August 8, 2025 • 47 mins
"At M2 The Rock, we fully respect the anonymity of all 12-step fellowships. In alignment with their traditions, we do not represent or speak on behalf of any of these groups. Our mission is to share hope, not affiliation."
About M2 THE ROCK - MICHAEL MOLTHAN:
I’m Michael Molthan, host of The M2 The Rock Show—one of the fastest-growing podcasts and shows on self-improvement, mental health, addiction recovery, and spiritual transformation. I’m so grateful you’re here.I started M2 The Rock in 2017 to bring you conversations designed to make you happier, healthier, and more healed. Through raw and unfiltered discussions with experts, celebrities, thought leaders, and athletes, we uncover new perspectives on personal growth, recovery, and overcoming life’s toughest challenges.
My Story:
What sets my journey apart is that there wasn’t just one rock bottom—there were many. From being a successful luxury homebuilder to falling into addiction, homelessness, crime, and eventually 27 mugshots and prison, my life was in absolute chaos.Addiction was my temporary escape from childhood trauma, but it only led to destruction.
It wasn’t until I hit the lowest point imaginable that I finally found true freedom, redemption, and purpose. After an unexpected early release from prison in 2017, I walked 300 miles back to Dallas to turn myself in—only to be miraculously pardoned and told to “pay it forward.”And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing ever since.My MissionI believe that rock bottom is not the end—it’s a stepping stone to something greater.
My goal is to redefine what "rock bottom" means by helping others rebuild their Spirit, Mind, and Body. On M2 The Rock, I speak openly about trauma, addiction, recovery, and the power of transformation. I don’t shy away from topics like:
✅ Trauma & Addiction – Understanding the root causes
✅ Self-Sabotage & Mental Health – Breaking negative cycles
✅ Codependency & Enabling – How relationships impact recovery
✅ 12-Step Programs & Spiritual Healing – Finding true freedom
✅ Religious Trauma & Personal Growth – Healing from past wounds
"Everyone Is An Addict."
Whether it’s substances, work, validation, or negative thinking, we all have something we struggle with.
But recovery is possible, and transformation is real.
📺 Watch my story on I AM SECOND (9-Minute Film): Watch Here
📩 To book me for speaking engagements or collaborations: Email m2@m2therock.com
🔔 Join the Movement. Subscribe to M2 The Rock and start your journey of self-improvement, healing, and purpose.
🔔 Don’t forget to LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for more powerful faith-based content!
🌎 Website: https://m2therock.com/
▶️ YouTube: @MICHAELMOLTHANM2
📸 Instagram: @m2therockshow
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-m2-the-rock-show-michael-molthan--3443849/support.
About M2 THE ROCK - MICHAEL MOLTHAN:
I’m Michael Molthan, host of The M2 The Rock Show—one of the fastest-growing podcasts and shows on self-improvement, mental health, addiction recovery, and spiritual transformation. I’m so grateful you’re here.I started M2 The Rock in 2017 to bring you conversations designed to make you happier, healthier, and more healed. Through raw and unfiltered discussions with experts, celebrities, thought leaders, and athletes, we uncover new perspectives on personal growth, recovery, and overcoming life’s toughest challenges.
My Story:
What sets my journey apart is that there wasn’t just one rock bottom—there were many. From being a successful luxury homebuilder to falling into addiction, homelessness, crime, and eventually 27 mugshots and prison, my life was in absolute chaos.Addiction was my temporary escape from childhood trauma, but it only led to destruction.
It wasn’t until I hit the lowest point imaginable that I finally found true freedom, redemption, and purpose. After an unexpected early release from prison in 2017, I walked 300 miles back to Dallas to turn myself in—only to be miraculously pardoned and told to “pay it forward.”And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing ever since.My MissionI believe that rock bottom is not the end—it’s a stepping stone to something greater.
My goal is to redefine what "rock bottom" means by helping others rebuild their Spirit, Mind, and Body. On M2 The Rock, I speak openly about trauma, addiction, recovery, and the power of transformation. I don’t shy away from topics like:
✅ Trauma & Addiction – Understanding the root causes
✅ Self-Sabotage & Mental Health – Breaking negative cycles
✅ Codependency & Enabling – How relationships impact recovery
✅ 12-Step Programs & Spiritual Healing – Finding true freedom
✅ Religious Trauma & Personal Growth – Healing from past wounds
"Everyone Is An Addict."
Whether it’s substances, work, validation, or negative thinking, we all have something we struggle with.
But recovery is possible, and transformation is real.
📺 Watch my story on I AM SECOND (9-Minute Film): Watch Here
📩 To book me for speaking engagements or collaborations: Email m2@m2therock.com
🔔 Join the Movement. Subscribe to M2 The Rock and start your journey of self-improvement, healing, and purpose.
🔔 Don’t forget to LIKE & SUBSCRIBE for more powerful faith-based content!
🌎 Website: https://m2therock.com/
▶️ YouTube: @MICHAELMOLTHANM2
📸 Instagram: @m2therockshow
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-m2-the-rock-show-michael-molthan--3443849/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Better way till I'm done? Is it going? When they chat?
I'm an alcoholic. I appreciate you guys coming out tonight.
This is our foundation meeting, and the purpose of the
Foundation meeting is, well, have any.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Of you guys been in there? Everybody been in there
to the meeting? Well, what we do and I'll talk
about it in a minute. We cover a little bit
out of the book each night, maybe sometimes one or
two paragraphs, sometimes a couple of pages, and we take
a real in depth look at a small piece of
the program.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
So the purpose of this meeting is to kind of
get an overview what is AA, what is alcohol is,
and kind of answer some big questions. The funny thing
is you don't have to be new to not know
the answers to some of those questions. I mean, here
are the folks that come in here with some time
and sit and listen to one of our foundation meetings
and learn some pretty good stuff. But I'm gonna cover
(00:55):
a few things tonight. I'm gonna start out and talk
a little bit about what AA is and then talk
a little bit about this book. And this is just
a big book, just like this one. It's just the
Cadillac version that my sponsor bought me in that cool leather. Anyway,
I'll talk a little bit about the book, a little
bit about this group, and then the good stuff. Then
(01:17):
I get to talk about what is alcoholism and really
look at that. So so to start out with, before
I get started, I'll tell you a little bit about me,
but not much. I've been sober since April second, two
thousand and three. So so I'm coming up on fringing
eight years almost. I mean, that's a miracle. This is
(01:41):
my home group. I'm here. If I'm not here on
Tuesday night, it's because I'm out of town or I'm
very sick or something. I mean, this is my home group,
and I'm committed to being here early, staying late, and
helping out. It means a lot to me. And I've
got a sponsor and he's in he's in there. But
the most important thing I tell you about me is
(02:01):
that I'm an alcoholic. But through working these steps, I've
recovered from alcoholism. And what I mean by recovered is
that I am real clear today that I can't drink right.
(02:22):
The difference is is that if I'm an alcoholic that's
not recovered and you hand me a beer, I might say, well,
you know it won't hurt this time. You know, it's
just one beer. Sounds like a pretty good idea versus
right now being recovered. If you hand me a beer,
I'm gonna say that looks good and everything, but that's
(02:44):
a bad idea. I don't need any of that, you know.
So that's a difference. It's real simple. But recover doesn't
mean that I can drink. Now. If I start drinking,
I'm right back where anybody else is. And before I
go any further, I want to tell you if you're
sitting in this room and you're not an alcoholic, but
you're a drug addict. This is an AA meeting. So
I'm gonna talk about drinking. I'm gonna talk about alcoholism.
(03:10):
But in my experience, this what I'm talking about can
just as easily be applied to drugs into addiction. So
just in your mind, just replace the words. Okay, So
now a little bit about what is alcoholics anonymous? And
everybody's been to an AA meeting, right, never been to
(03:32):
one first AA meeting? Wow? Okay, okay, So those of
you who have been, you've probably heard the preamble and
it goes something like, Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of
men and women who share their experience, strength and hope.
Blah blah blah. Okay, I want to challenge that just
a little bit because that says Alcoholics Anonymous is a
(03:53):
fellowship of men and women, and that's a by fellowship.
What we're talking about is the meetings, the people in
the meetings, the meetings before the meetings out in the
parking lot, the coffee shop after the meetings, the pot
luck dinners, the sober softball whatever has the conferences, which
(04:16):
is great stuff. That's great things to get involved in.
It's a great substitute for the places where I was
hanging out before I got here. But that ain't all AA.
Is what we're going to focus on tonight is the
program of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is a way of life
(04:37):
through practicing certain principles that totally changes the way I live,
brings about a change in me. I become a new person.
I'm not the same guy that I was, and I've
got experience with that. See I know that because I
hung out in AA for about a year where I
(04:57):
went to a lot of meetings, went to all the
AA functions. With about a year or sober, I did
something really stupid and my sponsor instructed me to take
a look at my life. And my life wasn't a
lot different than it was when I walked in the door,
(05:20):
and his suggestion to me, in a very loving way,
was why don't you try working the staffs. Well, then
what happened when I worked to steps is I started
taking part in the program with Alcoholics Anonymous, and it
completely changed my life. And I'm not that guy that
I wasn't in that was sober but going to meetings
every day and still a jerk, just like he wasn't
(05:41):
walking the door. So the steps to what's changed me,
and that is what the program of AA is. Okay,
that's enough about AA. Now I want to talk a
little bit about this group. This group's called the Primary
Purpose Group, and that comes from one of our traditions.
For now, it'll suffice to say that our traditions are
(06:03):
kind of the rules that govern the groups. They're not
really rules, they're more like guidelines, but they're just kind
of guidelines that we follow that keep us from messing
this thing all up. And one of them says that
each group has but one primary purpose, and that's to
carry the message to the alcoholic who's still sufferge. Well,
what happened is about four and a half years ago,
(06:27):
a few people got together and decided they wanted to
start a group based on this idea. We're going to
study the book, the Big Book, We're going to do
what it says, and then we're going to go out
and carry its message. Right. Well, I think that was
about eight people. I think there were about thirty people
(06:48):
at the first few meetings, and you know, now we
get one hundred and fifty in there doing the same thing.
So apparently it's a pretty good idea. It's worked pretty well. Okay,
that's stenough about the group. A little bit about the book.
This book is referred to as as our basic text,
(07:09):
like a textbook. Everybody likes textbooks, right do you great.
I always tell a story that I had about twenty
guys in here, and usually there's not near this many women.
It's usually like twenty guys and like two girls that
are sitting there going because I mean, if you got
twenty guys in the foundation, meaning there's an energy going
(07:32):
on there that is not healthy. So I'm sitting here
one night. I always asked that question. I like, raise
my hand, and nobody raised my hand. This one guy
sitting next to me, he goes, and then he looked around.
He put his hand out. I don't like textbooks. It's
not tough to like textbooks. But anyway, this book is
(07:52):
kind of like a textbook. What it does is it
presents a problem. It presents a problem and then it
gives a solution to the explains a solution, but then
it gives a set of instructions on how to get
to that solution. Right. This is not the kind of
book where you read it and say that's pretty good.
You should try this and put it on the shelf.
(08:13):
It's meant to be studied, and the instructions follow. The
instructions actually do what it says. It doesn't work near
as well as a theory as it does as a
set of instructions. And I was going to say about
the I usually read a couple of things on it,
(08:37):
but I think I covered it okay, So that's what
I want to say about the I think I will
read the statistics. This book was published in nineteen thirty nine.
The first edition was published in nineteen thirty nine. And
it has a forward to the first edition, and Charlie
read it tonight, and actually I may read a couple
(08:58):
of sentences out forward the first edition, but it says,
we have alcoholics anonymous are more than one hundred men
and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state
of mind and body. To show other alcoholics precisely how
we have recovered, as the main purpose of this book.
And what I like to say when I read that
is that this was not this program. This book didn't
(09:18):
come about because a couple of guys sit down and said,
you know what, we should start a program about how
to help alcoholics recover from alcoholism. That's not what happened.
What happened is this crazy series of events took place
with this guy coming in here and doing this, and
this guy and all these things happening, and some hopeless
(09:43):
alcoholics low Bottom, I'm sure you know they have some
great stories low Bottom, bad drunks found a way out.
They found a way out and turned their lives around,
and they start going out and telling other guys how
to do it. And it started kind of having this
(10:04):
domino effect, right, and those guys would go carry the
messages and go, and guys, bad, hopeless alcoholics that nobody
had any idea what to do with them, started getting
so started getting sober and staying that way, right, and
they started thinking, you know what, we've got a program
here that works. We better get it down on paper
(10:28):
or we're gonna lose it by word about right. So
they so what they did is they wrote a book
to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered. So
that's why it says all through here we did this,
and we did this, and we did this because it's
what they did. It's what they did. Then they wrote
it down, So when you're reading this, we're not reading
(10:50):
what somebody's good ideas that they learned in college. We're
reading about what they actually did. And then since then
this this has been backed up by millions, right, not
one hundred anymore. So this book was published in nineteen
thirty nine in the first edition, then in nineteen fifty
(11:14):
was it fifty four, that's right? Or fifty five in
nineteen fifty? Now the book was published in nineteen thirty nine,
thirty nine, and the second edition was published in fifty five,
is that right? Okay? Fifty five? By that time wait,
(11:34):
that's the first edition. By that time. Let's see. It
says that we had gone from one hundred members to
one hundred and fifty thousand in sixteen years. Six thousand groups. Okay,
they went out and kind of did a study and
came up with some statistics, and here's what those statistics. Now,
before I read those, though, I want to share just
(11:55):
a quick story. I sit in I went to a
thirty day treatment center and and we went in there
one of the first days. I'm not sure when it was.
I was kind of in a fog, but we sat
in the main meeting in the morning at eight o'clock
and there were about forty of us in the room,
and we were we were in four rows of tables,
so there's about ten people in each row. And one
(12:19):
of one of the councilors, Shover's run the meetings, said
told us what our odds were of getting sober and
staying that way. I think for a year. I think
they said to odds, here's the chances of you getting
sober and staying that weak for a year. He said,
it's about it's about one out of ten, so about
four of you. So if you'll look to your left
and look to your right. One of you on that
(12:41):
road is going to stay sober. And my experience was,
we didn't do that good. You know, we had an
eighteen year old kid get hit by a train. We
had two guys od together in a motel room on
the same night. They found them the next or a
few days later or whatever. But means crazy stuff had
(13:01):
and you know, that's that's that's what happens to people
like us. But this says of alcoholics who came to
AA and really tried, fifty percent got sober at once
and remained that way. Twenty five percent sobered up after
some relapses, and among the remainder those who stayed on
with the AA showed improvement. Other thousands came to a
(13:22):
few meetings and at first decided they didn't want the program,
But great numbers of these, about two out of three,
began to return as time passed. So according to this,
you're looking at about eighty percent or somewhere in there,
maybe more. That's pretty good odds when you're talking about
hopeless alcoholics. You know, we don't get here because it
(13:46):
sounds like a good idea. We get here because nothing
else works, you know, So that's a pretty good chance.
But the key thing it says here is of alcoholics
who came to a and really tried. So you don't
have to be smart, you don't have to be rich.
You don't. I mean, you can be crazy, and you
(14:11):
can be living on the streets, you know, you can
be in bad, bad shape. But if you come in
here and really try, you've got a damn good chance. Okay,
so now you get to get into my favorite part.
Now we talk about what is alcoholism? And I like
this so much because, well, let me put it this way.
(14:36):
If you were to go around the whole country and
ask people, just random people, what does it mean to
be an alcoholic? You're gonna get a lot of different answers, right,
And that's expected, you know that's expected. I mean, if
you ask my grandma what does it mean to be
an alcoholic? I would figure she probably wouldn't really know.
(14:57):
But the sad thing is if you go around AA
meetings and start asking people what does it mean to
be an alcoholic? You get a lot of different answers.
I mean, I work with a lot of guys, and
I and a lot of the guys I work with
have been or they're not like you. They've been to
AA a lot, and I'll say, so, so are you
(15:19):
an alcoholic and they always say, oh yeah, or you know,
a drug addict, one of the two. But if I
ask one of those two questions, they always say, oh yeah,
you have no idea. I mean, you know, we got
to be proud of something, right, They're always like, oh god, yeah,
I mean you know I did this and this. Well,
then I like to follow that up with this question, Okay,
(15:40):
so what does that mean? What makes you different? And
that's when I started getting the craziest answers. I mean,
I had a guy who had been the treatment a
number of times in AA for a long time, and
I asked him what it means to be alcoholic and
he said, well, you see, I'm a perfectionist. And he
(16:02):
kind of went on from the line, okay, so all
perfectionists are alcoholics. Well, yeah, right there, you know he said,
oh no, no, no. I said, okay, so what makes
you different? Okay, so what makes us different? What makes
the alcoholic difference? Okay? The book is real clear on it. Now.
(16:23):
It doesn't give a definition of the word alcoholic, but
it gives a damn good description, and it takes a
long time doing it because it wants to drive home
what it means to be an out because I need
to know if I'm going to say I'm an alcoholic,
I need to know what that means. I need to
know what's wrong with me. I need a good diagnosis.
(16:44):
So here's what it means. The first problem that talks
about is written in what's called the Doctor's Opinion. Now,
before I read it, I want to say just a
little that's kind of interesting how this came about. This
is written by doctor William silk Work and it was,
of course, of course written in the thirties. Now I
(17:08):
don't know if it's because doctor Silkworth was a really
good guy, or if it's because it was the Great
Depression and that's the only job he could get. But
for some reason Silkworth worked with lots of alcoholics. That's
really all he did. He ran what today we would
(17:29):
call a detox But it was a hospital, the most
probably the most well known hospital in the world for
working with alcoholics, called Town's Hospital in New York. And
he had guys with drinking problems in and out of
there a lot, and they really didn't know what to
do with people. It's not like a treatment center today.
They didn't go on you know, musical journeys or whatever
(17:50):
that we do today. They had but they all they
really knew to do was was they had experimental things
and nothing worked really well. But but what they knew
to do was bring them in, put them in a bed,
get them hydrated, get some food in their systems, get
you know, get rid of the shakes. Sometimes wean them
(18:12):
off alcohol with alcohol right, get them complete in sentences,
and after a few days, send them out the door.
And what these guys had in common is when they're
walking out the door, they would say, who that was bad?
I will never do that again. And the fact is
you've never seen them a gein. But occasionally there would
(18:36):
be a guy come through in the same condition, off
a bad, bad drunk. They'd get them a bed, give
them the same treatment. They'd walk out the door say
the very same thing, and two weeks later they're back,
and this time they're in worse shape than they were
the time before. So doctor Silkworth and the folks who
(18:58):
worked with came up with a very controversial opinion at
the time. He started to talk about alcoholism as an illness,
saying that alcohol affected the bodies of the alcoholics differently,
not just messed up in the head, but actually had
a different effect on the body. And here's what he said,
(19:18):
and this is going to be if you're falling along
in the book, if you're in a fourth edition book,
this is on Roman numeral twenty eight. Now, I don't
know whose idea it was to put Roman numerals in
a book for alcoholics. Twenty eight would be xx VII.
Alcoholism had a little bit of an effect on my education.
(19:39):
I don't know if that's true for anybody else up
here on the topic. Says we believe and so suggested
a few years ago that the action of alcohol on
these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy, that
the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and
never occurs in the average temperate drinker. I don't know
about you, but when I first read that, I was like, okay, whatever,
(20:02):
and I kept going looking for something that I could understand.
But I had someone break this down to me and
what this means. Well, first off, he's talking about the
action of alcohol. Now, if you've ever had a few
drinks in a row in a pretty short amount of time.
You know what the action of alcohol is. First off,
(20:24):
it makes me sing really well, well, we all know
what the action of alcoholic is. Okay, So it's talking
about the action of alcohol on chronic alcoholics. Now, a
chronic alcoholic, what does it mean to be a chronic Now,
if you're in a drug act and you're sitting here,
we're not talking about that kind of chronic This is different.
A chronic alcoholic means someone who's an alcoholic, who has
(20:45):
alcoholism now and who's gonna have it from now on, right.
Not the person who can just say, oh, that was
a bad run. I've done with that, and they're good
the rest of their lives. I'm talking about the chronic alcoholic,
the one who keeps getting drunk and getting worse and
getting worse and says I'm not going to do it anymore,
and keeps doing it. Right, Okay. It says the action
(21:07):
of alcohol on this chronic alcoholic is a manifestation of
an allergy. When I first started hearing about this allergy
to alcohol, I was like, I have no idea what
they're talking about, because I'm thinking about sneezing, watery eyes, running,
nose rash. When this book was written, allergy was a
(21:27):
fairly new word, and what it actually means is an
abnormal physical reaction. It just means that if you have
a room full of people and they all ingest a
certain substance into their bodies, that it has one effect
on most of them, but on a few rare cases,
(21:49):
in a few instances, it has a completely different effect. Right,
So for the alcoholic, it' say estimated that about ten
percent of people in the world have the potential to
be an alcohol Alcohol has a different effect. Okay, then
it says it talks about it being a manifestation of analogies.
Simple definition for manifestation is how it shows up. So
(22:11):
what how does this allergy show up in the alcoholic?
I had a question. Yes, so you're saying, a chronic
alcohol that can't get rid of alcoholism if you're the
guy that this book is describing, Yeah, no more drinking,
(22:36):
no more drugs. All right, yeah, yeah, now we can
I'll get it. I'll get into this moren a minute.
All but but we can get to a point to
where to where we can stay sober. But the whole
idea of drinking successfully if you're an alcoholic. Yeah, I
(22:59):
forget about it. That bad news, Okay, Okay, so it now,
how does the allergy show up a phenomenon of craving?
I went to a meeting at the Primary Purpose Group
in Dallas. They have a Step study meeting or a
Step speaker on Saturday nights, and this lady was doing
(23:21):
a presentation on Step one and I love the way
she described this physical allergy, just craving. And at first
I was getting little irritated because she was talking about
having a craving for chocolate, and I was like, oh
my god, somebody's going to compare alcohol to chocolate. It's
really getting on my nerves. Not that I'm judgmental by
any means. Okay. So she's up here and she's got
(23:44):
this white board right like this one, and she says,
I get a craving for chocolate. And she draws this
candy bar right and she says, this represents the craving
I have for chocolate. So I eat the candy bar,
all right, I'll break down and I eat it, she says,
but that didn't satisfy the craving. I still have a craving.
So she draws this little candy bar like this, and
(24:06):
she said, now this represents my craving. And I eat
this one I give in. I eat it, and she
draws another one like this. She said, now this represents
my craving. Right, Okay, that's not like the craving I
have for alcohol. So she erases it, and she draws
a wine glass and she says, this represents the craving
that I have for alcohol. So I drink this drink
(24:27):
and then she draws one this big, and she says,
now this represents my craving. I'm definitely drinking this one.
And then she draws one that fills the whole board,
and she says, now this represents my craving. That's a
much better description of what my allergy to alcohol is like.
And if I'm given in to that first one or two,
(24:50):
it's over. I will drink more, a lot more, and
I usually don't stop until I have to, right until
I pass up out, until I get myself in a
position where I can jail. You know, who knows what's
it going to be? Now? Now I want to clarify
something though, that does not have to happen every time
(25:14):
for a person being alcoholic, it depends on how far
down the line you are. There were times early on
where I could go out and have two drinks, and
go out and have two drinks all right. Now, It's
not that way for everybody. Some guys first time they drink,
they lose control when every time they're after But some
(25:38):
of us are not that way, especially early on. Some
of us can control it sometimes, okay, but here's the
bad news. Sometimes I could control it. Sometimes I couldn't.
I didn't get to pick which way it was going
to be. It was kind of a roll of the dice,
you know. And it seemed like the times I would
(25:59):
lose control were the it's like Mom's birthday, you know.
It's never the good times, never when I got nothing
to do all weekend, you know. Okay, So the allergy
is one one of the symptoms that the alcoholic has.
(26:19):
It's what happens when I start drinking. Right when I
start drinking, I tend to lose control. I don't know
what's going to happen after that. Okay. If that's all
that being an alcoholic is, If that's the only problem
we got, there's a real simple solution. Just stop. If
(26:45):
taking the first drink causes me to lose control, don't
take the first drink. That's easy, problem solved, No need
for AA. You know, get married, have babies, feed the
homeless on Thanksgiving, go to college. Life is great. You
can leave now, okay. But the alcoholic has another problem.
(27:09):
The books is the main problem of the alcoholic centers
in his mind. See what happens for me is I
have a bad drunk and I say I am not
ever doing that again. And then you give me enough time,
(27:32):
maybe a month or two, maybe ten hours. I change
my mind every single time. And I think that sometimes
we confuse people because we give the impression that to
be an alcoholic you have to be holding a drink
in your hands, saying no, don't drink, don't drink. And
(27:53):
then it's not always like that. The way it was
for me is I just change my mind against all
common sense and rational thinking in the world. I'm living
in a salvage yard, living in a salvage yard. Yet
I think this time I can control it. Right over
(28:18):
here at the well, at the beginning of the chapter
on alcoholism, it says the first step said, we learned
that we had to fully concede to our innermo selves
that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery.
I tried to read much of this thing at a time.
I'm a teacher, and I know that once I start
reading a lot, I start losing people. You know. It
(28:42):
talks about conceding to your inermo self that you're an alcoholic.
And if you were to you guys. When we Austin, Texas, man,
I lived in Oklahoma City and I moved to Austin,
I was like, God, dang, there's a guy flying a
sign on every corner, every corner right, and some of
(29:03):
those folks you can drive by him and look at
him and say, oh, that is an alcoholic, or look
at him and say that's a crack addict, you know,
Or if you've been around and had a lot of
experience a lot of it, you can start spotting which
kind you know, this one does everything okay, and everyone
driving by I can look at that person and say, now,
that's a person that has no control over their drinking.
(29:27):
But there's one person that thinks they still do. See
if you were to take that guy flying that sign
and open him up and look deep inside, there's a
good chance you would see that deep down in here
he thinks that if he can tweak it, just ride
this time. He's got it now. I don't know if
(29:50):
anybody in here relates to that, but I damn sure
I always would. I would get to a point and
I would think, you know what, I'm a real man,
a right by God, a man can handle this. I'm
going to control myself tonight. You know That's the way
(30:11):
it looked for me. Now, all our heads tell us
something slightly different. But whatever it is, if you're an alcoholic,
you change your mind. What it says on here on
page twenty four. This is in italics, or unless Charlie
says squiggly writing, which means it's very important, says the
(30:31):
fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have
lost the power of choice and dream. Our so called
willpower becomes practically non existent. We are unable at certain
times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the
memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week
or a month ago. We are without defense against the
(30:52):
first drink. Have any of you guys ever sat in
an AA meeting and heard someone say, I woke up
this morning and chose not to drink, or heard someone
say don't drink no matter what. You never heard that one.
I love that don't drink no matter what. That's a
(31:13):
damn good idea. And that'll work really well unless you're
an alcoholic, because if you're an alcoholic, I'm an alcoholic.
I drink no matter what, No matter what. There is
no humiliation or suffering that will keep me sober for
(31:33):
very long. There's no fear that will keep me sober.
There's no mom, no girlfriend, no daughter. I've got an
eleven year old daughter that was that turned four while
I was in treatment, right could not sober me. I
love that girl more than anything in the world, but
(31:56):
I could not stay sober for her. I don't have
a choice. Left to my own power, I do not
have a choice. I will always change my mind. I
will always go back. Now I'm gonna go back here
to the doctor's opinion. And it's really cool because doctor Silkworth,
(32:18):
he wasn't an alcoholic, but he says a couple of
lines here that describe me so well. It amazes me
that he wasn't down here on the bottom of that
same page, Roman Numeral twenty eight or XXVIII for the I,
XXVII for the Roman numeral reliterate, like me down here
(32:39):
on the very bottom. It says men and women drink
essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The
sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is
injured or harmful, while they admit it is harmful, they
cannot after a time differentiate the truth from the false.
To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one.
If you're sitting here and you're new, your life ain't normal.
(33:02):
I just want to let you know if you think
it is. Says they're restless, irritable, and discontented unless they
can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which
comes at once by taking a few drinks. Now that's
the line I really want to look at. There's some
good stuff in there, but that's what I want to
look at. Doctor Silworth is describing me sober. When I
(33:25):
am sober, I am restless. Okay. So it's like I'm
sitting in the chair at home, completely sober. I'm getting
a little uncomfortable sitting there. I'm thinking, you know what, man,
I need to get up. I need to go be
around some people. So I go hang out with some
of my friends for a little while. Right, well, they're
(33:47):
getting on my nerves a little bit, so I'm thinking, man,
I got to get away from these people. I got
this little project going in the garage. I think I'll
go work on it. So I go start working on it,
and it just ain't working right, and I'm thinking, God, dang,
I gotta get out of here. I gotta go sit
down for a while. So I'm find myself back in
the same damn chair I started in. I just don't
know where to be. Nothing kills right. It says I'm
(34:13):
irritable now. I don't really get irritable. I just it
just seems everybody around me's an idiot. You know, this
is me sober. It's like it's like when I'm trying
to sit down and relax, everybody around me's just moving
(34:35):
around to they just need to chill, Or when there's
something happening and people need to get off their asses
and get busy, right, or people they're driving too fast,
they're driving too slower. Everybody's doing something wrong, and I
notice every little thing and it's driving me crazy. And
then it says discontented. Sometimes someone would come to me
(34:59):
and say, God, dang, Chad, what's wrong. I'd be like,
I don't know. It just seems like nothing's right, you know,
just nothing, drying, just unhappy. That's me sober unless I
can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which
comes at once by taking a few drinks. I know
(35:23):
where I can get that sense of even comfort. I
don't even have to have the bottle open, or the
bag or whatever it is. I can have it in
my hand and that sense of ease and comfort comes
over me. The first time I got drunk, it was
with three other guys, and it was four of us.
(35:44):
It was our first time for all those and those
three guys had a damn good time. I had a
spiritual experience. It changed my life. I saw the world
in a whole new life. It solved problems I didn't
even know I had, and I knew at that moment
I was gonna do that no matter what I knew.
(36:08):
It this best thing that ever happened to me. All Right, Okay,
now my girlfriend and she wants to let her inhibitions
down a little bit, have a good time, be more social,
or if she's stressed out and needs to relax. She
has a couple of drinks. There's nothing wrong with that.
If I could do that, I would, But I don't
(36:30):
really have a couple of drinks. When I get that
sense of ease and comfort, I wake up in jail.
All right, we passed up sense of ease and comfort
hours ago or days ago. Okay, So what happens to
the alcoholic? See if this sounds familiar to anybody. I
(36:55):
drink and drink and drink and drink until I have
to stop, right until some for some reason, I have
to stop. And then I stay sober, and I stay sober,
and I stay sober until I can't stay sober anymore.
And then I drink until I can't drink anymore. And
(37:18):
then I stay sober until I can't stay sober anymore.
And that's my life, right and then think just for
a second about what the rest of that life is like.
Right about where I'm living, what life is like for
my wife and my daughter and my mother. You know,
(37:40):
when's the last time I took a shower? You know, work,
when's the last time I went to work? You know,
it's a train wreck living a life like that. Okay,
that's what it means to be an alcohol. That's what
(38:01):
it's like. It's completely hopeless. It's completely hopeless. There's nothing
we can do on our own power. The book refers
to it as being beyond human aid. If any person
could have gotten me sober and kept me that way,
it would have been that little girl who I love
(38:22):
so much. Charlie described my daughter as false advertising. I
was like, what are you talking about? False advertising? He said, well,
she's one of those kids where when you meet her
and spent some time with her, you think to yourself, oh, wow,
(38:43):
she's great. I gotta have one of those. And then
you have one and you find out they're not all
like that. You know, I got this great kid. I
love her more than anything wrong. I mean, I wanted
to be a dad way before I was ever a dad.
And you know, she wasn't on purpose or whatever. I mean,
I don't know how you guys do it, but that's
how I do. But I was excited too, right, and
(39:03):
I had this great daughter, love her so much. Live
in a small town, right could see her anytime I wanted,
and I would go three months and never see her.
You know, I would go a long time and never
go see her, and I would tell all my alcoholic
(39:24):
and drug addict friends that her mama won't let me
see her, right, And I would tell it and tell
it and tell it till I would believe it, because
in order for me to live with it, I kind
of had to, right. But the truth is, her mama
always wanted me to see her always, and I wanted
to see her, but I couldn't. I couldn't because I
(39:48):
couldn't say so much. Okay, now I'm going to go
over here to page forty five. I think I've done
this a long. I'm forgetting my page years page forty five, Okay.
(40:08):
In the first full paragraph, it says, lack of power.
That was our dilemma. So what's our problem? We're powerless?
Lack of power, that's the problem. Okay, So what logically
follows that if I want to stay sober, we had
to find a power by which we could live, and
it had to be a power greater than ourselves. No
(40:31):
problems there. I need to find a power. It's got
to be greater than me, because I damn sure can't
do the job, and it needs to be a power
by which I can live because I got a serious
living problem. Okay, obviously, but where and how do I
find this power? Well, that's exactly what this book is about.
(40:51):
Its main object is to enable you to find a
power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. Okay,
so big important point here, big misunderstanding. This book is
not strategies on how not to drink. This book doesn't
tell me that because it doesn't work for the person.
(41:12):
This book is written for strategies on how to stay
sober don't work. This book explains the drinking problem and
then drops it. And then it tells me, step by step,
from their experience, how to hook up with power, how
(41:36):
to find power, a power that's greater than me and
a power that I can live by. That's what these
steps are about. Okay, over here on forty seven. Now,
by the way, this brings us into the second step
(41:59):
over here on forty seve and it gives me a question,
a two part question. It says, we needed or ask ourselves,
but one short question, do I now believe? Am I
even willing to believe that there's a power greater than myself?
As soon as a man can say he does believe
or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him he
(42:20):
is on his way. Okay. So, contrary to popular belief,
you don't have to understand God. You don't have to
have faith in God. You don't even have to believe
in God. All you gotta be. All you have to
(42:43):
do is be willing to believe. You just can't shut
the door on it right now. Had you introduced me
to AA when I was twenty five, I would have
shut the door on it. But introduce me to AA
when I was twenty eight, I was like, whatever, if
(43:07):
you say it works, give me something. That's all we
have to do. That's all we have to do to
start this program is just say, okay, God, damn, you
say you're as bad as me. For some reason, I
believe you. You're not as bad as me anymore. You say
(43:27):
this works for you, maybe it'll work for me. Okay,
So I'm not gonna ask. Sometimes I have people raise
their hand, but it seems kind of like a bad
thing to do. But some of us come in here
and well, we get three types of people in here.
We get the type in here who come in here
and they're all about God. Oh yeah, you know, God
sounds good. Bring on God, got God. We get people
in here who don't even want to hear the word.
(43:48):
As soon as you say the word.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
They're like.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
And then we get some who came in here like
me that we're like, Man, I don't give a damn God.
Whatever I mean, I could care less. It works for
all three times and anywhere in between. Over here on
page forty six. If you're one of those who has
a little bit of a problem with this, it says
much to our relief down here kind of at the
(44:12):
bottom of the last full PARAGRAPHIC says much to our relief,
we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception
of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to
make the approach and to affect the contact with Him.
So I don't have to come in here with much.
As a matter of fact, I get to come up
with my own conception, and it doesn't have to be
(44:36):
very good. As long as I'm seeking, that's what's important. Okay,
So now what I want to look at over here.
If you guys have been to a mets AA meetings,
have you heard the promises? I never heard of this. Well,
(44:57):
that's a good question, because usually you hear the ninth
step promise, and I'm not gonna read those. I'm gonna
read the tenth step promises.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Okay, So over here on page eighty four, at the
bottom of the page, it says.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
We have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. By
this time, sanity has returned. We will seldom be interested
in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from
a hot flame. Wanna beer? Hell no, it's bad news
for me. We react sanely and normally. How would a
(45:44):
sane person react if alcohol, if they had an allergied alcohol,
they would not drink alcohol. Okay, we find this has happened,
automatically turn it down. I don't even have to think.
I just turn it down automatically. We will see that
(46:04):
our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without
any thought or effort on our part. It just comes.
That's the miracle of it. Now. I want to be
clear about something here. When it says without any thought
or effort on our part, it means that I have
not been trying not to drink. If I'm working this
program the way this book lines it out, I don't
have to try not to drink it just happens as
(46:27):
I'm working the program and hook up with power. It
says we're not fighting it, we're not avoiding temptation. We
feel as though we've been placed in a position of neutrality,
safe and protected. We have not even sworn off because
that doesn't work. Instead, the problem has been removed. It
does not exist for us. Over Here, on page twenty four,
(46:48):
it says we have no choice. The ten step promises
say the problem has been removed. Now here's what I'm
gonna close with. We start to work with a prayer
on page sixty three. Everything before that is learning. The
first thing I do, as far as the work goes,
is I say a prayer on page sixty three. What
(47:10):
I just read is on page eighty four. There it is.
That's what you have to do to get there. If
you're not doing it and you've got this problem, go
find somebody that'll take you through the work out of
this book. If you can't find somebody, I can find
you somebody. Hook up with them, do this work. I
(47:31):
had no idea life could be this good, no idea.
I have absolutely no desire to go back to drinking,
not even a couple of drinks. No desire, all right,
I appreciate you guys coming tonight. Thank you, thank you,
Better way till I'm done? Is it going? When they chat?
I'm an alcoholic. I appreciate you guys coming out tonight.
This is our foundation meeting, and the purpose of the
Foundation meeting is, well, have any.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Of you guys been in there? Everybody been in there
to the meeting? Well, what we do and I'll talk
about it in a minute. We cover a little bit
out of the book each night, maybe sometimes one or
two paragraphs, sometimes a couple of pages, and we take
a real in depth look at a small piece of
the program.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
So the purpose of this meeting is to kind of
get an overview what is AA, what is alcohol is,
and kind of answer some big questions. The funny thing
is you don't have to be new to not know
the answers to some of those questions. I mean, here
are the folks that come in here with some time
and sit and listen to one of our foundation meetings
and learn some pretty good stuff. But I'm gonna cover
(00:55):
a few things tonight. I'm gonna start out and talk
a little bit about what AA is and then talk
a little bit about this book. And this is just
a big book, just like this one. It's just the
Cadillac version that my sponsor bought me in that cool leather. Anyway,
I'll talk a little bit about the book, a little
bit about this group, and then the good stuff. Then
(01:17):
I get to talk about what is alcoholism and really
look at that. So so to start out with, before
I get started, I'll tell you a little bit about me,
but not much. I've been sober since April second, two
thousand and three. So so I'm coming up on fringing
eight years almost. I mean, that's a miracle. This is
(01:41):
my home group. I'm here. If I'm not here on
Tuesday night, it's because I'm out of town or I'm
very sick or something. I mean, this is my home group,
and I'm committed to being here early, staying late, and
helping out. It means a lot to me. And I've
got a sponsor and he's in he's in there. But
the most important thing I tell you about me is
(02:01):
that I'm an alcoholic. But through working these steps, I've
recovered from alcoholism. And what I mean by recovered is
that I am real clear today that I can't drink right.
(02:22):
The difference is is that if I'm an alcoholic that's
not recovered and you hand me a beer, I might say, well,
you know it won't hurt this time. You know, it's
just one beer. Sounds like a pretty good idea versus
right now being recovered. If you hand me a beer,
I'm gonna say that looks good and everything, but that's
(02:44):
a bad idea. I don't need any of that, you know.
So that's a difference. It's real simple. But recover doesn't
mean that I can drink. Now. If I start drinking,
I'm right back where anybody else is. And before I
go any further, I want to tell you if you're
sitting in this room and you're not an alcoholic, but
you're a drug addict. This is an AA meeting. So
I'm gonna talk about drinking. I'm gonna talk about alcoholism.
(03:10):
But in my experience, this what I'm talking about can
just as easily be applied to drugs into addiction. So
just in your mind, just replace the words. Okay, So
now a little bit about what is alcoholics anonymous? And
everybody's been to an AA meeting, right, never been to
(03:32):
one first AA meeting? Wow? Okay, okay, So those of
you who have been, you've probably heard the preamble and
it goes something like, Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of
men and women who share their experience, strength and hope.
Blah blah blah. Okay, I want to challenge that just
a little bit because that says Alcoholics Anonymous is a
(03:53):
fellowship of men and women, and that's a by fellowship.
What we're talking about is the meetings, the people in
the meetings, the meetings before the meetings out in the
parking lot, the coffee shop after the meetings, the pot
luck dinners, the sober softball whatever has the conferences, which
(04:16):
is great stuff. That's great things to get involved in.
It's a great substitute for the places where I was
hanging out before I got here. But that ain't all AA.
Is what we're going to focus on tonight is the
program of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is a way of life
(04:37):
through practicing certain principles that totally changes the way I live,
brings about a change in me. I become a new person.
I'm not the same guy that I was, and I've
got experience with that. See I know that because I
hung out in AA for about a year where I
(04:57):
went to a lot of meetings, went to all the
AA functions. With about a year or sober, I did
something really stupid and my sponsor instructed me to take
a look at my life. And my life wasn't a
lot different than it was when I walked in the door,
(05:20):
and his suggestion to me, in a very loving way,
was why don't you try working the staffs. Well, then
what happened when I worked to steps is I started
taking part in the program with Alcoholics Anonymous, and it
completely changed my life. And I'm not that guy that
I wasn't in that was sober but going to meetings
every day and still a jerk, just like he wasn't
(05:41):
walking the door. So the steps to what's changed me,
and that is what the program of AA is. Okay,
that's enough about AA. Now I want to talk a
little bit about this group. This group's called the Primary
Purpose Group, and that comes from one of our traditions.
For now, it'll suffice to say that our traditions are
(06:03):
kind of the rules that govern the groups. They're not
really rules, they're more like guidelines, but they're just kind
of guidelines that we follow that keep us from messing
this thing all up. And one of them says that
each group has but one primary purpose, and that's to
carry the message to the alcoholic who's still sufferge. Well,
what happened is about four and a half years ago,
(06:27):
a few people got together and decided they wanted to
start a group based on this idea. We're going to
study the book, the Big Book, We're going to do
what it says, and then we're going to go out
and carry its message. Right. Well, I think that was
about eight people. I think there were about thirty people
(06:48):
at the first few meetings, and you know, now we
get one hundred and fifty in there doing the same thing.
So apparently it's a pretty good idea. It's worked pretty well. Okay,
that's stenough about the group. A little bit about the book.
This book is referred to as as our basic text,
(07:09):
like a textbook. Everybody likes textbooks, right do you great.
I always tell a story that I had about twenty
guys in here, and usually there's not near this many women.
It's usually like twenty guys and like two girls that
are sitting there going because I mean, if you got
twenty guys in the foundation, meaning there's an energy going
(07:32):
on there that is not healthy. So I'm sitting here
one night. I always asked that question. I like, raise
my hand, and nobody raised my hand. This one guy
sitting next to me, he goes, and then he looked around.
He put his hand out. I don't like textbooks. It's
not tough to like textbooks. But anyway, this book is
(07:52):
kind of like a textbook. What it does is it
presents a problem. It presents a problem and then it
gives a solution to the explains a solution, but then
it gives a set of instructions on how to get
to that solution. Right. This is not the kind of
book where you read it and say that's pretty good.
You should try this and put it on the shelf.
(08:13):
It's meant to be studied, and the instructions follow. The
instructions actually do what it says. It doesn't work near
as well as a theory as it does as a
set of instructions. And I was going to say about
the I usually read a couple of things on it,
(08:37):
but I think I covered it okay, So that's what
I want to say about the I think I will
read the statistics. This book was published in nineteen thirty nine.
The first edition was published in nineteen thirty nine. And
it has a forward to the first edition, and Charlie
read it tonight, and actually I may read a couple
(08:58):
of sentences out forward the first edition, but it says,
we have alcoholics anonymous are more than one hundred men
and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state
of mind and body. To show other alcoholics precisely how
we have recovered, as the main purpose of this book.
And what I like to say when I read that
is that this was not this program. This book didn't
(09:18):
come about because a couple of guys sit down and said,
you know what, we should start a program about how
to help alcoholics recover from alcoholism. That's not what happened.
What happened is this crazy series of events took place
with this guy coming in here and doing this, and
this guy and all these things happening, and some hopeless
(09:43):
alcoholics low Bottom, I'm sure you know they have some
great stories low Bottom, bad drunks found a way out.
They found a way out and turned their lives around,
and they start going out and telling other guys how
to do it. And it started kind of having this
(10:04):
domino effect, right, and those guys would go carry the
messages and go, and guys, bad, hopeless alcoholics that nobody
had any idea what to do with them, started getting
so started getting sober and staying that way, right, and
they started thinking, you know what, we've got a program
here that works. We better get it down on paper
(10:28):
or we're gonna lose it by word about right. So
they so what they did is they wrote a book
to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered. So
that's why it says all through here we did this,
and we did this, and we did this because it's
what they did. It's what they did. Then they wrote
it down, So when you're reading this, we're not reading
(10:50):
what somebody's good ideas that they learned in college. We're
reading about what they actually did. And then since then
this this has been backed up by millions, right, not
one hundred anymore. So this book was published in nineteen
thirty nine in the first edition, then in nineteen fifty
(11:14):
was it fifty four, that's right? Or fifty five in
nineteen fifty? Now the book was published in nineteen thirty nine,
thirty nine, and the second edition was published in fifty five,
is that right? Okay? Fifty five? By that time wait,
(11:34):
that's the first edition. By that time. Let's see. It
says that we had gone from one hundred members to
one hundred and fifty thousand in sixteen years. Six thousand groups. Okay,
they went out and kind of did a study and
came up with some statistics, and here's what those statistics. Now,
before I read those, though, I want to share just
(11:55):
a quick story. I sit in I went to a
thirty day treatment center and and we went in there
one of the first days. I'm not sure when it was.
I was kind of in a fog, but we sat
in the main meeting in the morning at eight o'clock
and there were about forty of us in the room,
and we were we were in four rows of tables,
so there's about ten people in each row. And one
(12:19):
of one of the councilors, Shover's run the meetings, said
told us what our odds were of getting sober and
staying that way. I think for a year. I think
they said to odds, here's the chances of you getting
sober and staying that weak for a year. He said,
it's about it's about one out of ten, so about
four of you. So if you'll look to your left
and look to your right. One of you on that
(12:41):
road is going to stay sober. And my experience was,
we didn't do that good. You know, we had an
eighteen year old kid get hit by a train. We
had two guys od together in a motel room on
the same night. They found them the next or a
few days later or whatever. But means crazy stuff had
(13:01):
and you know, that's that's that's what happens to people
like us. But this says of alcoholics who came to
AA and really tried, fifty percent got sober at once
and remained that way. Twenty five percent sobered up after
some relapses, and among the remainder those who stayed on
with the AA showed improvement. Other thousands came to a
(13:22):
few meetings and at first decided they didn't want the program,
But great numbers of these, about two out of three,
began to return as time passed. So according to this,
you're looking at about eighty percent or somewhere in there,
maybe more. That's pretty good odds when you're talking about
hopeless alcoholics. You know, we don't get here because it
(13:46):
sounds like a good idea. We get here because nothing
else works, you know, So that's a pretty good chance.
But the key thing it says here is of alcoholics
who came to a and really tried. So you don't
have to be smart, you don't have to be rich.
You don't. I mean, you can be crazy, and you
(14:11):
can be living on the streets, you know, you can
be in bad, bad shape. But if you come in
here and really try, you've got a damn good chance. Okay,
so now you get to get into my favorite part.
Now we talk about what is alcoholism? And I like
this so much because, well, let me put it this way.
(14:36):
If you were to go around the whole country and
ask people, just random people, what does it mean to
be an alcoholic? You're gonna get a lot of different answers, right,
And that's expected, you know that's expected. I mean, if
you ask my grandma what does it mean to be
an alcoholic? I would figure she probably wouldn't really know.
(14:57):
But the sad thing is if you go around AA
meetings and start asking people what does it mean to
be an alcoholic? You get a lot of different answers.
I mean, I work with a lot of guys, and
I and a lot of the guys I work with
have been or they're not like you. They've been to
AA a lot, and I'll say, so, so are you
(15:19):
an alcoholic and they always say, oh yeah, or you know,
a drug addict, one of the two. But if I
ask one of those two questions, they always say, oh yeah,
you have no idea. I mean, you know, we got
to be proud of something, right, They're always like, oh god, yeah,
I mean you know I did this and this. Well,
then I like to follow that up with this question, Okay,
(15:40):
so what does that mean? What makes you different? And
that's when I started getting the craziest answers. I mean,
I had a guy who had been the treatment a
number of times in AA for a long time, and
I asked him what it means to be alcoholic and
he said, well, you see, I'm a perfectionist. And he
(16:02):
kind of went on from the line, okay, so all
perfectionists are alcoholics. Well, yeah, right there, you know he said,
oh no, no, no. I said, okay, so what makes
you different? Okay, so what makes us different? What makes
the alcoholic difference? Okay? The book is real clear on it. Now.
(16:23):
It doesn't give a definition of the word alcoholic, but
it gives a damn good description, and it takes a
long time doing it because it wants to drive home
what it means to be an out because I need
to know if I'm going to say I'm an alcoholic,
I need to know what that means. I need to
know what's wrong with me. I need a good diagnosis.
(16:44):
So here's what it means. The first problem that talks
about is written in what's called the Doctor's Opinion. Now,
before I read it, I want to say just a
little that's kind of interesting how this came about. This
is written by doctor William silk Work and it was,
of course, of course written in the thirties. Now I
(17:08):
don't know if it's because doctor Silkworth was a really
good guy, or if it's because it was the Great
Depression and that's the only job he could get. But
for some reason Silkworth worked with lots of alcoholics. That's
really all he did. He ran what today we would
(17:29):
call a detox But it was a hospital, the most
probably the most well known hospital in the world for
working with alcoholics, called Town's Hospital in New York. And
he had guys with drinking problems in and out of
there a lot, and they really didn't know what to
do with people. It's not like a treatment center today.
They didn't go on you know, musical journeys or whatever
(17:50):
that we do today. They had but they all they
really knew to do was was they had experimental things
and nothing worked really well. But but what they knew
to do was bring them in, put them in a bed,
get them hydrated, get some food in their systems, get
you know, get rid of the shakes. Sometimes wean them
(18:12):
off alcohol with alcohol right, get them complete in sentences,
and after a few days, send them out the door.
And what these guys had in common is when they're
walking out the door, they would say, who that was bad?
I will never do that again. And the fact is
you've never seen them a gein. But occasionally there would
(18:36):
be a guy come through in the same condition, off
a bad, bad drunk. They'd get them a bed, give
them the same treatment. They'd walk out the door say
the very same thing, and two weeks later they're back,
and this time they're in worse shape than they were
the time before. So doctor Silkworth and the folks who
(18:58):
worked with came up with a very controversial opinion at
the time. He started to talk about alcoholism as an illness,
saying that alcohol affected the bodies of the alcoholics differently,
not just messed up in the head, but actually had
a different effect on the body. And here's what he said,
(19:18):
and this is going to be if you're falling along
in the book, if you're in a fourth edition book,
this is on Roman numeral twenty eight. Now, I don't
know whose idea it was to put Roman numerals in
a book for alcoholics. Twenty eight would be xx VII.
Alcoholism had a little bit of an effect on my education.
(19:39):
I don't know if that's true for anybody else up
here on the topic. Says we believe and so suggested
a few years ago that the action of alcohol on
these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy, that
the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and
never occurs in the average temperate drinker. I don't know
about you, but when I first read that, I was like, okay, whatever,
(20:02):
and I kept going looking for something that I could understand.
But I had someone break this down to me and
what this means. Well, first off, he's talking about the
action of alcohol. Now, if you've ever had a few
drinks in a row in a pretty short amount of time.
You know what the action of alcohol is. First off,
(20:24):
it makes me sing really well, well, we all know
what the action of alcoholic is. Okay, So it's talking
about the action of alcohol on chronic alcoholics. Now, a
chronic alcoholic, what does it mean to be a chronic Now,
if you're in a drug act and you're sitting here,
we're not talking about that kind of chronic This is different.
A chronic alcoholic means someone who's an alcoholic, who has
(20:45):
alcoholism now and who's gonna have it from now on, right.
Not the person who can just say, oh, that was
a bad run. I've done with that, and they're good
the rest of their lives. I'm talking about the chronic alcoholic,
the one who keeps getting drunk and getting worse and
getting worse and says I'm not going to do it anymore,
and keeps doing it. Right, Okay. It says the action
(21:07):
of alcohol on this chronic alcoholic is a manifestation of
an allergy. When I first started hearing about this allergy
to alcohol, I was like, I have no idea what
they're talking about, because I'm thinking about sneezing, watery eyes, running,
nose rash. When this book was written, allergy was a
(21:27):
fairly new word, and what it actually means is an
abnormal physical reaction. It just means that if you have
a room full of people and they all ingest a
certain substance into their bodies, that it has one effect
on most of them, but on a few rare cases,
(21:49):
in a few instances, it has a completely different effect. Right,
So for the alcoholic, it' say estimated that about ten
percent of people in the world have the potential to
be an alcohol Alcohol has a different effect. Okay, then
it says it talks about it being a manifestation of analogies.
Simple definition for manifestation is how it shows up. So
(22:11):
what how does this allergy show up in the alcoholic?
I had a question. Yes, so you're saying, a chronic
alcohol that can't get rid of alcoholism if you're the
guy that this book is describing, Yeah, no more drinking,
(22:36):
no more drugs. All right, yeah, yeah, now we can
I'll get it. I'll get into this moren a minute.
All but but we can get to a point to
where to where we can stay sober. But the whole
idea of drinking successfully if you're an alcoholic. Yeah, I
(22:59):
forget about it. That bad news, Okay, Okay, so it now,
how does the allergy show up a phenomenon of craving?
I went to a meeting at the Primary Purpose Group
in Dallas. They have a Step study meeting or a
Step speaker on Saturday nights, and this lady was doing
(23:21):
a presentation on Step one and I love the way
she described this physical allergy, just craving. And at first
I was getting little irritated because she was talking about
having a craving for chocolate, and I was like, oh
my god, somebody's going to compare alcohol to chocolate. It's
really getting on my nerves. Not that I'm judgmental by
any means. Okay. So she's up here and she's got
(23:44):
this white board right like this one, and she says,
I get a craving for chocolate. And she draws this
candy bar right and she says, this represents the craving
I have for chocolate. So I eat the candy bar,
all right, I'll break down and I eat it, she says,
but that didn't satisfy the craving. I still have a craving.
So she draws this little candy bar like this, and
(24:06):
she said, now this represents my craving. And I eat
this one I give in. I eat it, and she
draws another one like this. She said, now this represents
my craving. Right, Okay, that's not like the craving I
have for alcohol. So she erases it, and she draws
a wine glass and she says, this represents the craving
that I have for alcohol. So I drink this drink
(24:27):
and then she draws one this big, and she says,
now this represents my craving. I'm definitely drinking this one.
And then she draws one that fills the whole board,
and she says, now this represents my craving. That's a
much better description of what my allergy to alcohol is like.
And if I'm given in to that first one or two,
(24:50):
it's over. I will drink more, a lot more, and
I usually don't stop until I have to, right until
I pass up out, until I get myself in a
position where I can jail. You know, who knows what's
it going to be? Now? Now I want to clarify
something though, that does not have to happen every time
(25:14):
for a person being alcoholic, it depends on how far
down the line you are. There were times early on
where I could go out and have two drinks, and
go out and have two drinks all right. Now, It's
not that way for everybody. Some guys first time they drink,
they lose control when every time they're after But some
(25:38):
of us are not that way, especially early on. Some
of us can control it sometimes, okay, but here's the
bad news. Sometimes I could control it. Sometimes I couldn't.
I didn't get to pick which way it was going
to be. It was kind of a roll of the dice,
you know. And it seemed like the times I would
(25:59):
lose control were the it's like Mom's birthday, you know.
It's never the good times, never when I got nothing
to do all weekend, you know. Okay, So the allergy
is one one of the symptoms that the alcoholic has.
(26:19):
It's what happens when I start drinking. Right when I
start drinking, I tend to lose control. I don't know
what's going to happen after that. Okay. If that's all
that being an alcoholic is, If that's the only problem
we got, there's a real simple solution. Just stop. If
(26:45):
taking the first drink causes me to lose control, don't
take the first drink. That's easy, problem solved, No need
for AA. You know, get married, have babies, feed the
homeless on Thanksgiving, go to college. Life is great. You
can leave now, okay. But the alcoholic has another problem.
(27:09):
The books is the main problem of the alcoholic centers
in his mind. See what happens for me is I
have a bad drunk and I say I am not
ever doing that again. And then you give me enough time,
(27:32):
maybe a month or two, maybe ten hours. I change
my mind every single time. And I think that sometimes
we confuse people because we give the impression that to
be an alcoholic you have to be holding a drink
in your hands, saying no, don't drink, don't drink. And
(27:53):
then it's not always like that. The way it was
for me is I just change my mind against all
common sense and rational thinking in the world. I'm living
in a salvage yard, living in a salvage yard. Yet
I think this time I can control it. Right over
(28:18):
here at the well, at the beginning of the chapter
on alcoholism, it says the first step said, we learned
that we had to fully concede to our innermo selves
that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery.
I tried to read much of this thing at a time.
I'm a teacher, and I know that once I start
reading a lot, I start losing people. You know. It
(28:42):
talks about conceding to your inermo self that you're an alcoholic.
And if you were to you guys. When we Austin, Texas, man,
I lived in Oklahoma City and I moved to Austin,
I was like, God, dang, there's a guy flying a
sign on every corner, every corner right, and some of
(29:03):
those folks you can drive by him and look at
him and say, oh, that is an alcoholic, or look
at him and say that's a crack addict, you know,
Or if you've been around and had a lot of
experience a lot of it, you can start spotting which
kind you know, this one does everything okay, and everyone
driving by I can look at that person and say, now,
that's a person that has no control over their drinking.
(29:27):
But there's one person that thinks they still do. See
if you were to take that guy flying that sign
and open him up and look deep inside, there's a
good chance you would see that deep down in here
he thinks that if he can tweak it, just ride
this time. He's got it now. I don't know if
(29:50):
anybody in here relates to that, but I damn sure
I always would. I would get to a point and
I would think, you know what, I'm a real man,
a right by God, a man can handle this. I'm
going to control myself tonight. You know That's the way
(30:11):
it looked for me. Now, all our heads tell us
something slightly different. But whatever it is, if you're an alcoholic,
you change your mind. What it says on here on
page twenty four. This is in italics, or unless Charlie
says squiggly writing, which means it's very important, says the
(30:31):
fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have
lost the power of choice and dream. Our so called
willpower becomes practically non existent. We are unable at certain
times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the
memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week
or a month ago. We are without defense against the
(30:52):
first drink. Have any of you guys ever sat in
an AA meeting and heard someone say, I woke up
this morning and chose not to drink, or heard someone
say don't drink no matter what. You never heard that one.
I love that don't drink no matter what. That's a
(31:13):
damn good idea. And that'll work really well unless you're
an alcoholic, because if you're an alcoholic, I'm an alcoholic.
I drink no matter what, No matter what. There is
no humiliation or suffering that will keep me sober for
(31:33):
very long. There's no fear that will keep me sober.
There's no mom, no girlfriend, no daughter. I've got an
eleven year old daughter that was that turned four while
I was in treatment, right could not sober me. I
love that girl more than anything in the world, but
(31:56):
I could not stay sober for her. I don't have
a choice. Left to my own power, I do not
have a choice. I will always change my mind. I
will always go back. Now I'm gonna go back here
to the doctor's opinion. And it's really cool because doctor Silkworth,
(32:18):
he wasn't an alcoholic, but he says a couple of
lines here that describe me so well. It amazes me
that he wasn't down here on the bottom of that
same page, Roman Numeral twenty eight or XXVIII for the I,
XXVII for the Roman numeral reliterate, like me down here
(32:39):
on the very bottom. It says men and women drink
essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The
sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is
injured or harmful, while they admit it is harmful, they
cannot after a time differentiate the truth from the false.
To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one.
If you're sitting here and you're new, your life ain't normal.
(33:02):
I just want to let you know if you think
it is. Says they're restless, irritable, and discontented unless they
can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which
comes at once by taking a few drinks. Now that's
the line I really want to look at. There's some
good stuff in there, but that's what I want to
look at. Doctor Silworth is describing me sober. When I
(33:25):
am sober, I am restless. Okay. So it's like I'm
sitting in the chair at home, completely sober. I'm getting
a little uncomfortable sitting there. I'm thinking, you know what, man,
I need to get up. I need to go be
around some people. So I go hang out with some
of my friends for a little while. Right, well, they're
(33:47):
getting on my nerves a little bit, so I'm thinking, man,
I got to get away from these people. I got
this little project going in the garage. I think I'll
go work on it. So I go start working on it,
and it just ain't working right, and I'm thinking, God, dang,
I gotta get out of here. I gotta go sit
down for a while. So I'm find myself back in
the same damn chair I started in. I just don't
know where to be. Nothing kills right. It says I'm
(34:13):
irritable now. I don't really get irritable. I just it
just seems everybody around me's an idiot. You know, this
is me sober. It's like it's like when I'm trying
to sit down and relax, everybody around me's just moving
(34:35):
around to they just need to chill, Or when there's
something happening and people need to get off their asses
and get busy, right, or people they're driving too fast,
they're driving too slower. Everybody's doing something wrong, and I
notice every little thing and it's driving me crazy. And
then it says discontented. Sometimes someone would come to me
(34:59):
and say, God, dang, Chad, what's wrong. I'd be like,
I don't know. It just seems like nothing's right, you know,
just nothing, drying, just unhappy. That's me sober unless I
can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which
comes at once by taking a few drinks. I know
(35:23):
where I can get that sense of even comfort. I
don't even have to have the bottle open, or the
bag or whatever it is. I can have it in
my hand and that sense of ease and comfort comes
over me. The first time I got drunk, it was
with three other guys, and it was four of us.
(35:44):
It was our first time for all those and those
three guys had a damn good time. I had a
spiritual experience. It changed my life. I saw the world
in a whole new life. It solved problems I didn't
even know I had, and I knew at that moment
I was gonna do that no matter what I knew.
(36:08):
It this best thing that ever happened to me. All Right, Okay,
now my girlfriend and she wants to let her inhibitions
down a little bit, have a good time, be more social,
or if she's stressed out and needs to relax. She
has a couple of drinks. There's nothing wrong with that.
If I could do that, I would, But I don't
(36:30):
really have a couple of drinks. When I get that
sense of ease and comfort, I wake up in jail.
All right, we passed up sense of ease and comfort
hours ago or days ago. Okay, So what happens to
the alcoholic? See if this sounds familiar to anybody. I
(36:55):
drink and drink and drink and drink until I have
to stop, right until some for some reason, I have
to stop. And then I stay sober, and I stay sober,
and I stay sober until I can't stay sober anymore.
And then I drink until I can't drink anymore. And
(37:18):
then I stay sober until I can't stay sober anymore.
And that's my life, right and then think just for
a second about what the rest of that life is like.
Right about where I'm living, what life is like for
my wife and my daughter and my mother. You know,
(37:40):
when's the last time I took a shower? You know, work,
when's the last time I went to work? You know,
it's a train wreck living a life like that. Okay,
that's what it means to be an alcohol. That's what
(38:01):
it's like. It's completely hopeless. It's completely hopeless. There's nothing
we can do on our own power. The book refers
to it as being beyond human aid. If any person
could have gotten me sober and kept me that way,
it would have been that little girl who I love
(38:22):
so much. Charlie described my daughter as false advertising. I
was like, what are you talking about? False advertising? He said, well,
she's one of those kids where when you meet her
and spent some time with her, you think to yourself, oh, wow,
(38:43):
she's great. I gotta have one of those. And then
you have one and you find out they're not all
like that. You know, I got this great kid. I
love her more than anything wrong. I mean, I wanted
to be a dad way before I was ever a dad.
And you know, she wasn't on purpose or whatever. I mean,
I don't know how you guys do it, but that's
how I do. But I was excited too, right, and
(39:03):
I had this great daughter, love her so much. Live
in a small town, right could see her anytime I wanted,
and I would go three months and never see her.
You know, I would go a long time and never
go see her, and I would tell all my alcoholic
(39:24):
and drug addict friends that her mama won't let me
see her, right, And I would tell it and tell
it and tell it till I would believe it, because
in order for me to live with it, I kind
of had to, right. But the truth is, her mama
always wanted me to see her always, and I wanted
to see her, but I couldn't. I couldn't because I
(39:48):
couldn't say so much. Okay, now I'm going to go
over here to page forty five. I think I've done
this a long. I'm forgetting my page years page forty five, Okay.
(40:08):
In the first full paragraph, it says, lack of power.
That was our dilemma. So what's our problem? We're powerless?
Lack of power, that's the problem. Okay, So what logically
follows that if I want to stay sober, we had
to find a power by which we could live, and
it had to be a power greater than ourselves. No
(40:31):
problems there. I need to find a power. It's got
to be greater than me, because I damn sure can't
do the job, and it needs to be a power
by which I can live because I got a serious
living problem. Okay, obviously, but where and how do I
find this power? Well, that's exactly what this book is about.
(40:51):
Its main object is to enable you to find a
power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. Okay,
so big important point here, big misunderstanding. This book is
not strategies on how not to drink. This book doesn't
tell me that because it doesn't work for the person.
(41:12):
This book is written for strategies on how to stay
sober don't work. This book explains the drinking problem and
then drops it. And then it tells me, step by step,
from their experience, how to hook up with power, how
(41:36):
to find power, a power that's greater than me and
a power that I can live by. That's what these
steps are about. Okay, over here on forty seven. Now,
by the way, this brings us into the second step
(41:59):
over here on forty seve and it gives me a question,
a two part question. It says, we needed or ask ourselves,
but one short question, do I now believe? Am I
even willing to believe that there's a power greater than myself?
As soon as a man can say he does believe
or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him he
(42:20):
is on his way. Okay. So, contrary to popular belief,
you don't have to understand God. You don't have to
have faith in God. You don't even have to believe
in God. All you gotta be. All you have to
(42:43):
do is be willing to believe. You just can't shut
the door on it right now. Had you introduced me
to AA when I was twenty five, I would have
shut the door on it. But introduce me to AA
when I was twenty eight, I was like, whatever, if
(43:07):
you say it works, give me something. That's all we
have to do. That's all we have to do to
start this program is just say, okay, God, damn, you
say you're as bad as me. For some reason, I
believe you. You're not as bad as me anymore. You say
(43:27):
this works for you, maybe it'll work for me. Okay,
So I'm not gonna ask. Sometimes I have people raise
their hand, but it seems kind of like a bad
thing to do. But some of us come in here
and well, we get three types of people in here.
We get the type in here who come in here
and they're all about God. Oh yeah, you know, God
sounds good. Bring on God, got God. We get people
in here who don't even want to hear the word.
(43:48):
As soon as you say the word.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
They're like.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
And then we get some who came in here like
me that we're like, Man, I don't give a damn God.
Whatever I mean, I could care less. It works for
all three times and anywhere in between. Over here on
page forty six. If you're one of those who has
a little bit of a problem with this, it says
much to our relief down here kind of at the
(44:12):
bottom of the last full PARAGRAPHIC says much to our relief,
we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception
of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to
make the approach and to affect the contact with Him.
So I don't have to come in here with much.
As a matter of fact, I get to come up
with my own conception, and it doesn't have to be
(44:36):
very good. As long as I'm seeking, that's what's important. Okay,
So now what I want to look at over here.
If you guys have been to a mets AA meetings,
have you heard the promises? I never heard of this. Well,
(44:57):
that's a good question, because usually you hear the ninth
step promise, and I'm not gonna read those. I'm gonna
read the tenth step promises.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Okay, So over here on page eighty four, at the
bottom of the page, it says.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
We have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. By
this time, sanity has returned. We will seldom be interested
in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from
a hot flame. Wanna beer? Hell no, it's bad news
for me. We react sanely and normally. How would a
(45:44):
sane person react if alcohol, if they had an allergied alcohol,
they would not drink alcohol. Okay, we find this has happened,
automatically turn it down. I don't even have to think.
I just turn it down automatically. We will see that
(46:04):
our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without
any thought or effort on our part. It just comes.
That's the miracle of it. Now. I want to be
clear about something here. When it says without any thought
or effort on our part, it means that I have
not been trying not to drink. If I'm working this
program the way this book lines it out, I don't
have to try not to drink it just happens as
(46:27):
I'm working the program and hook up with power. It
says we're not fighting it, we're not avoiding temptation. We
feel as though we've been placed in a position of neutrality,
safe and protected. We have not even sworn off because
that doesn't work. Instead, the problem has been removed. It
does not exist for us. Over Here, on page twenty four,
(46:48):
it says we have no choice. The ten step promises
say the problem has been removed. Now here's what I'm
gonna close with. We start to work with a prayer
on page sixty three. Everything before that is learning. The
first thing I do, as far as the work goes,
is I say a prayer on page sixty three. What
(47:10):
I just read is on page eighty four. There it is.
That's what you have to do to get there. If
you're not doing it and you've got this problem, go
find somebody that'll take you through the work out of
this book. If you can't find somebody, I can find
you somebody. Hook up with them, do this work. I
(47:31):
had no idea life could be this good, no idea.
I have absolutely no desire to go back to drinking,
not even a couple of drinks. No desire, all right,
I appreciate you guys coming tonight. Thank you, thank you,
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