#94 The Doctors Opinion Part 2

Part 2 

If you are living with or have been effected by someones addiction. You are, and have been, effected. Why do they act the way they do? Don't they care? What about our marriage and the children? What is going on? This is what William D Silkworth, the treating physician for Bill W. (one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous) suggests is the problem. We have a 3 fold illness, body, mind and Spirit.

Chapters

• 0:00 Facing Resistance And Opening Up
• 1:53 Steps One To Three Made Practical
• 4:19 Phenomenon To Mystery To Decision
• 6:50 A Personal Story Of Relapse Logic
• 9:35 Piercing Delusion With Pause And Prayer
• 12:26 Community, Safety, And Service
• 15:22 The Doctor’s Opinion And Allergy
• 18:31 Why Frothy Appeals Fail Families
• 22:05 Seeds, Meetings, And Daily Practice
• 26:09 Restless, Irritable, Discontented
• 31:40 The Hump Day Permission Slip
• 36:41 Craving, Dopamine, And Obsession
• 41:38 Step One’s Two Parts And Continuum
• 46:10 Experiments In Controlled Drinking
• 50:20 Psychic Change And Daily Discipline
• 54:55 Success As A Hidden Relapse Risk
• 58:20 Right Principles, Right Results
• 1:08:59 The Allergy That Never Leaves

Transcript

SPEAKER_08: 0:00

Helpful in this session if you find that anything Roger's saying is creating like a reaction. I don't find it, I don't get it. If you're feeling anything that's like, please ask about it. Let's share that. There's we're not gonna tell you you're wrong or you're crazy or anything like that. Usually that's the information we want to put out there so that we can work through that, right?

SPEAKER_00: 0:30

Yeah, what you're talking about is really important. Pay attention to your resistance. Yeah. Because the beast, this thing that you think is you, your consciousness is doesn't want you to go there. I've already decided about the God thing. I've already decided about this, that, and you know, and I'm unteachable. I'm not open to even suggesting it. Pay attention to that. Because the challenge here is open your heart and your mind. And the thing that's trying to kill me won't let me do that. It'll let me go to meetings, it'll let me stop drinking, but it won't let me change fundamentally.

SPEAKER_05: 1:04

Is it occurring to me that some of these people might not know what step one and two are, and you're already starting to talk about them.

SPEAKER_09: 1:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07: 1:11

I mean, we're the doctor's opinion, and you know, we I think you know a lot of us know what they are, but some people might not.

SPEAKER_08: 1:20

And we're gonna be diving deep into those tomorrow. Um, but again, if you have questions like that, what is step one? What is step two? Please ask.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29

And I'll repeat it. The step is we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives become unmanageable. For you that are non-alcoholics, you can just gend it. Powerless over my thinking, and my life's unmanageable. That's the conclusion. The idea is you're powerless. The conclusion is my self-reliance has failed me. I'm smart. We're not dumb. Some I work with PhDs that are they can't get this because they're locked in their reason and their logic and information. Everyone in here has enough information to thrive and be happy the rest of their lives. What we don't have is application. So the first step is in here. I brought to this conclusion by examining my life. Have I been able to produce the life I wanted? No. And I think the beast says it's because of them, it's because of your parents, it's because of that woman that divorced you, it's because of all these things out here. It's not external, it's internal. It's because once this happens, when I get betrayed, this is what I do with it. That's my reaction. And that reaction is always coming out of fear or shame. So it leads me to the proposition, second step, that I have to come to believe in a power greater than myself. The second step says, came to believe there's a power greater than me that could restore me to sanity. Came to believe is the past tense. In time it will come to me. But all I have to do right now is acquiesce to the idea. I need additional power. And it's going to have to come from somewhere else. It can't come from here because I've exhausted that. Now, all these things are only happening internally. There's and then the third step, we made a decision to turn our will in our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Well, I don't I don't have G O D. Well, then find something else. What's my will in my life? My thinking and my actions. I'm going to turn that over to the care of truth, love, peace. God as I understand God or God as I don't, right? But I have such a negative connotation to G O D, I have to find an alternative. And my first alternative, it turns out, was what Silkworth saw with Bill. I don't know what's happened to me. It's a phenomenon. I'm working in bars five days a week for years, and the the obsession is gone. That's my experience. That's not a theory, but I don't know how to explain it. So it's a it's a phenomenon. Then later, that phenomenon, this is the evolution of the idea, that phenomenon became a mystery. When I started going to meetings, I'm I'm dug into my one-step program. I'm coping. I'm powerless over alcohol. My life's unmanaged, but the rest of it I'm not signing up for. So as I'm going along, I'm watching people come in and out of my AA meetings. Guys that are on fire with God and my new sponsored, Harold, and I'm just gonna kick ass here, and four or five, six weeks later, they're drunk. And I'm not drunk. And I'm there a long time for a guy with a one-step program. And it occurs to me, this is a mysterious thing. This is a mysterious thing. Because I don't deserve to be sober. These guys want to be sober, and they're all gung ho and they can't stay sober. So now the phenomena's become a mystery through my experience and observation. Now I get, we're in a meeting, a third-step meeting, and uh they're talking about their experiences. Some of them are profound, some are very dynamic. Um, in Bill's story, you'll read his was the room filled up with light, and had a profound presence of the consciousness of my creator and all that. Not my experience. Not mine. So I was sitting in that meeting, and based on the mystery, that is my experience, I made a decision to turn my thinking and my actions over the care of the mystery. And the what that sounded like was this in my head, I'm going for it. Because I've signed off on the first two propositions. The third step is just a commitment I make with me and whatever this power is to do the rest of the steps, four through twelve. And how you come to that is gonna be your own experience, and what you do with it is gonna be your own experience. Because if you think I've done I've done this dramatic thing, I've turned my will and my life over to the care of God, and uh, and I'm I'm thinking I'm gonna just wake up tomorrow and be perfect, be free, guilt-free, shame free. Don't care what people think of me. I won't be full of fear every day. It's not fear of drinking, it's fear of doing life.

SPEAKER_03: 6:50

Roger, can I say something?

SPEAKER_00: 6:52

Please.

SPEAKER_03: 6:53

So um in about 2008, I realized that my drinking was um it was not as much fun as it used to be, and it was causing more pain uh for the loved ones around. So that was kind of when I recognized I gotta start doing something. I went to AA and was around AA and started working with a sponsor. And over the years, I never had for me, this is just my experience. I always knew it was me. I didn't, I there wasn't anyone I could point and say, you caused this, you caused this. I was baffled why it was me. I I searched for the answer, why. Um, but being in the program, time with sobriety, and then um relapsing, um, I was I was just beside myself, and I asked my sponsor, I'm like, I don't get it. I I know I'm an alcoholic, I know I can't take that first one, but yet somehow, at some point in time, I do. And um Roger refers to it as the beast, but um, my sponsor said something to me that still sticks with me today, and if I've got enough pause to actually play that out, it's it's been helpful. And he just made it so simple. He said, Mike, you have a disease that tells you you don't have a disease. That's the beast. It's not me talking to myself, it's the disease. Tell me. Mike. You you've had two beers plenty of times and everything's been fine. You can have two. And that's when I can pause and understand that the disease is doing the talking, and it's not me talking to myself. Um, sometimes that pause is enough for me not to take that first drink. Obviously, um I'm here. Um I know the program works uh because I've experienced it. I just I have a great desire to find that continuous surviving. Um and we're not all the same. We have the same disease, but how we get there and how it manifests in each other um is different. Thanks for letting me show it.

SPEAKER_00: 9:29

Yeah. So that idea, the thing I have is telling me I don't have it. We call that delusion. I'm deluded, and I don't know it because I need something to pierce the veil of that delusion to punch some light into that, and that is your bottom. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 9:49

Um my kid's grandpa's been in A for like 30 years, it's really active in the program. And when I was having some trouble years ago, he told me something similar like that, where it was, you can't fix a brain disease with your brain.

SPEAKER_00: 10:03

Right. That's an Einstein quote. You can't fix a problem with the consciousness that created the problem. And this is what the doctor's saying: you need a new mind. One idea at a time, you need a new mind. You need a new platform to think from. And so the pause is the intervention. Because what I'm doing is a situation presents, I react because I know how to do this. I don't remember that it's never worked. I just know what to do because fear is the reaction, right? And the pause is wait. And in the book, it talks about pause, pray for an intuitive thought or direction. Don't act. And so there's a fear prayer in the book, and it says, I ask God, or whatever this power is you believe it might exist, to remove my fear and direct my attention to what you would have me be, not do. The ego wants to do, it wants to react. The disease wants a reaction because it will always be out of fear and shame. If I put the pause in there, say, What what do I want to be? Who do I want to be? And it's not due. I want to be kind. I want to be helpful, I want to be non-judgmental, I want to be open, I want to be prayerful, whatever, whatever that, whatever that is, as soon as you pick that, that's a principle. I want to be kind. So now the next question is what would kindness look like in this situation? Not how to fix it. What would kindness look like? So when you pick that principle, there's options. You could be quiet. You could ask if they'd like you to share your experience. You could whatever, right? And when you pick one of those actions out of that principle, you'll never get a bad result. But if I don't consciously stop and pick and choose who I want to be, I will be what I've always been, and I'll just react. Because our reactions are habituated over our lifetime. This is what I do when I'm afraid. This is how I keep myself safe, right? So someone, do you have a question?

SPEAKER_08: 12:17

I forgot what it was. Okay, if it comes back up, let us know. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 12:20

Okay, let's do the next uh letter.

SPEAKER_07: 12:23

Next letter is yep. So if you're following along, it's uh Roman numeral XXBII. So 27 in Roman numerals.

SPEAKER_00: 12:30

We got a lot of ground to cover here, so I want you to know we'll be done by six o'clock. Second letter. Now they've introduced me to this idea of the physic, physical allergy. It's going to become the phenomenon of the craving, right? The subject presented in this book seems to be to be of paramount importance to those afflicted with alcoholic addiction. I say this after many years' experience as a medical director at one of the oldest hospitals in the country treating alcoholic and drug addiction. There was therefore a sense of real satisfaction when I was asked to contribute a few words on a subject which is covered in such masterly detail in these pages. Another high endorsement. We doctors have realized for a long time that some form of moral psychology, morals are just values, principles, right? The guides for your behavior and your thinking, which was of urgent importance to alcoholics, but its application presented difficulties beyond our conception. What with our ultramodern standards, our scientific approach to everything, we are perhaps not well equipped to apply the powers of good, synonym for God, that lie outside our synthetic knowledge. This, the principle behind that statement is humility. He's not saying I got all the answers, he's saying I know what the problem is, but I don't know what the solution is. And all the book learning and all my experience doesn't have any effect on these guys. That's an admission of his powerlessness. Many years ago, one of the leading contributors to this book came under our care in this hospital. And while here, he acquired some ideas which he put into practical application at once. Later, he requested the privilege of being allowed to tell his story to other patients here. And with some misgivings, we consented. Bill's been in my hospital three times, and he's he's got his staff together. He said, You remember Bill W. Yeah. Um, he'd like to come back and talk to some of the patients. What do you think? Are you kidding? But in his wisdom, he said, Yeah, Bill, you can go back and talk to anyone on your ward. Because that ward were the hopeless ones, the ones that Silkworth couldn't touch with his intellect, with their processes, right? And that was a gift. Because you'll see in Bill's story, he had this powerful experience. And then a page later, he's so full of resentment, depression, and fear that he's afraid he's going to drink again. That's when he made that call. And so we said, sure, come on down. And he will report when I sat down with this guy for a couple hours, I was amazingly put back on my feet. What is he experiencing? St. Francis is self-forgetting. When I sit with you today, I'm not thinking about me, I'm not thinking about my situation at home, I'm not thinking about anything but you. The prayer is, how can I help? How can I help? I don't help with my intellect, I help with my experience. So this is a humble guy. And Bill then reports see, he had this experience, and in the back of the book, there's a spiritual experience appendix, and AA conflates spiritual experience and awakening is the same thing. And fundamentally, what it's talking about is a shift, a personality change. But experientially, Bill had an experience in the hospital, but he didn't wake up. Like us, when we find a little solution that works for a minute, we go, I got the answer now. And then we find out we don't. So that instance of being full to depression and resentment and going back to the hospital showed Bill something that he didn't know. I gotta keep this going. The experience I had in the hospital six months ago is not sufficient. I have to do this every day. Oh, the 11th step is born. The tenth step is born. Daily inventory, self-examination, daily prayer meditation, and then go practice. That's 10, 11, and 12. Okay. So now he's in the hospital. Later he requested the privilege. Okay, I did that. Sorry. The cases we followed through have been most interesting. In fact, many of them are amazing. So we've tracked it and quantified it. The unselfishness of these men, as they've come as we've come to know them, unselfishness is the opposite of my disease. It's all selfish. Entire absence of a profit motive. Jen, how much you pay me?

SPEAKER_07: 17:35

Nothing.

SPEAKER_00: 17:36

Nothing. Zero. And when I was new, I wasn't thinking this is what I want to do for the next 47 years. And God said, Oh yeah, come with me. Just do it. Just do what's in front of you. Right? Community spirit. This is really important. Because we're creating a community here. And the spirit that fills the room is the truth. Even though it might not be your experience, you hear the truth. Susan and I were talking on the break. That's the truth. You're hearing that here. You're hearing it in your heart. Your spirit's resonating to that truth. But then the mind grabs it, the beast works on it and concretizes it into some formula. No, it's an experience. It's not a formula. It's alive here. I recognize it, but then my brain grabs it and turns it into something that it's not. An external thing. So they believe in themselves and still more in the power which pulls chronic alcoholics back from the gates of death. I have a meeting Monday night. Do you give them a sheet?

SPEAKER_08: 18:50

I can. I will when I know that you presented and talked about it.

SPEAKER_00: 18:54

Yeah. Jen will give you a sheet. It's got the meetings that I do. Monday nights, a big book meeting, it's an open meeting. AA, Al-Anon, N A, no A. A lot of times a drunk will bring his spouse or she'll bring her husband, the non, to just hear. Just here. And when you take the experience, our one-on-one experience out of it, and you hear these other people talking, it wakes them up. And so that meaning live has about 30 to 38 people, and then we do a hybrid, and we usually have 15 or 20 people online. We had two people. We had to go to Zoom during COVID. We had two people that got sober online with us, and they're still sober today. So it demonstrates if you want this, you can have it, but you gotta reach out for it. So the doctors inspired us. So that meeting is a community we form based on these spiritual ideas and principles. That meeting is about one-third to a little more than a third women. And one of my intentions when I I've been doing this meeting in some form for the last 40 years, um, is for it to be a safe place for women. And because we have more than 30%, which is the the percentage of women in recovery, we know we've created a safe place. And if I see some guy hitting on a girl, a woman, I'm gonna pull him aside, not in front of everybody. I'm not gonna embarrass them, but I'm pulling aside, not here. She's had enough done to her without your help. And if it's a woman doing it, I'd do the same thing. It's not okay here. And once you lay that boundary down and you realize people are watching, generally, I can't do anything when you leave the building. I can't do what you're doing. I can't do anything about what you're doing in the parking lot, but I can lay the rule down, I can lay the principle down. We're here to love and affirm each other, not to use each other. Well, so safety is a big deal, community is a big deal. I sponsor some guys, and I probably spend 12 hours a week working with these guys, and that's a community. And every one of those guys have told me at one point or another, some I've been working with for 20 years, but I've never told anyone this. I've never told anyone this. And the reason we don't tell is because we're afraid of the judgment and the condemnation. Because that's the beast. The beast has judged me and condemned me for all the things I've done that are unforgivable. So community is important, but you got to go where you're fed. You got to find a community that you feel good in. And that good might not be comfort. It might be, every time that guy shares, I get a little irritated, right? It's all a lesson. It's all a presentation, right? And maybe he's pointed out something that I'm resistant to that I don't want to do. Where in our book study, we're we're just starting the fourth step. And that meeting will go down in population over the next few months because there are people that aren't doing it, and they don't want to do it, and they don't want to put in front of them that I'm not doing this. So the attendance goes down because they haven't had the experience. So it's it's the nature of the beast. So, community. Of course, an alcohol could be freed from his craving for liquor that often requires a definite hospital procedure before psychological measures can be of maximum benefit. We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol in these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of analogy. Here it is. And the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class, never occurs in the average temperate drinker or average peanut user. Right? These allurgic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. And once having formed the habit and found they can't break it, once having lost their self-confidence, failure of self-reliance, their reliance upon things human, man's world, their problems pile up in them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. Fraught the emotional appeal seldom suffices. The message which can interest and hold these alcoholic people must have depth and weight. That's the power of the story. It's a story of redemption. It's a story of transformation. In nearly all cases, their ideals must be grounded in a power greater than themselves. If they're to recreate their lives, here's a problem. This is the doctor. I don't recreate my life. I present my life. The third step says, I offer myself, I present myself for alteration, I present myself for change, but I can't do it because I'm powerless. So what I do is I quit practicing the things I'm powerless over and I start practicing these other ideas. And that takes time because someone's unwrapping 30, 40 years of conditioning, 50, 60 years of conditioning. That doesn't get unwound in a couple months. And what I found in my own experience is the unwinding never stops. The prayer meditation never stops. The experience of it never stops. The tenth step is always keeping me right. It says, watch for continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, that's mine's world. This is what I want you to do. Ask God to remove it. Talk to someone immediately, make any amends if necessary, and then resolutely turn your thinking to someone you can help. Those are the instructions. So I do a spot check imagery. I feel uncomfortable. Why? Oh, you just told it. I just lied. Oh. So just by grabbing that defect, I've executed a four-step principle. Why'd I do that? Oh, that's why I forgot. I made a decision to turn myself towards something better. Third step. Why'd I do that? The necessity of finding a power to operate from that won't kill me. Second step. Why'd I do that? Because fundamentally, I have no power. I need help. First step. My life's always unmanageable when I manage it. So just by grabbing the principle, I've hit the first four steps. Then it says ask God to move it. There's six and seven. Says talk to someone immediately. There's the accountability. Making amends if necessary. That's why I talk to you first to see if I don't amend or an apology. Then the fourth instruction is resolutely turn your thinking to someone you can help. That's the 12-step exercise. So just by executing on the 10th step, I keep myself right with man's world. People, circumstances, the externals. Keep that tuned up correctly. Then the 11th-step prayer is to create a connection, a vertical connection, with the power. Because I need I need the power all the time. Because we're operating off principle all the time. The question is: what is the principle? Fear? Shame? Hope? Prayer? Helpfulness. I'm busy with me. So this it I call that the spiritual architecture of the uh of the steps because that's a gift. Once I finally did a real fourth and fifth step, I've never done another one. Because I learned to keep this is self-interest. But I learned if I keep these steps going, 10, 11, and 12, I don't have anything to clean up. I run into people all the time. They'd say it's January, I do a four-step every January. And when I ask them about their 10th and 11th step practice, they don't have one. When I talk to the man or the woman who's relapsing chronically, I asked them about their 10 and 11 step practice. They don't have one. This is how relapse sneaks up on us. You relapse into your old way of thinking. Prior to that, you relapse into your old way of seeing the world. That's the relapse. The drinking's not the relapse. The thinking is the relapse. And in that relapse, I become more restless, more irritable, and more dissatisfied. And I reach for the bottle because then it makes sense. I tried all this shit, it doesn't work. I know it does work. I'll go back to my old trusty buddy.

SPEAKER_08: 27:33

So can I say something about it? You may for off the emotional appeals. Okay, so a little offended by that when I was first reading this as a family member, because what we're talking about here is the times we've gone to our loved ones and said, Can't you see what you're doing? Just killing you. I love you. I want to help. Or we need you. We want you here. You're not with us. Those kind of what can we do? How can we help? We love you. Okay, these are frothy emotional appeals. And they do. It's not that they don't have depth and weight, of course they do, because they mean a lot to us. What this is talking about is our loved ones. No, we do not understand their experience. And so, as much as we might make sense and be rational and logical, it can't pierce through all that we've just been talking about this morning because they're very clear we don't understand what's going on. And we don't. And so where they get their depth and weight is talking to other people who've had their struggle because they trust that they do understand. And so then when they say something, they're more likely to give that a shot, if that makes sense. And then the same is true for family, right? Our loved ones who are struggling with this disease, they actually don't have the tools or the experience to help us as family move out of how we've been impacted. So we need to be with other family members, right? Because that's who has our experience and can help lead us down that same path. Does that make sense? Yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_00: 29:17

So here's the deal. What is froth? When you get your coffee at Starbucks, the froth is that floaty crap on top, right? And you can just go and blow it away. It has no substance. When you're based on fear and shame and life comes and presents, the appeal doesn't work because it has no substance. And what Jen was saying is absolute truth. I need to hear someone who's lived through what I'm going through, and they're not there anymore. And you might have to wait a while to find that. That's the uh the spoken word deal. But there's another thing that going that's going on here about Frothy Emotional. There's a saying the person who tells the story defines the culture. And all of you have experienced this to some degree. So I'm the drunk and I come home and I get the kiss sniff test. And she looks at me and goes, Have you been drinking? I said, No, not drinking. And she said, Well, you smell like booze. And now I'm getting a little pissed. I said, Well, I'm not. Your speech is slurred. I lost a feeling. Jesus, get off my back. And it just keeps escalating, right? Then pretty soon I'm slamming cupboards. You're walking funny. I got a blister. God damn it. Leave me the hell alone. Right? That goes on in some cases for years. But then, because I'm defining the story, I walk in and she goes. And she looks at me, and just with a look, I can look at her, and the look says, Do you really want to go there? Because now we built a history of this. And she goes, I'm glad you're home. And that's it. The disease is controlling the family. And here's the frothy emotional appeal. My wife sat in front of me, begging me. This is at the end when I was leaving. I was getting ready to abandon them. She said, just tell me what you need. I love you. I'll do anything to help you. There was no one else in my life that was saying that. Everyone else was saying, stay the hell away. Right? And when she did that, I pushed her away. I emotionally punched her in the gut. Why? Because I'm so full of shame and self-condemnation that your love for me actually hurts. It feels painful to be loved because I'm so damn undeserving. Right? That's why it doesn't work. Then I go to a meeting, I'm sitting with some guy from World War II, and he says something, my head goes, oh, me too. You're looking for that reaction. Me too. I felt like that. I felt like that. I did that. I tried that too. Didn't work. And then they tell you what worked. So this is the story, is the power in this whole thing. If any feel that as psychiatrists directing a hospital for alcoholics, we appear somewhat sentimental. Let them stand with us for a while in the firing line. See the tragedies, the despairing wives, the little children. Let the solving of these problems become a part of their daily work. And even of their sleeping moments. This is a guy who cares. He's thinking about these people. They're living in him. The suffering, the traumas. And the most cynical will not wonder that we've accepted and encouraged this movement. Here's a big statement. We feel after many years of experience that we have found nothing which has contributed more to the rehabilitation of these men and the than the altruistic movement now growing up among them. It was true in 1934 and it's true today. You're blessed to be here because this place is predicated on a 12-step approach, which includes your mind, your body, and your spirit. And if you go to any other traditional treatment in the United States now, it's biopsychosocial. It's all mind-body, mind-body. You need some medicine, you need therapy for the rest of your bloody life. And by the way, relapse is part of recovery. They leave with that expectation. You're going to drink again. But when you do, you just come back here and we'll take care of you. That's a hopeless message to me. It's a hopeless message. So you and your loved ones that are here are in the best possible place they can be. To get some new ideas sewn into them, to have an experience. There's what are there, 300 volunteers a month going through up there, all with stories, all with examples, all with meetings. And so you'll look at, that's useless, that doesn't help. But some guy or woman will come through there and go, uh-huh, she knows. Uh-huh. Good. And so it's they're all waypointers. I don't want this, I do want that. I do, I want this, I do want that. So And you never know when a seed is getting planted. You never know. See, we just, these guys, there were three guests at a fundraiser I did last week. And there's a guy, he's a doctor. He's in Fargo, he couldn't come because he uh got COVID. But he was gonna come. And he sent us a contribution. And the year before he was at that fundraiser, and he had his nephew with him. And he described his nephew as sober curious. I don't know a little curious, but not too, I'm not wanting to dump in. But anyway. So he called me, somebody didn't call me, he sent me an email and told me the story. He said, You remember my nephew? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, I gave him a one-year medallion last month. And that kid was sitting in that meeting. And I'm not saying it's about me, I'm saying it's about the truth. And the truth can be impactful. It can plant seeds, and you don't know when it's happening. A lot of times, when it's happening, you don't know it. That kid got some ideas put into him and it moved him in a different direction. I got some ideas put into me and it moved me in a direction, different direction, slowly. Literally, one idea at a time, because that was pretty, pretty messed up there. So, the idea is to be here to help. And the only thing I can help with is my story and my understanding of this process. And if that's helpful, fine. If it's not, fine. There'll be someone else in here talking to you later. I'm not in charge of the results, is what I'm saying. I'm in charge of the effort. I'm on the schedule. That means you're gonna show up and you're gonna do it, regardless of how you feel, regardless of what's going on in your life, because that's my commitment and that's my responsibility because it was done for me. This is the pay it forward idea. And there are results, and I know it because I get feedback sometimes. So here we go. Formula for relapse. Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. I told you the effect for me. The sensation is so elusive that while they admit it's injurious, they cannot, after a time, differentiate the true from the false. We used to sit, I drank in that biker bar, and uh we used to sit and laugh. Probably alcoholic. They say it'll take ten years off your life. And we'd laugh. If I can feel this good till I die, that'll be fine. I'll I'll give the ten years up. Yeah, they're all dead. They're all dead. So I can't tell the truth from the false because my the beast, my ism, has defined the reality. The world's not a safe place, it's doggy dog world. You gotta cover your ass because someone's gonna come and take your stuff. No one's friendly. It's a jungle out there, right? So to them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. Of course it is. Now, suppose I become abstinent. They're restless, irritable, and discontented until they can again experience a sense of ease and comfort, which comes at once by taking a few drinks. Drinks which they see others taking with impunity. So again, the relapse starts in the thinking. The drinking is just the culmination of the relapse. And what informs it is I'm restless, I'm irritable, and I'm discontented. I'm unsatisfied, and I'm full of fear. Because I haven't done anything to address it. I don't know that's what it is. So I look around and I see you guys drinking. And you don't drink and go to jail, you don't drink and get a lawyer and go get divorced, you don't drink and can't see your kids, you don't drink and end up in jail. It's not fair. That's the problem, it's not fair. Because I know the answer to this. But I f I have to have a forgetting here because I can't pull up with sufficient force what happened last time I did this. I call it alcohol amnesia. It's the beast. You can't remember this, it didn't happen. What's the idea? It'll be different this time. It'll be different this time. I'll tell you, I was a I was a blackout drinker. That means for those of you uninitiated, you drink so much alcohol that your short-term memory doesn't get stored. You I could literally be in a blackout talking to you right now, and I would no idea what happened or that I was here or anything. So here's how the relapse works. This is before I got in recovery. Thank you. And I was progressing, I was throwing up blood and stuff. I came off. If I had two days off, I drank for two days. If I had five days off, I drank for five days. When I was working, the band, I only worked, I only drank afterwards, usually. Then that moved to by the last set, then it moved to the middle, then it moved. I'll just take a couple pulls here to get ready for the for the night. Anyway, I forgot what I was gonna say. Oh, and so I came in crawling on the floor, literally, laying on that cool tile, and I heard myself say this, I'm taking the week off. I don't know that I can't take the week off. In our book, we describe our drinking our career, right? And I I'm I I think I have control. There's a Buddhist example of how much control you have. It's like I'm on an ant. I'm an ant on a log floating on the river. And as the log goes around the bend, I think I'm steering it. That's my alcoholism. It tells me we got this. So I make this deal with myself. I'm taking the week off. I didn't make it to you or anyone else, to myself. And I don't violate my promises to me. So I can't eat, I can't anything. And after about three days, I'm getting some food to stay down, I'm getting a shower, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm in my late 20s, you know. I've my body's still quite resilient, even though I'm hammering the hell out of it. And I'm sitting down there, and all of a sudden the beast says, Hey, it's Wednesday. Yeah, it's hump day. I'm not drinking. Self-reliance. I'm not drinking. Why are you not drinking? Because I said I'm taking the week off. So, but it's hump day. Two for one. That's good economic policy. This is the rationalization that's trying to build on that. But I'm not drinking. Self-will. I don't know I'm powerless, but I made a promise to me, and by God, I'm not gonna violate my own promise to me. They said, just me, you didn't hear me. It's hump day, two for one. It's taco night, free food. You have no food. You see, it's building the rationale, and I'm fighting with it with my self-will, which has got what got me there. And I'm going, no, I'm not drinking. It's Wednesday, and I can't drink till Monday. But it's again, it's two for one, good economic policy, free food. I need a plan. I need a plan. I'll just go down some pool with Tiny and Chuck. I'll have three, four beers, no more than four beers, and beers really isn't even drinking. Right? I'll do that. This is the plan. What's the plan about? How am I gonna do this safely? I don't recognize I'm powerless. So I got this plan, but I don't have permission. But because I'm hung up on, but you said you weren't gonna do this for a week, and it's only four days. So I've got the plan, I've got the rationalization, but I don't have the permission slip. You hear what I'm saying? Is this clear? Because it's important, because the next thing that comes up is the beast with my ticket to ride. And he says, I think you overreacted. It's okay. We can go execute the plan now. I go, of course, that's it. I overreacted, I'm fine. So I get on to execute my plan, shoot some pool with the boys, have a few beers. On Wednesday, I wake up Sunday in Milwaukee. I don't know who I'm with, I don't know how I got there, and I don't know if I drove, flew, or what. That's a blackout, and that's a relapse. It's a it's a it's it's of consequence, but that's it, big or little. I accept a lie that it's safe to do what I've done thousands of times before and it didn't work.

SPEAKER_01: 43:22

Substitute peanuts story, and it sounds absolutely insane.

SPEAKER_00: 43:27

It is insane.

SPEAKER_01: 43:28

What why is an alcoholic allergy different?

SPEAKER_00: 43:34

It's not different. But if you if you buy the same idea, I think it's safe to eat peanuts again. And my plan is I'm not gonna eat the raw ones anymore, I'm gonna eat the chocolate covered ones. You go execute the plan because you'll say that that compulsion, that addiction will say, This is different. This is different. And you go find out it's not different. And the alcoholic, this idea of the allergy isn't any different than any other allergy. Stay away from what you're allergic to, except now it's coupled with an obsession that I need to do this, and the obsession won't go away till my thinking starts to change. Some of us it happens relatively quickly, some it takes longer. Dr. Bob, one of the co-founders, had the obsession to drink for two years because he never did his amends. And after he did it, his amends, the obsession was gone. Okay, the it's not crazy peanuts, but he's craving alcohol. But he could obsess about the peanuts. So the phenomenon of craving is this I take a drink. A normal person, if there's anyone here that's normal, if you drink one drink an hour, your body will metabolize an ounce of alcohol an hour. I've never had one drink in an hour. I might have 10, 12. So metabolically, my body only can process two-thirds of an ounce. So if I have three drinks, there's a whole ounce of unprocessed, unmetabolized alcohol in my system. Now that sets off a chemical reaction that sends a chemical message to my brain, the pleasure center, where also you have your favorite food movie, sex, resentments, juicy resentments, right? And it says, we like that, we'll have another. That's the phenomenon of craving. It's physical. So the phenomenon of craving is not a problem unless I put alcohol into my body. If I uh if I acquest the obsession that I can have a different kind of peanut, I'll get the same reaction and I'll hopefully I'll live through it and learn from it. Right? Does that help?

unknown: 45:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 45:50

Can I only so I never I never treat my life with a peanut because that reaction to a peanut is anaphylactic.

SPEAKER_00: 46:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 46:01

But I'm gonna treat my reaction to life with alcohol because that allergic reaction makes me feel better, but then it keeps it running with that craving and the obsession.

SPEAKER_00: 46:14

Well, the cravings remove the craving, the mental obsession moves later. But I can't, this is what I do when working with guys in treatment, new people in treatment, they go, Man, I'm just Jones in for a drink. Well, if you're about four days physically sober, you're as sober as your body's ever going to get. Your body can keep healing, but you're physically sober. The thing that sets us off is the obsession. That's your thinking. And if I don't treat the thinking, that's what the steps do. Past and present thinking. Um I can't be relieved of the obsession.

SPEAKER_03: 46:53

I would only add that for me. Um I'm addicted to dopamine. I imagine peanuts aren't driving your dopamine levels up. So for me to turn off something I might be allergic to that doesn't drive my dopamine, I might have more success. So I'm addicted to dopamine and alcohol feeds that. And that's that's what I'm craving. Another way to say you were saying chasing the feeling.

SPEAKER_02: 47:26

Right. Why um so for instance, like you eat a nut and you have an inflective reaction, you're like, well, I'm not gonna be bad. And there's not that craving, but why would alcohol is a disamnesia of the re of the result of it that comes in?

SPEAKER_00: 47:50

That's the delusion that the beast creates, so I don't see the pattern. Every time you do this, you end up in the ER, you end up in a squad car, you end up in court, you end up in divorce, there are people haunting you. I don't see that because it keeps telling me I'm your solution. I'm your answer, baby, I'm your power, I'm your lover, I'm your counsel.

SPEAKER_04: 48:10

I do think people that without being an alcoholic, because I'm not and go out and drink and drink too much because it's it's just the night guy. And I'm so hungover, and then I say, like, oh my god, I'm not gonna do that ever again. And I might not do it again for six months or three months or two weeks. And then I I do do it again. And so it's not just I think alcoholics, I think we just kind of forget, like, oh, yeah, really bad luck.

SPEAKER_00: 48:38

Well, the memory like it again tomorrow. The memory of the hangover doesn't stay. No, and so oh, that was six months ago. Yeah, and it's Christmas. Yes, I got for my permission, right?

SPEAKER_08: 48:51

Um, I just want to uh add on a little bit because I I really appreciate you bringing up that confusion because I think as families, it is really hard. We can we understand normal allergies, and then we're told this is an allergy, and we're like, that makes no sense because people stay away from the things they're allergic to. And now we're talking about people who are continuing to lean into that allergy, right? So it can be kind of confusing, and that's why I always find it helpful to just look at the definition of what an allergy is, and an allergy is just an abnormal reaction. So your body reacts abnormally to tree nuts and you have that reaction. When addicts and alcoholics react abnormally to alcohol or to their substance, the outcome is this eventual progression where they get to that place that you were talking about, then. Because remember, and I okay, can you say the chain thing the right way? Say the chain thing.

SPEAKER_00: 49:53

The chains of alcoholism were too soft to be felt until they're too strong to be broken.

SPEAKER_08: 49:58

Okay, so remember how we're talking about this.

SPEAKER_00: 50:01

But you eating peanuts doesn't wreck your marriage, it doesn't put you in a squad car, it doesn't put you, it does put you in the ER. It can do that, right? But it's not repeated because you learn from the experience. God, I'm allergic to peanuts. Peanuts are off the menu.

SPEAKER_08: 50:18

Yeah, so immediately you have the biofeedback that that is not the right reaction. But because this disease progresses the way that it does in the beginning, there aren't necessarily consequences to connect. This is because of my drinking. And Roger's done a great job this morning of talking about how eventually, when it starts to be like, uh, maybe now I'm so deep in it that I don't see that connection. I'm rationalizing and I'm fighting both the physical cravings, if they're using regularly, as well as that mental obsession. And everything in the body, physiologically, is telling you you need more. This is a good thing. This is hitting the dopamine. This is this is good. And so that is such a different piece to this allergy that we don't experience with other allergies.

SPEAKER_06: 51:09

The dopamine piece of it is is key. Like you almost can't draw a parallel right between a peanut allergy and an alcohol allergy because the peanut allergy does not have a crate. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 51:21

The alcohol allergy has an obsession.

SPEAKER_06: 51:25

And it's physically hitting the dopamine button. And so you're getting a good physical feeling from it. Um, I also think it's interesting too. There is not a black and white between alcoholic and non-alcoholic. There's a continuum, you know. I can say right now that I wouldn't consider myself myself an alcoholic. Do I drink? Yes. Have I had periods of drinking too much? Yes. Have I had times where I've um rationalized? Oh, I can just have one glass of wine before I go to bed. Yes. Is it interfering with my life? No. Is it a problem? Maybe. You know what I mean? It's like it's not this black and white.

SPEAKER_00: 52:13

Yeah, you're right. It's a good it's a continuum, but it doesn't mean applied white. And sometimes that glass of wine at night before bed, after several years, becomes the problem. Yeah. Because you can develop this allergy. Some of us appear to be born with it. But to your point about I'm addicted to dopamine, what I'm really addicted to is my thinking. Because when we talk about the dopamine, and also we're talking about symptoms. I like the rush. That's a symptom. The dopamine. That's a symptom.

SPEAKER_03: 52:47

And what you're saying, Sherry? Yeah. Yeah. Step one is two part. I became, I admitted I was powerless over alcohol. I had no problem. I in 2008, I had no problem saying I was powerless over alcohol. And my life became unmanageable. My life had the house, had the family. My life was pretty manageable. So for that, so I struggled with step one for a long time because I thought my life was manageable. It became unmanageable as I continued with that powerlessness. But to your point of the continuum, and there's different places. Even in step one, it's two part. And uh again, I knew at times I would lose control of the alcohol and be powerless. But I was kind of like I showed up at work on Monday and think bills are being paid, kids are doing great, wife and I seem to be okay until it became unrational.

SPEAKER_07: 53:50

Yeah, yeah, until it became inspiration.

SPEAKER_00: 53:52

Until it became unable to be rationalized. And the truth was on paper, I'm looking really good.

SPEAKER_02: 54:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 54:02

Got the house, got the money, got the car, the kids are fine, and my life is falling apart. Where does it fall apart? On the inside. So every one of these steps, they're on page 60. Every one of these steps are asking you to challenge your thinking and your approach to whatever that idea is. Where are you at with being powerless? I don't like that. And you're gonna have to get experience. Right? A gives you this experience. Try some controlled drinking. Drink, stop abruptly. Try not doing that. Try not drinking for a year. Then I go, what was that first one again? Where you can drink, you right? Drink and try and stop abruptly. Both will fail if you're alcoholic. Both will fail. I was working with a guy who happened to be a biker and a felon. I work with a lot of felons. They seem to love me. They gravitate towards me. But anyway, he was, we were, you know, in the first year somewhere, and he was saying, you know, honest, I don't know that I'm powerless over alcohol. I'm doing pretty good now. Said, okay, well, let's try some controlled drinking. What would a good drink be? Well, three fingers of whiskey. How many? Just want to be fine. Okay. What days? Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Okay, fine. So get a calendar. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So he has his whiskey Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We talk the second week. How are you doing? I'm doing great, man. I'm pretty sure this is going to prove that I'm not an alcoholic. Second week. Pulls it off. Third week, I don't hear from him. And then I go over to do a wellness check with another guy. And we find him in his apartment, crawling around with three loaded guns on the coffee table. And he's babbling. He's incoherent. And when he's I took him home, we sobered him up in our basement in uh old school. And he came out and I said, So let's talk about the experiment. What happened? I said, Well, it went really well for a couple weeks. Then I got to the third week and I did Monday. And then I get, I think I'll borrow Wednesday. And then when I got to Wednesday, I had already done Wednesday, so I borrowed Friday. And then I'm looking at Monday, and then so then he got enough alcohol to create the phenomenon of craving. He was off the charts. And we still went over. I took his guns. And uh I said, I'll hold these guns until you get on solid ground. And then he started arguing through his guns. I want my guns back. You're not my sponsor anymore. I want my guns back. So I got his guns back. I said, I'll keep praying for you, sorry ass. And he said, we ended up, he's in a group home with brain damage now. Working his plan, working his ideas. We have to get in front of our ideas. And what we're going to find out is most of our ideas and or the way we perceive the world is not helpful to us. It's what produces the fear and the shame and the I'm not safe and I'm unlovable. And that's produces the discontent that allows me to rationalize the drink again. Because it's the only thing in my memory that ever worked. I was much better when I drank. When I sobered up, I was insane. And the band was saying, you know, we liked you better when you're drinking. You're more you're more consistent.

SPEAKER_06: 57:24

But all that response to life, the fear, the guilt, all of those things.

SPEAKER_05: 57:32

Come back to producing the need for that dopamine. Because you're not getting that from I mean, this is just how I'm putting it together.

SPEAKER_00: 57:41

Not getting the dopamine is a physio from my life. The dopamine is a is a physiological response. It's not a solution. It's just another drug. What's you got to keep peeling this back. What's under that? What's under that? Why do I do this stuff? Because I think it's gonna keep, it's gonna produce safety. I think it's gonna produce some quality of manageability. And it the beast will not let me see none of this is working until I'm either dead or can't take another step. Then you have a chance. You know, you have a chance. So we gotta push forward on this. So here it is. After I've succumbed to the desire again, as seminary do, the desire for the dopamine, the desire for the solution, the desire to feel better. I drink and the phenomenal craving develops. I pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again. A resolution, but not a method. This is repeated over and over unless this person can experience an entire psychic change, new mind, new thinking. Not all at once, a little bit at a time. There's very little hope of his or her recovery. The psychic change is the doctor talks about it as a new mind. And I look at that as a guy that's not recovering but is absent. I go, how do you get a new mind while you're using it? It's like driving on the highway and doing an oil change while you're going down the highway. It's not it's unfathomable. You do it one idea at a time. The first idea is where you at with being powerless. Second idea is manageability. So, which is to get me to the idea, my system's failed. My reason, my logic, my intuition, everything has failed. I need help. On the other hand, this thing about the relapse. The answer is if I live through it. I go to ten, twelve funerals a year of guys that couldn't make the turn and succumb to the Desire, and then couldn't put the brakes on. Because you do you know, everyone, all the alcoholics in this room know I have another drunk in me. But none of us can say for sure we have another recovery in us. Right? So pay attention, the window's open. It's a period of grace. I didn't earn my seat here. I was gifted with the abstinence, which produced enough dissonance in me to finally get the help I needed. I had a suicide attempt at 18 months sober. Won't go into the details, but the point was I thought I wanted to die because none of this shit was working. And when you're absent with no recovery, your past becomes more and more vivid, and you start remembering more and more stuff, which produces more and more shame, desperation, and fear. I was afraid to live. Because I'm sitting in the meetings with these guys who've recovered from what I have, and I'm scared to death to try it. Because if I fail at this too, I failed at everything. If I fail at this too, I'm screwed. But if I don't play, I can't lose. So you stand in that suffering, that pain. And eventually it moves you forward or back. On the other hand, strange as this may seem, to those who do not understand, which is all of us, once a psychic change occurred, the change in your thinking, your mind, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol. The only effect necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules. Now, this is the doctor. I'm not controlling shit when I'm new. I'm not controlling the obsession. So, but this is what it looks like to Silkworth, and we know from our experience that what we call God handles that. We don't. The only effort necessary to be being that required to follow follow a few simple rules. The steps, right? A new discipline for the mind. And the mind fights it. The beast fights it. I don't want you to change. You cannot drink, that's okay. You can go to meetings, that's okay. You can even get a sponsor, that's okay. But damn it, I own you. I'm not going to let you change completely because I don't want you to get well from your fear and shame. Because that's what I use to control you. That's what I use to run the show. That's why you feel the resistance to the change. It's not that the idea is the wrong idea, it's that the beast won't want me to open my mind and consider it. So, men have cried out to me in sincere and despairing appeal, Doctor, I can't go on like this. I have everything to live for. I must stop, but I can't. You must help me. Faced with this problem, if a doctor is honest with himself, he must sometimes feel his own inadequacy. Although he gives all that is in him, it's often not enough. One feels that something more than human power is needed to produce the essential psychic change. You can't do this with your intellect because your intellect is warped. Your logic and your reason are warped. So I present ideas that modulate that, change that over time. Many types do not respond to the ordinary psychological approach. I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control. I've had many men who had, for example, worked for a period of months on some problem or business deal, which was to be settled on a certain date favorably to them. They took a drink a day or so prior to the date, and the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount to all other interests. So that the important appointment was not met. These men were not drinking to escape. They were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control. One of the biggest threats to your early recovery and your recovery in general is success. Because if I see that I've been successful, then I start putting eye there instead of me and God or me and the community, right? Me and my recovery, I start putting eye in front of all that. I'm doing really well. I haven't drank in 90 days. I'm having drank in a year. I haven't drank in 10. I haven't drank in 20. I think I'm okay. And I dropped the discipline. A lot of guys are sent to me that have 20, 30 years that drank. And when I interview them, the same answers come up from everybody. Tell me about your 10th and 11th step. Not there. So now there's no defense against that goofy thinking. And the goofy thinking can just keep compounding itself, right? Tell me about your prayer life. That fell off. What about your meetings? The meetings were the last to go. What preceded that? I stopped working with the new guys. And then I stopped talking to my sponsor. First I lied to him a lot. Then I stopped. And so I this thinking, this ism just slowly backs me out of the thing that saved my bacon and keeps me growing. And now I'm vulnerable to my next great idea. We're doing really well. We're looking really good. And uh I think, what I'm just gonna have a drink. What could go wrong? And I end up in Milwaukee. That's what could go wrong, right? So it's a mental problem. It's not an alcohol problem, it's not an amphetamine problem, it's not a drug problem. Whether the drug is a phenomenon of craving or dopamine, it's not the problem. It's a symptom of something that's really not right inside me. That's my thinking. I need to see the world differently. And when I see it differently, I'll choose different options for my responses, and the consequences will improve. Because the right actions produce the right results. The right actions are based on the right principles. You go high, you get higher results. You go low, you start lying and cheating and manipulating, you're gonna get those results. You know, I want to have, I want I wanna have high self-esteem, I just don't want to change. Give me an example. I was in a meeting, my meeting, I went to with these old guys, and we'd have a coffee break, right? And I'm still wrapped around my my victimhood. And uh Les comes up to me on the break and says, How you doing, kid? And I got this act I do. I get I start huffing and puffing, and I get in my trembling voice, and I said, Well, I have low self-esteem and I'm depressed. And he says, You're an asshole, that should change, and walks away. And I thought, first thought I said, You're dead. Second thought, as as I'm not hearing the meeting anymore, because I'm thinking about this little salvo he fired across me, it's a good point. I haven't changed. I'm expecting different results by doing the same old thing. That was a gift. And those guys intuitively had a way to talk to me that I could hear. They weren't, oh, keep coming back, it works. I'll keep praying for you. They weren't doing that. When they had an opportunity, they told me exactly what the problem was. And it saved my life. I didn't know I was doing that at the time. But it saved my life. So, where are we? Oh, so this guy, my point was celebration, things going really well can be just as dangerous as things going poorly. Because the poorly, I can muster my strength to push back on it. But when I'm seduced by the successes, I get the job back, I get the house back, got the wife back. Isn't this great? Look at me, I'm back in the big bed. Woo-hoo-hoo! And I get drunk on my success. And it stops me from even asking the question. Do you realize where this is coming from? This is because you put your thinking through these steps. You didn't make this happen. These are the gifts of what you've produced. I don't make things happen. Things happen based on the principles I'm operating from. So bottom of the page, all these and many others have one symptom in common. They can't start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. Is that me? The phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people and sets them apart as a distinct entity. It has never been, by any treatment with which we are familiar, permanently eradicated. The only relief we have to suggest is entirely.