Step 11 & 1 at a Big Book Workshop at the Fellowship of the Spirit conference in Queens, NY

Town doctor told me if I kept drinking, I was going to die in six months. My wife wanted me out of the house. Business partner had just found out I've been stealing from him for a period of time. Was extremely irritated with that. And he was, I guess, an unrecovered Vietnam veteran. But he was not happy with old Tomas, I'll tell you. And so the last thing we had, we were bankrupt,

but we didn't know how to file bankruptcy or we probably would have done it. We were just too ignorant.

But we had an insurance policy because Juanita worked at the state and in those days insurance would pay for treatment. And so I ran off to hide in a treatment Center for a 30 day period to get down there to stop shaking. I drank a miniature of stolen eye of vodka because it wasn't going to be my last drink. Had I known it was going to be my last drink would have been a quarter Jack Daniels, right? Still mad about that 20 years later,

but

at any rate, I go down there and a lot of lot of good stuff happened and some kind of crazy stuff happened. I, I was introduced to what I consider real a A and I was found by Alcoholics Anonymous. A little meeting came in every morning into this place and they were there whether the patient showed up or not. They met outside and they, they enveloped me. They just

real quickly, the reason I went out there, I knew a A wouldn't work for me. I knew I couldn't live on this planet without drinking,

but in this treatment center was very progressive for 20 years ago they didn't. They boiled all their meat. They had no fat. They'd serve no sugar whatsoever. And there was number caffeine at all. And through the Grapevine, I heard that this little group of people that were meeting outside on a patio served coffee with real coffee with caffeine in it.

And I thought I'd like some of that. And so I went out onto this patio to drink their coffee. And I'm the only person I've ever met who went to a A for the coffee. But it's a God's honest truth. And they were just singing a different song, it seemed, you know, they were telling these crazy stories and just outrageous things and then laughing like crazy about him. You know, it's all the stuff I've been trying to hide and keep under wraps. But any rate in the treatment center, the the treatment center part itself diagnosed me.

And they said, well, you know, what would have you been up to? You know what? Tell us about your life. I said, well, I, you know, I've been drinking for 16 years and I've taken a lot of drugs. And they said, well, tell us all about them. And I said, well, I, you know, basically drink whiskey for breakfast. If I don't, I can't get to work. I mean, that's my life and I drink it all day. And when I don't, I start to shake and come apart and often times have blackouts and have beaten my wife severely in a blackout. I broke my arm arm wrestling a guy one night and I tell him all the dramatic

crazy, the jails and the hospitals and all the stuff that's happened to me and say, well, you're alcoholic. You're definitely alcoholic.

Well, what else? Well, I've been, you know, importing and distributing cocaine for many years. I, I don't like to inject it. I had a heart attack one night, you know, they said, well, you're a cocaine addict and said, OK, it's what else? I said, well, I've been, you know, using heroin on and off for mostly on for 10 years. And,

you know, I never seem to get away from it. And I told some, you know, stories about that and they said, well, you're a heroin addict. And then anyway, I went through this whole litany of stuff, all the benzodiazepines, the psychedelics, the, the uppers, the Downers, all the painkillers, all the different things I've taken. And they said, well, you're an addict to this. You're an addict to that. You're, you know,

OK, so I'm just, what do I know? That's what they told me. That's what I go out with. And so I'm going to Cocaine Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and, and Alcoholics Anonymous and,

you know, calling myself of this or that. And the other thing, when I, when I met Joe, he told me something that no one else had told me. And he said it's very, very important. It's vitally important that you know what's wrong with you because you can't recover from something you don't have.

People look and they go, they think about that, you know, it's like you can't recover from something you ain't got right. I mean, I just makes sense. I mean, if you had a didn't have a medical condition, went to a doctor, doctor tell you can't recover from it because you don't have it. You know, there is no recovery from that for you because you don't got it.

But that didn't make any sense to me when I first heard it. And he said, well, we'll look at it this way. You're starting a spiritual journey with these steps, aren't you? And I said yes, he said you're invested in the truth, aren't you? In rigorous honesty? What we're talking about here,

honesty is different from truth. I won't go into that, but a lot of you know the difference. But he said rigorous honesty, isn't that what we tout here? And I said, yes, it is. He said, well, if you go into the step process or the spiritual journey with a half truth or an untruth, how can you expect to have good result from it? Said, well, I, now you put it that way, I guess you can't. He said, well, so I what are you powerless over? That's what he asked me. I didn't really understand the question. I said everything,

he said. Oh, really? Are you really powerless over everything? I said, Oh yes, you know, I'm powerless over everything.

He said, well, why don't you do something? Why don't you take everything that you think you're powerless over and put it through, Start with the doctor's opinion and put it through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he said, and here's how you're going to do it. Take the statements that they wrote. Okay, The big book, most of it was written in 1938. As you know, it came out in in April of 39. It was published. They were working on it for at least a year prior.

So he said, you know, go through it and take what they wrote in 38 and flip it. And all of the statements that they made you turn into a personal question for yourself

and where it says we or, you know, they or Alcoholics or any of that, you say Tom, I or or me and try that out, personalize it and see what happens. I didn't know at the time that he was tricking me. OK, I've I've tricked many since then. Here, here's the trick. Instead of this dull read that in the treatment center. They told me you you can't sleep. We'll read the big book, you'll go to sleep, right. You ever told that? You know, we might have told somebody that

it's true.

If it's just a, you know, some kind of a dull read that's about other people, it'll put me to sleep. But as soon as I'm in there, it's My Autobiography and I think I'm the most interested in in the world is me. So that it hooked me, OK? It's a dynamic. It actually works. It hooked me. It had me. So I'm in there reading about myself now and I start putting all this stuff through the big book, you know, the Valiums and all the LSD and all this jazz. One thing that really, really surprised me was the cocaine piece. OK,

now I'm going to explain to you, I don't want to offend anybody by talking about drugs. I'm going to explain in just a minute why I'm doing this, OK? And I think it's very important. I'm a big fifth tradition guy. I don't bring drug addiction to Alcohols Anonymous. I hope there's people that have a problem with that and we can discuss it over the weekend. But but I've got it. I've got to tell you how I established my first step and that's why I'm doing this. OK, I put the cocaine through. I've got a long, long cocaine history. It started in 1970 and it went

sometime in the late 80s. But the first thing that I got was I couldn't remember the last time I did cocaine, Couldn't remember it. And I told you the last drink I had, I was standing in front of the Barrel House liquor store, Santa Fe, sucking down a miniature of vodka. I shot some heroin that morning. I remember that last cocaine. I don't remember at all. And I did an awful lot of it and a lot of bad experiences with it. So that got my attention. Why can't I remember it? And then I started to put it through, put it substitute cocaine for alcohol

book. And what I came up with was I got to a point with cocaine where the going up was not worth the coming down. The depression I felt from doing it was not worth the high that I got. And literally I would turn down free coke. I'd say no. You got any heroin to go with that? Oh, you don't? No, thank you. OK, now, now here's the 5th tradition part. I try to sit down with a crackhead and work with a crackhead, right. And and he's he's going on. Then I do coke all night and I'm thinking, yeah, I'm right

with you. And and then I, you know, and then I'd go out and steal something and stuff. And I'm thinking, well, I didn't steal too much to get it. And and he says, what's your experience? And I say, well, you know, I just got to a point where I didn't want to do it anymore. The going up wasn't worth the coming down. And his eyes glass over. Okay, he, he experienced the same depression I did, but there's something different with him where he would go back to it and what he got out of it overrode the, the part that said, don't, don't do it, it's not worth it. With me. The depression part overrode the high, you understand.

And so we can't, we don't have a common language. He doesn't understand what I'm talking about. We got to a point where I said, no, that's the end of that deal, you know, to free cocaine. And he just doesn't understand that. OK, Beyond that, they didn't have crack when I sovered up. So I don't even, I never had the experience. You know, as far as I'm concerned, you shoot cocaine, that's what you do. But as far as he's concerned, you smoke crack. So it's a it's a different kind of a deal. OK. So lo and behold, I find out I've been going to CA meetings, calling myself a cocaine addict. I'm not.

Why am I not a cocaine addict? Because I can choose whether I do it or not, OK,

does not mean that I could go out here and smoke some crack with some joker with impunity and do that. I would derail me from the spiritual path I'm on, OK? But the, but The thing is, I can exercise my power of choice where cocaine is concerned, and I just know I choose not to do that, Okay? Now, that same choice I made with booze and with heroin hundreds of times. I chose not to and then did

OK. I drink when I don't want to drink. If you can relate to that, you know what I'm talking about.

OK, I set out. I've got every conviction in the world today. I'm not going to do it. I tell my wife, she believes me, everybody's happy. And two hours later I'm drinking. And I'm the most surprised one, OK? I say I will never do that damn heroin again, no matter what. You know, I'm not going to associate with those murders and those people that I'm always running with and stuff. It's not going to happen anymore. And three days later, I forget my strong conviction. My mind says, you've been working real hard at your job. You've been clean for three days. You ought to reward yourself,

you know, and I'm back at the connects. So in the the volumes and all that stuff was stuff that I used to enhance my experience with these other things. OK, I designed that experience. I chose to do that or not to do it. You know, being addicted to LSD is a little I know I've met people who said they were it's, I don't quite understand that it's that spooky to me. But anyway,

so, but out of this, well, the point I'm trying to make is out of all of this, I got my truth, OK?

I'm, I'm a real alcoholic. I am a real alcoholic. No matter how much information I am given about myself, no matter how well I understand that the first drink always leads to some horrible scene in my life, you know, and and will ultimately destroy me. I can't use that information to keep me from picking up that drink.

OK, because that worm starts turning, you know, the stuff starts happening. And at this time, it's going to be different. And it's been like that 1000 times with me. I've lost the power to choose whether I drink or don't you. And and I never got it back sober either. That's that's interesting. I hear people say today I choose not to drink. And I think, well, if you can choose not to drink, if you have that power, then you're not my kind of alcoholic because I can't. I lost that power to choose. And I'll tell you if there's time this weekend, I'll tell you

a very interesting story about that. So I'm a real alcoholic. I'm a hope to die heroin addict. I will never get off either of those two things through my own power, volitional power. It ain't going to happen. One of the really neat things that happened to me through recovery and Alcoholics Anonymous is I don't do heroin anymore. I don't shoot heroin, Adam, for 20 years, OK? I don't cheat on my wife. I don't gamble very much.

It's gotten a lot better.

There's a lot of things I know I don't. God bless you. I don't lie generally. I generally tell the truth. And that's just, you know, because making amends for lying is so humiliating. After a while, you just hopefully stop doing it, you know, but, but so a lot of things have come along with working a spiritual program that I work in Alcoholics Anonymous because I'm powerless over alcohol. But I don't bring those things specifically to a a, I can't stand up at a podium for an hour and talk and not tell you about

heroin in my story because it's one of the things I tried to use to get off a booze. It did not work. OK, but I tried to. I also tried to use Ant abuse and I'll tell you about that. But I don't dwell on drugs in a a OK. Some people say it's all the same thing. A drug is a drug is a drug. I don't know what kind of Jack Daniels and what kind of heroin you were using, but to me they were very, very different experiences. I had two completely different sets of people that I that I ran with,

you know, very rarely with the twain meet

because I drank and shot dope. I was an outcast in every group. No one, no one wanted to hang out with me. You know, the drinkers didn't trust me 'cause I was sticking needles in my arm and most heroin eggs don't drink whiskey right after they get high, but I do, OK? So anyway, I was, I was kind of a social outcast in every society. But the the point of all of that is that I think it's, it's extremely important that you know what's wrong with you. OK,

if you want to try that, if you never have, I suggested as a, as a real good exercise,

be invested in the truth, OK? The truth will set you free. Juanita. We she was working with a gal who'd been eleven years in AA, gal named Kim, who lives in Santa Fe. I sponsor her husband. And Kim was in AA and called herself an alcoholic because she had gone to a treatment center where they told her you're an alcoholic. She was 17 years old. She'd been doing some coke and she went into treatment center and they said, well, a drug addict and alcoholic is all the same. So go to a A and say you're an alcoholic. And so she did. I don't think she'd been drunk 3

times in her life, but for 11 years she was in a A and trying to do a A and something just wasn't clicking. And she started working with Juanita and she went through the big book and she got to the point where her, the truth about what was wrong with her was much more important to her than some phony sobriety date. And so she tried. If you know what the Marty Mantis or what we call it, it's not really what it is, but you try some controlled drinking, like 2 drinks a day, no more, no less, for 30 days or something akin to that. Read the if you really want to do it, read the primer on

by Marty men and she lays it out. But you try some control drinking like the big book says. And Kim just got tired, I think wasn't it. She got pregnant. She got pregnant and stopped. But but she had gotten her truth long before that. And what happened? This is the interesting thing that happened to her. She left a a but she got into Al Anon big time and she's an extremely effective member of Al Anon. OK, because she's not in the wrong fellowship any longer and she's her life took new meaning. It took off when when she found that truth.

One of the story, the story of Laura, and I hope this illustrates something. I tell this all over. There was a neat gal that went to our the friendship club that Juanita was talking about. She went to a a meetings. I'd heard her speak and and she was Laura always talked about heroin. She was a heroin addict is what she was, but she liked a a better. You know, you hear this a lot. Oh well, like the A a is better than the NA, you know, and Da da da. I mean, I hear this coast to coast.

The, the, the point is, you know, I think with that is that we, we members of Alcoholics Anonymous, it's requisite on us to help people in NA and, and CA to make their program stronger, you know, and, and help them out. At any rate, this Laura was, was going to a, a meeting since she would slip like every once in a while. And I, I thought you, you're a heroin addict. You need to sit down with her and talk to her. But she's a woman, right? She was an attractive woman

and she was in her early 40s. And I thought,

don't go there. You know, it's like just that's not your business. Let her work that out with somebody else and et cetera, et cetera. And long. So I never said anything to her. I never said, Laura, you might be in the wrong fellowship. You might be in the wrong fellowship because you're not in the place where the people have what you have so that you can reach out and help somebody else who has what you have, which is how we, we save our own asses here, right?

And, and I never did. I never said a word to her. I just let it slide. They found Laura in a parking lot in Santa Fe with a needle in her arm, dead, Dead as could be, leaving three children.

And Tom never said anything because he didn't want to cross that boundary with a woman or it was A and. And to my great shame, that happened. And I, I tell you I will never, ever let that happen again, OK? I care more about you. I love you more than than I care about your feelings, OK. And saving your life is more important to me than whether you like me or not. Absolutely it is. But it took that dramatic a thing happening. And I hope that helps somebody. I hope Laura's story will help somebody.

We an alcoholic is someone who drinks too much. There's someone who has a problem with alcohol. They've lost the ability to choose whether they can drink or whether they can. And it just I, I cannot.

I've lost the ability of choice to take the first drink and I've lost the ability of choice to take the second drink.

OK. And it's just as simple as that. We'll read all sorts of stuff. Doctors opinion, Bill's story more about alcoholism. It's all going to boil down to that again and again. If you don't have that, if you don't lose control over the amount once you first start drinking, OK. But you're drinking for some psychological reason, some what a big Frank used to call it emotional or situational drinking. OK, then you might want to look at it. Am I an alcoholic? You know, as described in this book,

It's certainly worth looking at, you know, and if you're, if you care about the truth, then then you'll do that.

I'll tell you a couple little stories.

When I got my current sponsor,

there's a story she used to tell about when she got her big book

and it goes like this. She went to this guy after being in Alcoholics Anonymous a few weeks. And she said

the woman who brought me to Alcoholics Anonymous said I have to have a big book, that the way we recover is in the big book. And so I want a big book. And you were talking about the big book, and you've got the big book, so I want to buy one. And he said, OK, he said, I'll sell you a big book. But first of all, I'm going to tell you a little story. And so he told her the story of when he had about a year in Alcoholics Anonymous, he went to this guy,

Larry, and Larry had some time. And

Larry was, you know,

he was a big shot in Alcoholics Anonymous out in California. And so Doug, Hugh Douglas goes up to Hugh goes to to Larry and says, Larry, I want to talk to you about this big book. And Larry says, OK, what do you want to talk to me about? Well, Hugh had thought he found some loopholes in this book.

And so he wanted to chat with Larry a little bit, and Larry said, you know what, I'll talk with you, but I'll talk to you when you can. Tell me what's on the first page of that book. Alcohol. It's anonymous.

So Larry went home and he memorized, you know, the,

the preface. So he memorized the preface and comes back about three months later and says, begins to read, begins to recite the preface. And Larry says, what are you doing? He said, well, you told me that you talked to me about the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. If I could tell you what's on the first page. He said, well, that's not on the first page. Go on, get out of here. So he goes back home and, you know, he memorizes the table of context and comes back to Larry and

Larry says that's not it, go on home. So he, you know, goes back one more time and finally he gets, he reads

and he memorizes the page Alcoholics Anonymous, a story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism, says that's it. He goes back to him and Larry says, oh, go home, I don't want to talk to you. Finally he says, ah, okay, the first page, Alcoholics Anonymous, just Alcoholics Anonymous on the page. So he goes and he, you know, says that to Larry. And Larry says, that's not it. Can I borrow your book

please, babe? And Larry says that's not it, give me that book. And so he grabs the book from Hugh, and he said there is nothing

on the first page of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. And if it has taken you this long and you still couldn't figure it out, how long do you think it's going to take you to figure out what's in the black lines of this book?

So I know there's a lot of you who have been through the steps many, many times and probably know this book a lot better than I do, and I know it pretty damn good. I'll tell you,

but

umm, is this as far as God can take you?

Is this it?

Is this it?

When I sat down one day, morning prayer meditation, I realized it was time to go through the steps again,

'cause I realized I was powerless over what was going on with my father with his illness. He had prostate cancer that had metastasized in the lungs and in the bones. And I started to put it through the 1st, through the 1st step. I thought God's brought me a heck of a long ways. My life is good. My life is really good. My relationships with Tom is good. My relationships with all members of my family was good, really good. Not just kind of good, but really good. I was in a good place. I felt good,

but I was having difficulty watching my father go through this and the pain that it was causing me and seeing the pain it was causing him and my mother. My mother still an unrecovered member, an unrecovered family member, 80 years old and unrecovered with the disease of alcoholism, the family disease of alcoholism.

And so I said I need more. So my question to you is, have you gone as far as you can possibly go, or is there more?

Is there more? Because for me, there's always more, just like the title of the chapter, more on alcoholism. There's always more. So a little more about Hugh.

About five years ago, I was speaking at a conference in Laughlin, NV.

I shared my story,

got done, was thanked by people,

but I didn't feel quite right and I thought what is wrong? There's nothing wrong with my story. I did a great job sharing my story, you know, I felt good about it, but I didn't feel quite right deep within and I thought what is up? So I made a mistake that I make every once in a while, and I said a prayer and I said, God, what is wrong?

Why is it that even though my sharing was good, I don't feel right,

I don't feel like I was connected with the people who were in that room? Well, this book tells me that. In fact, this book promises me that if I ask and I really want the answer, I will get it. And guess what? I got the answer. And what I got was, you need to work these steps. You need to work these steps.

So I promptly did. Six months later,

I was sitting up at the conference in Colorado. That is my I consider my home conference. It is a Saturday night, and I was sitting out there in the audience waiting for the Saturday night speaker to begin. And all of a sudden, in a room full of people, a noisy room, bright lights,

I find myself in a very dark place. It was dark. I'm not talking a bad place, but it was a dark place. It was dark and it was quiet. And I was alone. And I can't tell you how long that lasted. But when I came out of it, the thought that came to me was if you do not work these steps again, you will die.

You will die.

Physical death, the matter, emotional death doesn't matter, but definitely was a spiritual death that I was coming to if I didn't get to work in these steps one more time. So I, I did. I began immediately. Well,

I went through that set of steps and then I found myself. I guess it was January, down in Midland in O5I was sharing my story one more time and I found myself towards the end. I'm almost done

getting this thought of something I needed to share with the people as I was telling my story. And I thought,

I don't think so. We're not going there. And when I was done, I also realized that I didn't feel that connection one more time with the people who were sitting in the audience. And I said, OK, what's up with that? Not only what's up with that, but I realized that I had denied God.

I didn't. Like I said no.

I was given an intuitive thought of something to share and I said no, we're not going there.

So not only was I not feeling connected,

but I said no to God and I said what's going on? And I remembered an amends I hadn't made. It wasn't old amends. So we went up to Denver and this was this was January, mid January. And about 3 weeks later we're up in Denver and I sat with with Don and I said I was telling Don this story. And I said Don, I found an amends. That's a very, very old amends that I need to make.

And he said to me what I knew, you know, but we can't see our own stuff.

He said to me exactly what I know I've said to many people who I work with who come to me. And he said, if there's something between you and another person, there's something between you and God. He said, you better go make that amends. So I did. So this brings me back to the story of Hugh.

Hugh, who was my grand sponsor, Mary Thayer's sponsor. He was one Hugh. And Beverly Hugh received a letter from a woman who he who absolutely loved him and who he loved. This woman was a longtime member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and Hugh had nine years. And in this letter this woman wrote, she said, Hugh, I love you and I'm concerned about you and I'm concerned about your sobriety,

She said You have become like the old Gulf Pro.

You know how to teach the game, but you don't play anymore.

You know how to teach the game, but you don't play anymore.

If I'm not actively

in the steps,

I can become like the old golf pro.

Hugh went out. Nine years of sobriety and Hugh went out,

he came back, he died with, yeah, 20 some years of sobriety, 27 I think, and went on to help a lot of people. But

that story reminds me of when I was in Laughlin. Took me 6 months to begin to work the steps again and I could have died. I could have died. See, what I found out for myself is not only alcoholism a deadly disease for the alcoholic, but it's a deadly disease for the families as well.

I am not so much suicidal, suicidal, but I am homicidal. I will take your ass out before I take mine out, but either way it's a deadly disease.

What?

Thanks a lot.

What was that? Immense.

OK, he wants me to tell him.

We've been married maybe four years. I was working at a Medical Center and

he liked to do a little heroin, as he told you, and there was a box of syringes that I thought he would really love me if I took him home to him. So I took him home to him. You know, I was trying to please your man, and

he wasn't as thrilled as I thought he would be. Actually, I think I brought it a little close to home for him. But I needed to make amends for that box of syringes that I'd stolen. So I did go home and I made amends. I I paid them way more than the syringes were worth to them, but not more than they were worth to me.

Yeah, she's not kidding about the homicidal party either.

If it doesn't come out this weekend, you can ask her about the time she nearly drowned me in the bathtub when I was passed out there. That's a

good store. Cute story. OK,

rolling right along. I'm in the doctor's opinion, actually. No, hang on. Sorry,

getting late and I jumped. This is some a piece that we like to point out. It's

man, I'm we're all over the place tonight. I'll tell you. OK, I had a favorite big book. It was a third edition. I got it when I got sober, right. My old big book with all marked up and this that and the other thing. And I was with a good good buddy of mine, JS from Redondo Beach, CA. If you ever have a chance to hear him speak or get his he he does a a workshop on the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. He calls it the Akron Genesis of A A. And we were up talking. You know, sometimes a couple of guys get together

who have heard of each other, have talked on the phone. And, you know, you're both really excited about Alcoholics Anonymous in this journey. We stayed up till 3:00 in the morning just talking, he and I. And at one point he said, Tom, what big book do you use? And I said, Oh, well, you know, I've got my third edition, my old trusty 3rd edition that he said, you know, all the newcomers are using this one.

It never occurred to me, you know, I go out to the penitentiary, I do a workshop and we're fumbling around in the Roman numerals because they don't add up anymore, right?

But out of myself, centeredness, I'm going to use my old third big book, you know? So I changed. I use a 4th edition now,

so in the 4th edition on

XX which is the the coin I got last month had XX on Dos Equis. I really like that that was

it says while the internal difficulties of her adolescent period were being ironed out, public acceptance of a group by leaps and bounds.

This there were two principal reasons. One, the large number of recoveries and reunited homes. And Juanita and I always talk about the fact that although we do see recoveries quite often, we we don't see reunited homes as much as we think they used to. And hopefully, you know, by doing this work, we're going to be a force for for that. That's that's what we hope. We against all odds, we've been married the 19th of this month,

married 28 years. We've been together for 29 years. And there's no way that we should be together. I mean, everything, you know, if you add it all up, we're as different as night and day. We're just, everything about us is different. And the horrible nine years that we had, which she nearly killed me. I nearly beat her. I mean, it's just awful grim stuff. You know, there's no way you ought to be able to surmount that. And yet we have. And people always ask us, how have you stayed together? I mean, how's that work for you? And I always tell them that

the 10th step is the the probably the single most important piece that we we're telling each other constantly, I was wrong to do that, you know, I was wrong. You didn't deserve that. That's when we throw in, I haven't found that in the book, but it sounds good. You know,

I was wrong to do that and I regret it and God willing, I won't do it again, you know, And those golden words, I was wrong have helped tremendously. And beyond that, we have a common purpose.

You know, we have unity in our family group. You know that we're out to help Alcoholics and their families and we do it together. And that that common purpose has helped us to stay together. This we'll talk about more more of that during the weekend.

Okay. On page 20, the very bottom of the forward to the third edition, it says in spite of the great increase in the size and span of this fellowship at its core remains simple and personal. Each day somewhere in the world, recovery begins when one alcoholic talks with another alcoholic, sharing experience, strengthening hope. And that's the way we do it. I mean, we do these workshops, we do a lot of different things,

but when it when you get right down to it, it's one alky talking to another. I think it's one alky reading this book to another is what it amounts to. You know, one of the dynamics I was taught by Don and Joe and a lot of these people was that Don always used to say problem with Alcoholics is they can't read. He said. I don't mean they're illiterate. I mean they just can't read. They they read a sentence and it doesn't, it's not what's written there. And so

after I instruct someone to go through the book and to turn the statements into into questions for themselves

that I sit and I'll read it back to them.

Invariably they hear it completely differently than they did when it was rattling in their head. And so I really believe in that dynamic of reading the I read the entire big book, the the Doctor's opinion and 164 pages to another alcoholic. And we go through it that way and try to follow the directions. OK, now we're to the Doctor's opinion. 25 in Roman numerals XXV very bottom of the page.

I personally know scores of cases who were of the type with whom other methods had failed completely. Am I of the type with whom other methods failed completely? Absolutely I am. So what I did was I put a big plus right after. Absolutely, I agree with that. That's been my experience. OK, next page

down here, it says In this statement he confirms that we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe so I stopped the guy and I say, have you suffered alcoholic torture?

Now, that's different for everybody, but I have certainly suffered alcoholic torture and I could tell you about it ad nauseam.

We must believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. OK, I didn't get that when I first read that. I didn't understand what that meant. What do you mean my body is as abnormal as my mind? I over drink, OK, because I and I over drink. And let me tell you why I over drink. I have a lot of problems. I've had an extremely difficult life.

My childhood was was less than great, OK. And then I basically never caught a break. You know, it was, it was, you know, the SOB is coming at me from every direction, nobody cutting me any slack, you know, ex wives, girlfriends, my children don't appreciate me, you know, on and on and on. And if you had my kind of life, you drink too, OK. And so I drink and and because that's medicine, I over drink and and you know,

it's I drink for psychological reasons. That's why I drink. OK, And you go, really,

the guy said to me, really, you know, let's look at that. OK. Did you ever, you know, and of course you all have heard this, most of you. Did you ever drink because you were feeling really funky and, and you know, just the anxiety and the angst were upon you. Oh, did I ever 100 times. Did you ever drink actually because you were celebrating something, something good happened in your life? Well, as a matter of fact, I did, yes.

Now that you pointed out, how about this kind of drinking? There ain't nothing happening. You're bored senseless and let's drink and get something going. Done that too. OK, So that that kind of, you know, squashes the, the psychological aspect. But the thing that they got into with me was, did you ever go out to drink and take a couple of drinks? And you start to feel pretty good. You're not feeling all that angst and you have celebrated and things aren't dull or anything,

OK? And you get to where you say you want to go and then you keep drinking.

And I said, well, as a matter of fact, that brings that brings up a time that I can remember very well. It was April 15th. Somebody said my sobriety date was on or about April 15th. Course, it's tax day, right? Juanita says, I don't care what you do, but be home by midnight because we got to sign off on our taxes. Honey, don't worry, I'll be home by midnight. OK, Fully intend to. I've been drinking. I start drinking with some guys

after work. Actually, the guy who was paying us, you know, brought out some whiskey and we started drinking. That's the last thing I remember.

Next thing I remember, I'm stumbling up the steps. It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm going, oh, my God, how could I have done that? How could I miss the, the deadline? Well, I was told about that episode by the people who were cognizant of what was going on. OK. They said I did all sorts of peed in the fireplace and drove home, you know, just awful stuff. Long drive home and I was all over the road and a guy was following me and it was just a horrible, disastrous, you know, typical evening.

But when I, when I looked at that sober, something happened to me

and it was this. I claimed that I wanted oblivion, that I drank for oblivion. I drank for relief that oblivion gave me. I just want out of here. I'm not. I'm chicken to kill myself. I'm afraid of where I'll go if I do. But I can't stand to be here and be conscious of what's going on. Man's intolerance to man and just the horrible suffering on this planet. I just, I'm a sensitive guy and I just can't take it