The chapter More about Alcoholism at a Big Book study in Winston-Salem, NC

This has become a really fun commitment for me. We came early tonight and we did a little sightseeing around Winston Salem. What a wonderful town you guys have. Well, I don't know where the heck we were, but we were driving by golf courses and incredible houses and just really a really a beautiful town

and I'm having a great time here. You're all very hospitable too.

We've been, we've been talking about some history, we've been talking about some background information where the book Alcoholics Anonymous comes from, why it was written. But mainly we've been, we've been focusing it, focusing in on, on step one. I'm hoping to to to move us through step one tonight and and get on to Step 2 next week.

But where we are, where we are tonight is up on the top of page 25.

I love the book Alcoholics Anonymous and I love it because it is. It has clear cut directions for for a recovery plan.

It explains alcoholism really, really well and it makes clear at least three times

anything that we really need to do. You know, they tell us, they tell us at least three times in this book how important it is. One of the things that one of the aspects of the alcoholic illness or addictive illness itself is an almost utter inability to to have an accurate self appraisal

to form as an accurate self appraisal. Like, OK, here's how much trouble I'm in. You know, that's usually not what happens. What we do is we minimize and we think, you know, we've we really we got this. OK. Yeah, I know that I've been in the hospital 12 times and I've wrecked 35 cars and I'm on my fifth family. But but, you know,

I got this, you know, I don't really need a lot of your help. I I can figure this out. Well, well, you can't figure it out. And you do need a lot of help. And the book explains 15 different ways, how much how much help you need and how, how much trouble you're really in.

Now it's become, it's become fashionable in, in a lot of groups around the country to not pay much attention to this. You know, that's the stuff the old low bottoms, you know, had to, had to deal with. That's the way the program was back when, you know, today we've got a fellowship sharing type of a type of a program. And, and you know, and that's OK, unless you're in real trouble with alcoholism,

let me tell you, alcoholism was the same in 1939 that it is now. And,

and spiritual recovery processes are the same now that they were in 1939. We don't need a new book. We don't need, you know, somebody to rewrite this thing. We, we really don't because this worked so well. You know, Alcoholics Anonymous itself, one of the smartest things they ever decided was to not mess with the 1st 164 pages in this book.

For this, for the 1st 164 pages to be changed, it would take 75% group approval,

you know, throughout the world or some crazy thing like that. And you'll never get 75% anybody showing up anywhere, you know. So it's a given that, that, that this is not, this is not going to be changed. Hopefully, you know, you never know with New York, but, but hopefully anyway, I'm going to start. It says there is a solution.

It's been talking about graphic detail. It's been talking about how alcoholism shows up, how it presents. Okay, it's been showing in graphic detail and it's going to continue to do that. But right here it talks about a solution. There is a solution.

Almost none of us like the self searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation. So the self searching that really is kind of Step 4,

the leveling of pride and confession of shortcomings really is step five, Step four and step five are required for recovery. OK, There are no musts in Alcoholics Anonymous, and to sit in a chair in a you don't have to do anything you don't want to do.

But if you want to recover, the 4th and the 5th step are required.

But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it. When therefore we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet.

When we see wholesale recovery, when we see multiple recoveries, when we see people who were just like us and we see them recover, we, it has to get our attention. That's what got Bills attention. When Ebby came over and did that 12 step call on him, Bill saw the lights were on in, in Ebby's eyes. He hadn't seen the lights on in Ebby's eyes ever. So something is going on. There's, there's, there's a big time shift in this individual.

And when we come into a a or we come into any of the 12 step fellowships, hopefully we see that in somebody.

We see, we see the recoveries and you know, it's, it's hard to say it doesn't work or I shouldn't bother with this when you see so many, so many recoveries.

We found much of heaven and we've been rocketing into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.

You want to you want to stall out a discussion meeting sometime when they ask for a topic,

put everyone in here. Please share about their experience with the 4th dimension and you'll you'll quickly see the meeting that the topic will change to fear or something else.

The reason for that because not everybody gets to the 4th dimension. Not everybody does this work. The great fact is just this and nothing less, that we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized

our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows, and towards God's universe. What does a spiritual awakening look like?

You know, let's jump to the end of the steps. A spiritual awakening is the solution or the answer or the treatment for alcoholism. What does it look like? How does it manifest? It manifests in your whole attitude toward life, toward your fellows, and towards God's universe changing you. It's a shift in perception. It's a deep, deep shift in perception. You no longer see out of the same pair of glasses.

And and that's what is that's part of what a spiritual awakening is. It happens to to many of us in many different ways, but the things that are common to spiritual awakenings are those. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives

in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.

This 12 step program is about accessing the direct power of God.

That's what this 12 step program is about. This is not a self help program. When you go into when you go into a bookstore and you see that you see the book Alcoholics Anonymous in this in the self help section, they got it in the wrong section because this is not self help. This this is this is God help. This is accessing the

direct power of God because that's what these early members recognize and called the that extra power that they got from doing this work was added to them so they could recover, so they could remain abstinent,

so they could their problems would become solved. They'd be able to go back to work. You know, they grew healthy. There's there's a million promises in this book. It if you wanna do an exercise sometime, go through this book and highlight every single statement of hope or every single promise. You'll find somewhere between 150 and 250 promises in this book, and they always materialize if we work for them

now. The biggest promise I see

is that we, if we do this work, what we do is we move enough of our self will and our self centeredness aside that God's power can come into our lives and, and heal us.

You know, the healing power comes from God. Think about this. A physician doesn't really heal. What efficient what a physician does is, is creates a an environment where healing can take place. They, they'll set a bone or they'll, they'll,

they'll create an antiseptic type of environment and then they got to stand back and they have to allow healing to happen. You know, that's kind of what we're looking at in Alcoholics Anonymous. We have to create the spiritual environment

for God to be able to do God's job. And that's what the steps and that's what the meetings and that's what the service ethic and all that is about creating that that spiritual environment where the power of God can come in. Now, I don't know about anybody else, but I, I was real doubtful that there was an

interventionary deity out there that was going to be helping me. I had gone through more problems and, and I had shot myself in the foot more times and I had looked stupid more times than you can imagine with my drinking. And I thought, if there is a God up there who's pulling strings, he's like a cosmic Alan Funt, you know what I mean? Because what he's doing is he's going, hey, let's watch Chris crash into the wall outside the, the, the police station on Quaaludes and

for directions, you know, Saint Peter, won't that be a riot? You know, I mean, I mean, you know, because if there is a God, you know, he was really not helping me. But the fact of the matter is, is I see things in a, in a much clearer, a much clearer way now. I wasn't helping. You know, God in his

infinite love has given us free will and we and we have an inalienable right to screw our lives up if we so choose. We do, you know, So what we need to do is, you know, sometimes we need to turn ourselves will in at the door and and become willing to to follow spiritual principles. And when we do that, you know, we we really can recover. And that's what these early a as discovered.

If you are a seriously alcoholic, as we were, we believe there is no middle of the road solution.

We're in a position where life was becoming impossible and if we had passed it to the region from which there is no return through human aid, we have a two alternatives. One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could. The other was to accept spiritual help.

OK, door number

A, try to blot out with the consciousness of your intolerable situation while you go all the way down the scale to an alcoholic death. Door number B, except spiritual health.

Let's talk a little bit about that intolerable situation. You know

what? What does that look like? Because this is not an easy decision to make. Not for Alcoholics. Spiritual help. Oh my God,

you know, is there a door number C? You know,

can I go to a therapy

screen? Therapy, you know, so there's got to be something.

No, there's not. There's, there's dying alcoholic death,

except spiritual help. When you get that clear on what your on your problem, there's a lot less resistance moving through the rest of this work. What kills Alcoholics is the resistance to this work. I do a lot of I do a lot of stuff online and I'm part of a lot of addiction groups on LinkedIn and stuff.

And this one guy, this one guy was was pretty much slamming a, A and 12 step fellowships the other day and he was citing statistics. And this is this, this, this is the statistic that he cited. He goes, he goes people that go into AA

as a whole, the recoveries are in the single digits. Somewhere around 6% of the people who are exposed to AA get sober and stay sober permanent. And he goes, that's about the same amount of people who, if you gave them a placebo,

would stay sober for the rest of their life. And that was a statement this guy made. Now he's got a lot of money to make, you know, off of Alcoholics out there doing clinical and psychiatric and all that type of stuff. OK, So it's not in his best interest for people to run off the AA and actually gets get sober and recover.

But if you're looking at people who walk through that door, he's probably right. Probably somewhere around 6% of the people will will end up plugging in enough that they'll be able to stay sober for good and for all. But the fact of the matter is, is somebody who walks through the door and sits in some meetings, that's not the recovery process.

The recovery process is outlined in this book, The recovery. The recovery process is not attending a bunch of meanings.

That's what those statistics are based on. Because they stand outside the door with a clipboard and they ask you, you know, how long you've been sober, blah, blah, blah. And they do their, they do their, their thing. And they think they're, they're assessing the success of Alcoholics Anonymous that way. And all they're doing is they're, they're, you know, they're questioning

meeting attenders. And you know as well as I do that a lot of people blow through here. See, see this whole thing as an overreaction to a problem that they've really got under control,

you know, or else they get it. They have an issue with it. You know, everybody in there just complaints, you know, I can't, you know, or they come in and they just don't understand why it would help them. There's a lot of people that blow through here.

Rarely have we seen a person fail who thoroughly follows the recovery process.

That is still true. Every once in a while, someone, someone shows the the absence of, of intelligence enough to ask me to sponsor them. OK. And, and you know, what that means is you're coming over to my house and you're going through the stats. You know, well, should I call you every night? No. No. You know, do I have to go to 90 and 90? No. What you have to do is you have to come over my house and you have to go through the steps

and the people that make it, the people that make it, every single one of them who got through step nine that I've ever worked with is still in Alcoholics Anonymous or, or another 12 step fellowship and they're working with other people. They're still sober and their lives are in

incredibly, you know, over the top their, their quality of life is over the top. Every single one. Now I've seen a million people come in and hang out in the meetings, you know, and share.

Okay, so here's what happened to me today.

Thank you for letting me share.

No.

OK,

go over to picks 28 The distinguished American psychologist William James, in his book Varieties of Religious Experience, indicates a multitude of ways in which men have discovered God. We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by faith, by which faith can be acquired. If what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color, are the children of a living Creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms

as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try.

That really is an important statement.

I know many, many people in Alcoholics Anonymous who are religious as well as Alcoholics Anonymous members and they do great.

And then I know a lot of people who are non religious. However, they're very, very spiritual. They're about the business of helping God's world out. You know, they're really out there on the firing lines and they're, they do great. You know, these are just people who have learned the spiritual principles. That's what will bring about

recovery, you know, and recovery is really saving one's ass, not necessarily saving one's soul. There's two, there's two different things to look at there. If if you are someone of religion, however, I highly recommend getting your ass sick. You know what I'm saying?

That's that's kind of important. Then over on page 29, it says further on clear cut directions are given showing how we have recovered with an Ed. These are followed by 42 personal experiences. So the book is going to lay out how these early members recovered. And the great thing about this is, and, you know, it took me a long time to really get into this stuff because when I first was exposed to it, like a lot of people, I saw it as a 1930

book written by some stockbroker loser. And, you know, it wasn't well written, you know, And, you know, they're trying to fool you about this God thing. And, you know, they're asking you to do all this crazy stuff and none of it, none of it really flows very well. And yeah, you know, I like the step book and I like to go to meetings, you know, and, and that really was my my approach. Well, after suffering

in Alcoholics Anonymous for many, many months, I was exposed to this recovery process and it and it saved my life.

The difference between sobriety and recovery is like the difference between night and day. It's like the difference between black and white. It's the difference between life and death for many of us.

Sobriety, although it's it's a really good idea

if it's not followed up by a recovery program. If you really suffer from addictive illness, you're not going to be able to escape that addictive illness. This recovery process makes you comfortable moving through your life without

help from sedatives or or or alcohol or whatever. It happens to be your drug of choice.

I think we're special. I think, you know, I've done a lot of studies on on ancient

religions and spiritual traditions. And there's a mystical tradition in the three in, in the three monotheistic religions, that's Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

There are people that they call Mystics. And these Mystics are people who go very, very deep into the tradition. They're people like Thomas Merton and you know that there's, there's a whole bunch of them. And what they'll do is they'll go on silent retreats for months and months and months. I mean, they go deep into this stuff. They pray and they, you know, and they do these devotions and you know, it is

insane how much intensity they put into this because they want to seek

a direct connection with God and they're giving it everything they have. Those are the Mystics. They want more out of a spiritual experience than than than a normal person who's just, you know, going to church on Sunday.

Think we are Mystics. I think the people that go after the booze and the drugs, we're Mystics. We are seeking a connection with God. When we do that, we are not comfortable

unless we are using. We, we, we constantly think about, you know, if I only had a little bit of this or if I only had a little bit of that, that would bring me to a place where I feel one, you know, and I truly think that Alcoholics and addicts are, are misplaced Mystics. What we need to do is we need to channel that intensity going after those substances in the alcohol. We need to channel that

into going after a direct connection with God because that is what is going to finally make us feel OK.

We've been looking to feel OK for a long time

and and the final the final destination is recovery and a connection with God. As you understand God, you know AA is very, very specific about that. They are not about to start telling you how you need to worship how you you know, you know what what attributes your God has to have. You know where where you have to to,

you know what, what religions you should be in.

The 12 step programs are not about that. They're not about telling you what kind of a God you need to have. They're about telling you if you don't get a relationship with God, you're going to die. That's what they tell you. I'm going to jump over to more about alcoholism. Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real Alcoholics. No person likes to think he's bodily and mentally different from his fellows.

Therefore, it's not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people.

The idea that somehow, someday Chris will control and enjoy his drinking is his great obsession. You know the persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursuit into the gates of insanity or death.

That is our obsession. Why in the world would you pick up booze after going to AA meetings for two or four years or whatever? Why would you relapse? Why, you know, why would you do that? The great obsession is, is that, you know, this time, this time it's going to work for me. You know, this time it'll be OK. If we even think about it at all, You know, we're thinking that we're going to be able to figure out how to control this.

And it's because sobriety is untenable

to us. You know, we're not happy unless we have a spiritual conversion experience. We're not going to be happy in our own skin just being sober. It's just not going to be good enough for us.

We learned we had to fully concede to our enormous selves that we were Alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. So the steps are up on the wall. You know how you how you have the long form and the short form of the traditions? Well, the short form of the steps is up on the wall.

To figure out what they really mean, you got to go into the book. So admitting you're an alcoholic, that's not really step one. Step one is fully conceding to your innermost self that you're an alcoholic. And they've explained and are and are explaining what an alcoholic is

the delusion that we were like other people or presently maybe has to be smashed. We are alcohol. We are we Alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. We know that no real alcohol like ever recovers control. All of us felt at times we were regaining control. But such animals, usually brief for an

Evelyn, inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. Anybody ever felt pitiful and incomprehensible demorally? You ever come to like, you know, like like Monday morning with the DUI summons in your back pocket or something? Or you, you know,

you're out in the doghouse or, or I mean, I used to do, I used to do the craziest things. You know, I, I was constantly pitifully and incomprehensibly demoralized. I was, I was an electrician during the 80s. I don't know how that happened. One day I woke up, you know, and I was, I was an electrician and it was a really, really bad trade to be in, you know, when you shook every, every every morning

because I was constantly blowing things up and, and I was constantly sick.

Now this, this, this once, this once I was working with this guy who really thought I was laying, you know, he was in the truck. We were, you know, we were buddies and the the boss would send us out together and we go wire something. You know, I was always, you know, electrocuting them by mistake or something. So he was, he was not real happy with me. And

and this one time, you know how you're, you're really thirsty in the morning if you've drank it like a quart of whiskey and you have to rehydrate. OK, well, I bought, I bought a half a gallon of grape drink this morning and that this, this one morning and I drank it down. And then I went to work and, you know, we're, we're on the side of this house. I'm, you know, we're putting a new service on. So that's the electrical meter and the panel. And I'm messing around in the truck and all of a sudden my stomach starts going

like this and I go,

oh, I've got 6.4 seconds to get somewhere because I am gonna, I'm gonna lose this, this lunch now. I didn't want him to see me vomiting because it would have made me look small. So,

So what I did was I, you know, you know, I tore around the back of this house that we were working on and I just get around the back of the house and I, I mean, it was like, it was like, it was like opening up a fire hydrant. I, I, I stuccoed the back of this house

with purple vomit. I mean, just stucco this house and I thought I was alone, you know, but what had happened was I I looked over and not not 15 feet away is a back deck on the years the adjoining property with a family sitting there having nice day

like a mother and father and three kids sitting here having ice tea. And everyone of them had the same look on their face. It was like, you know, mommy, mommy, the purple puke monster from hell, mommy,

ohh, God, you know, I, you know, I was for I was forever blowing things up and wiring things wrong and

you know, my, in my boss, my boss was, I mean, this would go on and on and on. And then, you know, I'd even this one time I even called up in a drunken blackout and threatened my boss's life. I was gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill you. And, and didn't remember it because it was in a blackout and went into work the next day. You know, I mean, talk about like pitiful,

incomprehensible demoralization. And then there were times when I just couldn't go to work and I had to just call my boss up and say I'm shattered, I'm shattered. I, you know, I'm, I'm losing my mind. You know, I, I can't, I can't come in. And, you know, being this way, being, you know, deteriorating like this,

then I would, I would start to get really violent. And

the last drunk I was on, I ended up threatening my family with a handgun the last time I checked. Now, when you come out of something like that and you realize what you've done, you know, that's pitiful

and incomprehensible demoralization. I have never met an alcoholic who's evil. I haven't. I've met people that are evil in AA. I mean, they'll slide their butts in here, you know, for one reason or another, to, to, to, you know, to prey on the, on the, on the weak and helpless, you know, be predators. I've met evil in these rooms, but I've never met an alcoholic who is evil. We're not evil people. You know, we do bad things. We're not really bad people. We suffer incredibly from the bad things that we do

because we have a conscience, you know, and, and, and we get to a point where we suffer. Mother Teresa was asked one time, what's the saddest thing you ever seen? And remember, she's, she's feeding the starving children in Bangladesh and stuff. She goes, the saddest thing I've ever seen is the loneliness of an alcohol.

I mean, think about that.

We are convinced to a man that Alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period of time, we get worse, never better. If somebody comes up to you and you know, in in an AA meeting, if you're new and they shake your hand, they say keep coming. It gets better.

Understand they're lying to you, OK? It doesn't get better out. Your alcoholism is always going to get worse, but you can put it in remission Now. Here's what I mean by that. The liver and the pancreas of an alcoholic metabolize alcohol differently than Aunt Fanny and Uncle Fudd.

OK, They can have two or three glasses of wine and they don't get the craving. They don't go into the city to get cocaine, you know what I mean? They're they're fine with like a couple of glasses of wine

now,

Now what? You know what, what happens,

you know, what happens with us is we, you know, it's a completely different experience. We get the phenomenon of Craven and we're, we're off to the races and we have very little control over that. Now the liver and the pancreas are really the, are really the cause of that. What happens is it breaks down alcohol differently and and it throws this stuff back into the bloodstream. That creates an actual craving,

a physiological craving.

And the more alcohol you have, the more the craving. And this is never going to get better. So if I, I knew a guy, he was doing a lot of talks all over the country and man, this guy was on the money. I love even to this day, I love listening to him, but he was he, he got to the point where he was 20 years sober

and he read some, read some statistics that every seven years or so, or every 14 years, every single cell in your body regenerates. So you're an entirely new person every 14 years because every cell dies off and every cell is reborn. So he came to the conclusion that he can't possibly be alcoholic anymore because he's completely a completely different person. Every cell in his body is different. And he went off and he tried some controlled drinking, which he's not come back from yet.

You know,

if you cross the line to the point where you experience the phenomenon of craving with alcohol, you've crossed the line. You can never drink alcohol safely again ever. 50 years from now. You can't drink alcohol again safely. You need to stay abstinent and understand the problem is staying absent. You can't do it, is what this book is saying.

If he could do it, you know, they'd hand out a pamphlet at every detox saying don't drink and you'd be fine. But you know, that's not what happens with us. We we we figure out every kind of way we possibly can to figure out how to start drinking again.

Despite all we can say, many who are real Alcoholics are not going to believe that they are in this class. By every form of self deception and experimentation, they will try to prove themselves exceptions to the rule, therefore non alcoholic. If anyone who's showing inability to control his drinking can do the right about face and drink like a gentleman, our hats are off to him. Heaven knows we have tried hard enough and long enough to drink like other people.

So I'll tell you what, you know this guy, I'm going to go over a couple of tests here. This book actually has tests for whether or not you have the allergy of the body and whether or not you have the obsession of the mind. So if you're unclear on step one, this book is going to have some directions for you. Not the type of directions that you're going to hear shared, you know, in in the next discussion meeting most likely, but it's got some directions in here because it's important to be able to get to

truth in step one.

We do not like to pronounce any individual as alcoholic, but you can quickly diagnose yourself. Step over to the nearest bar room and try some controlled drinking. Try to drink and stop abruptly. Try it more than once. It will not take long for you to decide if you were honest with yourself about it. It may be worth a bad case of the jitters if you get full knowledge of your condition. Now understand, I am not telling anybody in here to go over to the bar and try some controlled drinking.

It's in this book and it's in the book because they believe that without an accurate understanding of step one, there's going to be little motivation for you to go through the rest of the recovery process. Only if you know you are painted into a corner

will you move forward with this stuff. Marty Mann was, was the first woman to stay sober in A and she started the National Council on Alcoholism and got very, very involved with, with drug, with alcohol and drug policy and stuff. She did it an enormous amount of good for us and, and her her good works are still carrying on today. But one of the things was the Marty Mann test. And the Marty Mann test was this.

Take 2 ounces of alcohol,

OK, every single day for six months. Now that would be, that would be like a Tumblr. Two tumblers, a bourbon or two tumblers of whiskey or or two 2 beers or two big glasses of wine every single day for six months. You know exactly 2. You can't save them up,

you know,

and just two now what will happen is if you're alcoholic, 9 times out of 10, what will happen is you'll, you'll think to yourself, this is kind of a stupid test. You know, I made it 2 days already. You know, what's with the six months? You know, I've proved I'm not an alcoholic,

so I think I'll celebrate that, you know, And I mean, you know, all of a sudden you'll be, you'll be drinking like a fish and you'll, you'll outsmart the test. So if there's any reason why you don't, you don't you, you don't do it exactly the way it's explained. You know, you've blown the test

and you're probably alcoholic now. Now, rarely will I will I use this on somebody only if someone is so clueless about their own drinking a lot. A lot of times somebody will be somebody will be shot to me because, you know, they had a DUI or their parents caught them token a joint or something, you know, and they'll end up and you know, we, we just don't know if if they're an alcoholic or they have their powerless over drugs at that point in time.

And you know, sometimes I'll point him to this, but rarely, most of the time you can find from digging into someones experience, you can come up with example after example after example of the decisions they made.

They didn't follow through with where it concerns alcohol. All right, how many times did you did you stop off from work? You're just going to have two with the boys. You know, you need to be home for dinner with the wife. You stop and you're going to have two for the boy. And and you close the place down and you wake up and we Hawking with one shoe. All right.

And you think, oh, I just kind of changed my mind and I decided to blow my whole paycheck, close the bar down, wake up and weehawker with one show. No, no, you, you weren't even there for that decision. What happened was you started drinking and you lost all control. You didn't have any control.

You know, we hawk in here. You came and, and you, you know, you know, you were being driven by that, that, that, that physiological craving for more alcohol.

Now they talk about a man of 30. This is the example they use for people who think that because they've been sober 20 years, they can start drinking again. It's a great example of why you can't do that. I I explained the reason you're liver and your pancreas are never going to heal to the point where

you will not experience that physical craving. And there's been no drugs that I'm aware of that will stop that craving either.

Over on page 34, as we look back, we feel we had gone on drinking many years beyond the point where we can quit on our own willpower.

If anyone questions whether he has entered this dangerous area, this is the test for the obsession of the mind. If you think you can keep you sober and you don't really need this, yeah, you don't need this. 12 steps. I don't need to sponsor telling me what to do. You know, I'm not going to make coffee for anybody. I don't drink coffee,

you know, if you have, if you have that type of belligerent attitude and you think you got this, I got this. I read the pamphlets, OK, I got this, you know, is AA for you. I got it. You know, here's the test. Let him try leaving liquor alone for one year.

I just stopped drinking. Don't go to meetings, don't call your sponsor, don't read, you know alcoholism books. Just quit drinking. OK? If you got a drinking problem, stop drinking. Problem over okay, stop drinking now. Very few Alcoholics are going to make it a year because what will happen again?

You'll say to yourself, man, you know a year I've already made it a week and 1/2

that that proves what's the what's the additional 11 1/2 months gonna prove I got this. I'm on, you know going to the bar. That's what will happen if your alcoholic, you'll, you'll mystery

change your mind and your ego will want to take ownership of that. Like you really had any say at all being powerless. So that's the test. That's the test on whether you have the obsession in the mind. Now. Now there's many people here tonight who, who, who, if they thought about having 2 beers every single day for six months, no more, no less. You can't save them up. That would horrify them because I never wanted 2 beers.

You want a beer?

Not if all you have is 2 beers. I don't. Are you crazy? So if you got two cases, you know, we can talk

now, you know,

So these are the tests. These are the tests to see if we're an alcoholic. If we can't use

our own experience, 99 out of 100 of us can use our own experience.

You know, how many, how many times did I say I was not going to drink anymore? I'm never going to drink again, ever. I mean it, you know, and I, you know, and, and I will, I will, you know, I will celebrate that decision to not drink with a bottle of whiskey. You know,

if he's a real alcoholic and very far advanced, there's scant chance of success. 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 of time, you may yet be a potential alcoholic.

Now here's where here's where it starts to talk about, you know what we need to we need to start looking at it says for those who are unable to drink moderately, the question is how to stop altogether.

We're assuming, of course, the reader desires to stop. Whether such a person can quit upon a non spiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. All right, this is one of the most important sentences in this book. Whether such a person can quit,

you know, any type of addiction, any type of obsessive compulsive disorder, you can you can plug into this if you're a drug addict, if you're an alcoholic, if you have a process addiction like gambling or sex or food, OK, you can plug this in here. It says whether such a person can quit upon a non spiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not.

We're on page 35. What sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic who repeats time after time the desperate experiment

of the first drink Friends who have reasons with him after a spree have brought him to the point of divorce or bankruptcy are mystified when he walks directly into his saloon. Why? Why does he What is he thinking? Then they give the example of Jim. Jim is a a really, really great example. Down at the bottom. He's agreed. He's met up with the boys, you know, and he and he sees them as like an overreaction to a problem that he really has some control over. OK, he agreed. He was a real

and in a serious condition. He knew he faced another trip to the asylum. He kept on. Moreover, he would lose his family for with which he had a deep affection. Yet he got drunk again. We asked him to tell tell us exactly how it happened. And it goes down here. Now, when they use the squiggly font in this book, I have to assume

that they really want us to pay attention to it. It's this is him explaining

taking that first drink because that's the insanity. We are insane to take that that first string. So here's how here's what he says. Suddenly the thought crossed my mind that if I were to put an ounce of whiskey in my milk, it couldn't hurt me on a full stomach.

He'd been to the asylum, OK? He was going to lose his family. He was going to lose his job, his home, everything. He had every reason in the world not to drink. He knew what the consequences were going to be. But suddenly the thought crossed his mind that he could put some whiskey and some milk.

OK,

I ordered a whiskey and poured it into the milk. I vaguely sensed I was not being too smart, but felt reassured as I was taking the whiskey on a full stomach. Now here's here's the thing. Here's the thing. This is a beautiful snapshot of powerlessness all right? If suddenly hits you,