Full Transcript

Now, I don’t know whether Bill Wilson was the first guy he ever told this to, or whether Bill was the first one that ever acted on it, but we know that Silky told this information about alcoholism to Bill in the summer of 1933, and we know based upon that he finally got the solution, and then he got the program in action, then he recovered from alcoholism. A.A. wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for Dr. Silkworth. There’s just no ifs, ands, or buts about that.

And when they got ready to write this book, they went to him and they said, Doctor, they said, Doctor, the information you have given us about alcoholism is so important that we want to put it in this book we’re writing. Would you give us permission to do so? And he said, Yeah. And they said, Would you write some of it for us? And he said, Yes, I’ll do that, under one condition. He said, You know, my ideas about alcoholism is so alien to the rest of the medical profession that if we put this in this book and you put my name in there, they’ll throw me out of the medical profession.

He said, So we’ll put it in there, but we’re not going to use my name. Just use the doctor. And in our first edition big book, number printing 1 through 16, it is The Doctor’s Opinion, dash, dash, dash, dash. No name on it at all. The second edition came out in 1956, and by that time the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association had recognized alcoholism as a disease. And they came out with a second edition.

Dr. Silkworth said, You can put my name in it now. And his name’s been in it ever since. Let’s go to that Roman numeral 24 or 26, whichever book you’re in. The Physician Who At Our Request. Everybody see that paragraph where we’re starting? On Roman numeral 24, 3rd edition, 26, 4th edition. The Physician Who At Our Request gave us this letter. He’s been kind enough to enlarge upon his views in another statement, which follows.

In this statement, he confirms what we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe, that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. Now, that’s the first time we can find anywhere in written history a reference to the fact that the body is affected as well as the mind. Up until this time, everything dealt with the mind. Moral character, sin, weak will, etc. But here’s a statement that says the body is quite as abnormal as his mind.

I think he’s saying two things. Not only is the body abnormal when it comes to alcohol, but the mind is abnormal when it comes to alcohol. And we’re going to talk about those two abnormal conditions before we’re through with the doctor’s opinion. It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we’re maladjusted to life, that we were in full flight from reality or were outright mental defectives.

These things were true to some extent, in fact, to a considerable extent with some of us. But we are sure that our bodies were sickened as well. In our belief, any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete. The doctor’s theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us. As laymen, our opinion as to its soundness may, of course, mean little. But as ex-problem drinkers, we can say that his explanation makes good sense.

It explains many things for which we cannot otherwise account. Now, if the purpose of a textbook is to transfer information from the mind of one human being or from a group of human beings through the written word to the mind of another human being, thereby increasing the knowledge of the user of the book, and I think that’s what they’re for, then it stands to reason the transference of that information is going to be based upon the understanding of the words that are used in the textbook.

If the writer of the book uses a certain word and has a certain understanding of it, the reader of the book reads that word but has a different understanding of it, then the information that comes through is going to be incomplete, garbled information. And there seems to be a few key words in the big book that many of us have had difficulty with in the past. And one of them is this word, allergy. Most of us, before we come to AA, we assume that we know what that word means.

[00:05:04]

I know that I did. And I knew if you were allergic to something and you got around it or you ate it or you drank it, there would be some kind of physical indicator or physical manifestation of that allergy. For instance, if you’re allergic to strawberries and you eat them, you break out in a rash, the rash being the physical manifestation of that allergy. If you’re allergic to milk and drink it, you have a bad case of dysentery, dysentery being the physical manifestation of that allergy.

If you’re allergic to ragweeds or certain plants and you get around them and your eyes itch, your nose itch, they water, you begin to sneeze. The itchy, watery eyes, the sneezing are the manifestations of that allergy. And I knew if you were allergic to something and you got around it or ate it or drank it, there would be some physical manifestation of that. It just made sense to me. I come to AA and they said, Charlie, you’re allergic to alcohol.

You’ll never be able to safely drink it again. I said, how in the hell can I be allergic to alcohol? No, I’m drinking a quart a day. And how can you possibly drink that much of something you’re allergic to? And I said, besides that, when I drink alcohol, I don’t break out in any rash. I don’t have a bad case of dysentery. Once in a while I would, depending on what I’d been drinking, but usually I didn’t.

Nor did it make my eyes, nose itch, water, and cause me to sneeze. And I said, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. You need to explain that to me. And they said, well, you don’t need to understand it. They said, the only thing you need to know is you’re allergic to it and you can’t drink it, period. Now, if you’ve got a keen intellectual alcoholic mind like I’ve got, and you get a question like that dangling out here in front of you, if you don’t get an answer to it, it will drive you out of your mind.

And I went from person to person to person to person. People in AA that I knew had been sober for years. And I said, explain this allergy to me. And they said, you don’t need to understand it. Forget the damned allergy. Just don’t drink. Just keep coming to meetings and you’ll be okay. And one day, in sheer desperation, I went to a source of information that has never failed me since that time. I went to a dictionary.

And I looked up the word allergy. And I found several definitions of that word, which you always will, depending on how a word is being used. But I found the one I think fits me exactly. It said an allergy is an abnormal reaction to any substance, food, chemical, whatever. An abnormal reaction. So I immediately began to look back through my drinking history to see where I’m abnormal when it comes to alcohol.

And I suddenly realized I don’t know what’s normal and what’s abnormal. The only thing I knew about drinking alcohol was the way I drank it. And the way those people drank it who drank with me. And if they didn’t drink like I did, then we didn’t drink together. So in order for me to find out what’s normal, to see where I’m abnormal, I have to go to the normal. Social, temperate, moderate drinker. Those that drink alcohol, they don’t get drunk.

They don’t get sick. They don’t get in car wrecks. They don’t get in jail houses. And I asked them to describe to me, how do you feel whenever you take a drink? And the answer was usually something like this. We can come home from work, tired, tense, wrought up from the day’s work, and we can have a drink or two before dinner, and we get kind of a relaxing feeling, and we’ll go ahead and have dinner, and we probably won’t drink anymore that night.

And I don’t feel that way when I drink alcohol. When I take a drink of alcohol, as it crosses my lips, my lips begin to tingle immediately. Hits my teeth, and they kind of chatter up and down. Strikes my tongue, and I can feel my tongue begin to grow and expand and swell. Hits my cheeks, and they flutter in and out. At the same time, I feel it passing through my sinus cavities into my forehead, and I begin to get a feeling up here in my forehead, which is absolutely, indescribably wonderful.

Now, I haven’t even swallowed the damn stuff yet. I’ve just got it in my mouth. When I swallow it, you know what happens. You betcha. As it goes down through my esophagus, my chest begins to grow and get bigger and bigger. Hits my stomach and just literally explodes like a bomb. I feel it racing through my arms immediately, and they get longer and longer, and hits my hands and fingers, and they begin to tingle and vibrate.

It’s racing through my legs. It’s also racing through my arms. It’s also racing through my legs, and they’re getting longer and longer,

[00:10:03]

and I’m getting taller and taller, and it hits my feet and toes, and they get a hot, intense, burning, exciting, get-up-and-go-somewhere-and-do-something feeling. I don’t understand the comfortable, relaxing feeling when you have a drink or two. These people fascinate me when I watch them drink. Sometimes you see them in airplanes, and you’ve got them in close there. They can’t get away from you, and they’ll order a drink, and they bring in a little bitty bottle about that tall, and I saw it yesterday, and the guy paid five bucks for that thing.

Hell, there wasn’t a drink in it, but he gave them five anyhow. He had a glass with ice in it, and he had a mixer like seven up, and he put that seven up in that glass with ice, and he poured that alcohol in there, and he went through what I call a stirring ceremony. He got his little stick, and he began to stir and stir and stir and stir, and I’m sitting there saying, Drink the damn thing. What the hell have you got it for?

And do you know what he did after he got through stirring? He laid his stirring stick down, and he picked up his damn magazine, and he started reading the magazine. And every once in a while, he would reach over there and pick it up and take a little sip of it, set it back down. We’re getting close to landing, and the flight attendant come by and said, We’re about to land, sir. Do you want to finish your drink?

He said, No, I’ve had all I want. And she took half of it back and threw it away. Now, they call that normal. If there’s any such thing as alcohol abuse, by God, I think that’s what it is. That one old boy did that one day with a little old bottle of vodka, and he just measured half of it into his drink, put the cap on, and put it in his coat pocket. He drank what he had in that glass, and we started getting off the airplane, and I couldn’t stand it any longer.

I pushed him in the back, and I said, What are you going to do with that that you put in your pocket? He said, Oh, I’m going to have me another drink when I get home. These people told me some things that absolutely blew my mind. These people said, Charlie, we take a couple of drinks. And they said, We begin to get a slightly tipsy, out-of-control feeling. And they said, We don’t like that feeling.

Therefore, one or two drinks is all we want to take. How many times have you tried to get them a drink more, and they say, Oh, no, no, I feel this already. Or, No, no, it’s making me dizzy. Today, I realize that is the normal reaction to alcohol. It is a downer, it’s a sedative, and it’s supposed to give you a slightly tipsy, out-of-control feeling. But when alcohol goes in my system and goes to my mind, I do not get a slightly tipsy, out-of-control feeling.

I get a very exciting, in-control feeling. They have a couple of drinks, and they want to go to bed. I have a couple of drinks, and I want to go to town. Because you see, for we alcoholics, it’s not a downer, it’s an upper for us. It’s a stimulant for us. That only happens to one person out of ten. Therefore, our reaction mentally to alcohol is abnormal. They also said, in addition to getting a slightly tipsy, out-of-control feeling, they said, We begin to experience a feeling of nausea.

And they said, We don’t like that feeling. Therefore, we only want one or two drinks. How many times have you tried to get them a drink more, and they say, Oh no, no, it’s making me sick. Today, I realize that’s the normal reaction to alcohol. Alcohol is a toxic substance. It’s a destroyer of human tissue. And you put it in the body, the normal reaction is for the body to begin to have a feeling of nausea, and say, Let’s puke this up and get it out of here before it hurts us.

When I put it in my body, I don’t get a feeling of nausea. It develops an actual physical craving in my body that demands more of the same. And I’ve got to have a second drink, and a third drink, and a fourth drink, and a fifth drink, completely abnormal reaction physically. I’ve reacted to it abnormally both mentally and physically. Abnormally both mentally and physically.

[00:15:01]

The only difference between normal and abnormal is what the majority of the people do. One out of ten reacts the way I do, nine out of ten the way they do, therefore my reaction is abnormal and I’m allergic to alcohol. You can’t see it, you can only feel it. It doesn’t show up as a rash, it doesn’t show up as dysentery. It shows up as an actual feeling inside the mind, inside the body, and it’s abnormal.

Let’s go over to page Roman numeral 26 in the third and 28 in the fourth edition. A good textbook never tells us anything that it doesn’t back it up with additional information. He’s already brought up the idea of allergy. Here’s paragraph Roman numeral 26 or 28. 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.

These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all, and once having formed a habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile upon them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. Now the manifestation of the allergy to strawberries is a rash. The manifestation of the allergy to milk is dysentery. The manifestation of the allergy to ragweed is itchy, watery eyes and sneezing.

The manifestation of the allergy to alcohol is referred to here as the phenomenon of craving. He called it a phenomenon simply because he didn’t understand it. So the phenomenon of craving, or the actual physical craving that occurs in the body after we have put alcohol in it, is the manifestation of our allergy, and it is very important we look at this word craving. A lot of people say I came to AA and I craved a drink for two years.

No, in the context of the big book, that is the wrong use of the word craving. They desired a drink, they wanted a drink, they needed a drink, but the only way an alcoholic can crave alcohol is to first put it in the system. The phenomenon of craving develops, and then we can’t stop. You can’t see it, you can only feel it, and only alcoholics feel it. That’s why non-alcoholics will never understand the way we drink the way we drink, because they will never feel that.

Only we alcoholics feel that. Dr. Silkworth gave us that information. Now, again, never tell you something but they don’t expand on it. Let’s go over to Roman numeral 28, number 30 in the 4th edition, and we’re going to talk about five alcoholics. And it says here, and I’m going to have Wes read these, and I’m going to comment on them as we go through. Wes, would you start there? The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult.

The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult, and in much detail is outside the scope of this book. There are, of course, the psychopaths who are emotionally unstable. We are all familiar with this type. They’re always going on the wagon for keeps. They are over-remorseful and make many resolutions, but never a decision. We call that type one. There is the type of man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take a drink.

He plans various ways of drinking. He changes his brand or his environment. That’s type two. There is the type who always believes that after being entirely free from alcohol for a period of time, he can take a drink without danger. That’s type three. There is the manic-depressive type, who is, perhaps, the least understood by his friends, and about whom a whole chapter could be written. And that’s type four.

I always thought I was the next one in type five. Then there are the types entirely normal in every respect, except in the effect alcohol has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people. Do we have any more type fives in here? Now, then, he drives his point home one more time.

[00:20:05]

All these and many others have one symptom in common. They cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people and sets them apart as a distinct entity. It has never been, by any treatment of which we are familiar, permanently eradicated. The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence.

Now, I think this is what he said, that if all we alcoholics in this room tonight should take a drink, and God forbid that happened, but if we did, we would not all react exactly the same. In just a few minutes, one of us will be up here hooping and hollering and dancing and cutting up and having a hell of a good time. In just a few minutes, one of us will be crying and there will be an old boo-hoo in the world.

In just a few minutes, there will be a couple over in the corner over there getting in a fight just sure as anything. In a few minutes, you look over in this corner and there will be a couple over there, one putting the make on the other. We tend to do that also. We would do many, many different things. But if we are a real alcoholic, there is one thing that every one of us would do. We would start looking for a second drink.

The phenomenon of craving has developed now. We cannot stop. We have got to have a third and a fourth and a fifth and a sixth and on and on. At midnight, we are laying out in the parking lot and they have run over us and broken our leg. They come running up to us and say, can we help you? We say, my God, yes, give me another drink. We are craving it harder at midnight after ten or twelve or fourteen drinks than we were at six in the evening after the first drink.

That explains why we never got enough alcohol. Some of us, we may end up having one drink tonight, two drinks tomorrow night, three drinks the next night, and it may take a couple of weeks to get in trouble. It is pronounced enough in me that if I would take a drink right now at a quarter of nine, by midnight I have already found a policeman and I am in jail. It really does not make any difference how long it takes us to get drunk, because the first drink is the thing that sets it off.

Most of us, it would be almost immediate. Others, it might be spread over a two or three or four day period. So it really does not make any difference, nor does it make any difference whether we are born with it or not. Some of us, I was born with it. I am convinced of that. The first drink I ever took, I ended up drunk. I drank twenty-six years. I do not ever remember taking one drink of anything that had alcohol in it.

One always led to two, to three, to six, to eight, to ten. Some of you, I am sure, drank with relative safety for several years, but after a while the same thing began to happen to you after some years of drinking that happened to me from the very beginning, but what difference does it make? The important thing is that is the way we are tonight, and I know that is the way we are tonight. If we were not, we would not be sitting in this room, would we?

If you and I could drink without getting drunk, where would we be? Well, hell, we would be out there in a bar drinking without getting drunk, you see, we can’t. That we owe to Dr. Shepworth. Now back in the 1930s, when they were putting all this stuff together, they really did not know much about metabolism. Today they do. Today we know if you put a piece of beefsteak or a piece of bread or whatever into your body, the mind and body are going to recognize what it is.

Certain organs of the body begin to produce some things called enzymes, and they attack that food or that liquid, whatever it might be, and begin to break it down into usable and non-usable items. The proteins, the amino acids, the vitamins, the things necessary the body retains, the things it can’t use, it will dissipate and get rid of through the urinary and intestinal tract. Today they have pretty well proven the doctor’s opinion.

He couldn’t prove it then, but they have proven it today, and we are going to look at a little picture here for just a moment, if Wes will put that next one up on the screen, on the disease concept of alcoholism.

[00:25:02]

Once again, if you can’t see the screen, it will be on your book that is there in front of you. In the center of that picture, we see the nine people who drink safely. They are at ease with alcohol. They put the alcohol in a system, the mind and body recognize it. The body begins to produce the enzymes in sufficient quality and quantity in order to metabolize it. It attacks the alcohol and breaks it down first to acid aldehyde.

Then after a period of time, it becomes diacetic acid. Then after a period of time, it becomes acetone. In the final stages, it becomes a simple carbohydrate made up of water, sugar, and carbon dioxide. The body will use the water. If it gets excess, it will get rid of it through the urinary and intestinal tract. The sugar is energy, calories, empty calories, none of the amino acids, none of the vitamins, but energy.

The body will burn it as energy, store the excess as fat to be used at a later date. The carbon dioxide is dissipated through the lungs. In the normal social temperate moderate drinker, this metabolic rate is approximately one ounce per hour. I know it will vary with different people, but the average. If they don’t drink more than an ounce per hour, they can’t get drunk because their body will burn it up, metabolize it, and get rid of it at that rate.

Very seldom do you see a social temperate moderate drinker drinking more than an ounce per hour. If you do, you better stand way back because they’re probably going to puke on you in a little bit. Let’s look at the left-hand column. That’s the one who does not drink safely or is at dis-ease with alcohol. That’s all the word dis-ease means, something that separates you from the normal. We alcoholics take a drink, we put it in a system, same thing happens.

The enzyme production starts, but it’s not there in the same quantities and or qualities as it is in the body of the non-alcoholic. To break it down first to acetaldehyde, then to diacetic acid, then to acetone, but it seems as though the enzyme necessary to break it down from acetone to the simple carbohydrate are not there in the same qualities or quantities, and it remains in our system longer as acetone.

The medical profession has proven today acetone ingested into the human system that remains there for an appreciable period of time will create an actual physical craving for more than the same. That craving is so strong that that demands a second drink. We got most of the acetone from the first, now we put in that from the second. The acetone level goes up, the craving becomes harder. That demands a third drink.

We got most of the first, nearly all the second, now we put that in from the third, the acetone level goes up. And the more drinks we have, the more we crave, until midnight and we’re drunk and we’re sick and we’re in all kinds of trouble, but we’re still craving another drink. That explains to me why I never got enough. By God, I drank 26 years and I never did get all the alcohol I wanted. I got more than I needed a thousand times, but never got all that I wanted.

So this shows me that I am in the grips of a progressive illness, and it is a progressive illness that always gets worse, never better. You know, if it never got any worse than it was right here, then I could probably learn to live with that. But the older I get, the more I drink, the more I crave alcohol when I do drink, probably for two reasons. Number one, alcohol is a destroyer of human tissue, and the first organs of the body that it attacks and begins to destroy are the liver and the pancreas.

Today they know the liver and the pancreas produce the enzymes necessary to metabolize alcohol. And the more we drink, the more we damage those two organs, the less enzyme production, the harder the craving, and the harder the drinking. The Harder the Craving and the Harder the Drinking. Probably the aging factor’s got something to do with it.

[00:30:00]

You know, as the body gets older, it begins to shut down on everything. My God, I wish that were not true, but it is, believe me. If I’d take a drink today after X number of years of sobriety, I wouldn’t start where I left off X number of years ago. The ability to metabolize would be less, the craving would be harder, the drinking would be harder, and the resultant trouble would be harder, too. So I’m in the grips of an aggressive illness that always gets worse and never better.

Now, if that was my only problem, I could say, well, okay, I just can’t drink anymore. As long as I don’t take a drink, that can’t happen to me. But you know, this alcoholism is a funny thing. It seems as though I’m left on my own resources. I simply cannot keep from drinking, because I seem to have an obsession of the mind that tells me it’s okay to drink, even though the body ensures that it’s not okay to drink.

I’ve got a friend who is allergic to all things fish, and every time he eats fish, his throat swells up. When he almost chokes to death, he has to go to the hospital. Now, the fact that he’s allergic to fish is beside the point, if he never ate fish. But somewhere up here in his head, there’s something that doesn’t work right when it comes to fish. There’s a light bulb that doesn’t come on, or a switch that doesn’t close.

From time to time, his mind tells him it’s okay to eat fish. And he’ll eat the fish, and he’ll end up in the hospital every time, and I’ll bet you he nearly always starts like this, well, I haven’t had any fish in 90 days, surely I could have one piece of fish. Or if it’s that damned orange ruffia I’ve been eating, if I’d eaten nothing but good rock cod, everything would be all right. Or he might even say it’s him damn people I’ve been eating fish with.

I’m the same way as an alcoholic, left on my own resources. My mind always tells me that it’s okay to drink. And believing this time it’s going to be different, I take the drink and I trigger the allergy. Now they can’t do anything about the allergy, but maybe we can do something about the mind. And that’s where recovery is going to come into the picture. Let’s look for just a few minutes, and then we’re going to be done for the evening.

Let’s go over to, or back to, Roman numeral 26, 3rd edition, 28, 4th. Let’s go down to the bottom of the page. Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. Many alcoholics are highly offended when you say that. They say, oh, no, no, no, that’s not why I drink. I drink because I love the taste of alcohol. I wouldn’t argue with them whether they do or not. I love the taste of cold beer.

Always have, all my life. I also love the taste of Coal Mountain spring water. I never did sit down and drink a case of Coal Mountain spring water. That cold beer did something for me that Coal Mountain spring water didn’t do. As a kid growing up, I was always on the outside of the crowd looking in. Always wanted to be a part of, always knew that whatever I said, whatever I did would be wrong, and you would laugh at me, and I would be embarrassed.

You beautiful ladies, I just couldn’t get around you. I was just absolutely tongue-tied when I got within ten feet of one of you. My God, I wanted to touch you, but I knew I couldn’t do it. One night at a high school dance, somebody gave me a drink of moonshine whiskey, and that great feeling began to come over me. I walked up the stairs back up to the old dance floor, and on the way up there, I knew a new freedom and a new happiness.

I didn’t regret the past, nor wish to shut the door. I comprehended the word serenity. Shit, I intuitively knew how to handle situations that used to baffle me. I walked up to a little girl named Betty, and I said, Betty, can I dance with you? And she looked at me kind of odd, and she said, well, yeah, yeah, Charlie, that’s okay. And we danced, and I didn’t step on her toes, and she didn’t slap my face.

And we got through the dance, and I said, would you like to dance with me again?

[00:35:00]

She said, well, yeah, you’re a pretty good dancer. She said, I didn’t know you could dance. And I said, hell, I didn’t either, but let’s try it again. I took her home from that dance, and riding with my buddy’s car, a backseat of an old thirty-six Chevrolet, and I got to do some things in that backseat with Betty I’d been wanting to do a long, long time, you know. My God, I loved what alcohol did for me.

It made me feel good. It made me feel excited. It let me do what I couldn’t do, left on my own resources. I loved the effect produced by alcohol. If it gave me a slightly tipsy, out of control, nauseous feeling, I wouldn’t love that effect. But you see, it allowed me to act, allowed me to be a part of, allowed me to be just as good as, allowed me to be just like everybody else when I drank that alcohol.

And it was my friend for many, many years. The doctor says that’s why we drink, because we like the effect produced by it. The sensation is so illusive that while it is injurious, they cannot, after a time, differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. When we drink it long enough, that becomes the only normal life for us. And even though we may admit that it is injurious, that it gets us in trouble once in a while, man, we can’t even think about life without alcohol.

The first time you get in jail, that’s abnormal. The third time, it’s normal. First car wreck is abnormal. The sixth car wreck is normal. First divorce is abnormal. The third divorce is, those things become normal to us, those things that happen to us. And we really cannot differentiate the true from the false. Now, here we are, whenever we’re trying to stay sober, out there doing our thing, and we swear off.

By the way, how many of you in here ever swore off drinking before you came to AA? Yeah. They are restless, irritable, and discontented, unless they can again experience a sense of ease and comfort, which comes at once by taking a few drinks, drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and a phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again.

This is repeated over and over. Unless this person can experience an entire psychic change, there is very little hope of his recovery. I think what he is saying to us is this. We’re going to run around trying to stay sober just so long, and we’re going to be restless, we’re going to be irritable, and we’re going to be discontented. They tell you in AA, if you just stop drinking, you’re going to feel better.

You bet you, you’re going to feel anger better, you’re going to feel resentment better. And we’re going to run around sober feeling that way just so long. And we start seeking relief. We see other people drinking with impunity, and we think, well, hell if they can, I can too. And we begin to think about the sense of ease and comfort that’s going to come by just taking a couple of drinks. And the idea of what it’s going to do for us pushes out the idea of what it does to us.

And the next thing you know, we think it’s okay to drink. We take a drink. We trigger the allergy. We go through the well-known stages of esprit. Repeat that cycle over and over and over and over and over. Now I’m going to ask Wes to come and get this little thing here. Let’s put that picture back up, and we’re going to look at the right-hand side of that picture for just a moment. I’m not going to try to get out there and do that, Wes.

Maybe this will kind of illustrate what he’s talking about here when he talks about our mental attitude toward it. On the right-hand side of that sheet, you see a little column there that we call an emotional barometer. Everybody has emotions. We get sad. We get happy. We get depressed. We get mad. We get mad. We can’t do it properly, etc. And as kids growing up, most of us really were a basket case.

We just never did seem to fit anywhere we went. Our emotions were always in a turmoil and always worried and always afraid and all that kind of jazz. Somebody gave us a drink of alcohol and that alcohol acting as an upper, a stimulant, gave

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immediately suppressed those emotions and we felt better. Now the next time we got into an emotional situation, we didn’t feel good. The mind remembered what alcohol did for us the first time and we reached over and took a drink and the magic happened the second time. Next time we got into one of those situations, we remembered what the drink does and the mind says, let’s have a drink. We took the third drink and the magic happened again.

And after a while, our minds became addicted to the idea of using alcohol to solve the problem. Our emotional problems would disappear whenever we took a drink. They call that mental addiction, not physical, but mental addiction. So let’s start down at the bottom of that thing and let’s say that, Wes, can you take a little piece of paper and just cover up that willpower thing for just a moment? Just a little scrap paper, just enough to cover that thing that says willpower.

I can’t see it from here. Just tear off a piece of paper or anything. I’d go do this myself, but I had hip surgery about six weeks ago and it’s hard for me to even get up and down off this podium, so we’re going to let Wes do it. Discover the thing that says willpower. Isn’t that pretty? Okay, so our emotions build up, build up, build up, build up, build up, and they finally trigger the idea of taking a drink.

We take the drink and the drink makes us feel better, but we found that after we had done that for a period of time, that when we took that drink, we would go back to the left-hand side of the chart and trigger the allergy, and we couldn’t stop drinking and we would end up drunk. We’d come off of that drunk and we’d say, I’ll never take another drink again as long as I live. I’ll swear off I’m through with it.

We’re running around on the bottom of the chart. We’re restless, irritable, and discontented. We’re filled with guilt and remorse and resentment and self-pity and fear and et cetera. And all those emotions, those feelings or emotions begin to build up and build up and build up and finally it reaches the point where we say, well, let’s have a drink. It starts out very simple. Hell, I’m just going to have one drink, that’s all.

I’m going to go to the liquor store and buy a half a pint and nobody would get drunk on a half a pint, or this time we’re just going to drink a little beer. And the idea of what it’s going to do for me pushes out what it does to me, and I take a drink knowing it’s going to be okay. The drink triggers the allergy and I go right back through that spree again, and I come off of the bottom of that spree, restless, irritable, and discontented, and never going to drink anymore, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I go through that cycle over and over and over and over and over.

Any of you ever go through that cycle? You bet you. Now when that first started happening to me, I said to myself, well, Charlie, what you’ve got to do is learn to control your drinking. Just don’t drink so much and you’ll be okay. And I tried four or five years of trying to control my drinking. Any of you ever try to control your drinking while drinking? The left-hand side of that chart shows me why I couldn’t control my drinking while drinking.

I don’t care what my intentions were, whether to just have a half a pint, one drink, two beers or whatever, when I put it in my body, I ended up drunk. And I went through that for several years and then finally I said, well, Charlie, you just can’t drink any longer. And what you’ve really got to do now is you’ve really got to get right down to it and you’ve got to quit drinking. And I trotted out my willpower, and the way I say fuel, uncover willpower.

That’s the most useful tool we alcoholics have got. So I trotted out willpower and I said, sick them, will. We’re through with this damn drinking. Now at the bottom of the chart, I’m restless, irritable and discontented. I’m filled with guilt, remorse, remorse. I’m filled with guilt, remorse, resentment, self-pity, fear, and I don’t feel good. And my mind begins to think about the idea of taking a drink, and willpower stops it.

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Willpower says, no sir, we’re through with that drink, and we’ve sworn off, and maybe I don’t drink that day. I get up the next day, and I’m still filled with guilt and remorse, and I’m restless, and I’m irritable, and I’m more discontented, and I can’t get along with my wife, and I can’t get along with my kids, and I can’t get along with my bird dogs, and life sucks. And I say, by God, a drink would make me feel better, and willpower said, no sir, we’re through with that damn drink, and we’re not ever going to drink again. I’ve sworn off, I’ve told my wife and everybody else that I’m through with that, I mean it, and I don’t drink that day. But I get up the next day, and nothing has changed. I’m restless, irritable, discontented, more and more, and the idea of the drink finally reaches the point where it burns through willpower, and I don’t see anything wrong with taking a drink. And I take the drink, and I trigger the allergy, and I’m off and running again. The reason willpower will not work for we alcoholics is just before we take the first drink, we don’t see anything wrong with drinking. Our mind has convinced us that this time it’s going to be okay. What it’s going to do for us pushes out what it does to us, and we think this time it will be different. This time we’re not going to get drunk.

Or we might even say, you know, I might as well get drunk and feel the way I feel today. It couldn’t make me feel any better, which is a damn lie, because I always felt worse after I got drunk. So willpower simply will not work for us. Now, they can’t do anything about the body on the left-hand side of the chart. The only hope for me to live without drinking alcohol is to do something about my emotional makeup, to try to find a way to live where I’m not restless, irritable, and discontented, to try to find a way to live where I’m not filled with guilt and remorse and self-pity and resentment and etc. And if I can find a way to live where I can kind of live on an even keel and keeping my emotions in balance, then it’s not going to trigger the idea to take a drink. And if I don’t trigger the idea to take a drink, I won’t take a drink, and the allergy can’t hurt me at all. Now, it’s plain to see on the left-hand side of the chart I can’t safely drink because of the allergy. The right-hand side of the chart, I can’t quit from drinking because of the obsession. So my only hope for recovery is to find a way where I can live emotionally without the obsession to drink coming back on me time after time after, and that’s what our program is about. Through the last 10 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, we find a way to live where we can be sober, peaceful, happy, and free. Find a way to live where we’re not restless, irritable, and discontented anymore. Find a way to live where we’re not filled with shame and fear and guilt and remorse and resentment, and we’re sober and we feel good, and if we feel good, we don’t need a drink to make us feel better. And that is recovery from alcoholism, and that’s what our program is all about. And that’s all we’ve got for tonight. Thank you all for being here. Hopefully we’ll see you in the morning.

And Alateans, by the way, do we have any Al-anons in here this morning? Great, great, great. You guys that are in Al-anon, you all, you fascinate the hell out of me. I don’t understand how you live with one of us drunk or sober. I couldn’t live with one of us 30 minutes. Anyhow, this story is about the alcoholic, the Al-anon, the Alateen. They had been to a convention and they were on their way back home after that weekend, and they decided to drive through the country and see some new scenery rather than go back the same old road.

So they got out in the countryside driving around, and sure enough, after a while, they got lost. Couldn’t find their way out, and they finally came to the farmer’s house, and went up on the door to the farmer’s house up on the porch and knocked on the door. Farmer came to the door, and they explained to him the situation, and he said, well, I could, it’s easy for you to get out of here. I said, I could give you the instructions now, but he said, the problem is it’s about to get dark, and you’ll probably get lost before you get out of here.

He said, why don’t you guys just spend the night here with us at the farm, and you can get up and

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leave in the morning, and they said, oh, fine, yeah, that would be great, and the farmer said, I’ve only got one problem, though. I can only sleep two of you in the house. One of you will need to go down in the barn and sleep with the animals, and little Alateen said, oh, let me go to sleep with the animals. Said, I love animals, and they love me, so they all go to bed with the Alateen down in the barn with the animals. About an hour, knock on the door. Farmer goes to the door, and there stands little Alateen. He said, man, I can’t sleep down there. He said, the pigs are grunting, the cows are mooing, the horses are stomping their feet, and the chickens are clucking, and I just can’t sleep. Well, the alcoholic said, okay, come on in and go to bed. He said, I’ll go down in the barn, and I’ll sleep with the animals. He said, I was born and raised on a farm. I understand them. They understand me. There’ll be no problem, so they all go to bed with the alcoholic down in the barn. Sure enough, about an hour, knock on the door. Farmer goes to the door, and there stands the alcoholic. He said, man, I can’t sleep down there either. He said, the pigs are grunting, the cows are mooing, the horses are stomping their feet, and the chickens are clucking, and I just can’t sleep. And the alcoholic said, well, all right, I knew it would be up to me to handle the situation. He said, you guys go on in there and go to bed, and I’ll go down in the barn, and I’ll sleep with the animals. So they all go to bed with the alcoholic down in the barn, and sure enough, in about an hour, knock on the door. Farmer goes to the door, and there stands the cows, and the pigs, and the chickens.

I love Al-Anon. I think it’s one of the greatest things that ever happened to AA. Anybody that I have that I work with knew if they still got a spouse, I try to do my best to get that spouse involved in Al-Anon. I know Barbara and I, we’ve been married now for 41 years, and if it wasn’t for Al-Anon, we certainly would not be married today. She couldn’t live with me drinking, and I couldn’t live with her sober. We had a hell of a time.

I’ve been asked also to explain just a little bit about this Founders Foundation Trust Fund thing, to be so everybody would know what it is, and it’s on the up and up. Several years ago, Joe and I were up in Akron, Ohio to do a big book study, and we went by to visit Dr. Bob’s home, and the old house was in bad shape. The porch was rotting off of it. The roof was about gone, beer cans in the front yard, and somebody said, isn’t it a shame that AA is letting that house get that way? And the answer back was, AA can’t do anything about that, because AA doesn’t get involved in the purchase of properties or anything like that. So the question came up, is there any way that we as AA members could do that for AA outside of AA? And of course the answer was, yeah, we could. And we formed a little corporation. We called it the Founders Foundation, and we began to solicit some funds from various different AA people all over the country. We ended up buying Dr. Bob’s house, and then the foundation took it over and renovated it, and today it’s on the National Historical Register. It’ll never be changed again, and it’s just like it was in the 1930s when Bill and Bob first met there that summer that they began to work with other alcoholics.

If you ever get an opportunity to go up there, please do so. It’s open all after in the afternoons, also I think on Saturdays, and you can go in and sit down in the kitchen and have a cup of coffee and think about where this thing all started. I’ll guarantee you you’ll cry before you get out of there. I do it every time I go up there. A few years later, we were up in Vermont doing a big book study in Burlington, and we wanted to go down and see the Wilson Inn where Bill was born in the room behind the bar and raised there as a kid. So we went down to see the Wilson Inn, and sure enough it was just about rotted down. The old cells were rotted out from under it. The roof was in bad shape, completely fallen down, but when we got there a guy came out of it, and he said, are you guys in AA? And we said, yeah, we are. He said, how would you like to come inside and have a cup of coffee?

And he was a fellow named Ozzie, and Ozzie had seen that thing falling down. He had borrowed

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money against his own company and purchased it to keep it from getting in worse shape. So we sat there and talked with Ozzie for a while, and he was wondering what he could do and how he could get the thing fixed. We told him what had happened to Dr. Bob’s house. So they formed a foundation up there, called it the Wilson Inn Foundation, purchased the Wilson house, began to solicit funds from different AA people, began to renovate it, and it’s now been completely rebuilt like it was back when Bill was a young boy. You can go up there and visit during the daytime, on weekends, in fact you’ve even got a bed and breakfast thing. You can you can go up and spend the night there if you wish to. It’s also been placed on the Founders Foundation. It’ll never be changed in the future. Now we didn’t get those two things as memorials to Dr. Bob or Bill. They just simply did not want that. But Dr. Bob’s house is AA’s first meeting place, no doubt about that at all. That’s where they met that summer until Ann finally got tired of them, kicked them out, and they went over to a different place. But it is AA’s first meeting place.

The Wilson Inn is used for AA purposes. We have AA meetings and Al-Anon meetings in there during the week, every week. We put on things up there similar to this big book study on weekends. It’s not a memorial to Bill, certainly being used for AA purposes. A few years after that we began to get concerned about, well, where’s the money going to come from in the future to take care of these two facilities? So a couple of us got together and we formed a third foundation, and we called it the Founders Foundation Trust Fund. And we began to talk to AA people and get them to donate a total of $100 a year for five years. And our whole purpose was to find 500 people to do that, build up a trust fund up to $250,000, the income then to be used to maintain and keep those facilities in good shape in the future.

I’m happy today to report that the trust fund is now worth $647,000. Up until about three years ago, I was in charge of it, and I had the signature privileges, and I could have written a check on it anytime I wanted to, and I got to worrying about it when it got to be a half a million. I thought, what’s going to happen to this thing after I’m gone? Who will take care of it? And besides that, what would happen if I would get drunk?

Well, the whole half a million would be gone in just a matter of months. So we deleted that trust and we formed a new trust called the Trust for the Preservation of Dr. Bob’s House on the Wilson Inn. It is invested with A.G. Edwards Investment Corporation out of St. Louis, and nobody can touch it. I can’t touch it, nobody else can touch it. The income from it is divided between those two houses every year to keep them up and keep them in good shape. We paid out about $24,000 on it last year. This year, I think we’re going to pay out about $30,000 on it, and it keeps expanding and keeps growing, and someday it’ll be worth about a million bucks. We’ve done it all within the right thing. There’s no violation of traditions at all. So if you purchase one of these tickets for the big book raffle, or if you pick up one of these dust jackets, in effect what you’re doing is you’re making a donation to the trust fund for the preservation of those two houses to be used in the future, and the money is there, will be held in perpetuity, and nobody can touch it, and nobody can get it