Bob D. from Las Vegas, NV – Experiencing the Big Book 2010

(0:03 – 0:13)
My name is Bob Darrell and I am an alcoholic. Can you hear me? All right, good. Would
you join me in a moment of silence? I’d like to open with a prayer.
(0:21 – 0:58)
Lord help me to set aside everything I think I know about you, everything I think I know
about myself, everything I think I know about others, and everything I think I know about
my own recovery, all for a new experience in you Lord, a new experience in myself, a
new experience in my fellows, and a much needed new experience in my own recovery,
amen. I am delighted to be here. There’s a lot of old friends in this room and some new
ones.
(0:58 – 1:12)
By the end of this weekend you’ll know more about me than you ever imagined you
needed to know. I am not an expert on the big book. I’m not here to teach you anything.
(1:12 – 1:45)
I’m here to do what Alcoholics Anonymous has always done the best, and that’s one
alcoholic sharing as genuinely as we can our personal experience. And sometimes in the
process of one alcoholic sharing with another alcoholic there’s a connection made, a
window opens, actions become self-evident, and people’s lives change. I started doing
this years ago probably because I was almost compelled to do it.
(1:46 – 1:59)
I think if you work this process in your life something happens to you and you just want
to give it away. You want to help other alcoholics. It’s almost like you can’t help it.
(2:03 – 2:15)
It’s like the story of Lazarus when he was brought back from the dead. He was so
amazed because he’d been dead. He said, what do I do? And they just said, go tell
everybody what happened.
(2:16 – 2:27)
So this weekend I’m going to tell you what happened. And you may not connect with my
experience in this book. We’re going to cover a lot of stuff out of this book tied in with
personal experiences.
(2:27 – 2:57)
In other words, what’s this mean when you put it on and wear it? What’s it mean
experientially? And some of you will connect with it and some of you won’t. But AA is
such a broad highway that if you don’t identify with anything I say there’ll be a speaker
within the next couple weeks that you’ll hook up with because we’ve got a wrench for
every nut in Alcoholics Anonymous. If I’m an expert on anything, I’m an expert on failure.
(2:58 – 3:16)
I’m an expert on good intentioned self-destruction. I’m an expert on backing myself into
a corner drunk and sober. I’m an expert on what it’s like to have a life that you can’t
manage.
(3:16 – 3:45)
And the harder you try to manage it, the more unmanageable it seems to become. And
what happened to me is after seven years of relapses from 1971 to 1978, and I don’t
believe it’s possible for another human being to be as sincere about not drinking as I
was. And yet I drank again.
(3:46 – 4:01)
Not once or twice, but time and time again. I know what it’s like to really get it that this
stuff is killing you and you swear to yourself and you mean it with everything in you, I’m
never going to touch this again. And then seven or eight months later I’m back at it.
(4:02 – 4:12)
And I hate myself for that. And I can’t stop it. And I am on a runaway train that is out of
control with no brakes and I don’t know what the heck to do here.
(4:13 – 4:46)
Until 1978 and I tried to kill myself because I was literally in a trap I couldn’t spring. And I
came into Alcoholics Anonymous the last time in 1978. And the Buddhists say when the
student’s ready the teachers appear and I got introduced to some of these simple
actions in Alcoholics Anonymous and they started to change my life and consequently
I’ve spent my life trying to pass on what I found here.
(4:48 – 5:01)
And I’m sober almost 31 and a half years and I still go to eight meetings a week. I have
two hospital and institution commitments. I do this almost every weekend or something
like this.
(5:01 – 5:24)
Maybe it’s a traditions thing or something. And basically I was taught years ago if you’re
serious about the decision in step three then you just say yes. Without prejudice, without
self-consideration, without is it going to be inconvenient, do I feel like it, you just say yes.
(5:24 – 5:40)
And that’s what I’ve been doing and I’ve never changed that game plan. Well, we’re
going to start with step one and we’re going to spend a lot of time on step one because
it was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. It’s so difficult it kills most of us.
(5:42 – 6:08)
This inability to fully concede inside ourselves that we really have this whole thing and
everything that it is to have alcoholism. I came in and out of treatment centers from
1971 to 1978 and could so easily admit in group settings or in an AA meeting that I’m
Bob and I’m an alcoholic and I’ve got to tell you I had no idea what I was saying. Not
really.
(6:08 – 6:18)
I mean what I was really saying is I’m Bob and I’ve got problems. I’m Bob and there’s
something wrong with me. I’m Bob and I got a DUI.
(6:19 – 6:31)
But I don’t know what it is to have alcoholism. I don’t have a clue. And I learned what it
was to have alcoholism from you and from this book.
(6:31 – 7:04)
I want to touch on a couple points that Dr. Silkworth talks about that I think AA owes a
tremendous debt to Silky. If you remember Bill’s story, he had no, he had zero success
trying to sober anybody up until he talked to Silky before he went to the trip to Akron
and Silky said, stop preaching at those guys. They’ve been preached at by better
preachers than you.
(7:05 – 7:09)
Stop it. Tell them the truth. Tell them about you.
(7:09 – 7:22)
Tell them about the phenomenon of craving. Tell them about what I’ve told you about
alcoholism. And he went to Dr., when he met Dr. Bob, it’s exactly what he did and the
first man got sober who never drank again.
(7:23 – 7:52)
And on page XXVIII, Silkworth starts to talk about what he encouraged Bill to talk to Bob
about. And he, on this page, he talks about two aspects of alcoholism that really make
this a terminal illness. It’s a description of me and inherent in the description is a sense
of powerlessness that is absolutely hideous.
(7:52 – 8:24)
And he starts off on the top of XXVIII by saying, 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, chronic alcoholics, and never
occurs in the average temperate drinker. What’s he saying? Well, first of all, he’s talking
about a type of alcoholic.
(8:26 – 8:47)
He’s talking about a chronic alcoholic. And I believe that there are chronic and there are
acute alcoholics. If you go to page XX of the book and XXI, it talks about the two types of
drinkers that would ease, both of them would easily be diagnosed as alcoholic.
(8:47 – 8:57)
And the first one, it says, at the very bottom of page XX, says that we have a certain
type of hard drinker. Now, check out these symptoms. It says he drinks habitually.
(8:57 – 9:12)
He may have the habit badly enough to gradually impair him physically and mentally.
This guy is drinking habitually to the point of physical and mental impairment. Now, a
doctor is going to say, tell this guy, you’re alcoholic.
(9:14 – 9:22)
And it says it may cause him to die a few years before his time. Bad stuff. This is a
problem here.
(9:23 – 9:47)
And then here’s the difference. This is what makes this guy’s alcoholism acute rather
than chronic. If a sufficiently strong reason, ill health, falling in love, change of
environment, or the warning of a doctor becomes operative, this man can also stop or
moderate, although he may find it difficult.
(9:47 – 9:59)
If he’s been drinking around the clock every day for a while, he may need to be detoxed.
He may be in danger of seizures. But the difference is his problem ends where the bottle
ends.
(10:00 – 10:19)
The difference is that with a sufficiently strong reason, he can stay sober on a lifetime
basis. I’ve known guys like that. I had a friend who, I’ll tell you, if you were to look at him
drinking and you look at me drinking, you might think he was worse than I was.
(10:19 – 10:28)
And he fell in love with this girl. And they got married. And she just said, you know, I
can’t live with you partying like this.
(10:28 – 10:43)
And he put the plug in the jug. And just after a period of nervousness that lasted about
maybe three weeks, he just settled into being sober. And 30-some, 40 years, I don’t
know how many years later, he’s free.
(10:44 – 10:49)
He doesn’t need AA. He doesn’t need a sponsor. He doesn’t need God, even though he
thinks God’s cool.
(10:50 – 10:58)
He doesn’t need inventory. And he doesn’t need to spend his life helping other
alcoholics. Because when he stops drinking, his alcoholism is over.
(10:58 – 11:05)
That is an acute illness. Pneumonia is an acute illness. If you’ve got pneumonia, it can kill
you.
(11:05 – 11:14)
It’s a bad deal. But if they take you to a hospital and load you up with the right
antibiotics, you get over that pneumonia once and for all. You don’t need to go to no
meetings or nothing.
(11:15 – 11:46)
But if you have a chronic illness such as diabetes, certain types of heart disease or
alcoholism, the physical stabilization of the condition is but a beginning in a lifetime
regimen of recovery. Because my alcoholism doesn’t stop where the bottle stops. As a
matter of fact, right below the surface, I get eventually more uncomfortable sober than I
was when I was drinking.
(11:50 – 12:00)
Actually, sobriety drives me insane. You think, well, what do you mean by that? I don’t
feel insane. I’m just curious.
(12:01 – 12:37)
I kind of see a show of hands. How many people besides myself in this room had gotten
to a point somewhere where you knew you had to quit this stuff? And you made up your
mind and swore to yourself, because you know this is really destroying you, that you’re
never going to drink again and then drank again after that? How many people? The one
or two that didn’t raise their hand, I think, are an almanac. I mean, it’s like, why would
you? You would have to be out of your damn mind to go pick up something you know
beyond a shadow, but that’s going to burn your life to the ground.
(12:39 – 13:00)
And yet, abstinence eventually, day in and day out, drives me crazy. I’m a chronic
alcoholic. And I tell you, for a guy like me, that is a very important piece of information,
because my life depends upon me knowing the hand I was dealt.
(13:00 – 13:08)
See, I can’t play your hand. I can’t play the hand of a problem drinker. I will die of
alcoholism.
(13:08 – 13:25)
Now, a problem drinker could play the hand of a real alcoholic, and it probably wouldn’t
hurt him. Maybe he goes to meetings he doesn’t have to and does some selfexamination, doesn’t have to. But for a real alcoholic to try to play the hand of an acute
alcoholic is brutal.
(13:26 – 13:39)
I had a sponsor back in 1976 who I look back, and I am absolutely convinced this guy
was not an alcoholic. I think he was a problem drinker. He had a three-step program of
recovery.
(13:40 – 14:00)
And this guy was very happy, very productive, and he did very well sober. His three-step
program of recovery was, don’t drink, go to meetings to fill the social void, since you’re
not going to bars anymore, and sell Amway. And it was a great program of recovery for
him, and it worked very well.
(14:00 – 14:18)
It about killed me, because I’m not an acute alcoholic. I’m a chronic alcoholic. And
Silkworth goes on to say that when I drink alcohol, I have a manifestation that’s an
allergy.
(14:19 – 14:38)
Well, I remember sitting in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous in my years in and out in
the mid-70s, and in treatment centers and in AA meetings, I would hear occasionally
people refer to this thing as an allergy. But I don’t get that. I mean, I know a little bit
about allergies.
(14:38 – 14:53)
I have a mild allergy to cats. When I get around cats, after about an hour, my eyes start
to water and itch, and my nose starts to fill up and run a little bit. But when I drink
alcohol, I don’t break out in watery eyes or stuffy nose.
(14:54 – 15:08)
What’s the allergic reaction? Well, Silkworth refers to it as a phenomenon of craving. And
I also remember sitting in meetings and listening to people talk about the phenomenon
of craving, and I don’t get it. I don’t get it.
(15:08 – 15:13)
I mean, I get I’m in trouble. I get I go too far drinking. I get all that.
(15:13 – 15:28)
But I cannot, through self-examination, identify an allergic reaction to alcohol and a
phenomenon of craving. I mean, I don’t take a drink and then claw the walls to get it. I
mean, I don’t get that.
(15:28 – 15:46)
But the odd thing about a craving is you don’t realize you’ve got it until you can no
longer satisfy it. Everyone in this room, without exception, this very second is in the grip
of a craving you’re not aware of. Because you’re satisfying it, and that’s the craving to
breathe air.
(15:47 – 16:11)
If someone were to sneak up behind you, put a plastic bag over your head, you’d
instantly realize you’ve got a craving to breathe air, because you can’t satisfy it
anymore. And what was so difficult for me is that I intuitively, not because I think I’m
alcoholic, I just intuitively avoided situations where I could only get one or two drinks and
couldn’t get any more. I remember going to a guy’s house.
(16:12 – 16:21)
God, I was in junior high school. There was no way I thought I was alcoholic in junior high
school. And a couple of us are going to hang out there for the whole day.
(16:21 – 16:28)
His dad was gone, and he had one six-pack of beer for three of us. I passed. He had
three cases.
(16:29 – 16:35)
Oh, I’m there. But I don’t pass because I think I’m an alcoholic. One six-pack, three guys,
I do the math.
(16:35 – 16:46)
It’s like, what’s the point? I mean, I don’t want to. Nah. Now, isn’t it odd? I would react
that way to alcohol, and yet I did that all my life.
(16:46 – 17:10)
And I can’t identify the phenomenon, the craving, because I always seem to find a way
to satisfy it. And then one day, I was in a meeting of AA, and a woman told a story about
a dinner party that she went to when she was trying to be good. And the light went on,
because I remembered a very similar incident.
(17:11 – 17:37)
I was about 18 years old, and I was dating a girl. And she invited me over to her parents’
house for the whole evening to meet her family. And I got to tell you, when I was 18
years old, you could have put me on a lie detector and said, Bob, is there any way in the
world you could possibly have alcoholism? I am convinced I would have said no, and it
would have said I was telling the truth.
(17:38 – 17:49)
But I had alcoholism, as much as I do today. And I didn’t know it. I was going through my
better living through chemistry phase of my alcoholism.
(17:49 – 17:55)
But alcoholism doesn’t care if you do other drugs. It doesn’t care if you’re trying to be a
rock star. It doesn’t care.
(17:55 – 18:10)
It doesn’t even care if you don’t believe you have it. And I had it. And I get to this gal’s
house, and we go in, and we sit down at this dinner table, and they bring out a bottle of
wine.
(18:11 – 18:22)
Now, this is not the kind of bottle of wine one of us would buy. This is a wimpy little AlAnon kind of bottle of wine, one of those little blue nun or something. I mean, it didn’t
even have it.
(18:22 – 18:35)
I mean, the alcohol content was below 15%, a waste of money, I think. But they bring out
this little bottle of wine, and they pour us all a glass of wine and sit the bottle on the
table. Well, I’ve always drank quickly.
(18:35 – 18:42)
I don’t know why. I guess evaporation is some kind of childhood issue with me or
something. I don’t know, but I drink quickly.
(18:42 – 18:55)
And because I drank quickly, I’ve killed two glasses out of that bottle of wine. Now the
bottle’s dead, and they’re still sipping on their first glass. And I’m sitting there, and I’ve
got two glasses of wine in me.
(18:56 – 19:10)
And I’m just sitting there, and I’m getting a little antsy. And all of a sudden, the things
they’re talking about are starting to become irritating, just mundane, irritating stuff. And
I didn’t know what was wrong with me.
(19:10 – 19:18)
I’m just kind of squirrely. Finally, I said to them, I said, God, that was really good wine.
Do you have any more? They said, no, Bob.
(19:18 – 19:25)
And they went back to talking about Vietnam and sports and all this crap. And I’m sitting
there. I got two glasses of wine in me.
(19:25 – 19:31)
I think I’m going to lose my damn mind. Now you talk to yourself in your head. Well, it’s
getting a little panicky in there.
(19:31 – 19:37)
And I finally blurted out. I said to them, I said, you know, I sure like beer. And they said,
well, we don’t have any beer, Bob.
(19:37 – 19:40)
We don’t have nothing. Next time you come over, we’ll get you a six pack. And they went
back to talking.
(19:41 – 19:47)
And I’m sitting there, and I think I’m going crazy. I finally excused myself. I went to the
bathroom.
(19:47 – 20:00)
I locked the door like a nutcase. I went through all their cabinets. I found a bottle of
cough medicine that was 35% alcohol with codeine and terpenhydrate, which is a bonus.
(20:02 – 20:17)
And I remember sitting on that bathtub, just chugging that bottle of cough medicine like
a crazy person. And all the spin in my head just went, oh. And I was able to sit there and
focus and think straight.
(20:17 – 20:24)
And I came up with a story, went back out to the dinner table. I explained to them about
this thing. I’d forgotten about it.
(20:24 – 20:30)
Oh, I’m so sorry. I have to take care of that tonight. And they were sorry to see me go.
(20:30 – 20:53)
I went and got my car, drove down there, blocked 25, 30 miles an hour like you’re
supposed to. Turned the corner, drove like a crazy person, like 75, 80 miles an hour, to
get to a friend of mine’s house who had an open bar in his basement because I had two
glasses of wine. It set something off in me that it always set off in me.
(20:54 – 21:08)
But for most of my drinking, I wasn’t cognizant of it because I could always satisfy it. I
could always. There’s a test in the book that asks you to see, to test this thing.
(21:08 – 21:19)
Now, we don’t recommend this test anymore. It’s in chapter three. But I remember back
in the day when I used to see old timers just recommend this test to newcomers all the
time.
(21:20 – 21:32)
And the test is, if you don’t think you’re alcoholic, go over to the nearest bar room and
try to drink and then stop abruptly. And it says try it a few times. It says 1939.
(21:32 – 21:45)
It might be worth a bad case of the jitters to get a true knowledge of your condition. I
think our society has anteed up, ratcheted up the price on that test a little bit. So we
don’t recommend it anymore.
(21:46 – 22:03)
But I remember watching a guy stick a $20 bill in a newcomer’s face and say, here, go
find out. And I haven’t seen that in probably 30 years. But it’s not a viable test.
(22:03 – 22:26)
If you have the mind of a chronic alcoholic, as I have, a mind that is influenced by the
phenomenon of craving, a mind that will justify and do anything necessary to satisfy a
craving that you’re not even aware you got, if I were to take that test and I were to go
down here to the nearest bar room, and I’m going to go, OK, I’m going to go in. I’m going
to have two drinks. That’s it.
(22:26 – 22:37)
Now, you can’t smoke nothing, take nothing, nothing. Two drinks, that’s it. Well, about
halfway through the second drink, it’s going to become very apparent to me that this is a
bad test day.
(22:39 – 22:46)
There would be some girl in there that I’d think, oh my god, that could be her. Got to
have a drink with her. That game is on.
(22:47 – 22:52)
I didn’t know that game was on. My god, I can’t believe. Now, Joe walked in.
(22:52 – 23:07)
Joe’s always got something good to smoke. Got to have a drink with Joe. And every drink
of alcohol I’ve ever taken in my whole life has made me think and believe that one more
drink is absolutely right and appropriate.
(23:09 – 23:16)
Now, I may think as I’m drinking, five from now is going to be a bad idea. But this next
one is always right. The next one’s always right.
(23:18 – 23:40)
I am the guy who this phenomenon of craving is so entrenched in me that if I’m still
conscious, I ain’t done drinking. I remember I was just up in Boston two weekends ago.
And I went up there when I was a kid on spring break.
(23:41 – 23:48)
And I went up there with a bunch of guys to go to a party that we’d heard about. And it
was a fantastic party. I mean, they had kegs of beer.
(23:48 – 23:53)
People were doing shots. They had briefer. It was great.
(23:53 – 24:03)
It was just a lot of fun. And in the middle of the party, a guy comes through the party
with a bunch of capsules. Now, looking back, I didn’t even ask him what they were.
(24:03 – 24:10)
I just said, thank you, and took a bunch of them. Well, it turned out to be animal
tranquilizer. Well, that’s not good.
(24:10 – 24:25)
About an hour later, I’m laying on the floor. And I can’t get up, but I’m still awake. So I’m
trying to talk people into bringing me a drink, right, because of an allergic reaction to
alcohol that punks me out.
(24:26 – 24:31)
See, it uses my mind. So I think it’s my idea. I never saw it.
(24:32 – 24:50)
I never saw what happened to me when I’m in trouble, and I just want to take the
pressure off a little bit, but I’m not going to get drunk. And how I would start, and every
drink makes me feel like one more, one more. And I’ve always had that.
(24:51 – 25:06)
And sometimes the phenomenon of craving would take a left turn or a right turn.
Sometimes I would be four or five drinks into a run, and I’d also get an obsession to do
some other kind of chemical with it. But it all comes from a craving.
(25:10 – 25:25)
And treatment centers will ask you sometimes kind of a bad question, really. They’ll say
things to guys like me, what’s your drug of choice? Well, that’s not a good question. I
grew up in an era like you’re in.
(25:25 – 25:34)
I had alcoholism. You’re on the streets. As my friend Sharon says, we didn’t say no.
(25:34 – 25:47)
We said thank you. We’d just do whatever you got. And so you ask me, what’s your drug
of choice? And I’ll go, jeez, what’s my drug of choice? What week is it? What’s my drug?
What do you got? I don’t know.
(25:47 – 26:24)
I mean, I drank vanilla extract one time in a pinch. What they should ask me is, Bob,
what happens to you when you drink alcohol? What happens to you? What happens to
you when you have three drinks or four drinks and then somebody cuts you off and
refuses to let you have any more? What happens to you, Bob? And then that’s the real
question. Silkworth says that this never occurs in the average tempered drinker.
(26:24 – 26:57)
As a matter of fact, as a result of his years, he says it earlier in his first letter, his years
working in a hospital for the treatment of not only alcoholism but also drug addiction, he
was diligent trying to find one symptom that would define alcoholism as opposed to, say,
drug addiction or just somebody who’s nuts. And over the years, it sort of cooked down
to this one symptom, an allergic reaction to alcohol. It’s what defines me as an alcoholic.
(26:58 – 27:27)
But not necessarily as a chronic alcoholic, but it defines me as an alcoholic. Silkworth
goes on to say these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. And
once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their selfconfidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and
become astonishingly difficult to solve.
(27:28 – 28:07)
Oh boy. One of the things that destroys guys like me is that the wreckage I incur from
the last run I was on is so glaring that it distracts me from the real problem. Do you know
that there are times, there are days when the sun and the moon are in the sky at the
exact same time? And when that is occurring, actually the moon has a greater effect on
the Earth, on the tides, on everything.
(28:08 – 28:28)
But when the sun and the moon are in the sky at the same time, you can’t even see the
moon because the sun is so glaring. And one of the things that just kept happening to
me over and over again, I’d go on a run and I’d burn my life to the ground. I’d end up in a
treatment center and go into these AA meetings and people are trying to say, your
problem’s alcoholism.
(28:28 – 28:39)
And I’d go, yeah, but I got police problems. I got emotional problems. I got, you should
see, boy, if you knew the stuff I think, I got mental problems.
(28:40 – 28:49)
I got financial, I got a lot of problems. Yeah, alcohol, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but this stuff is
clamoring at me.
(28:50 – 29:11)
And so I sort of take this attitude, you know, I might do some of this AA stuff, work your
stairs, do all that stuff, but I got to take care of this stuff first. And I never could make it. I
relapsed time and time again because I’m treating the symptoms and I’m never treating
the cause.
(29:12 – 29:35)
And there was a great psychiatrist, medical doctor in Pennsylvania, Dr. Torski, who’s also
a rabbi. I had had so much therapy by the time I ended up in this place that he worked
that I was absolutely convinced that I could fix the cause of alcoholism. Maybe if I went
back and reparented myself or something.
(29:35 – 29:51)
I don’t know. And Torski said, alcoholism is self-perpetuating. You have all these things
that prop it up, financial problems, emotional problems, family, trauma, employment
problems, relations, all this stuff.
(29:52 – 30:06)
He said, you can fix every one of them and alcoholism will grow new supports to keep
itself right here. And it always did. Dr. Jelinek was the first one to comment on that.
(30:06 – 30:24)
And the Jelinek chart, the curve, when he talked about the last stages of alcoholism, we
experience something that a lot of us experience. He called it the collapse of the alibi
system. That’s where you don’t have a job anymore, so you can’t blame your drinking on
a boss no more.
(30:25 – 30:39)
You don’t have a relationship anymore, so you can’t blame the drinking on her. You
haven’t seen your parents in 10 years, so you can’t blame your drinking on them
anymore. And all of a sudden, your life just cooks down to you.
(30:40 – 30:55)
And there you are. And that seems to be the way of it for a lot of us. Chamberlain used
to say that if you be alcoholic, eventually you’ll no longer be able to put anything
between you and you.
(30:55 – 31:00)
And there you are. And there you are. And that’s not only drinking.
(31:00 – 31:18)
I think some of us get to that point well into abstinence, where the shine of everything
we’ve brought into our lives to fix ourselves in this futile effort to wrest happiness and
satisfaction out of this world by managing wealth, and it wears thin. And there we are.
And there we are.
(31:21 – 31:45)
So these problems become astonishingly difficult to solve. Well, if the phenomenon of
craving was all there was to alcoholism, then that Nancy Reagan thing would be the
answer, that just say no. But there’s an aspect of powerlessness that really makes this
hideous.
(31:45 – 32:06)
And I believe, personally, it makes this a terminal disease, is that I can’t continue to say
no. I can say no for a while. And I’d come out of a detox or out of jail or someplace where
I’d been rendered sober, and I never knew how long the fuse was.
(32:06 – 32:17)
I didn’t know. There were times, this sounds bizarre, there were times where I’d go into a
detox, swear to myself I’d never drink again, and drank the day I got out. And then there
were other times it might be seven, eight, ten months later.
(32:17 – 32:35)
I never knew how long the fuse was. And I could say no, and I said no a lot. I remember
working on this painting crew, sober several months, with a bunch of guys that every
time they got off work, they’d go out and party every single day.
(32:36 – 32:43)
You want to smoke some of this? You want to go to the bar? No, no, no. And I’d even get
mad sometimes and say, no, I told you, no. Don’t even ask me.
(32:44 – 32:49)
No, and I’m not smoking anything either. No, no, no. I said no, no, no.
(32:49 – 32:56)
No. Well, OK, a little bit. And there was always a yes in every barrel of no’s.
(32:56 – 33:09)
Sometimes it’s at the very bottom, sometimes it’s at the top. I don’t know where I’m
going to find it. But when I fight alcoholism willfully, it’s a losing battle.
(33:11 – 33:21)
And I fought the battle and lost. I heard a speaker, when I was brand new, say
something. I thought it was the funniest and truest thing I’d ever heard.
(33:21 – 33:30)
I almost fell out of my chair. He said, I quit drinking over 50 times. He said, every time I
quit drinking, I got drunker than ever.
(33:31 – 33:40)
Then he said, I think this quitting drinking’s killing me. And I’m sitting there going, yeah,
wow. Because I quit over and over and over.
(33:40 – 33:54)
And every time I quit, I got drunker than ever. Because I don’t have what it takes to stay
in a state of abstinence. Silkworth starts talking about this at the bottom, page XXVIII.
(33:56 – 34:08)
He makes a across-the-board statement. He says, men and women drink essentially
because they like the effect produced by alcohol. And I think that’s true of everybody.
(34:08 – 34:17)
My sister, I watched my sister drink for years. My daughter now is 22 years old. She’ll
have a drink occasionally.
(34:17 – 34:25)
I was out to dinner with her and my sister that day. She ordered something. It was blue
with umbrellas and fruit and stuff.
(34:25 – 34:34)
I mean, it’s this creepy-looking thing. You want to drink that or put it in a hat or
something? I don’t know. It’s just a weird-looking drink.
(34:34 – 34:43)
She drinks about half of it. Lets the rest go to waste. But she likes, and my sister, who
are non-alcoholic, they like the effect.
(34:43 – 34:52)
But they just like a little bit of it. With me, I think it’s more than that. I think it’s more
than liking the effect.
(34:53 – 35:12)
I think somewhere inside me where I really live, I think I need the effect. I yearn for the
effect. The great psychiatrist Carl Jung, in a letter to Bill Wilson written in the early 60s, if
you ever go to Stepping Stones, the originals on the wall, it’s something that I thought
was remarkable.
(35:13 – 35:43)
Jung said to Wilson that as a result of working with Roland Hazard and countless other
alcoholics, that he believed that the alcoholic’s thirst for alcohol was not really a thirst
for alcohol. He said that he believed it was a low-level thirst of the alcoholic’s being for
wholeness or unity. You know, that feeling of that desire to be connected, to be a part of.
(35:44 – 36:06)
And then he says, or it might be expressed by religious people as a union with God.
There’s something inside of me that’s always yearned for connectedness, to be a part of,
to be hooked up almost spiritually to other people and this planet. And there was a time
in my early drinking where alcohol did exactly that.
(36:07 – 36:26)
And if you’re an alcoholic as I am, and you can remember back to the days when the
hook was set, those marvelous experiences where a guy like me who doesn’t know how
to talk to people, really. It doesn’t fit. I don’t feel like other people look.
(36:26 – 36:42)
And I can’t mix with other people the way they mix with everybody. And I seem to live in
my head. And I can walk in this state of semi-depressed loneliness and anxiety, walk into
a party or a bar, and have about three drinks, and I could get free.
(36:43 – 36:51)
I could come out and play. About five drinks, and I’m really starting to become a part of.
I’m getting connected.
(36:51 – 37:10)
You know, about seven drinks, we’re saying things to each other in the bar like, I love
you, man. You know, I remember one night I was with a bunch of guys who were passing
around jugs of wine in Reifert. I remember saying, this gang of guys I used to run around
with, we were saying things to each other like, I’ll die for you, man.
(37:10 – 37:21)
You know, wow. I mean, for a nobody who don’t fit anywhere, that’s as close to intimacy
as a guy like me will ever get. I mean, that’s amazing.
(37:22 – 37:45)
So is it any wonder that something inside of me just yearns for that, to get back to that?
But alcoholism is progressive. So over the years, my ability to get that magical effect
seems to bleed out. And the last few years of most of our drinking are very lonely, very
lonely.
(37:46 – 38:09)
Alcoholism is a lonely, lonely, lonely business. So we drink not only because we like the
effect, but the alcoholic or guys like me somewhere, I yearn for it. And he goes on to say,
the sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious, they cannot, after a time,
differentiate the true from the false.
(38:10 – 38:30)
We’ve all been there. God, years before we get sober or even go to AA, we’re sitting
somewhere in a bathroom throwing up or hung over in bed or somewhere saying things
to ourselves like, man, I got to quit this crap. I can’t keep going on like this.
(38:30 – 38:36)
We’re not stupid people. We get the cause. We know what we’re doing to ourselves.
(38:37 – 38:54)
But this thing that happens to us, it’s like a type of mental illness. The book later refers
to it as a queer mental blank spot. Silkworth says that after a while, we can’t
differentiate the true from the false.
(38:54 – 39:07)
What does that mean? Well, I’ll tell you about the last couple of years of my drinking. I
was no longer the guy playing in the band and singing. I was no longer the guy shooting
pool.
(39:07 – 39:17)
I was no longer the guy dancing with the girls in the bar. I’m not the guy laughing and
having a good time. I’m the guy who holds up somewhere, seeks oblivion, and feels sorry
for himself.
(39:19 – 39:27)
I stopped bathing because the truth is once the fun ran out of the party, truth is I don’t
really care. I don’t care about anything. I just seek oblivion.
(39:27 – 39:32)
I just want to blot me out. And it’s pathetic. And it’s lonely.
(39:33 – 39:39)
And it’s self-pitying. Now that’s reality. That’s the truth.
(39:39 – 39:47)
Silk Road says we can’t differentiate the truth from the false. That’s the truth. Here’s the
false.
(39:48 – 40:04)
You get me sober about eight or nine months, and I don’t fit anywhere. And I got these
low-level depressions, and I worry about crazy things that don’t make sense. And I go to
work with a bunch of guys, and they all get along with everybody, and then there’s me.
(40:05 – 40:25)
And I don’t know what’s wrong with me. And I will start fantasizing that I can drink again
like I drank when I was 18 years old. I will start imagining and yearning for that magic
effect until I believe it’s right there waiting for me.
(40:26 – 40:43)
And I believe that in the face of my own pathetic, painful experience at that party’s been
a dead horse for a couple years now. But I have this psychotic, wishful thinking. My god, I
want that part.
(40:44 – 41:04)
I want to be able to get lit up so desperately, I’ll convince myself that there’s a party
where there ain’t no party. And you don’t know that until you’re about 10 drinks in and
start feeling sorry for yourself, and you realize it’s the same again. Isn’t that the worst
thing of alcoholism? In the progressive nature of the disease, it gets worse, worse,
worse, worse.
(41:04 – 41:10)
It gets so bad, you think to yourself, it can’t get any worse. And it gets worse. And then it
gets the worst of all.
(41:10 – 41:16)
It gets the same. Then it’s the same. It’s the same pathetic deal.
(41:17 – 41:34)
And you go on like that until it kills you, which oddly enough, takes a long time. I tried to
take my own life in 1978 because a well-intentioned doctor told me I was young enough
and physically fit enough. I was in my 20s.
(41:35 – 41:43)
And I probably could drink, party like I was partying for another five years. Who knows,
maybe 10 before it actually killed me. No, sir.
(41:44 – 41:55)
I tried to take my own life because his words haunted me. I thought, five years? I ain’t
doing five more weeks of this. I couldn’t imagine it.
(41:57 – 42:11)
And I couldn’t imagine it. So, but what happens to me that drives me insane? Later on in
the book, it says something interesting. It says, it talks about a spiritual malady.
(42:11 – 42:29)
And it says, when the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and
physically. So there’s something in here that’s gnawing away at me, kind of like a stone
in your shoe that doesn’t go away. And it eventually makes me crazy.
(42:30 – 42:44)
It makes me so crazy I’ll go back to drinking. So what happens? What’s the dynamic?
Well, Silkworth starts to talk about it. He says, to us, our alcoholic life seems the only
normal one.
(42:46 – 43:22)
One of my big secrets, I couldn’t even admit this to myself, in the light of all the hearts
I’d broken, in the light of all the self-destructiveness, all the burnt-down opportunities, of
what I’m doing to myself mentally, emotionally, physically, I couldn’t admit it even to
myself that I’ve always felt more normal when I’m whacked than I do when I’m normal.
And I don’t even, see, I can’t get my mind around that in the light of the damage I keep
doing. But that’s the truth.
(43:22 – 43:35)
To me, my alcoholic life seems the only normal one. And then he starts to talk about
what happens to me when I get sober. He says, they’re restless.
(43:35 – 44:12)
We become restless, irritable, and discontented, unless I can again experience that
sense of ease and comfort, which comes at once by taking a few drinks, drinks that I’ll
see others taking without punishment or with impunity. What does that mean? Well, I
stopped drinking with the best intentions in the world. I’ve really made up my mind this
time.
(44:13 – 44:21)
And I got some hope. My God, they’re going to give me my job back. I think if I could
send her enough flowers, maybe she’ll take me back.
(44:22 – 44:36)
I got hope. And what happens? The longer I’m away from that last drink, the more
restless I feel inside. And sometimes it’s a subtle, vague restlessness.
(44:36 – 44:48)
It’s just an unexplained inability to really settle anywhere. You know, I’m the guy that
wherever I am, it’s not where I need to be. No, I don’t know where I need to be.
(44:48 – 45:01)
It’s just not really here. You know what I mean? Did you ever watch a dog circle the living
room looking for its spot to lay down? I’m a dog that can’t find its spot. I’m lost here.
(45:01 – 45:07)
And I’m restless. And I’m just. And the second symptom, he says, is irritable.
(45:07 – 45:24)
Well, I’m not irritable because basically I don’t like irritable people. So I’m not irritable. I
can’t help it that when I stop drinking, I just see so clearly how stupid everybody is.
(45:25 – 45:34)
My god. Every job I would get, they’d seem like nice people. I wouldn’t be there two
weeks, and man, are they idiots.
(45:36 – 45:55)
And when you’re restless, you kind of have to tell them, which makes abstinence a lonely
business. And I’m discontent. I heard a guy 31 years ago in a meeting say that
alcoholism was a disease of chronic malcontent.
(45:57 – 46:26)
There’s been something wrong with me as long as I can remember, where no matter
what I bring into my life, no matter how wonderful it is, the shine of it wears off so
quickly for me. And I live in a world where people really appreciate the gifts in their life,
and I can’t for any sustained period of time. My parents lived in the same house for 35
years or so.
(46:26 – 46:39)
They were just as grateful and in love with that house 30 years later as the day they
bought it. I would have been sick of that house in three weeks. This just happened.
(46:39 – 46:50)
Matter of fact, I came down here to Phoenix years ago. There was a new motorcycle
company started Titan Motorcycles, and I came down and bought their poster bike. We
designed it.
(46:50 – 46:56)
Paid a fortune for that bike. This is the bike that’s, I’m going to be there. I’m going to be
there with this motorcycle.
(46:57 – 47:04)
Not only am I going to be there, you’re all going to know that I’m there. I’ll tell you
something. I didn’t have that motorcycle three weeks.
(47:04 – 47:14)
I saw one I thought might have been nicer. I didn’t want my motorcycle anymore. What’s
wrong with me? And this is in sobriety.
(47:16 – 47:46)
And so what happens if you’re restless, irritable, and discontent? If you’ve got this
undefined vacancy right in the middle of who you are, and you can’t really put your
finger on it, but yet it gnaws at you. If you’re like me, and you’ve got the mind I got, you
start targeting things that look like it’ll fill the vacancy. That job in that steel mill, making
that kind of money, my god, that’s buy a house, own a Harley, have a boat money.
(47:46 – 48:00)
If I had that job, I’ll be good. When I had that job, I wasn’t even there three weeks, and
they’re a bunch of idiots. I remember seeing a guy that I grew up with who fell in love
with this girl, and she adored him.
(48:00 – 48:16)
And man, he quit drinking, straightened his life out, became really very happy. I
remember thinking to myself, my god, well, if I had somebody that loved me the way she
loves him, I’d be there. And I found somebody that adored me.
(48:17 – 48:40)
I wasn’t with her, I don’t even think a month, and I started noticing what was wrong with
her. What is it about me that’s the shine? I’ll tell you what I think it is. Now, this might
sound crazy to some of you, but I think the magical effect that we experience in the
early days of drinking spoils us for the rest of our lives.
(48:42 – 49:06)
Unconsciously, I don’t know that I’m doing this, but on an emotional level, unconsciously,
I start comparing what it feels like to work in that steel mill to what it felt like to have
five shots of tequila. Now the steel mill sucks. I start comparing what it feels like to be
with this girl that loves me to what it felt like to drink a pint of Jack Daniels and do about
four hits off a pipe.
(49:06 – 49:13)
Now I don’t even want this girl no more. And I don’t even know I’m doing that. But I think
it ruins us.
(49:15 – 49:53)
Alcoholism of the type that I have may be the greatest curse and the greatest blessing at
the same time that God has ever given any of his kids. The reason I think it could be the
greatest blessing is because from it, I am pushed and sometimes dragged and
sometimes kicked into taking actions that will make me more than what I was. I mean, is
there anybody in this room that would have come to AA if you got sober and were happy
and OK and would have worked the steps? I know you wouldn’t have paid back the
money.
(49:59 – 50:14)
So alcoholism in God’s hands and also coming from a desperate position may very well
be my greatest blessing. And Silkworth says it. I get this way.
(50:14 – 50:28)
I get restless, irritable, discontent. And then after a while, watching other people drink
with impunity, he says, I’ll succumb to the desire again. And then the cycle starts again.
(50:29 – 50:42)
Once I pick up the drink, I can’t stop. If you’re an alcoholic of my type and you pick up a
drink, you take a drink, it’s like having sex with a gorilla. You ain’t done till the gorilla’s
done.
(50:42 – 50:49)
You can tell yourself all night long, me and the gorilla are just going to have a dance. No,
you’re not. No, you’re not.
(50:53 – 51:08)
And it starts the cycle again. And what happens, I end up somewhere swearing to
myself, man, I’m never going to do that again. And it’s in the shine of abstinence starts
to wear off again.
(51:08 – 51:25)
And the depression starts to sink in. What happens to me, and we’ll get into this a little
more in the section leading up to step 3. When I stop drinking, I just get me right on me.
And I can’t get me off of me.
(51:26 – 51:44)
Did you ever watch that movie Alien, where that creature attaches itself to your face?
I’m that guy. And I don’t know that I’m suffering from a disease called alcoholism. It
doesn’t make any sense, because I suffer.
(51:44 – 51:52)
It drives me insane, sober. And that’s what I can’t get my mind around. But it can’t be
alcoholism.
(51:53 – 52:03)
It must be that relationship. It must be that job. I know I seemed like I had a good
childhood.
(52:03 – 52:10)
My parents were very kind, loving. They weren’t alcoholics. They loved me, but they
must have damaged me.
(52:10 – 52:15)
I bet you. I bet you. Because I felt damaged.
(52:15 – 52:25)
And I’m desperate to hook it in. I want to connect it to something. But I must eventually
own my own vacancies.
(52:25 – 52:39)
No one caused them. They are part and parcel to being of who and what I am. And we’ll
see in time how alcoholism is a wonderful thing in God’s hands.
(52:40 – 52:53)
Alone with you, it sucks. But in God’s hands and in this program, it’s a good deal. Let’s
take a 7 minute and 18 second break.