though my job was to stand still and go no contest, Your honor.

Yeah, I don't know if you can relate to that or not, but I just I, you know, I want to acknowledge I'm I last few years I've been here with Katie G from Austin and as of two months and three days ago and she's Katie Parker and stand up Katie.

I like to think of myself as some of her best work.

Oh my God, you got no idea. She's got a big job on her hands. But it's just, you know, the thing about this conference and it's, and not only is it, is it people that I have admired for many years, but not it's the way that they're telling the the steps and not giving their stories. It's just it's been, it's so powerful for me. I mean, it could just be my perspective, but it seems to me like a, A is making a big comeback in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I mean,

most of us, most of us in this room came in during a period where the bulk of meetings was open discussion meetings or discussion meetings. And, and you may or may not hear much to do with the program by Alcoholics Anonymous that some of those means it's, but the pockets of enthusiasm like this that get together are just a very exciting thing for me to be a part of. I I'm sober since March 22nd of 1985.

My Home group is the primary purpose group in Austin. It's a big book study meeting. We meet, We meet on Tuesday nights, usually about 175 people studying the big book

line by line and week after week. And I am a unapologetic big book thumper. I just, I always love it when people in the meetings go, well, I'm no big book thumper, but and I'm going, Oh no, don't thump the book. Please give it take the meeting hostage for seven minutes with your opinion. You know, we don't, we don't, we don't want to hear anything out of the book, for God's sake. You know,

I digress. I'm sorry. I didn't. I didn't take long, did it?

But Bob, thanks for having me, and it's just great to be here. You know, the big thing that happened when Alcoholics Anonymous came together was an understanding of three things. It was an understanding of the problem

and understanding the solution and then a program of action that would bring about that solution. And it's those, those three things working together create magic. But when you're missing one piece of that it, it doesn't really happen. You know, So it's beautifully laid out in our book. But you know, in the doctor's opinion on XXV I, I, I, it says for a message to interest and hold an alcoholic, it has to have depth and weight.

And Bob has asked me to come out of out of my own experience

as much as I can tonight. And

you know, when we talk about coming out of our experience, it kind of reminds me of the story about the talking dog that was for sale. This guys driving along and he sees a sign for a talking dog at this farmhouse and he can't stand it. He pulls up and he says, you got a talking dog? Guy says, yeah, he's around back. And he goes back there and he says, so you can talk. And the dog goes, well, it certainly can. He goes, how did that happen? He goes, well, when I was young, I started picking up the language. And as I got older, I developed more of the nuances of the language. And

I got to tell you, it's developed in an amazing career for me. I was involved in the Drug Enforcement Administration for 16 years and infiltrated some situations that no human agent could have gotten into. I've eaten in some of the finest restaurants and stayed in the world's finest hotels. And more importantly, some of my pups have become international diplomats and have been all over the world, He said it's just really been a fascinating life for me. And the guy says it's really been a pleasure talking to you. He goes back to the farmer and he says, how much do you want for a dog like that

goes, I don't know, 40 bucks? He says, why would you sell a fabulous dog like that for 40 bucks? And they got the farmer goes.

None of that crap he told you is true, you know.

So around here, it doesn't matter how good the story is if it's not my experience.

My job tonight is to lay out the problem when we talk about if I had a little imaginary blackboard up here,

all the Jumbotron.

You're right, honey, it does add about 60 lbs.

I out of the

out of the three things. Probably if I had a little imaginary blackboard back here, it would say problem, solution, program of action. We're not going anywhere until I understand the problem. And my job tonight is to lay out the problem. I'm going to try to describe a hopeless condition of mind and body on page 20 in the big book. It says, doubtless you're curious to discover how and why, in the face of expert opinion to the contrary, we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body.

That's what we're talking about when we talk about being a recovered alcoholic is to having recovered from that hopeless condition amount. My job with a new guy, though, when I sit down with him, is to try to give him a fatal dose of alcoholism. I want this guy to have a complete deflation of ego that's required to move me through the rest of the work. On page 42

and more about alcoholism, Fred talks about, he says they, they, they called on him and they said they laid out the problem. You know, they, they quoted dozens of stories out of their own experience.

They cited dozens of cases. This, he said. This process snuffed out the last flicker of conviction that I could do the job myself. And that's what I'm looking for when I'm working with new guys to give him what I call a step one experience. And you can see it when it happens.

Some of the treatment centers and some places are fond of saying there's a treatment center where I do, I take a, a meeting out to every week. And sometimes they're fond of saying, some of the counselors there are fond of saying you work the first step. Just getting here

was not my experience. It was not Doctor Bob's experience. It wasn't Fred's experience. It wasn't Jim's experience. You know, and, and, and when you end up for Doctor Bob in the forward of the 2nd edition, it says he had repeatedly tried spiritual means to resolve his alcoholic dilemma, but it failed. He'd been in the Oxford Movement for two years. He he understood he had a solution and the program of action, but he didn't understand the problem.

It says when the when Bill Wilson gave him Doctor Silkworth's description of alcoholism

and it's hopelessness, the physician began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with a willingness he'd never been able to muster. He sobered never to drink again. Up to the moment of his death in 1950. This seemed to prove that one alcoholic could affect another alcoholic like no one else could.

What we're talking about here is identification. It speaks to a a singleness of purpose. I don't want to get off on a big tangent about singleness of purpose, but basically it's saying that Alcoholics work best with Alcoholics. And the only difference in all the 12 step fellowships out there, that identification is so important that in all those 12 step fellowships, the only difference is the first part of the first step and the middle part of the 12th step. What I'm powerless over and who we carry the message to that that identification is that important

when it's not there, it it says on it says until such an identification takes place, little or nothing can be accomplished. It implies that it's kind of important. I've I've experienced when it's not there. I was in treatment in the holidays, well, as I entered treatment for the first time

three days and 26 years ago. And so is this time of year right around the holidays. And on Christmas Day, they, they gave us this huge meal. And I mean, I'm a big boy now, but I was about 35 lbs heavier when I showed up here. So I was pretty interested in this meal. And, and they give us a plate of food and it's Turkey and dressing and and stuffing and gravy and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes and rolls and the whole deal, you know, and I'm just sitting down with this plate of food and the door

open and in walks five do gooders from one of the local churches that's come to sing Christmas carols to the heathen Alcoholics. You can imagine my excitement, you know, because I'm sitting there literally with this plate in my hand going, oh good, you know, so we're sitting there. The thing about it is this one woman is just going along and she walks up to this one lady and she says something and she walks over to this guy and she says something and she says something to this guy. And I'm wondering, she gets to me and she says,

are you a patient here? And I said, yes, I am, She said. I know exactly what you're going through.

I said, really? She said. I was once addicted to caffeine

and I was like, oh, ain't that a bitch, huh? You know, I mean, did you ever pawn your mom sterling silver to get a can of Folgers, You know, for God's sake? I mean, bless her heart, she was trying, but it just that identification wasn't there. And you know, that's what the books talking about when it when it says that, you know, until it's such an identification takes place, little or nothing can be accomplished. But you know, if Silkworth's definition was so important to Bob, let's talk a little bit about what Silkworth said. And

if there's not enough pressure, having Clancy and Bob and some of these people, now I got silk worth and Ann and Bob right behind me. But that silk worth right there on the end with the white hair on the sides.

Let's talk a little bit about what Silkworth said. Hey, I'm not going against that. You know, I don't have any room to talk, but here we go. What does it mean to be an alcoholic? You know, if I don't do the first step getting here, what is? Because a lot of us get here. I raised my hand for years in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings saying my name is Charlie, I'm alcoholic. I had no idea what it meant.

I thought, well, I drank all the time. I must be alcoholic. I mean, I've wrecked cars and I've lost jobs and I've gotten the DUI's and that sort of thing. But there's probably somebody sitting in jail tonight that that had too many drinks last night and got arrested. Would you agree that somebody could have gotten a DWI on the way home last night and they're not alcoholic.

So if you can get a DWI without being alcoholic, getting DWI is doesn't necessarily make me alcoholic. It's just what happens to people that drink a lot. My sister is not an alcoholic. She I don't think she ever will be. I watched her drink. I mean, I've watched her drink and I like a cat watches you eat a tuna fish sandwich, you know? I mean but, but

so So what does it mean to be an alcoholic? I got 2 problems with alcohol,

what happens to me when I drink it and one happens to me when I don't drink it. Other than that, I got a pretty good handle on alcohol, you know? I mean, you know, the first thing we're going to talk about is the physical allergy because it's a physical allergy coupled with a mental obsession. You go to the doctor's opinion on XXV. I, I, I It's a heavy page. If you're working with newcomers, this page needs to be worn out because it says in there

we believe in so suggested a few years ago that the accident of alcohol on these chronic Alcoholics

is a manifestation of an allergy. So we're talking about chronic Alcoholics. We're not talking about disco drunks or two beers and Oh dear. You know, it's this is, you know, it says it's the manifestation of an allergy, that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker.

You read that real fast. It doesn't do much. I like to break it down because this is language that we never used at the Spillway pub when I was hanging out, You know, I mean, Can you imagine walking in one day and going, oh, Bobby, I've had the spiritual malady all over me today and I I had a drink on the way over here. It has triggered a phenomenon of craving that is kicking my butt. You know, I line them up, pal. You know, I mean, it's,

it wasn't like that, you know, but when you break it down, it's, you know, an allergy to me for our purposes just means an abnormal physical reaction.

I don't respond regular to booze.

And the manifestation is the way that allergy shows up. How does it present itself? And this phenomenon of craving phenomenon just means it happens, but we don't really know why it happens. It's something we don't completely understand, but we know what happens. So when it says that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class

and never occurs in the average drinker, that's one definition of alcoholism there. But you know when we were responding to Silk Worth letter, it says

in this statement he confirms what we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe, that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we are maladjusted to life, that we were in full full flight from reality or were outright mental defectives. His theory of an allergy interests us. Is it Seth? It says explains a lot of things

that we haven't been able to explain up to now. I mean, if you're like me, when I got here,

I didn't know how to explain my behavior. And it's easy to get here thinking I'm a mental screw up or at least a moral weakling. I mean, because I kept saying I wasn't going. You know, one of the things that it explains, if it's laid out to me is why when I promised my people that I'm not going to drink anymore, that I drink again. You know, because if you're like me, you're used to people wanting to talk to you about your drinking by the time you get here,

it's but it's never somebody that drank like I did. It was always my girlfriend or my mom or the probation officer or the counselor or my best friend or my boss or my sister or somebody like that.

But they want to know why we drink like we do, especially when we drink it exactly the wrong time. Anybody do that, you know, And they go, why did you do it again? And I had the only answer anybody in this room had, what was it? I don't know. I don't know. I just, that's what I do. I don't know, you know. And after a while you can, it's easy to get here thinking, you know, there's something wrong with me. When it says, it explains many things we couldn't otherwise explain to me. That's what it's talking about.

But when we describe this allergy,

what is my abnormal reaction to allergy? What is an abnormal reaction look like? Because, I mean, if I had an allergy to strawberries and I ate strawberries and my throat swelled shut and my eyes swell shut and I can't breathe and I start turning blue, you'd say this guy's got a pretty serious strawberry problem, right? True enough. But now let's say you take me to the hospital and they give me a big shot of Benadryl. My throat opens up, my eyes open up, I can breathe again. Looks like I'm going to be all right.

Well, the way this

allergy the alcohol is, is it triggers a craving in me that no matter what my plan was going in, even if I was just going to have a cup of drinks like the guys at work, you know, we're just going to stop in and have a couple. When I have a couple, I can't tell you how much I'm going to drink or when I'm going to stop with any predictability.

And the most important thing you can do with any of this information is lay your own experience up against it and see if it's a fit. Because what would happen for me was I would take a couple of drinks and all of a sudden I was all about drinking. I mean, and I would, I thought I'd just change my mind. But what I'd done was I'd triggered a craving bigger than I am that I, I couldn't overcome on my own power.

Well,

if you go back to XVI I, I again, there's that page again, Roman numeral 28. It's as men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol.

Any argument on that one?

I mean, I think it's a little understated. You know, I, I like banana pudding, you know, I love the effect produced by alcohol. But it says the sensation or the state of excitement that comes from it is, is elusive. And for me, the quantities and equality is alcohol start moving around after a while. I couldn't get, I couldn't get it to do the same thing, you know, regularly. I didn't know how much it was going to take or when it was going to. But it says a sensation is so elusive that while I admit it's injurious,

I can't after a time differentiate the truth from the false.

And for me, that can mean sitting in my 6th treatment center thinking I'm fixing to get a handle on this deal. You know, because most of us getting here thinking if I had it like you got it, I would probably do your little 12 step thing. But I really still think that I can

tweak this deal a little bit. And for the young guys in the room, tweak means something different here. But if I can just adjust this thing just a little bit, I still think I can make it work. And it stands in a way of me making any kind of a surrender. But I love this line. It says to them they're alcoholic. Life seems the only normal one.

And you know, for a while I didn't really know what that means, but

there's a lot of things about my alcoholic life seeming the only normal one. But here's one that kind of tickles me a little bit. You want to hear something weird? Most people live their entire life without ever going to jail.

Can you believe that? I mean, if I walked up to my mother and said I got to go give a UA to my PO because I got a DUI, she would have no idea what I'm talking about. You know, for us, that's normal conversation. You know, I mean, my alcoholic life seems the only normal one. And, and part of the reason is I don't go from the way I was when I was 19 and it was working real good to the way I was when I showed up here in one step. It's a little ticks, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick

over a period of time. And my life degrades a little bit and a little bit and a little bit more, a little bit more. And I start to compromise my values. I start to do things that I didn't think I'd be doing. But you know, by the time we get to the end of it, today looks a whole lot like yesterday, and yesterday looks a lot like last week. And it just seems like I'm doing what I got to do to get by, right. But my alcoholic life definitely seems the only normal one.

Well, here's where it gets tricky.

The second FISC, when you get to page 23, it says these observations. What observations? These observations about the way I react physically to alcohol. It says these observations would be academic and pointless. I translate that to wouldn't mean squat. I don't always say squat, but

these observations about what happens to me when I take a drink wouldn't mean anything if I never took the first drink,

right? It says, thereby setting a terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than in his body. My physical allergy to booze is a big problem, but it's not my biggest problem. My biggest problem If if my biggest problem was what happens to me when I drink vodka, what would my answer be?

Don't drink vodka. All right, Nancy Reagan's little Just Say No program would have been awesome.

Anybody having luck with that?

You know

my problem is that you go back to that page again. XV I I I and down at the bottom it says I am restless, irritable and discontented.

Restless. I just get a little jumpy, you know, Just don't really even like my clothes touching me, you know, And I just feel like I'm, I'm just not quite right and irritable.

I don't have to go into a lot of depth on that. You know, when Katie says good morning and I'm like, oh, are you messing with me already today? You know, I mean, that's irritable and then discontented. I eventually just don't like the deal I'm getting. I start feeling like I'm getting gypped in this deal and I'm doing all the work and this guys making $2.00 an hour more than I do. And you know, and, and you know, I, the kids don't treat me right and they don't treat me right. And, and it's just after a period of time,

it says I'm restless, irritable and discontented unless I can again experience the sense of ease and comfort

which comes at once by taking a few drinks. Drinks I see others taken with impunity. You know what impunity means? It means they don't get punished for it when they take a couple of drinks, it doesn't cost them their car and their job and their house and the whole paycheck and their dignity and their self respect and all their friends. They just take a couple of drinks. And I get uncomfortable enough after a while that those couple of drinks, you know, it just produces that

feeling, you know, You know, that feeling. That, to me, is the sound of horrifying psychic pain

being relieved. You know just that because

my my main problem. The interesting thing about this, all this stuff happens to me stone cold sober, right?

My main problem wasn't that I couldn't stop drinking. My problem was I couldn't stop starting. Every time I would stop drinking, I would always start drinking again. My problems don't go away when I stop drinking.

And the weird thing about all this is every time I ever took the first drink, I was stone cold sober.

I can't blame the first drink on being drunk. I make the craziest decision in my life that the decision to try to take another run at this deal. I make that decision stone cold sober because I get that uncomfortable when I haven't had a drink in a little while. Now we're getting into real trouble. I love it. I've been stealing Clancys line for years about that spring. You know, it's like they installed a spring inside of me that just gets tightened down a little bit more, a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more.

I'm fixing a drink, you know, over a period of time. If you had 100,000 foot view of me, you'd be able to say within a couple of days of when he's going to twist off again. But it's that situation, you know, Now what we're talking about is the second part of alcoholism, the mental obsession, because it's those two things coupled together that make me alcoholic. If

back to those strawberries. Now you get me back from the hospital and everything's good, right? You know, And you think this guy's got a pretty good strawberry problem. Now, let's say you come by the house tomorrow morning to check on me, and I'm sitting there at the kitchen table and I got a big old mixing bowl full of strawberries and a fork. And I'm going, hey, what's up?

Would you still think my problem with strawberries? You know, you'd think this guy is out of his mind, right? I mean, he just was in the hospital last night. So the difference between an allergy to strawberries, I'm allergic to Poison Ivy, bad. The manifestation of that allergy is a rash that gets all over and itches like crazy. But I have never one time been out in the woods and looked over and gone,

oh, I think that's Poison Ivy,

you know, and off comes my shirt and just just roll around in it, you know, because I don't have a mental obsession with Poison Ivy, right? In fact, I'll try to stay away from it. But

on page 24 it says the fact is that most Alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice and drink. My so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. I'm unable at certain times to bring into my consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation. It doesn't matter whether it's my suffering and humiliation or my family's suffering and humiliation. I can't bring it to mind.

It says I'm without defense against the first drink. Now we're talking about a hopeless condition of mind and body. Somewhere along the line, I crossed an invisible line where I lost the power of choice and control when it comes to alcohol. I couldn't control how much I was going to drink when I was drinking it, and I couldn't choose whether or not I was going to drink or not. And, you know, when I talk about the loss of choice and control, I like to talk a little bit about the pawn shops because

I loved pawnshops.

I just, I just loved them, you know. And, and I think part of it is because it was such a pure equation, you know, I mean, you just walk in with the deer rifle and they give you the money and you walk out. You know, now you walk, you know, Now, I've never had a pawnbroker go, Charlie, what are you going to do with this money, you know, or a good God, man, weren't you just here this morning or, you know, something like you just walk in and you give them the stuff. Now the problem with this whole thing though is I didn't own a lot of stuff,

so

I would have to pawn things that didn't belong to me. And it creates hard feelings around your family. And I should I should tell you at this point that I was so poorly treated as a child. Then I finally ran away from home for good at the age of 27. I mean,

I'm serious. I mean, never went back. I mean, that was it. But you know, drunks, we make good plans, Alcoholics make some really awesome plans and our plans work right up till they don't work anymore. You know, and, and, and the plan with this was I could pawn the stuff and I had three months to get it out of the pawn shop. And I try to pull some kind of a scam that would get everything out of the pawn shop.

Well, one day I'd pulled an insurance scam and I had enough money to get everything out, and I just stopped in for a drink. I mean, we're just going to have a drink before we go make the rounds of getting everything. And I was a blackout drinker.

I was a regular blackout drinker several times a week blackout drinker. But this one was a five day blackout. I came out of a blackout 5 days later and I remember about 30 seconds of the five day period before that. And that's because the guy was with got cut and when we went to visit some people,

but the rest of the whole 5 days was gone. And I wake up and I'm on the edge of the bed at my mother's house, and I've got $8 in my pocket

and I've still got this gangster wad of pawn tickets, you know, And I haven't gotten a darn thing out of the pawn shop. And it's, you know, it's, you know, that morning where you're just going,

oh, no, Oh no, I am because I'd shot my wad on this, you know, pulling the one scam. And I got nothing now. And, and, and my dad was a good man and he worked hard for his stuff. Nobody was giving him his stuff. And I would have to go to my father

and say, Dad,

if we act now,

I can get you a pretty good deal on all your stuff, you know, but,

and you know, for the Al Anon's in the room, I have to say that like a joke because I'll cry up here like a little girl in a pink dress because believe me, we know that that ain't right, you know, but I, I had lost the power of choice and control. And the thing about it was we would get in the car with my dad and it wasn't, this was in Dallas. I live in Austin, TX now, but this was in Dallas. And it wasn't just going to the pawn shop. It's like we got to go over to Buckner Blvd. and get the shotgun and we got to go out on East Grand and get the, the metal detector. And then you,

your corn collections in Oak Cliff and then on Beltline is your sterling silver and the deer, you know, the deer rifle, the shotgun, the whole thing. And so it was all day in the car with me and my dad and all that shame you had those days.

And the thing about it is when we'd be driving around, I'd be going Dad, I swear to God, I will never do this again.

The thing I didn't know was that I didn't have the power to make good on that promise

when I was promising my dad that I wasn't going to do that again. I might as well approximate him.

I might as well have promised him that I was going to stand on the edge of this stage and flap my arms and fly around the room and come back and land behind this podium. Because I did not have the power to make good on that promise. When I was promising him I was going to do it again. I mean, I couldn't not do it again. And within within 2448 hours, I'd hit the back door of his house like a cat burglar. And it'd just be

that by the time I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, my father and I had made the rounds of the pawn shops three times. And that's just the times when I couldn't pull it together and get everything out. That's how slick I was. That's how cool I was when I got here, you know, was that I was a burden on my family and an embarrassment to him. And I could not do anything different. I didn't have the power to make good on that promise. And I couldn't manage the decision not to drink again. My life had become unmanageable, if at no other level. And the way I

step one more and more. We're going to talk about unmanageability a lot more in the later steps, but at least in step one can I admit that I can't manage the decision to not drink again. And it clearly I couldn't

go back to doctor's opinion. It says after they've get succumbed to the desire again, as so many do and the phenomenon of craving develops, I pass through the well known stages of Esprit emerging remorseful again with a firm resolution to never drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change,

there's very little hope of his recovery.

That's the terrible cycle we're talking about is that when I get that, when I get that fully developed in man, I'm going to drink until I've got to stop.

And then I'm going to stop until I have to drink. And it goes around and around and around like that. And it can go for a long time and it gets really ugly. You know, sometimes what looked really bad a couple of years ago can be real peachy, you know, after, you know, now. But it, it always gets worse. It never gets better. That's what we're talking about when we describe a hopeless condition of mind and body is that I've got a body that can't ever drink normally and I got a mind that's going to talk

drinking every time, every time, every time.

I've seen guys that have been in treatment half a dozen times. When you pound this into them, you see them have that step one experience. They usually roll forward in their chair and you can see them with that thing about this explains a lot of stuff I've never been able to explain before. Now I understand why when I would promise people that I wasn't going to do it anymore, that I would do it again. You know, it's a powerful experience, the step one experience, whether you call it qualifying, the new guy or what. I think it's an important piece of the work because,

you know, it says unless the psychic change takes place, there's very little hope of my recovery.

Some thoughts here towards the end. You know, in my mind, step one drives everything. I mean, my experience in step one drives my experience through all the rest of the work because it's like this. It just pushes me because if my step one experience is just kind of an academic decision of going, yeah, sure. I'm alcoholic. I'm I'm whatever, you know,

then when I get to Step 3, it's going to be an academic decision. When it comes time to do the inventory, you know, I'm not going to have my heart in it. And when it comes time for the amends and you tell me that I've got money in my pocket for the first time and now it belongs to somebody else,

I'm not going to be down with it. But when I but when I've had this step one experience, I mean it. At almost 25 years sober, my step one experience still drives my experience in all the other steps. Do I really believe that my meditation has something to do with whether I drink or not? Do I believe that whether I make all of my amends has anything to do with whether I stay sober or not?

So that's what I'm trying to do when I work with, you know, because when you think about Doctor Bob,

when Bill called on him, it says that Bob was painfully aware of being somehow abnormal, but he, the man, did not fully realize what it meant to be alcoholic.

There's a surrender that takes place when I realized that on my own power, I got no shot. I have absolutely no shot on my own power. And what happens is there's a willingness that's strapped to that surrender that will drive me through the rest of the work. But if I don't have that surrender, I'm not going to have the willingness to go through the rest. You know, the book says a psychic change. It was mentioned as a as our only solution.

It meant it talks about it in four different ways. It talks about a spiritual experience,

change of heart, a spiritual awakening. But I'm not going to be interested in in this experience if I still think my powers got a shot. But the moment that I become convinced that my power has absolutely no shot, then this other power starts to get really interesting.

Step 2 is not going to mean anything to me if I still think I got a deal, you know if if my power will still get the job done. Rock on if you still think your power. A is not for for people that can make up their mind to stop drinking and pull it off. A is for people that swear to God I'm never going to drink again.

And we drink again. And in that position, my only shot is this power because my power is woefully inadequate. That's what we're trying to do with this guy, snuff out that last liquor of hope that he can get the job done himself because that's when you know he's going to get interested in this program.

Says When this sort of thinking is fully established in a person with alcoholic tendencies is probably placed himself beyond human aid.

You know what? My drinking problem wasn't what brought me in there. The idea that I couldn't control alcohol wasn't what brought me in there. It's on page 152 in that jumping off place where it says he can't imagine life without alcohol. But then it goes further to say one day he'll be unable to imagine life with or without alcohol, alcohol. Then he'll know loneliness such as few men do. He'll wish for the end. He'll be at the jumping off place.

That's what drove me into Alcoholics Anonymous, was that no one that I can't keep drinking the way I've been drinking. But I can't imagine not drinking at all. Surely you're not talking about nothing. You know

it's a horrifying choice if you're in a spot I was in when I got here.

This leads us into Step 2 and the rest of the work.

Here's some bad news. Well, first of all, I like to say that this would be a really rotten program if we only had one step. You know, Can you imagine if we brought you in here and said, OK, here's the deal. You got a body that don't drink regular. You know, when you when you take a drink, it ain't regular. It's not like for most people that's really bad. But that ain't the worst part. You got to mind, that's going to get you drunk every time.

Really sorry,

try to have a nice day. Well, I mean,

but, but when I have that experience, it drives me into the rest of the work. And that's what we're going to be doing the rest of this weekend. That's why I get so excited about coming to a conference like this. But the thing I want, I always like to say is that studying all this stuff will not do the job.

Going to conferences, going to big book studies. I love it. But you know what happens? Sometimes I go to conferences because I need a little charge. I'm not doing that great. I'm not feeling that great. And I'll go to a conference and I'll get right up next to the solution. I'll get around people that have experienced the solution. I'll hear people talking about the solution. I can even take great comfort from knowing that the solution is there. But what happens is I go back home and I fall back into my life. I get back into my work, my kids, my relationship.

Stuff like that. And I don't quite do the work, you know, but I'm kind of meaning to, right? Studying all this stuff,

it just becomes so much self knowledge if I, if I don't take the action, it says on page 39, but the actual or potential alcoholic with hardly an exception will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self knowledge. This is a see if you think they think it's important. This is a point we wish to emphasize and re emphasize

to smash home upon our alcoholic readers. As it has been revealed to us out of bitter experience. Learning this stuff will not get the job done. This is a program of action. The Big Book is not the answer to my problems today. The Big Book is a description of some actions that I can take that will bring about the solution to my problem.