Audio
Transcript
Source: DICOBE-00275 – Lynn C – STEP 1.mp3 File: dicobe-00275-lynn-c-step-1.mp3 Duration: 00:40:24
============================================================
The third tape in Mr. C.'s series deals with step number one of the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, admission. Here is Mr. C.. So this morning I'd like to discuss this first step of our recovery program. And you should recognize that this is a way of life to be lived. Otherwise it's just so many meaningless words. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable. And this admission can be done very easily without any recognition of what your basic problem is.
Because alcoholism is a great deal more than just drinking. And that's very evident because none of us were drunk all the time or on pills all the time. Why does an intelligent person go back to a toxic drug? Mainly because some power greater than his thinking is bringing him back to excessive use of some chemical drug. And that is quite evident that admission alone isn't enough. Because there's many reasons why a person admits that they're alcoholic. It can be brought about by external pressure.
If your boss says, if you don't admit that you're an alcoholic, get out of here. What are you going to say? Sure, I'm an alcoholic. Or if your wife said, I'm going to divorce you. Unless you unless you acknowledge that you're an alcoholic. Oh yeah, I'm an alcoholic. It can be a resentful gesture. It can be used to placate your wife or boss or somebody else. Or a dramatic gesture that rejects the learning process, which is the most important part of this all. You can also say that I'm an alcoholic, but with reservations. Someday when this difficulty is over, I can drink again. And those things are are not sufficient.
Many men admitted that they had a problem with alcohol. I knew that for years. Dr. Thiebaud, who is a specialist in this field, said they are pointed out the difference between compliance and surrender. He uses the term surrender. I use the term admission, which is more acceptable or acceptance, which is more acceptable to the alcoholic because we don't like the statement surrender. Many people comply with AA. They go through the gesture of going to meetings and even talking in AA and doing 12-step work. And unfortunately, we have too many two-step men in AA that overlook the core or the roots of our character cancer.
And that's basically why we were all drinking. We didn't have the character that would sustain ourselves through the trials and tribulations that comes to everyone's life. And admission can be done for effect rather than self-evaluation. Now, to illustrate that point, I could train any five-year-old child to come in here and stand in front of you and say, I admit that I'm powerless over alcohol. My life has become unmanageable.
That wouldn't be an expression of the truth. When I say that I'm powerless over alcohol, it's based on a review of my own experience over a considerable period of drinking years and the recognition of what it did to my life. I think it takes some time to realize the full extent of the damage that alcohol does to your mind. The residual physical effects, I think, last for weeks. The withdrawal period and the urge to take a drink.
The same thing is true of giving up any habit. The residual mental effects, I think, last for months. And that's hard to believe. And I think only time will prove that to you. I know it took a considerable number of months before I could get back to analytical thinking, where I could take a problem, evaluate it, and act on it. But admission may be marked by an unwillingness to do anything about it.
A lot of people knew or know that drinking is a problem. They don't realize the extent of it because they haven't the enlightenment or insight that you need to solve any problem.
[00:04:59]
And it's evident that there is such a thing as a perfectly sober body
[00:05:04]
and a mind that retains its drunken stupidity. The body is well. When you express lip service to AA, the mind still wallows in the quagmire of selfishness, self-centeredness, immorality, hatred, and resentment. And I think that condition in a sober person is much more culpable than in a drunken person, where there is some excuse for them because they're not in full possession of their faculties. The difference mainly is acceptance is a free act of the will, and it's marked by moral courage and a willingness to follow through.
As based on a review of your own experience, and that's the only thing that will be acceptable to you, it doesn't make any difference how much you drink. I know a lot of men had I been able to drink like they did, it had never been a problem in my life, but my drinking was a problem. And until that takes place, I don't think that much is going to happen. Acceptance also has the quality of endurance or perseverance, which is a rarest quality in human nature in my book, and it gives you a sense of humility. And the many definitions of humility, the nearest that I ever came to it is when I realized that here is a job that I had to do, I didn't know how it could be done, I knew that other people had been able to do it and correct a very grave fault. If they could do it, I could do it. And I think that spirit of competition is pretty deep in the American's heart. But it's the result of a calm and sensible evaluation of your own behavioral problem. I know the scientists go back many times to find out what developed in the early years of your life and try to hang it onto that or onto your parents or something else, what difference does it make? What made me an alcoholic? I'm not the slightest bit interested in trying to find out what made me an alcoholic. An illustration of that is if my hand was taken off at the wrist and I stood in front of you people, I certainly would have to admit that loss, it's evident. If I didn't accept it mentally, I could be the most miserable person in the world, always concentrating on the loss. Woe is me, I can't drive the car as well, I can't dress as well, I can't play golf or whatever it is, and it would be a constant irritation to me. If I accepted it, well, it's gone, gone forever, regrettable perhaps, but would immediately cause me to pay attention to the right hand, which would have to be educated to do some of the work that the left did. I didn't want to be an alcoholic. I don't think anybody here wanted to be addicted to anything. Such an insidious thing that develops over a period of years that we don't recognize the extent of the hold that it has on us until we're powerless to do anything about it without outside help. The classical definition of humility is man's acceptance of his responsibility to his fellow man and to his God.
And we don't meet our responsibilities to life, we know that. There was a time in life when we were young and eager and, of course, drinking was a lot of fun in those days. That day is gone forever. If you had fun or got relief from pills or booze in the past, well and good. But there are many things that I can't do that I did years ago. I certainly couldn't run on a track team again. I can't do many of the things that were so enjoyable at one time. I've accepted that fact, and eventually I had to come to the acceptance of the fact that I had a problem in my life.
If you don't believe it's a problem, you're going to keep on taking your pills or your booze, but ultimately it's going to destroy you. I saw one time a giving a talk of some 70 or more able, capable men and women, personable people, well-educated, that had the opportunity of living this way of life and didn't accept it and died horrible, avoidable death. But unfortunately, we think we're omnipotent. Nothing can happen to us. And for heaven's sake, don't tell yourself, it can't happen to me. I saw many men leave this world as a result of drinking,
[00:10:04]
for the use of pills, but it couldn't happen to me, but it did. And that's the thing that I finally have to acknowledge myself. I think acceptance is characterized by integrity and fairness. And in the profession that I was in, integrity is one of the greatest of all achievements. I think it's the greatest achievement of anyone in life. Integrity is honor. It simply means the strictness that you have with yourself in meeting any and all obligations and responsibilities to life. Did you and I do it? To our family, to our friends, to our God, to anybody else?
It also means straightforwardness in conduct and speech. None of us do it too well. In AA, we don't look for perfection. None of us are going to be perfect. Although I question some of these things, I think anything is perfect when it fulfills the obligation for which it was created, and none of us quite know that. But it's upright and just and honest because it has an attainable goal. And that's one thing that scientists say about us, that our views are vague, our goals are vague and undefined. And in AA, we say, plan your sobriety, set your goal in life, simply to be an acceptable human being, to belong to the human race again. And I had to reach a point where I didn't believe that I belonged to the human race anymore because I knew that normal people didn't do what I did.
But it has to be based on your own experience, not for what you hear. The only thing that we do here is to give you some insight into what this problem is, which is a great deal more than taking the pill or just a drink. It's a character disorder. It's drinking, plus poor emotional controls, plus a great deal of immaturity, plus character defects, anger, fear, hatred, resentment, self-pity, and all the things that are part of the commonality of man, which have gotten out of control. And believe me, it's going to take a long time to get some of these things under control.
I don't know that any of us will ever do it too well. But acceptance is free from duplicity and fraud. And we're the greatest frauds or conmen in the world. And there makes veracity the communication of truth rather than just an oral statement. One of the best illustrations that I recall of the difference between admission and acceptance is at the start of World War II. War had been declared between Germany, France, and England. And there was a period of time, they call it the Pony War. The planes of one nation were flying over the others.
There were fraternization of the men at the front. And a lot of people in England thought that a shooting war would never start. And as a result of that, they didn't accept the state of war and make the effort that a war requires of the people. They had to admit that war had been declared. That was formally declared by the three governments. And that condition endured until Dunkirk, when Churchill promised them only blood and sweat and toil and tears. And then the people of Britain accepted the state of war.
And look at the magnificent job they did under the most trying circumstances. Many illustrations of it. We admit many things in life, but we don't accept them. And I think acceptance perhaps is 90% of the solution of any problem. Many peculiarities about the human mind. And you have to overcome this vast and complicated alibi system. We acquire two kindred diseases, the yespits and the yiffies. And those have to be destroyed, because as long as you are going to use any justification for your conduct or for the taking of pills or booze, you're going to be on pretty thin ice. And I think that if you, if your sobriety or absence from pills, and when I mention sobriety, incidentally, I mean the complete abstinence from any sort of avoidance of the problems of life. That isn't the answer to life. The answer to life is to accept them. Not only the fact that I was an alcoholic, I'd known that for years. I'd known that for years.
The fact that I was an alcoholic, I'd known that for years. I never objected to that term.
[00:15:02]
God, I'd been called so many other things that that sounded good to me when I heard it. I'd been cursed out of every known language. Sounded like a term of endearment, actually. So I never argued that at all. What difference does it make? What you call yourself, you can call yourself a jughead, a barrelhead, stupid drinker, weak drinker, or anything else. It's the effect it has on your life, and that varies with every individual in this room.
But this acceptance must be applied to ourselves alone. We have to be strict with ourselves, but lenient to the faults of other people, and that's just a complete reversal of our ordinary pattern of living. Because we've been called bankrupt idealists, I think there's a great deal of truth to that. Because the people who become alcoholic are usually idealistic people. We expect to find an idealistic world where everything will be milk and honey, you know, and life isn't like that at all.
It's a realistic world, and you have to watch it every minute, I think. The one thing that all of us have to watch every day of our life is the erosion that takes place out in the world today. We're living in an age of mediocrity and materialism, but mediocrity is never for the alcoholic, because we are perfectionists. I suppose if you could strip every bit of self-deception away from all people, and particularly the alcoholic, what you would find is a person who would like to have the perfect home, perfect wife, perfect job, perfect friends, and perfect world to live in, but the world isn't like that and never will be.
It can be pleasant. We're going to have problems most of the time. You're fairly happy or content at least with what happens, but we don't take the unpleasant part of life very well. The tragedies that come to everyone's life, like that old statement, some days you should have stood in bed. The days go very, very slowly at times and hang heavily on our hands. The years go with blinding speed. I don't know where they have gone, but to accept each day as it comes is very, very important.
It isn't just the admission and acceptance of alcoholism. There are many other problems in my life. I have to accept this day of life, whatever comes. What can you do to change it? I'm inclined to believe, like the old Henry Forrest says, that everything that happens in life should. What happened to me shouldn't have happened to a polecat, but it did, and it taught me something. But until you accept life, you're going to be very, very unhappy.
I know there are a lot of alcoholics who would like to have the benefits of what AA has to offer, but they're not willing to make the effort that this requires, and it requires a tremendous effort. You're breaking a habit of years. There isn't an easy way out of it. It's going to take time, a long time. Yeah, I see some people coming here. I think I told you that story. Like the little girl that got the pincushion for Christmas, and her mother told her to write a letter of thanks to her grandmother.
Here's the way the letter went. It said, Dear Grandma, thank you for the pincushion that you sent me for Christmas. I've always wanted a pincushion, but not very much. A lot of people want sobriety, but not very much. That is not enough to make the effort that this requires. And acceptance, well, we refer to surrender. That's the term that Dr. Thiebaud uses. I don't know. We've got a lot of peculiarities, and we have a peculiar lexicography at AA.
You hear a man say sometimes, I've never harmed anybody but myself. That's a man who certainly has enough wealth so he can protect his family pretty well in a material sense. That's the greatest lie that any alcoholic can tell. We harm and hurt everyone that loves or trusts us. I don't know whether any of you people have ever witnessed a person dying from cancer that's close to you. I have. And you know how sick that it makes you to watch a person die, and you're incapable of doing anything for them.
The only thing you can do is pray for them. But you're sick at heart and in your belly. How much sicker must we make people who see, in the average alcoholic, a person of great skill and ability, wasting it?
[00:20:07]
And they cannot understand it. Doesn't this person know what he's doing? When you can't divorce your conduct from the moral culpability that is attached to it, where moral culpability leaves off and where the illness begins, I think only the good Lord knows. But until we accept not only the fact that we're unable to drink or take pills rationally, and as I say when I mention sobriety, that's a complete absence from all drugs of any kind, tranquilizers, barbiturates, narcotics, or alcohol, who all fall in the same category because of the effect on the body and the mind, principally the mind.
Alcohol is not a stimulant, as so many people think it's as a present or an anesthetic, properly. And that's why you notice the odd behavior of the alcoholic, because he's not in full possession of his faculties. But I think the acceptance is the start and major part of the solution of any problem in life. Incidentally, that's the oldest psychological factor known about the human mind. Once you take a problem out of your mind where you can view it objectively, here I have a problem, and then way up in your own mind is open to solution, as long as it stays in this squirrel cage of alcoholic thinking or pill-taking, you can't find the solution.
And the many peculiarities about the human mind, once you must have courage to face any problem in life, I don't care what it is, whether it's tragedy or some illness or anything else, it doesn't require any courage at all, it requires action. Incidentally, the way you establish a habit, and certainly there's a great deal of habit to this alcoholic picture, is first willing to do a thing, and then the repetition of practice.
For instance, a pianist becomes a pianist simply because at one time he willed to play the piano, and with constant practice he became proficient, or a pianist, or a violinist. Actually, all professions are the same. Law is simply the practice of the principles of the legal profession. And medicine is the practice or the habit of medicine. And until that is done over a sufficient period of time, in sufficient degree, you're never going to be competent in it.
And therefore, you're never going to really be competent in the practice of AA until you have done it many, many times, day after day after day, to follow a program that has been laid down and is the benefit, and to reap the benefit of the experience of people who have been living this for years. Set your goal in life. I don't care what it is, I have nothing to say about that, that's an individual thing with every one of us.
But once having set that goal for yourself, don't let any time, person, circumstance, or place deviate you one inch from the goal that you set. There's always a fear of giving up. What Spencer calls a preponderance of all infidelities, that the truth will be bad. The truth is never bad. It's our failure to acknowledge and accept our drinking or pill-taking as a problem that causes the trouble. Once you face a problem with truth and honesty, and take the action that's necessary, whatever it is, just same as you would with a have-to-do if you're a diabetic, a heart patient, a tubercular, a cancerous person, then it's open to solution.
And you follow the rules of recovery. Our greatest problem in this acceptance field is to have a person accept the finality of their illness, which in my book is the most destroying, the most complicated, the most disastrous of all illnesses today. And anyone in this room that doubts that, you point out to me one illness today that destroys the total person, many times mentally, morally, spiritually, and sometimes financially, and drags down with them every one that loves or trusts them.
There isn't another illness today that does that.
[00:25:06]
Dr. Ruth Fox, who was quite an authority in this field, said that if any illness or disease was epidemic in the United States today, that every resource of the government and all the people would be thrown into its solution. Any illness or disease or plague that affected nine million people, she said that disease is here, it's alcoholism. And yet, look at the little knowledge that they have about what they acknowledge is the third greatest health problem in the United States.
I think it's number one by far. To put cancer and heart disease ahead of it, that doesn't destroy but a small number of people compared to alcoholism. This requires honesty, humility, sincerity, and many, many other things in addition to giving up drinking, in addition to it, or giving up your pill. We're powerless over alcohol. I think one that destroys mental and spiritual values. And every alcoholic of whatever degree has lost ethical values, the values that we had at one time.
And I think we're powerless over alcohol when it prevents us from using our full skills and capabilities every time that we're awake. And that's one thing that I never want to lose again is the ability to take care of myself. Review this thing a little bit in your own mind, in your own experience. I can look back in the many times that I had placed myself in the position where an intruder could have come in the house and attacked my family and I've been powerless to do anything about it.
That the house could have been on fire and I couldn't rescue or attempt to rescue the people that I love. Is your life unmanageable? No person should ever place themselves in that position, barring their crippling illness. Yet I profess to love my family so much and I did. I think I love my family as any normal man does, my wife and children. Yet you put yourself in a position where you cannot help them or jeopardize them.
The times that I have driven the car, not in full possession of my faculties, with my family with me, endangering their lives and the lives of the people in the street. Is your life unmanageable? That's up to you to answer, not me. I think your life is unmanageable when it causes a sense of guilt or frustration or anxiety or anything else in your life. The Lord gave us the finest thing that was ever created and that is our own mind.
And every person in this room and every person in the world has within the armory of their own thoughts the means of forging the weapons which are going to completely destroy them, as I nearly did in my drinking days. Or you can build a cathedral or castle which will house all the marvelous memories there are in life, if your mind and heart is right. But you can't do it where you're stultifying your mind by any toxic drug.
I think we're powerless over alcohol when we're unable to exercise mental and intellectual control of our life. That's a thing that should be in command of our life every waking moment. Many times it's admission or it's made, but it's restricted to certain areas of your life. You don't realize for a long time, I don't think, the extent of how unmanageable your life has been. And I haven't the words, I don't think anyone has the words to completely describe this surrender process that Dr. Thiebaud talks about or this acceptance that I talk about.
The nearest that I can come to it is this last spree that I had when I realized the abject slavery that I'd been in for years. There were periods of time when, of course, I could handle things very well. Look back on it. Fill up hopes and aspirations in the people that love you, then you kick them in the teeth again. How much fun is it for any of us to live when you know that you can't merit and earn the respect and love of other people?
It is much fun living.
[00:30:04]
It's the surrender to life and all the things that pertain to it. And sometimes it's awfully tough, I agree with that. And breaking any habit is not easy. Don't expect too much too soon. But I hope you will all keep in mind this one great fact that it's never what you give up. There's a fear of giving up. It's what you acquire that's important. And I've been trying to live this program for some time. And I have a lot to yet acquire.
Because one of my definitions of education is a progressive discovery of how little we know. I don't know how much I know about myself. I think that I've become a little more honest. I can't call black white anymore, which I did on my drinking day. Unfortunately, a lot of people do not make a distinction between the drunk and the alcoholic and the hard drinker. A drunk usually is a man that is unsocialized. He doesn't care how he looks or where he sleeps.
He lives like an animal from day to day. You have your hard social drinker who many times drinks far more than any alcoholic. But he doesn't create grave problems in his life. I can't understand those people. I see them on many occasions. They'll drink very hard. They get up the next morning. The only thing they suffer is a physical hangover. They shake that off in a few hours and go all day long. Maybe the same thing the next night. But they have control. They can choose their time, their place, and quantity.
Their toxic drug, whatever it is. The alcoholic hasn't that right of choice. He's lost it long ago. The deceptive part of it is many times you can drink and stop short of satiety. But no alcoholic of whatever degree, even in the very early stages of alcoholism, can predict with certainty the course of his conduct after he takes the first drink. Or the same thing is true with pill addiction. You never know what's going to happen.
Many times you seem to get control of it. I remember that. I dreamt that I'd go along a period of time and seemingly was able to control it by a din of willpower, determination. And then one night, on one of these drinking episodes, something would snap in my mind and I was completely out of control and had no predictable stopping point. The difference between us and other drinkers is the compulsive nature of our drinking.
We're against all experience, all disaster, all desire. You go back to a toxic drug. There's a habit of the human mind of forgetting pain, which is good. They say that if a woman continued to think of the pain of childbirth, she'd never have another child. But I was talking to a psychiatrist one time that had a little to do with me. He's one of the many I have. He said we're guilty of dynamic forgetting. And I rather like that term.
We draw a curtain over the past and all the disaster, drunken driving or anything else, whether the loss of jobs or family or anything else. We draw a curtain over that and in some way seem to be able to hypnotize or convince ourselves that it can't happen again. Where it's bound to happen. I had nothing to say about being an alcoholic. Why? No one can tell me. I've been around the science a great deal.
The various schools and symposiums, you admit all their theories and premises and say, all right, I know all those things. Now you tell me why can't I drink normally? They just shrug their shoulders and say there's a factor X involved. We all don't know. The one thing that I had to know and know for certain was that never again can I take a drink in this life with impunity. Now it's evident that I could take it. I could take all the liquor I want today, but I am not willing to pay the price that I paid for what I thought was an acceptable social course in which became an all-consuming evil.
The high social drinker also doesn't suffer from remorse and regret. That's an entirely different thing from the alcoholic who has senses to wrongdoing. He doesn't want to go to excess, but he has nothing to say about it. He has nothing to say about the loss of control, and that sense of guilt or remorse drives you up the wall.
[00:35:04]
And I know that when you get to thinking about what you've become as compared with what you know you should be, there is a conflict in the alcoholic mind which you call a neurosis. A neurosis is simply an area of conflict in your mind. And I knew what I should be. I'd been raised with some values. I think everybody in this room has. Then you see what you suspect you've become or what you know you've become, and you can't live with self.
And that's where life begins and ends is in your own mind. I'd like to point out to you what we don't recognize has happened to us. Everybody, from the time that they get the use of reason, builds a mental home, figuratively speaking. And the person who is raised or the child that's raised in a home where there's some security and love will build a mental home with wide windows and wide doors because of the necessity we all have to look out on others and feel that we belong and have them look in on us.
If anyone came into this place and every one of you turned your back on them, wouldn't talk to them, they couldn't stay here. We need that sense of belonging. The scientists call it the herd instinct. You and I just say we like to be liked. We need love in our life. And I think we had it when we were young and eager. But as you continue to drink and this drinking increases, you're sensitive to the criticism of other people.
You know that you're being criticized. You're self-critical. So you start to board up all two avenues of communication with other people. Eventually that last slot falls in place and then you are a prisoner in your own mind, which is the most horrible type of imprisonment. It takes a tremendous effort to break out of that. The book puts it in other terms, says we must, that we're an extreme example of self-will.
Run riot, only usually we don't think so. Says we must rid ourselves of this selfishness and self-centeredness. We must or it will kill us. Look back. How do I feel? How do I look? What are people saying about me? What are they doing to me? Therefore you withdraw. And boy, I happen to be one person that knows what Dr. Bacon said. At the extreme of drinking, you live in a constant state of psychic pain.
It's painful to meet people. It's painful to face the day. It's painful to go to bed at night. Where these nameless fears and anxieties almost drove me up the wall. Give that some consideration. You have to think in this field. We're such shallow thinking people. When we're drinking, we think, oh yeah, I got a problem, so what? Review your last pill-taking or drinking experiences. And that's one thing that I never have to want to go through again as another drunk because I haven't the courage to do it.
I'll never forget my last drunken drinking Christmas if I lived to be 200 years old. I don't dwell on it. I've accepted it as part of an experience. But I can throw that picture in front of myself in two shiny seconds and I want no more of it. We've ostracized ourselves from other people. We don't communicate well. That's the greatest complaint that we hear between the husband and wife is that they do not communicate.
We communicate verbally but not emotionally because no one will enter this horror chamber of the alcoholic mind. And until you break away from that, which requires a tremendous effort, you're going to be an unhappy person. I think at the extreme of drinking, we're looking at the world from the bottom of a well. All we can see is this little patch of sky that covers us. And until you turn to the world around you and find out what a marvelous place it is and lose the sickness of life, the bankruptcy of all ideals, I don't think you're going to make the effort that this requires.
I'd like to leave you with a thought of Ed Marshbaum because I think it illuminates and illustrates what we have to do. They drew a circle and left me out. A rebel, a heretic, a thing to plow. But love and I had the wit to win. We drew a circle and took them in. And that's what you'll find you have to do in AA. We close with the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.
[00:40:00]
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.