# Big Book Workshop — 1

- Archive ID: `DP-1999-RICHMOND`
- Source: https://mikechase.org/AA_Podcasts/Media/AA%201st%20Don%20P.,%20BBW%20at%20Richmond%20,%20VA.%20AUG.14th.mp3
- Duration: 01:08:57
- Audio SHA-256: `d9c95c078a28670c67dbe1bb9cabe9024d2084c07398a7f7b46b9a845c5b8e77`

> Automated timestamped draft (faster-whisper base.en). Names, specialized terms, and unclear passages require human review.

## Transcript

**[00:00:04]** I'd like to take just a minute to go around. My name is Don. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. My home group is an AA group, meets in Denver. Every Friday morning at six o'clock in the basement of the Community Corrections Center. I have been continuously sober since December 26, 1967. I also belong to the program. I don't have much of an agenda. In fact, I'm
**[00:00:39]** completely lost this weekend. I've been waiting for her to tell me what to do. So, I have a
**[00:00:51]** rough idea of what we have in mind here. Generally, it takes Friday night all day Saturday
**[00:00:55]** and early Sunday morning. We're gonna do it all on Saturday. I would like to get some
**[00:01:02]** idea of what you would like out of today, why you came. If you could give me just some brief
**[00:01:09]** idea to remember with this many people, if you take more than two minutes, we've already
**[00:01:13]** used up an hour. Which is fine, because it's your party. Could you do that and start here?
**[00:01:22]** Who are you? Where you come from? What are you here for?
**[00:01:25]** Yeah, I'm miles of alcoholic. Good to be here and good to be sober. I guess I'm here, because I'm
**[00:01:37]** an alcoholic. And I found the solution and I called it synonymous. And to be my own experience,
**[00:01:56]** I found what to do and not to do. And I found that I just don't know a little. I know knowledge.
**[00:02:09]** I can study this book all day and all night. But it's no good to me, unless I do it.
**[00:02:21]** I'm looking for an experience this weekend.
**[00:02:27]** Hi.
**[00:02:28]** It's your turn.
**[00:02:29]** I'm Delaney. I'm an alcoholic.
**[00:02:31]** Thank you.
**[00:02:32]** And I would like to learn more about handling the pounds of my heartache when I get a little
**[00:02:41]** bit upset or angry or somebody threatens my heartache or something like this.
**[00:02:47]** Snuck right in on me.
**[00:02:51]** I'm 4'11 alcoholic.
**[00:02:54]** Well, I am definitely about that.
**[00:02:57]** I'm here with my friends from Davisburg. I went to life as good through my Friday day
**[00:03:02]** to December 12th, 1970. And I wanted to make it to the one who gave this work, but I was
**[00:03:09]** at a wedding and a wedding and a wedding here to the Rhode Island.
**[00:03:13]** So I'm here now and I'll just follow them wherever they go.
**[00:03:18]** Our job this weekend is to intimidate Carl.
**[00:03:22]** I'm an alcoholic.
**[00:03:26]** I'm an alcoholic.
**[00:03:27]** This Friday day is January 23rd, about 93.
**[00:03:32]** And I'm with the male groups to continue the journey that we did start the time.
**[00:03:40]** Okay.
**[00:03:43]** Is there anybody you want to throw out?
**[00:03:46]** It's important to know that.
**[00:03:48]** Okay.
**[00:03:49]** No.
**[00:03:50]** Good.
**[00:03:51]** Then I can stay.
**[00:03:55]** Ah.
**[00:03:56]** We have one more.
**[00:03:57]** We need to know who you are.
**[00:03:59]** We have just finished introducing ourselves.
**[00:04:10]** You're welcome.
**[00:04:11]** A couple of little housekeeping things.
**[00:04:19]** I'm a former smoker, so I'm tuned in to smokers.
**[00:04:25]** Just before you go in saying we'll have a break.
**[00:04:28]** The session is running from an hour to an hour and a half, never more than that.
**[00:04:35]** Because everything I'm sensing is the fact that people have to go.
**[00:04:38]** And I have a 73 minute bladder myself, so you're all safe.
**[00:04:47]** It's critically important if we're going to walk as spiritual people to be on time.
**[00:04:55]** It's only one time anything can ever happen.
**[00:04:59]** That's right now.
**[00:05:01]** And if you're not here when it happens, you missed it.
**[00:05:07]** It's also my greatest defect in character was my rudeness.
**[00:05:13]** I would impose myself into your life and not ask you whether you wanted me there or not.
**[00:05:20]** I would make promises I didn't keep.
**[00:05:23]** Numerous rude things.
**[00:05:25]** Now, as a group, we need to agree that after the break that we'll be back here on time.
**[00:05:32]** Because everybody here affects everybody else here for as long as we're gathered together.
**[00:05:38]** And that's the responsibility you're going to have to take.
**[00:05:44]** I just assume not set down any rules because life doesn't run on rules except in boot camp.
**[00:05:50]** The spiritual life runs on principles.
**[00:05:56]** And that constantly changes the rules.
**[00:06:00]** So if you want a 10 minute break, we'll decide that this is where we take the break.
**[00:06:04]** And I will be back in this chair ready to go in 10 minutes.
**[00:06:09]** I also believe the most important thing that will happen this weekend is you talking to each other.
**[00:06:15]** So when we get back together, as long as you're talking, I won't.
**[00:06:20]** I really believe it's that important.
**[00:06:23]** When you get quiet, I can't stand dead air than it's my turn.
**[00:06:27]** So do we all understand that little piece?
**[00:06:30]** And it's not an admonition.
**[00:06:32]** It's simply that's how I operate.
**[00:06:35]** You may be talking to each other about something vastly more important than anything I would say.
**[00:06:42]** And I really don't want to interrupt that.
**[00:06:45]** If you want a 20 minute break, we'll take a 20 minute break.
**[00:06:48]** If you want to go home and say this is enough, go home.
**[00:06:52]** It's enough.
**[00:06:53]** This is what life is.
**[00:06:56]** I was at one of these things once and I heard myself say that the reason I was here was to have a closer relationship with God.
**[00:07:07]** And as it came out of my mouth, I realized that's the most selfish thing I have ever said.
**[00:07:16]** It's not up to me to determine what the relationship with God is.
**[00:07:19]** God determines that.
**[00:07:21]** And I comply with it.
**[00:07:23]** When I decide how a relationship is supposed to be of any kind, I screw it up because it will be based on what's in it for me.
**[00:07:32]** I will always try to cut the deal to suit me.
**[00:07:36]** I may even be good enough to cut you in on the deal.
**[00:07:40]** But believe me, I'm going to get the best piece of it if I'm working it.
**[00:07:48]** And I learned from that experience that that's not for me to determine.
**[00:07:54]** Everybody who had something that wanted to be addressed or will be addressed, I can tell you this right now,
**[00:08:04]** you already have what you came here to get.
**[00:08:07]** This whole thing is an inside job.
**[00:08:10]** All of it.
**[00:08:12]** I know nothing that you don't know.
**[00:08:15]** The fundamental idea of God is deep within every human being.
**[00:08:21]** And so this pathway for me has been one of not finding God out here because that's where I get lost.
**[00:08:31]** But acknowledging the presence of God here, and that's what happened for me.
**[00:08:38]** So to start off with, I'm going to give you free charge the perfect prayer as far as I understand it today.
**[00:08:48]** God, that's it.
**[00:08:52]** Everything from there is love.
**[00:08:54]** All I need to do is acknowledge the presence of God and it's over.
**[00:09:00]** Then things begin to happen.
**[00:09:02]** So it's the acknowledgement that starts the whole thing.
**[00:09:22]** I was brought into this way of living through the Big Book.
**[00:09:26]** So it's the only one I know.
**[00:09:28]** Now I'm going to do a lot of talking because I assume that's why you haven't come.
**[00:09:32]** And I've heard that this morning.
**[00:09:35]** It doesn't mean you can't talk.
**[00:09:37]** But I'm going to get on a roll here and get used to it.
**[00:09:42]** First of all, they came to the fish tank and told us who they were and then invited us to come to their 12-step study school.
**[00:09:59]** If it sounded like this was something we wanted.
**[00:10:04]** They were alcoholic.
**[00:10:06]** That's what they said they were.
**[00:10:07]** They didn't drink anymore.
**[00:10:09]** They said that.
**[00:10:11]** And the young out there said what we can do is we can show you a new way of thinking.
**[00:10:17]** We can show you how to learn to live a way of life that makes sense to you.
**[00:10:20]** And this was a new thought for me.
**[00:10:23]** I've been trying to live my life so it made sense to you.
**[00:10:27]** And it never made sense to anybody.
**[00:10:29]** So I've learned to live a way of life that makes sense to me.
**[00:10:34]** And my life still doesn't make sense to a lot of people.
**[00:10:37]** And I really don't care.
**[00:10:38]** I really, truly don't.
**[00:10:40]** I'm not going to hurt anybody's feelings.
**[00:10:42]** But until you put red on my table, don't tell me what to eat.
**[00:10:46]** Sounds a little negative but does come in.
**[00:10:50]** I got that from an old convent.
**[00:10:51]** He took me aside one day and he said,
**[00:10:53]** Prince, what are you so worried about what other people think?
**[00:10:55]** There's not one of them going to put a scrap of bread on your table.
**[00:10:58]** And I got the idea.
**[00:11:06]** Now they had an AA group that met every Friday night and they let real people in from the outside.
**[00:11:11]** Because of two-hour meeting.
**[00:11:14]** We took up an hour of it and then real people took up an hour of it.
**[00:11:19]** And we weren't allowed to go to that meeting to start with.
**[00:11:26]** We had to go to this 12-step study school first.
**[00:11:30]** Which meant every Saturday and every Sunday.
**[00:11:33]** And we gave up our yard privileges and our movies.
**[00:11:36]** And for five weeks we went up to this school for four hours every afternoon.
**[00:11:42]** And the very first thing they told us when we got there was that you knew guys
**[00:11:46]** for the next five weeks have nothing to say.
**[00:11:48]** If you knew anything at all you wouldn't be here.
**[00:11:51]** Which was true.
**[00:11:54]** I hear stuff today.
**[00:11:56]** It's the vault to build self-esteem.
**[00:11:59]** I'm alive because they made damn sure I didn't have any I knew that.
**[00:12:03]** This is about ego deflation at depths.
**[00:12:06]** Otherwise I won't quit playing God.
**[00:12:11]** At depths.
**[00:12:13]** It doesn't mean humiliation at depths.
**[00:12:16]** It means ego deflation.
**[00:12:18]** If you're doing some damn good what are you doing here?
**[00:12:22]** Okay.
**[00:12:23]** What they were saying to me and I had to agree.
**[00:12:26]** I've been doing my very best and there I was.
**[00:12:31]** I get the lovely contrast of knowing that I started out as a number.
**[00:12:36]** Not a person.
**[00:12:38]** So everything from there on has been a bonus to me.
**[00:12:41]** They gave me back my name when I went and complained to my sponsor.
**[00:12:46]** He called me dummy.
**[00:12:47]** And I thought what a lovely thing.
**[00:12:50]** I'm no longer 38, 984.
**[00:12:52]** I'm dummy.
**[00:12:53]** He loves me.
**[00:13:11]** So I see two aspects of alcoholics anonymous.
**[00:13:19]** There's the fellowship.
**[00:13:20]** Very important.
**[00:13:22]** Without it we would be in bad shape.
**[00:13:28]** One is the recovery process and they're separate.
**[00:13:32]** They're interdependent but they are two different things altogether.
**[00:13:39]** We were brought into the recovery process first so we could have a spiritual awakening because
**[00:13:45]** that's what's going to solve my problem.
**[00:13:48]** Then having had a spiritual awakening then I was brought to the fellowship so I could do something with it.
**[00:13:54]** Because it isn't about me.
**[00:13:56]** My sobriety is not for me.
**[00:13:58]** My sobriety is for you.
**[00:14:01]** I've already got it.
**[00:14:02]** What else am I going to get?
**[00:14:05]** My sobriety is for you.
**[00:14:06]** My life is none of my business.
**[00:14:08]** The conduct of my life becomes my business.
**[00:14:12]** But the outcomes of my life are none of my business.
**[00:14:16]** It solves the ambition problem.
**[00:14:18]** I don't have any.
**[00:14:24]** It's been a real ride since I got on that track.
**[00:14:28]** 31 years ago I became conscious of that.
**[00:14:32]** I will be what he wants me to be and I will go where he wants me to go.
**[00:14:35]** I don't care.
**[00:14:36]** I've had five major careers since that time.
**[00:14:43]** I just finished giving up all my authority and all my power where I work.
**[00:14:48]** Now everybody thinks I've run the place.
**[00:14:51]** It's really fun to watch.
**[00:14:53]** I can't even make a decision down here.
**[00:14:55]** Everybody wants to know what decisions should be made here.
**[00:14:58]** And I give them the best answer I can.
**[00:15:01]** I don't know.
**[00:15:03]** I was an administrator for a while and I resigned.
**[00:15:07]** He was driving me crazy and I did the inventory and discovered
**[00:15:11]** that the reason it was driving me crazy is I don't care if the word gets done or not.
**[00:15:17]** It's a bad attitude for an administrator.
**[00:15:20]** So I resigned.
**[00:15:22]** And they gave me that position and they put me somewhere else.
**[00:15:26]** It makes me easy to get along with.
**[00:15:34]** If my life is none of my business, your certainly isn't.
**[00:15:38]** You know what time I get testing with people is when they try to tell me I live.
**[00:15:43]** Well, I won't tell you. You don't tell me.
**[00:15:47]** How's that? Is that a deal?
**[00:15:49]** That's kind of what the fellowship produces.
**[00:15:51]** We encourage you, if you're a little bit insane, to keep coming back.
**[00:15:58]** You don't know it, but you're our entertainment.
**[00:16:00]** We won't tell you that until later.
**[00:16:05]** When it's your turn.
**[00:16:07]** So I was hand carried through the steps.
**[00:16:14]** And the way they did it was the way I've been doing it ever since and what I'll do this weekend.
**[00:16:18]** They shared their experience with this book.
**[00:16:20]** They read it out loud to us, shared their experience of it,
**[00:16:25]** and then gave us precise directions on what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.
**[00:16:31]** And Smith left us our greatest legacy.
**[00:16:40]** You must walk day by day with a new person for a while.
**[00:16:46]** I have grandchildren in my house a lot.
**[00:16:50]** I can't conceive of the meanness that it would take to wake that child up and then walk away.
**[00:17:00]** And leave the room.
**[00:17:03]** So it's the same thing when we're working with others, I believe.
**[00:17:06]** My job is to help you wake up.
**[00:17:09]** Now that you're awake, my job is to walk with you for a while until you get used to being awake.
**[00:17:15]** The big book uses the word reborn.
**[00:17:17]** This is a transforming experience.
**[00:17:19]** We get a new mind.
**[00:17:21]** And I don't know how to use it.
**[00:17:23]** So don't wake me up and then just dump me somewhere.
**[00:17:27]** Because I'll screw this deal up.
**[00:17:32]** My ego will get it.
**[00:17:34]** I have known people who got the power here, and then they appropriated it to their own use.
**[00:17:43]** And it ate them up.
**[00:17:45]** I've watched it.
**[00:17:47]** And it's heartbreaking to see.
**[00:17:49]** So you're in great danger today because what we're going to do in this walk is discover where the power is and how to access it.
**[00:17:57]** And if you're feeling powerless this morning, by tonight you will know where the power is and how to access it.
**[00:18:04]** And I put you in great danger.
**[00:18:09]** I'm told here that I've been given the power to help others.
**[00:18:15]** That's the only reason I've been given the power.
**[00:18:18]** From the very beginning of the big book, we're being taught how to trust it.
**[00:18:23]** How to pass it on.
**[00:18:25]** Because it's clear, it's not for us.
**[00:18:28]** I'm going to pick on some people I don't mean to.
**[00:18:34]** But I've heard some things that are so contrary to what my experience is.
**[00:18:38]** I know I'm going to pick on some people.
**[00:18:40]** So I'll apologize in advance, but I much don't give a damn.
**[00:18:46]** What's the truth?
**[00:18:54]** Well, let's see here.
**[00:18:55]** I have a second edition big book.
**[00:18:59]** What I'm seeing, most of the earth, third editions, there's not many changes.
**[00:19:05]** There's a radical change between the first edition and the second edition.
**[00:19:10]** Radical change, major change.
**[00:19:14]** In all first edition big books, the doctor's opinion was page one.
**[00:19:18]** Now it's been isolated into a separate section.
**[00:19:24]** I don't know why.
**[00:19:25]** I've tried to find out why for 15 years.
**[00:19:27]** There is no smoking gun.
**[00:19:28]** Nobody knows why.
**[00:19:29]** I've gotten six different reasons.
**[00:19:31]** None of them are true.
**[00:19:33]** Nobody knows why.
**[00:19:34]** I went to the archives and asked Frank Mauser.
**[00:19:36]** He said he'd been looking for it too.
**[00:19:38]** There's no smoking gun.
**[00:19:39]** Nobody knows why.
**[00:19:40]** It doesn't matter why.
**[00:19:41]** What concerns me is that we began to notice some people who were drinking again.
**[00:19:50]** And they would say they didn't understand why because they'd done everything that the
**[00:19:54]** first 164 pages said to do.
**[00:19:57]** And we'll hear what they were saying.
**[00:20:00]** They're leaving out the doctor's opinion.
**[00:20:03]** If you tell anybody the answer is in the first 164 pages, you're leaving out the doctor's opinion.
**[00:20:08]** And that may sound petty.
**[00:20:11]** But a new person will do exactly what we tell them to do.
**[00:20:15]** And most new people, they look preface.
**[00:20:17]** Well, I don't need debt.
**[00:20:18]** Ford, I don't need debt.
**[00:20:20]** This is just some guy's opinion here it is.
**[00:20:26]** I've got one of those minds, I know.
**[00:20:33]** So, I am currently one of numerous members of Alcoholics Anonymous who are saying, since
**[00:20:40]** we are now considering the possibility of the fourth edition of the book, this might
**[00:20:44]** be a good time just to restore our book to its original condition.
**[00:20:49]** It won't happen this time, but we might talk about it some more.
**[00:20:54]** In the meantime, we're going to start at the beginning of the book.
**[00:20:59]** Without the doctor's opinion, I wouldn't be here.
**[00:21:02]** It defined what was wrong with me when I didn't know.
**[00:21:05]** I will skip the preface.
**[00:21:09]** We can't read the whole thing.
**[00:21:11]** I'm going to kind of jump around here and give you how I use this book and what my experience
**[00:21:16]** with it has been.
**[00:21:18]** Let's go to the forward of the first edition.
**[00:21:22]** It says this is how it appeared in the first printing of the first edition in 39.
**[00:21:25]** That's not exactly true.
**[00:21:27]** The words are all the same.
**[00:21:29]** The words are italicized.
**[00:21:31]** In the first editions, it was big, bold, black print, heavy print.
**[00:21:36]** It changes the emphasis a little bit.
**[00:21:42]** The way we work, is that above moving up there?
**[00:21:49]** Come on in.
**[00:21:51]** We've been talking about you.
**[00:22:04]** To address some things I heard, you can study this to your blind.
**[00:22:10]** The way you approach the program will determine the outcomes, unfortunately.
**[00:22:15]** And this is my approach.
**[00:22:18]** Thank God they got this to me real quick.
**[00:22:21]** We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than a hundred men and women who have recovered
**[00:22:27]** from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
**[00:22:32]** I'm no longer in recovery.
**[00:22:34]** I haven't been in recovery for years.
**[00:22:36]** I am a recovered alcoholic.
**[00:22:38]** There's a period of time in any disease when you must be in recovery.
**[00:22:42]** But you can't stay in recovery forever.
**[00:22:45]** You eventually are as recovered as you're going to get.
**[00:22:48]** And now it's time to get on about to business with them.
**[00:22:53]** Without that promise I wouldn't be here.
**[00:22:58]** If you offered me a way to cope with my problem, I left you.
**[00:23:02]** Because my cope were broke years ago.
**[00:23:05]** To cope means to fight, to good fight.
**[00:23:07]** And I am plumbed out of fight.
**[00:23:10]** I don't need to cope with this.
**[00:23:15]** Being in recovery is a very difficult time.
**[00:23:19]** Everything still hurts for one thing.
**[00:23:24]** And there's days I suffer from certain kinds of chronic pain.
**[00:23:29]** I can tell you there are days when there's just let me out of here.
**[00:23:35]** I don't want any more recovery.
**[00:23:37]** Just let me out of here.
**[00:23:39]** And it's that way with alcoholism particularly.
**[00:23:42]** This is just too hard for me.
**[00:23:44]** Well, you can recover from this disease.
**[00:23:51]** And to show others precisely how we're recovered is the main purpose of this book.
**[00:23:56]** I died because I had become useless.
**[00:24:01]** I am now given a reason for living.
**[00:24:04]** To show others precisely how I recover.
**[00:24:07]** So my recovery isn't for me.
**[00:24:09]** It's for you.
**[00:24:10]** As long as I can show others how I did this.
**[00:24:13]** Precisely, I don't have to be smart.
**[00:24:15]** I don't have to have a lot of knowledge.
**[00:24:17]** I don't have to be hip slick and cool.
**[00:24:19]** All I have to do is tell you, oh, this is what I was like.
**[00:24:23]** And this is what happened when I did this.
**[00:24:26]** And this is what I'm like now.
**[00:24:28]** And it's all I have to do.
**[00:24:30]** And then pass you on to the next guy so we can do the same thing.
**[00:24:35]** My friend, a real husband whom I loved early.
**[00:24:37]** He's one of the guys 50 some odd plus years sober that I hang out with.
**[00:24:42]** When we get talking about sponsorship, this book doesn't tell you a single time how to find a sponsor.
**[00:24:51]** It teaches you how to be one.
**[00:24:53]** Now, I'm a contrary person.
**[00:24:56]** I think there is one place where it tells you how to find a sponsor.
**[00:24:59]** Y'all got to disagree with your old.
**[00:25:03]** This is it.
**[00:25:05]** To show others precisely how we recovered is the main purpose of this book or anybody who's a member of A.
**[00:25:10]** So if I'm going to pick a sponsor, I want to pick somebody who can show me precisely how they're recovered.
**[00:25:15]** First of all, I want them to be recovered.
**[00:25:18]** And how will I know they are recovered?
**[00:25:20]** They don't suffer from the symptoms of alcoholism.
**[00:25:24]** And what are the symptoms of alcoholism?
**[00:25:28]** Well, we're going to get to them.
**[00:25:30]** It's defined and described precisely here.
**[00:25:36]** Knox Elcore talks about an allergy of the body.
**[00:25:40]** If I add an allergy to tomatoes and ate tomatoes, I'd break out with an itch.
**[00:25:45]** My allergy is alcohol.
**[00:25:46]** If I take alcohol into my system, I'd break out with an itch for another drink alcohol.
**[00:25:51]** That's a symptom.
**[00:25:53]** Go so far as to say it only happens to certain kinds of people.
**[00:25:56]** They're called alcoholics.
**[00:25:58]** Never happens.
**[00:25:59]** Never happens.
**[00:26:02]** To the average temperate drinker or any other kind of drinker.
**[00:26:05]** Only the alcoholics.
**[00:26:06]** That's a symptom.
**[00:26:07]** I sponsored a psychiatrist one time.
**[00:26:11]** God, he was funny.
**[00:26:12]** He was the founding psychiatrist of one of the finest alcohol and drug treatment programs in the world, the University of Colorado.
**[00:26:22]** Just couldn't stay sober himself.
**[00:26:24]** And we're reading the doctor's opinion because that's what I do.
**[00:26:29]** I have no illusions that I know anything.
**[00:26:32]** So we're going to read this thing just in case you can get it.
**[00:26:36]** And I'm watching the information go in his head and get lost among all the stuff he knows.
**[00:26:43]** And we're getting into the yeah, butts.
**[00:26:48]** And I love working with new people because they help me pray effectively.
**[00:26:55]** Oh God, what am I going to say to this one?
**[00:27:02]** How can I make this any simpler than what's right here?
**[00:27:06]** Sometimes I'm cold upon to make it simpler than what's right here.
**[00:27:09]** But thank God my sponsors did that for me.
**[00:27:11]** They read what this said and they said for you that means.
**[00:27:18]** So I'm praying because I know I'm going to lose him and it came.
**[00:27:24]** I said, Don, what happens to you after the first drink?
**[00:27:28]** He said, well, around the fourth or fifth or sixth drink.
**[00:27:32]** Forget where I'm supposed to go next tonight.
**[00:27:35]** Keep drinking and I end up getting drunk.
**[00:27:38]** I said, well, Don, what happens to you after the first drink?
**[00:27:41]** Oh, around the fifth or sixth drink.
**[00:27:45]** Well, what happens to me after the first drink is the second drink.
**[00:27:50]** That's all I need to know.
**[00:27:52]** If that happens to you, don't give up your seat.
**[00:27:58]** It only happens to alcoholics.
**[00:28:00]** It happens to all alcoholics.
**[00:28:02]** And it doesn't mean that I'm going to have the second drink ten minutes from now.
**[00:28:05]** It may be at the end of the week.
**[00:28:08]** But I will have another drink and another and another and I will end up drinking.
**[00:28:14]** Isn't that easy?
**[00:28:18]** That's the doctor's opinion.
**[00:28:20]** At least that's section of it.
**[00:28:22]** So there's one of the symptoms.
**[00:28:23]** If when I take a drink, I'm unable to predict how many I'm going to have.
**[00:28:31]** I have a symptom.
**[00:28:35]** One of the other symptoms is a mind that can't seem to remember that.
**[00:28:38]** Regular minds have something happen to them.
**[00:28:48]** They don't do that again.
**[00:28:50]** They say, oh, this causes this.
**[00:28:52]** Psychotic minds say, I want to try that once more just to be sure.
**[00:28:58]** And then what happens is they say, yep, I'm sure.
**[00:29:03]** We'll go do something else.
**[00:29:06]** The alcoholic mind says, no, that didn't would cause it.
**[00:29:10]** This is what caused it.
**[00:29:12]** Two, three steps down the line from that first drink.
**[00:29:15]** This would cause trouble.
**[00:29:18]** I have an awful lot of high drama in my life because I'm the kind of person that just loves high drama.
**[00:29:27]** I have since I was little.
**[00:29:29]** So my alcoholic story is filled with drama.
**[00:29:31]** My recovery story is filled with drama.
**[00:29:34]** I just love drama.
**[00:29:35]** I'm an actor.
**[00:29:37]** That does not define alcoholism.
**[00:29:39]** Non-alcoholics wreck cars when they're drunk.
**[00:29:45]** Non-alcoholics do all the behaviors that alcoholics do when they're drinking.
**[00:29:50]** But they're not alcoholic because they can start or stop when they want.
**[00:29:55]** They can moderate when they want.
**[00:29:57]** I can't do that.
**[00:29:59]** The big book discusses three kinds of drinkers.
**[00:30:02]** The moderate drinker who can stop when they feel like it.
**[00:30:08]** A certain kind of hard drinker who looks like me and his behaviors,
**[00:30:12]** but given a sufficient reason to quit, he can.
**[00:30:17]** He can stop or moderate.
**[00:30:19]** I have an uncle like that, Uncle Walt.
**[00:30:22]** Twenty-five years or so going, Uncle Walt really drank.
**[00:30:24]** He and that roof were drinkers.
**[00:30:28]** His doctor said, Walter, if you don't stop, you're going to die.
**[00:30:31]** Well, he quit.
**[00:30:32]** He didn't have what it took to be an alcoholic.
**[00:30:37]** Couldn't make it.
**[00:30:39]** You got to really be tough to get into this game.
**[00:30:42]** You got to be lonely sleeping gutters and those families and jobs and hurt people
**[00:30:47]** and sleeping gutters.
**[00:30:49]** Oh, you got to be tough.
**[00:30:52]** You got to be able to puke and like it.
**[00:30:57]** Oh, yeah.
**[00:30:58]** The day comes, if you like me, when I'm drinking and I've had so much,
**[00:31:03]** I'm about to go into a coma, but I'm not through drinking.
**[00:31:08]** So I'll stick my finger down my throat, get rid of that,
**[00:31:11]** now we can go back and drink some more.
**[00:31:13]** That's not normal.
**[00:31:15]** I'm sorry.
**[00:31:18]** These are little identifiers.
**[00:31:21]** I've got a mind that just can't wrap itself around.
**[00:31:37]** I began to come into the truth.
**[00:31:40]** Now, when I got here, I was pretty much a clean slate.
**[00:31:44]** A lot of horror behind me, but I was a new person.
**[00:31:46]** I had the memories of a man who had died.
**[00:31:50]** Christmas night in 1967, I died.
**[00:31:53]** I'm absolutely certain of it.
**[00:31:55]** I took a two month supply of amphetamines and shot them at Marham
**[00:31:58]** and drank everything in the house and I laid down and I died.
**[00:32:02]** That will kill you.
**[00:32:06]** I woke up in the morning, I didn't feel good.
**[00:32:09]** Not even close.
**[00:32:11]** Everything hurt.
**[00:32:13]** Particularly my soul, because I woke up.
**[00:32:17]** And I wasn't supposed to be here.
**[00:32:23]** And the police were at the door and that's how I knew I hadn't died.
**[00:32:28]** Whichever place you go, they don't need cops.
**[00:32:31]** I'm still here.
**[00:32:34]** A failure at living and a failure at dying.
**[00:32:39]** Finally willing to do anything at all anybody said.
**[00:32:42]** And that's really all I brought here.
**[00:32:44]** If you brought that here with you today, you'll make it.
**[00:32:48]** If you're wanting to do anything this says.
**[00:32:51]** And this is the bullshit sifter.
**[00:32:53]** I listened to everything everybody says.
**[00:32:55]** And then if I can reconcile it with this, okay.
**[00:32:58]** If I can't, I'm either too dumb or it's bullshit.
**[00:33:01]** So I don't mess with it.
**[00:33:04]** It's the greatest little gift I've been given.
**[00:33:06]** Because what it does is, while I'm trying to figure out what you said
**[00:33:09]** if it fits here, I'm getting the truth.
**[00:33:14]** Anyway, I ended up where you came and found me.
**[00:33:22]** I was certified at that time as a sociopath type 2, a psychopath,
**[00:33:26]** and a manic depressive drug addict.
**[00:33:29]** Because everybody was assessing me on my behavior.
**[00:33:33]** And if you watched me, that's what it looked like.
**[00:33:38]** My alcoholism was hidden behind bizarre behavior.
**[00:33:44]** It's a distraction that we use quite a bit.
**[00:33:47]** Okay.
**[00:33:49]** When you're worried or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.
**[00:33:55]** Create a diversion.
**[00:34:01]** The old skin get here.
**[00:34:05]** You do that really good.
**[00:34:07]** I just didn't want to be that anymore and I wasn't.
**[00:34:17]** I think one of the messages I'm trying to get across today
**[00:34:21]** is that what you're looking for, you're looking with.
**[00:34:29]** You've already got it.
**[00:34:31]** There's nothing to get.
**[00:34:34]** You've already got it.
**[00:34:36]** It's a matter of waking up and becoming conscious of what that really is.
**[00:34:41]** And so that's what my sponsors did for me.
**[00:34:45]** I couldn't identify with their drama.
**[00:34:47]** Now my first sponsor was a killer.
**[00:34:49]** He'd kill some people in a shootout in downtown Denver.
**[00:34:52]** I'm not that exciting.
**[00:34:54]** But I could identify with the way he felt and the way he thought.
**[00:35:02]** And particularly his inability to not drink.
**[00:35:07]** They said they didn't think I was a psychopath or associate path.
**[00:35:13]** I was a good actor.
**[00:35:16]** Bill uses that analogy all through here, the actor.
**[00:35:19]** And it's an easy one for us to get ahold of because that's what we are.
**[00:35:23]** I can remember time and time again somebody would confront me with the truth.
**[00:35:32]** And before I'm through, there it felt.
**[00:35:39]** We're not going to discuss me.
**[00:35:41]** We're going to discuss you.
**[00:35:43]** Okay.
**[00:35:44]** You know what that one too?
**[00:35:47]** Yeah.
**[00:35:48]** Move away.
**[00:35:50]** Now, there were some things that concerned me.
**[00:36:09]** Because I was in a place I had never really figured I'd be.
**[00:36:14]** I didn't know what I had in mind for my life.
**[00:36:16]** Bottom is the morning I wake up knowing what I had in mind
**[00:36:19]** for my life isn't going to happen.
**[00:36:21]** And so I pick up a new set of dreams and a new kid of tools and start off on a new path.
**[00:36:27]** I just simply finally ran out of paths.
**[00:36:29]** I was too tired.
**[00:36:30]** I couldn't get up anymore.
**[00:36:33]** But I had this fresh mind that was willing to do anything.
**[00:36:36]** I'm stuck in a body that won't die.
**[00:36:39]** Carrying with her mind that won't work made me really willing to listen to anybody.
**[00:36:45]** And I'm so glad that God intervened because the state, the federal government,
**[00:36:51]** and me had all agreed to send me to a different place where I'd get a different kind of treatment.
**[00:36:57]** See, there's no treatment for what's wrong with me.
**[00:37:00]** It says that right in here.
**[00:37:02]** There is no treatment for what we just discussed.
**[00:37:04]** This allergy to alcohol.
**[00:37:06]** I still got it.
**[00:37:08]** It's there.
**[00:37:09]** If I take a drink today, it will be as if I had never stopped.
**[00:37:12]** And I'm believing that because I'm watching people with 25 and 30 years of sobriety drink.
**[00:37:18]** They're not getting back.
**[00:37:20]** They're dying within weeks as if they had never stopped.
**[00:37:23]** They're not starting when they left off.
**[00:37:26]** People with 15 and 20 years are having difficulty getting back.
**[00:37:31]** The magic's gone.
**[00:37:33]** Well, there's no magic here.
**[00:37:40]** That's why it's gone.
**[00:37:41]** There's miracles here.
**[00:37:43]** Not magic.
**[00:37:45]** Magic is illusion.
**[00:37:47]** Magic is trickery.
**[00:37:52]** I'm a good actor and a fine magician.
**[00:37:55]** I can turn my wrong doings into your fault.
**[00:38:01]** With a little fufu dust.
**[00:38:08]** Throughout most of my life, I would have these same periods where I'd wonder, what the hell's wrong with you?
**[00:38:23]** Yeah.
**[00:38:24]** Because when I'm in my right mind, I'm a really decent human being.
**[00:38:30]** I'm a family man.
**[00:38:32]** I love to work.
**[00:38:34]** I want to accomplish things.
**[00:38:36]** I'm kind and gentle to people.
**[00:38:39]** I'm a good human being when I'm sober.
**[00:38:42]** So what the hell's wrong with me?
**[00:38:44]** That I would go do this.
**[00:38:46]** This being anything contrary to that.
**[00:38:51]** I've never got an answer.
**[00:38:55]** Well, I've got thousands of answers.
**[00:38:58]** Everybody has an answer to that one.
**[00:39:01]** Don't go out there on the street and ask people what's wrong with you.
**[00:39:05]** They'll tell you.
**[00:39:07]** And we don't have any answers here either, by the way.
**[00:39:10]** Tom will solve them and be clear with that.
**[00:39:13]** We don't have any answers here.
**[00:39:14]** If you want an answer, go on the street and ask anybody and they'll give you the answers.
**[00:39:18]** What we have here is a solution.
**[00:39:21]** And if you'll immerse yourself entirely in this solution, you'll come up with your own answers.
**[00:39:25]** So I'm wondering about this.
**[00:39:29]** What caused this?
**[00:39:30]** I'm in my third penitentiary now.
**[00:39:33]** And this really isn't what I had in mind.
**[00:39:36]** And it's not what my family had in mind.
**[00:39:39]** This is not what we wanted to have where Don should be at 34.
**[00:39:45]** Where I wanted to be was home with my kids.
**[00:39:48]** And my kids were now in a foster home with the sergeant of the Denver Sheriff's office.
**[00:39:54]** Not only do I get arrested, the poor babies get arrested.
**[00:40:01]** What's wrong with me?
**[00:40:03]** Because this is the third time it's happened.
**[00:40:06]** So I've gone past psychotic.
**[00:40:09]** I tested it now.
**[00:40:10]** Now I'm really into it.
**[00:40:12]** And I'm doing the numbers.
**[00:40:14]** Okay.
**[00:40:16]** Let your mind go.
**[00:40:18]** I did three months in my first penitentiary.
**[00:40:21]** Six months in my second.
**[00:40:23]** Now this is an 18 month deal.
**[00:40:25]** This next number is going to be a hummer.
**[00:40:28]** It's the mathworks, right?
**[00:40:31]** And that's what will happen.
**[00:40:33]** It's clear to me.
**[00:40:34]** Whatever's wrong with me, this is the path I will end up taking.
**[00:40:41]** But what put me in the first one?
**[00:40:43]** Because I didn't commit a criminal act.
**[00:40:46]** I didn't become a criminal until later.
**[00:40:48]** I made that as a conscious choice, by the way.
**[00:40:51]** I work in corrections.
**[00:40:53]** Most of us chose that way of life.
**[00:40:59]** Based on self.
**[00:41:00]** It's a conscious decision.
**[00:41:02]** It's this at the end of a long resentment.
**[00:41:07]** I hate it.
**[00:41:11]** This is what I use in my half ass, right?
**[00:41:14]** Now in the doctor's opinion, Bill writes some things too.
**[00:41:22]** They're critically important to the approach to this book.
**[00:41:26]** On Roman numeral page 24, Bill's talking about Dr. Silkworth's statements.
**[00:41:37]** He said that in the second statement, he confirms what we have suffered alcoholic torture must
**[00:41:44]** believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind.
**[00:41:52]** In our belief, any picture of the alcoholic, which leaves out this physical factor, is
**[00:41:57]** incomplete.
**[00:41:58]** That means this is going to be incomplete also.
**[00:42:03]** Any picture of the alcoholic that leaves out the physical factor is going to be incomplete.
**[00:42:08]** Y'all go to a lot of meetings.
**[00:42:12]** When was the last time the doctor's opinion was discussed at a meeting?
**[00:42:17]** I keep looking for it.
**[00:42:18]** So for 15 years, I don't care what the topic is.
**[00:42:21]** We're going to talk about that first.
**[00:42:23]** Because I don't hear it.
**[00:42:29]** And yet Bill's telling us without it, the whole deal's incomplete.
**[00:42:32]** Maybe that's why some people are hanging around here and drinking again and not getting this.
**[00:42:36]** Our friend Jerome, God Jerome was a joy.
**[00:42:40]** He had one of those intellects that they couldn't measure.
**[00:42:43]** And he had a really hard time getting sober.
**[00:42:47]** Smart people just have a tough time here.
**[00:42:50]** Eager deflation of death helps.
**[00:42:53]** The dumber you can get to better chance you have a living.
**[00:42:56]** The absolute mark of real sanity is, I don't know.
**[00:43:03]** Jerome finally got it.
**[00:43:13]** He had to lose absolutely everything.
**[00:43:16]** I was his confidante.
**[00:43:18]** As something else was removed from his life, he'd call me and tell me about it.
**[00:43:22]** The bastards of the ballbacks got me again.
**[00:43:25]** And he was down to, he had a little room and he had a collection of Sherlock Holmes and a cat.
**[00:43:34]** And that's all he had left.
**[00:43:36]** And he called me one day and he says, they already got me today.
**[00:43:41]** Somebody took me to lunch at a Chinese restaurant.
**[00:43:45]** Everybody got these wonderful fortune cookies.
**[00:43:47]** Mine was blank.
**[00:43:49]** I was Jerome.
**[00:44:00]** And about a week after that he says, it's over.
**[00:44:03]** I just finished the books.
**[00:44:06]** Nothing left to read.
**[00:44:07]** And a cat died this morning of leukemia.
**[00:44:11]** Couldn't even be distemperate.
**[00:44:12]** It had to go dramatic for Jerome.
**[00:44:17]** Ah, yeah.
**[00:44:19]** Well, I hope not.
**[00:44:23]** Jerome began to get it.
**[00:44:25]** He went through the steps.
**[00:44:26]** Denver's a big book town.
**[00:44:27]** We just take everybody through the steps.
**[00:44:30]** He woke up.
**[00:44:33]** They came the director of the Parkside Treatment Center for a while.
**[00:44:38]** Was ready doing well.
**[00:44:39]** Met a lovely lady.
**[00:44:40]** Very cultured lady.
**[00:44:41]** Very bright lady.
**[00:44:43]** And they established a home.
**[00:44:45]** He began to write.
**[00:44:46]** He found he had a talent for sharing our message with real people.
**[00:44:50]** The church of divine science put him on the road sometimes.
**[00:44:53]** Getting talks to folks.
**[00:44:54]** And he wrote some books about it.
**[00:44:56]** He was really there.
**[00:44:58]** Twelve years sober.
**[00:45:00]** Tom and a couple of the other guys found him in a motel on his Colfax drunk.
**[00:45:08]** And they loved him enough that they went and bought whiskey.
**[00:45:13]** On the site where they want me to drink himself into a coma.
**[00:45:16]** Because they understood this.
**[00:45:18]** Stopped alcoholic half way through.
**[00:45:21]** They're going to finish.
**[00:45:22]** That's why detox didn't do much good.
**[00:45:24]** Three to five days this thing may still be, this allergy may still be kicking.
**[00:45:30]** Anyway, they let him drink himself into a coma and then they rest in the hospital.
**[00:45:35]** We talked to Jerome afterwards.
**[00:45:37]** I'm really interested in why people who have been sober for a while drink again.
**[00:45:43]** Particularly when they're doing the deal.
**[00:45:47]** And he said that it was because he never really believed what Doc Silkler said.
**[00:45:54]** Never really believed me.
**[00:45:56]** And he had this lovely wife culture that drank wine with meals.
**[00:46:02]** She never got involved, which is not the problem.
**[00:46:06]** But she kept asking him, you've been sober long enough.
**[00:46:09]** Why can't you have just a glass of wine?
**[00:46:11]** And he said for several years, I can't.
**[00:46:15]** And then one day he said, you know you're right.
**[00:46:19]** And he did.
**[00:46:20]** And he ended up in a motel.
**[00:46:24]** He said he never really believed this.
**[00:46:27]** This picture was left out and sure nothing was incomplete.
**[00:46:30]** When the time came, he had a way he could drink.
**[00:46:34]** Jerome died last year in the Denver City Jail, drunk.
**[00:46:37]** Never got sober again.
**[00:46:39]** Tried and tried and tried, couldn't make it.
**[00:46:42]** Just couldn't make it.
**[00:46:44]** I have the same disease he has.
**[00:46:47]** It behooves me to believe every blessed word in here.
**[00:46:52]** Okay.
**[00:46:53]** Because these people are me and they didn't drink again ever.
**[00:46:58]** And that's all I want.
**[00:47:01]** So I believe this.
**[00:47:02]** And then in applying that to me, I'm wondering what put me in that penitentiary when I was 19 years old.
**[00:47:13]** What did that?
**[00:47:14]** Doc Silkler explains it.
**[00:47:20]** Over on page 27 from a normal page 27.
**[00:47:23]** That's X-X-B-I-I for those of you who didn't get that experience.
**[00:47:27]** Wouldn't it be easier if this is just page four?
**[00:47:35]** That's what it was in the big book when it first came out.
**[00:47:42]** Down on the bottom, I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control.
**[00:47:48]** I've had many men who had, for example, worked a period of months on some problem or business deal,
**[00:47:53]** which would be settled favorably to them on a certain date.
**[00:47:56]** I took a drink of theirs so prior to the date.
**[00:47:59]** And then the phenomenon of craving, it once became paramount to all other interests.
**[00:48:04]** So the important appointment was not better.
**[00:48:08]** These men were not drinking to escape.
**[00:48:10]** They were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control.
**[00:48:14]** Then it went click.
**[00:48:16]** I was in the Navy and I absolutely loved the Navy.
**[00:48:22]** I was going to be a hero and come home, a hero.
**[00:48:26]** You know, I loved it.
**[00:48:27]** There's still no experience quite like being on the high seas at night and watching the ocean turn
**[00:48:33]** and it fluoresces and it breathes.
**[00:48:35]** Oh, man.
**[00:48:40]** And I was a radar man at the time.
**[00:48:43]** Very exciting.
**[00:48:44]** We were hanging out in the whorehouses and the bars in the Orient.
**[00:48:49]** You know, good for any 18, 19-year-old life of a sweet cuspid Jew.
**[00:48:57]** Two man things.
**[00:48:59]** I just loved it.
**[00:49:05]** And just before we went to Korea for the young teen at the time,
**[00:49:14]** they gave us a 24-hour liberty and I want to shore.
**[00:49:17]** I had a drinking long beach.
**[00:49:20]** And 23 days later, when I got back to the ship, it was gone.
**[00:49:24]** That's what put me in the penitentiary, messing the ship, moving it to a war zone.
**[00:49:29]** High crime.
**[00:49:32]** At that time.
**[00:49:34]** But what really happened, for the first time in my life, because God had already entered
**[00:49:38]** into me working actively, I saw what happened.
**[00:49:45]** I had a drink in Long Beach and this happened and I had a second drink in Long Beach.
**[00:49:52]** And then I moved up coast and I ended up in Pershing Square in Los Angeles after 22 days
**[00:49:57]** of mooching drinks and doing things that are completely contrary to my character,
**[00:50:02]** to who I am, in order to continue drinking.
**[00:50:05]** And on day 23, the madness left me.
**[00:50:10]** On day 22, I couldn't go back.
**[00:50:12]** You had to take me in chains because I needed a drink.
**[00:50:17]** On day 23, I turned myself in, went back to face the consequences like any sane human being.
**[00:50:25]** Now that was not enough information, but there's the foundation in my entire recovery.
**[00:50:36]** At every cell in my body, I know that's what will happen to me, because from that point
**[00:50:41]** all of the memories linked up with that.
**[00:50:43]** I've got a new mind.
**[00:50:45]** It puts things together the way it ought to be.
**[00:50:47]** If I take a drink anywhere, I will take another drink anywhere.
**[00:50:54]** I nearly died on my first drunk from alcohol poisoning, because I drank too much.
**[00:51:01]** Too much bonded bourbon.
**[00:51:05]** At that time, my keen alcoholic mind said that bonded bourbon makes you sick, so I haven't
**[00:51:09]** any bonded bourbon since.
**[00:51:11]** I won't drink that shit.
**[00:51:12]** I'm sure if that's all I could get, I would, but there's too much other stuff.
**[00:51:19]** And I learned how to drink other stuff that wouldn't make me sick.
**[00:51:22]** And how to mix this chemical on that, to enhance that.
**[00:51:27]** I loved speed when I first discovered it.
**[00:51:30]** I made it possible for me to drink again.
**[00:51:33]** I was 19 and drinking wasn't working.
**[00:51:35]** I was continually getting drunk.
**[00:51:37]** He talks about men and women drink for the effect produced by alcohol.
**[00:51:40]** Early on, I have some memories to go with that.
**[00:51:44]** And I suggest when I sponsor you bring your own memories to this.
**[00:51:48]** Early on, if we were going to go fight, I learned to drink vodka.
**[00:51:55]** Because when I drink vodka, I get me.
**[00:51:58]** And if you're going to fight, you ought to have a little mean edge to you.
**[00:52:02]** I still got my ass kicked.
**[00:52:04]** But I was mean.
**[00:52:08]** If we were going to go to a party and there might be some girls there,
**[00:52:13]** I'd drink dark Bacardi rum.
**[00:52:15]** Because it makes me sensitive and warm.
**[00:52:18]** And with coolers, beer, and fern husky, I can cry.
**[00:52:28]** With Moghad David Wine, I was a poet.
**[00:52:32]** You're in a painter.
**[00:52:34]** And eventually it just got me drunk.
**[00:52:39]** But I began to cry.
**[00:52:42]** Well, yeah.
**[00:52:43]** Because I take too much.
**[00:52:45]** I can't stop.
**[00:52:47]** The great frustration of most alcoholics that I've talked to is that
**[00:52:51]** that first time I caught that edge and chased it forever.
**[00:52:56]** Because never again was just quite that one.
**[00:52:59]** And I'm convinced today that's because the first time was what Carl Jung describes
**[00:53:05]** as a spiritual experience.
**[00:53:08]** And it can't happen again when you steal it.
**[00:53:12]** You don't get to keep it and you can't reproduce it.
**[00:53:16]** It brings about a sense of ease and comfort.
**[00:53:20]** And a sense of place.
**[00:53:22]** But when I need a drink, I'm out of place.
**[00:53:29]** I'm either talking about the old days when things are right,
**[00:53:32]** or planning the new days when things are going to be all right.
**[00:53:35]** I'm not here.
**[00:53:36]** I'm out of place.
**[00:53:38]** When I'm sound or if I take a drink,
**[00:53:41]** I suddenly end up in place right here right now.
**[00:53:45]** The problem is my body says, well, that's good.
**[00:53:47]** Let's have some more when I'm out of place again.
**[00:53:50]** In fact, I'm out of my mind again.
**[00:53:53]** That's what happens when I drink.
**[00:53:56]** I had to identify all that with drinking.
**[00:53:59]** Because I hid behind psychopaths, sociopaths,
**[00:54:02]** and I didn't get pressy and don't get it.
**[00:54:04]** Many people press him as a game for me.
**[00:54:07]** Love it.
**[00:54:08]** You're getting too close and I'm busy in here trying to figure out
**[00:54:12]** who the hell's running this thing today.
**[00:54:15]** You want to visit.
**[00:54:17]** I got no time for that.
**[00:54:20]** I learned early, throw a couple mood swings,
**[00:54:23]** and I'll drive you back.
**[00:54:25]** You got to get good at it.
**[00:54:31]** If you do it too much, they lock you up.
**[00:54:33]** If you don't do it just right,
**[00:54:38]** you invite you to parties to be the entertainment.
**[00:54:41]** OK.
**[00:54:43]** These men were not drinking to escape.
**[00:54:54]** They were drinking to overcome a craving
**[00:54:55]** beyond their mental control.
**[00:54:57]** I can give you a hundred easy reasons
**[00:54:59]** why I drink.
**[00:55:00]** All of them are true.
**[00:55:03]** The truth is I drink for no reason at all.
**[00:55:06]** They're no calling.
**[00:55:08]** At the time I took the first drink, I am doomed to drink.
**[00:55:13]** There's no treatment for it either by the way.
**[00:55:18]** That's what he says.
**[00:55:24]** Doc Silkworth goes on to describe different types of alcoholics
**[00:55:27]** because we have different personality types.
**[00:55:32]** And then he makes a really powerful statement for me.
**[00:55:36]** All these and many others have one symptom in common.
**[00:55:40]** Just one.
**[00:55:43]** They cannot start drinking without developing a phenomenon.
**[00:55:46]** Great.
**[00:55:49]** Whatever the personality type, if I can get it down to here,
**[00:55:52]** you and I can work together.
**[00:55:54]** You don't have to be me and I don't have to be you.
**[00:55:56]** It doesn't have to be doctor, lawyer.
**[00:55:58]** None of that separating stuff.
**[00:56:00]** It's alcoholic to alcoholic.
**[00:56:02]** If when you start to drink, you develop a craving for more drink,
**[00:56:07]** we can work together.
**[00:56:10]** That's our one common.
**[00:56:12]** So when I hear people say that's typically alcoholic,
**[00:56:16]** I'm sorry, I don't buy that.
**[00:56:18]** There's only one thing that's typically alcoholic.
**[00:56:20]** We have a lot of similarities.
**[00:56:21]** We also lie, cheat, steal, but so do a lot of other people.
**[00:56:24]** I was not a violent drunk, except twice.
**[00:56:30]** I tried to kill some people.
**[00:56:32]** Well, they had it coming.
**[00:56:34]** But in the main, that's not part of my personality.
**[00:56:39]** I don't do violence as well.
**[00:56:41]** I do screaming really good.
**[00:56:44]** And I do cold-hearted, passionless killer better than anything.
**[00:56:50]** It's one of the things that used to terrify me.
**[00:56:53]** Because I would go from okay to this kind of killer rage.
**[00:56:58]** I didn't say anything.
**[00:56:59]** I didn't move.
**[00:57:00]** I just stood there and looked at you.
**[00:57:02]** And what was in me was death.
**[00:57:07]** And he used to fright me.
**[00:57:08]** Because if I ever lost control of that, I knew I'd kill somebody.
**[00:57:12]** That's still where I let God contain it.
**[00:57:15]** Because that's an instinct that was given to me back when my ancestors
**[00:57:19]** crawled out of the youths.
**[00:57:22]** If you threaten me, I will kill you.
**[00:57:24]** That's what the genes say.
**[00:57:26]** If you threaten my family, we don't even have to talk about it.
**[00:57:30]** You're in real trouble.
**[00:57:32]** If the bear comes out.
**[00:57:34]** That's frightening to know that a peaceful, gentle man like myself
**[00:57:38]** has a buried in a grizzly, mean son of a bitch.
**[00:57:42]** Leave it in God's hands.
**[00:57:45]** It's okay.
**[00:57:49]** You may not have that.
**[00:57:50]** So that's not typically alcoholing.
**[00:57:52]** That's genetic.
**[00:57:53]** If I take a drink of alcohol, I will have another drink of alcohol.
**[00:57:58]** Does that happen to you?
**[00:57:59]** If it does, we can get along fine.
**[00:58:01]** We have something in common.
**[00:58:03]** So my job in 12-stepping is to help you find out, first of all, does this happen to you?
**[00:58:08]** So we have common ground.
**[00:58:10]** Because alcoholism is a lonely disease.
**[00:58:13]** I truly believe when I'm caught up in it that nobody understands nobody.
**[00:58:17]** And the reason I believe that is because I've been listening to you.
**[00:58:21]** I drank and something happens to me.
**[00:58:25]** And when it's all over, you say to me, why did you do that?
**[00:58:29]** And early on I would tell you the truth.
**[00:58:32]** I don't know.
**[00:58:33]** And you would say, but you must know.
**[00:58:36]** You did it.
**[00:58:37]** So pretty soon I understand.
**[00:58:39]** You don't understand.
**[00:58:42]** My dad, God bless him, only came to 1A meeting.
**[00:58:45]** I was a 15-minute speaker early on at our state convention.
**[00:58:50]** And he was there.
**[00:58:52]** When it was over, he said I had no idea that that's how you felt growing up.
**[00:58:57]** Of course he didn't.
**[00:59:01]** You think I'm going to tell people how I really feel?
**[00:59:04]** She, no chance.
**[00:59:08]** It's too scary in here.
**[00:59:13]** Everybody's talking about butterflies and flowers.
**[00:59:18]** That's not what's going on in my head.
**[00:59:21]** I heard one time that you don't even have to have done it.
**[00:59:32]** All you have to do is have thought about it.
**[00:59:34]** You're already in trouble with God.
**[00:59:37]** That was a bad day.
**[00:59:42]** Because that's what I was thinking about most of the time.
**[00:59:45]** Or another guy say that you are what you think about.
**[00:59:52]** I don't believe that.
**[00:59:53]** If that was true by the time I was 16, I'd be the good hamburger or a girl.
**[00:59:59]** This phenomenon, if we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy.
**[01:00:16]** It's differentiates these people and sets them apart as a distinct entity.
**[01:00:21]** My God, that was good news.
**[01:00:24]** I have always felt different alienated from my family.
**[01:00:30]** I'm the only alcoholic in my family.
**[01:00:32]** I didn't fit.
**[01:00:33]** Alienated and set apart.
**[01:00:37]** And Bruce said to me, lovingly, the reason you feel different is that you are different.
**[01:00:42]** And this is how I'm different.
**[01:00:46]** And thank God you're different the same way.
**[01:00:49]** But we're different.
**[01:00:50]** My mother loves peppermint schnapps.
**[01:00:56]** She really does.
**[01:00:59]** And I like to watch her on the day.
**[01:01:02]** Because it comes up.
**[01:01:04]** And she gets the schnapps down.
**[01:01:06]** She's got this tall glass and pours this stuff in there.
**[01:01:10]** I like altoids for peppermint.
**[01:01:13]** But she likes the schnapps.
**[01:01:15]** And she'll take it and go.
**[01:01:17]** Which is a very disgusting sound.
**[01:01:23]** She likes the wood that tastes and the oily.
**[01:01:28]** Doesn't just, it's kind of like fingernails on it.
**[01:01:33]** And then she'll sip some more.
**[01:01:39]** God, she just, I'm with her.
**[01:01:47]** And then she'll say, that's enough.
**[01:01:51]** I'm starting to feel it.
**[01:01:52]** There's a difference.
**[01:01:55]** So I don't fit here.
**[01:01:59]** There's something weird about me.
**[01:02:02]** You pick it up as a kid.
**[01:02:04]** I'm different.
**[01:02:07]** Because at the time of my first drink,
**[01:02:10]** if schnapps is all there is, I'll drink it.
**[01:02:13]** Screw the taste.
**[01:02:16]** I really am not interested in the taste at that point.
**[01:02:19]** I need an effect, an immediate.
**[01:02:22]** Okay, now I'll sip with you.
**[01:02:27]** But we're going to sip faster than you want to.
**[01:02:30]** Because I need more.
**[01:02:32]** And pretty soon you're going to bore me with the schnapps.
**[01:02:34]** I've got to get to something that's going to do the job here.
**[01:02:37]** This is too slow.
**[01:02:39]** It isn't.
**[01:02:40]** Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
**[01:02:41]** I'm different.
**[01:02:42]** I don't fit.
**[01:02:43]** Of course not.
**[01:02:45]** I fit here.
**[01:02:47]** Every time I talk about that, I watch your head.
**[01:02:51]** Yeah.
**[01:02:52]** Yeah, you understand.
**[01:02:53]** Isn't that nice?
**[01:02:54]** And that's what I'm to bring to the new people.
**[01:02:57]** My whole job is to help you understand that I understand if you're new.
**[01:03:02]** So that you can have some kind of hope.
**[01:03:04]** Because at this point in time there's no hope left.
**[01:03:08]** How many of you have tried other things?
**[01:03:11]** Psychiatry, psychology, church, good books.
**[01:03:18]** Bad books.
**[01:03:20]** Yeah.
**[01:03:21]** Nothing had any sustained power.
**[01:03:25]** I found power in every one of them for a while.
**[01:03:28]** But no sustained power.
**[01:03:30]** But I found something here that has sustained power.
**[01:03:37]** It's been going on for 31 straight years.
**[01:03:39]** It ain't bad.
**[01:03:41]** And it's not because I do this right by the way.
**[01:03:45]** There's no way to do this right.
**[01:03:47]** And there's no way to do this wrong either.
**[01:03:50]** It's just the best way.
**[01:03:52]** Set some apart as a distinct entity.
**[01:03:59]** So I'm different.
**[01:04:00]** Okay.
**[01:04:01]** I can quit pretending that I can think like my brother because I can't.
**[01:04:07]** Never going to be able to.
**[01:04:09]** Don't even want to.
**[01:04:11]** I love my brother dearly but I watch him at work.
**[01:04:14]** He works.
**[01:04:17]** I'm far too lazy to put in the kind of effort he puts in to write a symphony.
**[01:04:23]** I'm a musician too.
**[01:04:25]** But if I can't do it first crack out with a half hour a week of practice,
**[01:04:29]** I'm going to move to a different instrument.
**[01:04:33]** He stays with it until he masters it and then he goes to another one.
**[01:04:38]** My wife is so sane.
**[01:04:40]** She knows I love music and would like to play.
**[01:04:42]** I play trumpet and trombone and harmonica.
**[01:04:45]** Just enough to irritate everybody.
**[01:04:48]** And she knew that we were down south.
**[01:04:52]** This is some south.
**[01:04:53]** We were way south.
**[01:04:55]** And heard somebody playing the Dulsomer.
**[01:04:58]** I watched Tom Colter play Scotland the Brave on 120 straight Dulsomer.
**[01:05:04]** And it moved me so much I said I am going to do that before I die.
**[01:05:09]** And it really got me.
**[01:05:11]** My wife knows there's no way in hell I'm ever going to practice long enough
**[01:05:16]** to master a 120 string instrument.
**[01:05:19]** I'm just not going to do it.
**[01:05:21]** So she got me a little four string mountain Dulsomer.
**[01:05:24]** And now I can play Scotland the Brave so I can die any day now.
**[01:05:27]** It's okay.
**[01:05:34]** Our insanity is characterized by lack of proportion in the ability to think straight.
**[01:05:38]** I watched him do it.
**[01:05:39]** I know it's in me.
**[01:05:40]** I can do it.
**[01:05:41]** I just get me a Dulsomer.
**[01:05:44]** Okay.
**[01:05:45]** Which is bullshit.
**[01:05:46]** But that's where I live.
**[01:05:48]** I'm seven.
**[01:05:50]** I can drive a car.
**[01:05:51]** I've been watching.
**[01:05:53]** I know I can do that.
**[01:05:56]** I can fly.
**[01:05:57]** It's not familiar.
**[01:06:01]** It has never been by any treatment with which we are familiar.
**[01:06:07]** The entire permanent way eradicated.
**[01:06:09]** The only relief we have to offer is entire abstinence.
**[01:06:15]** Good.
**[01:06:16]** That's the solution to the physical problem of alcoholism.
**[01:06:21]** Don't drink.
**[01:06:24]** And that's all.
**[01:06:25]** All the stuff that happens afterwards like the second drink and the third drink and all that
**[01:06:29]** bizarre stuff won't happen if you don't take the person.
**[01:06:33]** There's no treatment for it.
**[01:06:36]** There's nothing I can take.
**[01:06:37]** No exercise.
**[01:06:38]** No books.
**[01:06:39]** No pills.
**[01:06:40]** No diet.
**[01:06:41]** There's nothing in the world I can do.
**[01:06:43]** No can science.
**[01:06:44]** We can put them out on the moon and bring them back.
**[01:06:46]** We haven't figured out how to keep this thing from kicking in.
**[01:06:50]** We've talked about it being enzymes and THQ and all kinds of really interesting stuff.
**[01:06:58]** I'm in the business.
**[01:06:59]** I've had the study all that.
**[01:07:00]** I find it fascinating.
**[01:07:01]** I don't use any of it.
**[01:07:03]** It's crap.
**[01:07:04]** Because it doesn't stop this.
**[01:07:07]** The only thing that will stop this is don't drink.
**[01:07:11]** Which brings us to the second real problem.
**[01:07:14]** The real problem of the alcoholic centers in the mind.
**[01:07:21]** If my mother drank her schnapps and got passed to falling on the floor, she would stop.
**[01:07:29]** I guarantee you.
**[01:07:31]** She'd never do that again.
**[01:07:34]** But she's never gone that far.
**[01:07:36]** Hell, I don't care if I fall down.
**[01:07:44]** In fact, I'm an actor.
**[01:07:48]** We will do a little drama, so you'll be entertained by the fall.
**[01:07:54]** Somewhere along the way, you'll become responsible for it.
**[01:07:57]** Oh, I've got you again.
**[01:08:04]** Damn.
**[01:08:05]** Oh, yeah.
**[01:08:11]** Isn't that wonderful what can come out of this?
**[01:08:13]** What I'm doing is letting...
**[01:08:15]** I was told by the big book that I'm a set aside, prejudiced and asked myself what the spiritual terms mean to me.
**[01:08:21]** And I've taken that to heart.
**[01:08:23]** I asked myself, what does that mean to me?
**[01:08:25]** And I'm encouraging you to do the same thing.
**[01:08:27]** I'm telling you these little vignettes in the hope that maybe it'll stimulate a memory for you.
**[01:08:31]** And it has for some of you.
**[01:08:33]** Yeah, that's me.
**[01:08:35]** That's me.
**[01:08:36]** Isn't that weird?
**[01:08:37]** Yeah, that's weird.
**[01:08:39]** Yeah.
**[01:08:40]** You mean I'm crazy too?
**[01:08:41]** Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
**[01:08:43]** How long a break would you like?
**[01:08:47]** I can feel the smokers hating me.
**[01:08:51]** I will be in this chair ready to start in 15 minutes.