Pollock Pines, CA

I'm Mike Mckissick. I'm an alcoholic. Chapter 8. We're going to do the unread chapters today.

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Two wives, Two wives. Go to the footnote at the bottom page just because it helps clarify these chapters. Written 1939 when there were few women in a A. This chapter assumed that the alcoholic in the home is likely to be the husband,

but many of the suggestions given here may be adapted to help the person who lives with a woman alcoholic, whether she's still drinking or is in recovery. In a further sources of help is known on page 121, which is the reference to the fact that Aladdin was informed 13 years after the publication of the Big Book and an Al Anon sort of stepped in where where the original A A was a family affair

in those first years.

That Alamant came along then and sort of substituted for the work with family and with the wife. So we don't do as much anymore as we used to do, but it's all still got good information in here on how to deal with it. So with few exceptions, Page 104, with few exceptions are booked as far as spoken of men, but what we have said applies quite as much to women.

Our activities in behalf of women who drink are on the increase.

There is every evidence that women regain their health as readily as men if they try our suggestions. But for every man who drinks, others are involved. The wife who trembles in fear of the next debauch, the mother and father who see their son wasting away. Among us are wives, relatives and friends whose problem has been solved, as well as some who have not yet found a happy solution.

We want the wives of Alcoholics Anonymous to address the wives of men who drink too much. What they say will apply to nearly everyone bound by ties of blood or affection to an alcoholic.

As wives of Alcoholics Anonymous, we would like to you to feel that we understand as perhaps few can.

We want to analyze mistakes we have made. We want to leave you with a feeling that no such situation is too difficult and no unhappiness too great to be overcome.

We have traveled a rocky road. There's no mistake about that. We have long. We have had long rendezvous with her. Pride, frustration, self pity, misunderstanding and fear. These are not pleasant companions.

We have been driven to model and sympathy to bitter resentment. Some of us veered from extreme to extreme, ever hoping that one day our loved ones would be themselves once more.

Our loyalty and desire that our husbands hold up their heads and be like other men have begotten all sorts of predicaments. We have been unselfish and self sacrificing. We have told innumerable eyes to protect our pride in our husband's reputations. We have prayed, we have begged. We have been patient. We have struck out viciously. We have run away. We've been hysterical. We've been terrorist stricken. We have sought sympathy. We have had retaliatory love affairs with other men.

Our homes have been battlegrounds. Many an evening in the morning we have kissed and made-up our friends have counseled, chuckling, chucking them in. And we have done so with finality. Only do only, only only to be back in a little while, hoping, always hoping. Our men have sworn great solemn oaths that they were through drinking forever. We have believed them when no one else could or would. Then in days, weeks, months end a fresh off the birth.

The thing here for an alcoholic and reading to the wives is to try to understand. You know, I'm so selfish and self-centered.

You know, one of my great delusions, you know, lying to myself and believing it is I never heard anybody but myself.

And when you read this chapter for me, it's like, wow, you know, I put my wife and my mother and my family through this

because at the time that I was drinking music and I'm not, you know, I'm not looking at all the hysteria that's going around. And, you know, I came from an alcoholic family. So I live this

and I still my mind cooks that off.

No, I have no comprehension that all of this is taking place around me.

So we sell them. We seldom have friends in our home,

never knowing how or when the men of the house would appear.

We could make few social engagements. We came to live almost alone. When we were invited out, our husbands sneaked so many drinks that they spoiled the occasion.

If on the other hand, they took nothing, their self pity made them kill joy.

There was never financial security position. Positions were always in jeopardy or gone and armored car could not have brought the pay envelopes home to checking account melted like snow in June. Sometimes there were other women. How heartbreaking was this discovery? How cruel to be told they understood our men and we did not.

The bill collectors, the sheriff's, the angry taxi drivers, the policemen, the bums, the pals and even the ladies they sometimes brought home. Our husbands thought they were so. It thought we were so inhospitable. Joel Killer, Joy killer, nag. What blanket? That's what they said. Next day they would be themselves again and we would forgive and try to forget. We have tried to hold the love of our children for their father.

We've told small thoughts that Father was sick, which was much nearer the truth than we realized.

They struck the children, kicked out the door panels, smashed treasured crockery, and ripped the keys out of the piano. In the midst of such pandemonium, they may have rushed or rushed out, threatening to live with the other woman forever. In desperation, we have even got tied ourselves, the drunk, to end all drunks. The unexpected result was that our husband seemed to like it.

Perhaps at this point we got a divorce and took the children home to father and mother.

Then we were severely criticized by her husband's parents for desertion.

Usually we did not leave. We stayed on and on. We finally sought employment ourselves. As destitution faced this in our family, we begin to ask medical advice as the sprees got closer together. The alarming physical and mental symptoms, the deepening pall of remorse, depression and inferiority that settled down on our loved one.

These things terrified and distracted us as animals on a treadmill. We are patiently and wearily climbed back in exhaustion after each futile effort to reach solid ground. Most of us have entered the final stage with its commitment to health, resort sanitariums, hospitals and jails.

Sometimes they were screaming delirium and insanity. Death was often near.

Under these conditions, we naturally made mistakes. Some of them rose out of ignorance of alcoholism. Sometimes we sense dimly that we were dealing with sick men. After we finally understood the nature of the alcoholic illness, we might have behaved. Had we understood that nature of the alcoholic illness, we might have behaved differently. How could men who love their wives and children be so unthinking, so callous, so cruel?

There could be no love in such persons, we thought,

and just as we were being convinced of their heartlessness, they would surprise us with fresh resolves and new attention.

For a while they would be their old sweet selves, only to dash the new structure of affection to pieces once more. Ask why they convinced the drink. Again they would replies with some silly excuse or none. It was so baffling, so heartbreaking. Could we have been so mistaken in the men we married when drinking? They were strangers. Sometimes they were so inaccessible that it seemed as though a Great Wall had been built around them.

And even if they had not love for I'm sorry. And even if they did not love their families,

how could they be so blind about themselves? What had become of their judgment, their common sense, their willpower? Why could they not see the drunk the drink meant ruined to them? Why was it when these dangers were pointed out, they agreed and then got drunk again immediately?

These are some of the questions which race through the mind of every woman who has an alcoholic husband. We hope this book has answered some of them. Perhaps your husband has been living in that strange world of alcoholism where everything is distorted and exaggerated. Doctors opinion. I cannot tell the truth from the fall. I don't know what's real and I don't know what's not.

My life seems normal, is what Doctor Sophos told me.

You can see that he really does love you with his better self. Of course, there is such a thing as incompatibility, but in nearly every instance the alcoholic only seems to be unloving and inconsiderate. It is usually because he is warped and sickened, but he says and does these appalling things.

Today, most of our men are better husbands and fathers than ever before.

Try not to condemn your alcoholic husband, no matter what he says or does. He's just under the very sick, unreasonable person.

Treat him when you can, as though we had pneumonia. When he angers you, remember that he is very ill.

There is an important exception to the foregoing. We realize some men are thoroughly bad intentioned, that no amount of patience will make any difference.

An alcoholic of this temperament may be quick to use this chapter as a club over your head. Don't let him get away with it. God, are we the best manipulator?

Show me something in the book up piece that I can pick up. I'll pick it. I tell a story about when I quit for the first time in 85 and I stopped for a year. You know, read the book from page 80. Page 34 said if you can say no, you're not great for a year, then you're probably not going to my wife. I said, hey, says in their book,

if I can do this, then you can't call me an alcoholic ever again, right? Right. Let's cut a deal.

There was a there was a swell deal at the time.

You know, when I got back to be 16 more years to get back to the book.

So there's an important there is an important exception. Don't let him get away with it. If you're positive he is one of this type, you may feel you had better leave. It is right to let him ruin your Is it right to let him ruin your life and the lives of your children? Especially when he has before him a way to stop his drinking and abuse if he really wants to pay the price. I I carry that resentment for my mother for a long time

and you know, still sticks my car. My mother was a martyr

and my father was a raging alcoholic, unlike Don's story, which he's pulled a little bit of today. You know, his mother was also an alcoholic. But my mother wasn't she? But she was. She was not going to leave and she would not leave. And there was no way that you could get her to leave. And I carried that resentment around forever. Why am I being put through this? Just because you want to stay with a school,

you know? And I'll never be like that fool.

You know the problem with which you struggled usually falls within one or four categories.

One, your husband may be only a heavy drinker. His drinking may be constant, or it may be heavy only on certain occasions. Perhaps he spends too much money for liquor. It may be slowing him up mentally and physically, but he does not see it. Sometimes he is. Sometimes he's a source of embarrassment to you and his friends. He is positive he can handle his liquor. It does him no harm that drinking is a necessity of his necessary in his business.

He would probably be insulted if he were called an alcoholic. This world is full of people like him, some who moderate or stop altogether, and some who won't. Of those who keep on a good number. We've come true, our colleagues in a while

at the time, Phil's trying to find a way for, for the spouse of an alcoholic to identify where that, where they are in that dilemma, you know, to try to find that company because there's once again, there's no Al Anon, there's no a a other than the a that just started and they're all together now talking about it. So do we want to pay some attention to it? But I got to find some identification. It's the same process of identification

that one alcoholic to another alcoholic goes through. I need to understand what the problem is.

So 2 is your husband is slow. He's showing lack of control where he's unable to stay on the water wagon even when he wants to. He often gets entirely out of hand when drinking. He admits this is true, but it's positive that he will do better. He's begun to try, with or without your cooperation, very various means of moderating or staying dry. Maybe he's beginning to lose his friends. His business may suffer some more. He is worried at times and is becoming aware that he cannot drink like other people.

He sometimes drinks in the morning and through the day also to hold his nervousness in check.

His remorseful after serious drinking bounce and tells you he wants to stop. But when he gets over the spree he begins to think once he begins to think once more how he can drink moderately next time. We think this person is in danger.

These are the earmarks of a real alcohol. Perhaps he can still tend to business fairly well. He has by no means ruined everything. As we say among ourselves, he wants to want to stop.

Three. This husband has gone much further than husband #2

the once like #2

he has become worse. His friends have slipped away, his home is a near wreck and he cannot hold a position. Maybe the doctor has been called in on the worry round of sanitariums and hospitals has begun. He admits he cannot drink like other people, does not see why he clings to the motion that he will yet find a way to do so. He may have come to the point where he desperately wants to stop but cannot. His case presents additional questions which he should try to answer for you. You can be quite hopeful of a situation like this,

for then, if you have a husband of whom you completely despair, he's been placed in one institution after another. He is violent or appears definitely insane when drunk. Sometimes he drinks on the way home from the hospital. Perhaps he has had delirium trimming. Doctors may shake their heads and advise you to have him committed. Maybe you've already been obliged to put him away.

This picture may not be as dark as it looks. Many of our husbands were just as far gone, yet they got well.

Let's go back to husband #1 oddly enough, he is often difficult to deal with. He enjoys drinking. It stirs his imagination. His friends feel closer after a hype over a highball. Perhaps you enjoy drinking with him yourself when he doesn't go too far.

You may have passed happy evenings together chatting and drinking before you're fine. Perhaps you both like parties which would be dull without liquor. We have enjoyed such evenings ourselves, and we had a good time. We know all about liquor as a social lubricant. Some, but not all of us think it think it has its advantages when reasonably used.

The first principle of success is that you should never be angry. Even though your husband becomes unbearable and you have to leave him temporarily,

you should. If you can go without a rancor. Patience and good temper are most necessary.

Our next thought is that you should never tell him what he must do about his drinking. If he gets the idea that you are a nag or a killjoy, your chance of accomplishing anything useful may be zero. He will use that as an excuse to drink more. He will tell you he is misunderstood. This may lead to lonely evenings for you. You may seek someone else to consult them, not always another man.

Be determined that your husband's drinking is not going to spoil your relations with your children or your firm.

They need your companionship and your help. It is possible to have a full and useful life so your husband continues to drink. We know women who are unafraid, even happy, under these conditions. Do not set your heart on reforming your husband. You may be unable to do so no matter how hard you try.

We know these suggestions are sometimes difficult to follow, but you will save many a heartbreak if you can succeed in observing them. Your husband may come to appreciate your reasonableness and patience. This may lay the Gremlin book for a friendly talk about his alcoholic problem. Try to have him bring up the subject himself. Be sure you're not critical during such a discussion. Attempt instead to put yourself in his place.

Let him see that you want to be helpful rather than critical.

She's done a lot of these suggestions sort of sound like what we just did in chapter working with other.

You see, as a spouse, you don't feel trying them part the fact that you don't you got to work. You got to be treated in the same way that we got to treat them. If they aren't going to go themselves, there's nothing you're going to do to take them there.

When a discussion does arrive, you might suggest you read this book, or at least the chapter on alcoholism.

You've been worried, though, perhaps needlessly. You think he ought to know the subject better as everyone, as everyone should have a clear understanding of the risk he takes if he drinks too much,

showing you have confidence in his power to stop or moderate. Say you do not want to be a wet blanket, that you only wanted to take care of his health. Thus you may succeed in interesting him in alcoholism.

He probably has several Alcoholics among his own acquaintances. You may suggest that both take an interest in them. Drinkers like to help other drinkers. Your husband may be willing to talk to one of them.

If this kind of approach does not catch your husband's interest, it may be best to drop the subject. But after a friendly talk with your husband will usually revive the topic himself. This May

this may take patient waiting, but it will be worth it. Meanwhile, you might try to help the wife of another serious drinker. If you act upon these principles, your husband may stop or moderate the Nobel suggesting. What do I do when I'm having a problem? I work with others.

Suppose, however, that your husband fits the description #2 the same principle which applied number one should be practiced. But after his next bin binge, ask him if he would really like to get over get over drinking for good. Do not ask that he do it for you or anyone else. Just would he like to?

The chances are he would. Show him your copy of this book and tell him that you have found out of what you found out about alcoholism, showing that as Alcoholics, the writers of the book understand.

Tell him some of the interesting stories you've read. If you think you he will be shy of a spiritual remedy, ask him to look at the chapter on alcoholism. Then perhaps he will understand. He will be interested enough to continue

if he is enthusiastic. You cooperation will mean a great deal. If he is lukewarm or thinks he is not an alcoholic, we suggest you leave him alone. Avoid urging him to follow our program. The seed has been planted in his mind. He knows that thousands of men much like himself have recovered. But don't remind him of this after he's been drinking, for he may be angry. Sooner or later, you're likely to find him reading the book once more.

Wait until repeated stumbling convinces him he must act, for the more you hurry him, the longer his recovery will be delayed.

If you have a number three husband, you may be in luck. Being certain he wants to stop, you can go to him with his volume as joyfully as though you had struck oil. He may not share your enthusiasm, but he is practically sure to read the book that he may go for the program at once.

If he does not, you are probably not. You will probably not have long to wait

again, you should not crowd him. Let him decide for himself. Cheerfully seen through more sprees. Talk about his condition or this book only when he raises the issue. In some cases, it may be better to let someone outside the family presume the book. They can urge action without arousing hostility. If your husband is otherwise a normal individual, your chances are good at this state.

You would suppose that men in the 4th classification would be quite hopeless, but that is not so. Many of Alcoholics Anonymous will like that. Everybody had given up on them. Defeat seemed certain, yet often such men had spectacular and powerful recoveries.

There are exceptions. Some men have been so impaired by alcohol that they cannot stop. Sometimes there are cases where alcoholism is complicated by other disorders. A good doctor psychiatrist can tell you whether these complications are serious. In any event, try to have your husband read this book. His reaction may be one of enthusiasm. If he is already committed to an institution but can convince you and your doctor that he means business, give him a chance to try our method. Unless the doctor thinks his mental condition too abnormal or dangerous,

we make this recommendation with some confidence. For years we have been working with Alcoholics committed to institution.

Since his book was first published, AA has released thousands of Alcoholics from asylums and hospitals of every kind. The majority have never returned. The power of God goes deep.

You may have the reverse situation on your hand. Perhaps you have a husband who is at large, but who should be committed

at large.

I don't think I ever thought of myself as at large.

I should have been committed, but I don't think I was among Some men cannot or will not get over alcoholism when they become too dangerous. We think that kind of thing is. We think the kind thing is to lock them up.

But of course a good doctor should always be consulted. The wives and children with such men suffer horribly, but not more than the men themselves. But sometimes you may, you must start life anew. We know a woman who women who have done it. If such women adopt A spiritual way of life, the road will be smoothened.

If your husband is a drinker, you probably worry over what other people are thinking, and you hate to meet your friend. You draw more and more into yourself, and you think everyone is talking about conditions at your home. You avoid the subject of drinking, even with your own parents.

You do not know what to tell the children when your husband is bad. You become a criminal recluse, wishing the telephone had never been invented.

We find that most of this embarrassment embarrassment is unnecessary. While you need not discuss your husband at length, you can quietly let your friends know the nature of his illness.

But you must be on guard not to embarrass or harm your husband.

When you have carefully explained to such people that he is a sick person. You will have created a new atmosphere. Various witches sprung up between you and your friends will disappear with the growth of sympathetic understanding. You will no longer be self-conscious or feel that you must apologize as though your husband were a weak character. He may be anything but that. Your new courage, good nature and lack of self consciousness will do wonders for you socially.

The same principles upon dealing with children,

they actually need protection from their fathers. Best not to take sides in any argument he has with them while drinking. Use your energies to promote a better understanding all around. Then that terrible tension that grips the home of every problem drinker will be lessened.

Frequently you have felt obliged to tell your husbands employer and his friends that he was sick when, as a matter of fact, he was tight. Avoid answering those inquiries as much as you can. Whenever possible, let your husband explain. Your desire to protect him should not 'cause you to lie to people when you have the right to know where he is and what he is doing. Discuss this with him, and when he is sober and in good spirits,

ask him what you should do if he places you in such a position again. But be careful not to be resentful

about the last time he did so.

There is another paralyzing fear. You may be afraid your husband will lose his position. You are thinking of the disgrace and hard time which before you and the children. This experience may come to you, or you may have already had it several times.

Should it happen again, regard it in a different life. Maybe it will prove a blessing.

It may convince your husband he wants to stop drinking forever. And now you know that he can stop if he will. Time after time, this apparent calamity has been a boon to us. It has opened up a path which led to the discovery of God.

We have also remarked how much better life is when lived on a spiritual point. If God can solve the age-old Riddle of alcoholism, He can solve your problems too. We wives found out that like everybody else, we were afflicted with pride, self pity, vanity and all the things which go to go to make up the self-centered person. And we were not above selfishness or dishonesty.

As our husbands begin to apply spiritual principles in their lives, we begin to see the desirability of doing so too.

At first, some of us did not believe we needed this help. We thought on the whole, we were pretty good women, capable of being nicer if our husband stopped drinking. But it was a silly idea that we were going to, that we were too good to need God. Now we try to put spiritual principles to work in every department of our life. When we do that, we find it solved our problems too.

The sui lack of fear, worry, hurt feeling is a wonderful thing.

We urge you to try our program for nothing will be so helpful to your husband as a radically changed attitude toward him, which God has shown,

which God has shown you how to excuse me, how to have go along with your husband if you possibly can.

Isn't this amazing that you know, Bill's here is talking about? You know, we got the steps and we're telling you that you should be doing the program. It's not a different program. It's not an exclusive program. It's not a program. It's a program of all inclusiveness for everyone that's dealing with the problem.

I don't hear him say, you know,

we've got the solution for your husband. We think you should go pound salt.

You should go away. No, you should be involved in the way of living that we're talking about with the husband. It's a family thing.

If you and your husband find a solution for the pressing problems of drink, you are of course going to be very happy. But all problems will not be solved at once.

Seed has started to sprout in the new soil, but growth has only begun. In spite of your newfound happiness, there will be ups and downs. Many of the old problems will still be with you. This is as it should be.

The faith and serenity of both you and your husband will be put to the test. These workouts should be regarded as part of your education, for thus you will be learning to live.

You will make mistakes, but if you are in earnest, they will not drag you down. Instead, you will capitalize them. A better way of life will emerge

when they are overcome.

Some of the snags you encounter are irritation, hurt feelings, and resentments. Your husband will sometimes be unreasonable and you will want to criticize. Starting from a speck on the domestic horizon, great thunderclouds of dispute will gather. These family dissensions are very dangerous, especially for your husband. Often you must carry the burden of avoiding them or keeping them under control. Never forget that resentment is a deadly hazard to an alcoholic. We do not mean that you have to agree with your husband whenever he there's an

difference of opinion. Just be careful not to disagree in resentment or critical spirit.

You and your husband will find that you can dispose of serious problems easier than than you can the trivial ones. Next time you and you have a heated discussion, no matter what the Sunday, it should be the privilege of either to smile and say, this is getting serious, I'm sorry, I've got disturbed, let's talk about it later. If your husband is trying to live on a spiritual basis, he will also be doing everything in his power to avoid disagreement or contention.

Your husband knows he owes you more than sobriety. He wants to make good.

You must not expect too much. His ways of thinking and doing are the habits of years patients. Tolerance, understanding and love are the watchwords. Show him these things in yourself and they will be reflected back to you from him. Live and let live is the rule.

If you both show a willingness to remedy your own defects, there will be little need to criticize each other.

We women carry with us a picture of the ideal man, the sort of chap we would like our husbands to be.

It is the most natural thing in the world. Once his liquor problem is solved, it feels that he will now measure up to that cherished version. The chances are he will not.

For like yourself, he's just beginning his development. Be patient.

Another feeling we are very likely to entertain is one of resentment

that love and loyalty could not cure our husbands and alcoholism.

We do not like the thought that the contents of a book or the work of another alcoholic is accomplished in a few weeks, that which we had struggled for years.

At such moments we forget that alcoholism is an illness over which we cannot possibly have had any power. Your husband would be the first to say it was your devotion and care which brought him to the point where he could have where he could have a spiritual experience. Without you, he wouldn't would have gone to pieces long ago.

When resentful thoughts come, try to pause and count your blessings. After all, your family is reunited, alcohol is no longer a problem, and you and your husband are working together towards an ungreen, unreamed of future.

Still another difficulty is that you may become jealous of the attention he bestows on other people, especially Alcoholics.

You've been starving for his companionship. Because he spends long hours helping other men and their family, you feel they should not be yours. The fact is, he should work with other people to maintain his own sobriety. Sometimes he will be so interested that he becomes really neglectful. Your house is filled with strangers. You may not like some of them. He gets stirred up about their troubles, but not at all about yours.

It will do little good if you point that out and urge more attention for yourself.

We find it. We find it a real mistake to dampen his enthusiasm for alcoholic work. They should join in his efforts as much as you possibly can. We suggest that you direct some of your thought to the wives of his new alcoholic friends. They need the counsel and love of a woman who's gone through what you have.

It is probably true that you and your husband have been living

too much alone, for drinking many times isolates the lives of alcoholic. Therefore, you probably need fresh interests and a great cause to live for as much as your husband. If you cooperate rather than complain, you will find that his excess enthusiasm will calm down. Both of you will awaken to a new sense of responsibility for others.

You, as well as your husband, ought to think of what you can put into life instead of how much you can take out.

Inevitably, your lives will be full of her doing so. You will lose the old life and find one much better.

Perhaps your husband will make a fair start on the new basis. But just as things are going beautifully, he may dismay you by coming home drunk

if you were satisfied he really wants to get over drinking. You need not be alarmed, though it is an infinitely better that he have no relapse at all. It has been true that many of our men. It was been true with many of our men, is by no means a bad thing. In some cases. Your husband will see it once that he must redouble his spiritual activity if he expects to survive. You need not remind him of his spiritual deficiency. He will know it.

Cheer him up and ask him how you can be still more helpful.

The slightest sign of fear or intolerance may lessen your husband's chance through recovery. In a weak moment he may take, he may take your dislike of his high stepping friends as one of those insanely privileged excuses to bring. We never, never try to arrange a man's life so as to shield him from temptation. The slightest disposition on your part to guide his appointments or his affairs so he will not be tempted will be noticed.

Make him feel absolutely free to come and go as he likes. This is important. If he gets drunk, don't blame yourself. God has either removed your husband's liquor problem or he's not. If not, it had better be found out right away. Then you and your husband can get down right down to fundamental. If a reputation is to be prevented, place the problem, along with everything else, in God's hands.

We realize that we have given, we have been giving you much direction and advice.

We may have seen the lecture,

if that. If that is so, we're sorry, for we ourselves don't always care for people who lecture us. But what we have related is based on experience, some of it painful. We had to learn these things the hard way. That's why we were anxious that you understand that you avoid these unnecessary difficulties. So to you there. So you're out there who may

Wow. So to you out there who may soon be with us, we say good luck and God bless.

All right. Good morning.

Good job. Michael. Got them warmed up. I could see they're just tickled to death.

Yeah, they got coffee eyes.

I had a Diet Coke. That's about as high as I can get.

We're trying to look at this a little bit different.

We're trying to look at this as something you, the alcoholic can use

to help the families.

I guess I was, I was thinking about the West way to put that as he was talking about it. And I wrote in the front of the, of the chapter under the guidance of, of other Alcoholics. The alcoholic, remember what he told us in in Chapter 7, working with others, how we brought their families into this way of life. So the alcoholic is working with the family. Does that make sense? And we would take them through the steps and they would come into this way of life. Who else could do it? There isn't anybody else,

so it has to be the alcoholic. Today, of course, we have Al Anon. God bless him, release you with love.

Get out Before I shoot you is more like it.

So 122, the family afterwards, we're just kind of drifting through these things so that you can gain from the chapters some things that you might use in your 12 step work. Or if you're now and on, you might even gain something from this to use in your 12 step work.

The chapter was written to Wise by Bill Wilson and someone was asking me a minute ago. He asked Ann Smith is the rumor and probably not a rumor and she said no,

she was a very high principal woman. And then I there were people who will tell you that Louis had a resentment because he didn't ask her, but it wasn't about that. That's that's the deal. That's why it isn't. It isn't about that. It is about

working with others. Is that that makes any sense to you?

So he says the family afterwards.

Our wooden folk have suggested certain attitudes a wife may take with the husband who is recovering

because they're getting some experience. Now the families are getting experience with the recovery. Perhaps they've created the impression that he may be wrapped in cotton wool and placed on a pestle. Successful readjustment means the opposite. All members of the family should meet upon common ground of tolerance, understanding and love. Those are called principles.

In this it allows a process of deflation. Bringing humility is deflation.

The alcoholic, his wife, his children, his in laws, each one is likely to have fixed old, fixed ideas. Change would change the old ideas, we said.

About family attitudes towards himself or herself,

he's repeating the actors story. He says each is interested in having his or her wishes respected. We find the more one member of the family demands the other concede to him, the more resentful they become. Yes Sir, this makes for a discordant and happiness. And why? Is it not because each wants to play the the lead? Is not each trying to arrange the family show to his liking?

Is he not unconsciously trying to see what he can take from the family life rather than give right back to the old actor story

sensation of drinkings, but the first step away from a highly strained and abnormal condition? When I read that for the first time, I went, Holy Michael, that's how I was raised,

in a highly strengthened abnormal condition. Now I didn't know that I'm just getting up to the firing line every day, doing the best I can.

When you raise children puppy dogs family members goldfish in the highly strained and

in abnormal condition, what you get is a highly strained and abnormal goldfish child

family members pretty soon, but their life seems normal to them.

This is not something you just take on overnight. You grow into it.

So in my case, he would say you took care of your sister, she was seven years younger in this alcoholic home. Therefore you're a codependent now.

No, you just step up and do the best you can. It's normal. You know, you just step up sensational drinkings. But the first step away, we got that. A doctor says to us, years of living with an alcoholic is almost sure to make any wild child neurotic. What is a neurotic? A neurotic is someone who has to be in control.

And he just told you that. The paragraph above, he gave you an explanation of what a neurotic is, someone who has to be in control. So in a a when you're young enough and sometimes old enough and you decide to get in relationships and you're from alcoholic families, guess what? You might have two people fighting for control right off the bat in a hurry. It makes it difficult

the entire family is to some extent. I'll let families realize as they start their journey that they were all not be fair weather. Each in his term may be foot sore and may straggle.

No one

gets this program at the same pace as the next guy.

And so you have the experiences of Bill Wilson, which is right now and quick and involve some sort of lights and and

spirit and such things as that, God's voices sometimes. And then you have people who get it the long way around

by what is called an awakening, and then everything in between, you see,

they will be alluring shortcuts and bypasses down which they may wander and lose their way. The family. Suppose we tell you some of the obstacles. He's going to tell you the problem. I want to go back to what Michael saw just a little bit and my head's still back in that chapter.

The four alcoholic conditions are great for you to use when you go in somewhere to do a wet 12 step call and you have a loved one you can speak with.

Umm, you can search out through those four places where the alcoholic might be and what his drinking pattern is at the time. And then you may be able to put him in one of those classifications. It just kind of helps us to, I mean, drunk drunk. I mean, that's pretty obvious, right? But it may help you and them as you do that. It's a, it's a good, it's a good read. Lot of times when I go in to talk to people, I want to know how long they've been drinking. This way.