Audio
About this recording
- Topic
- The Doctor's Opinion Disc 2
- Speaker
- Brian H. and Pat R
- Date
- 2013-05-09
Transcript
Source: Brian H. and Pat R – The Doctor's Opinion Disc 2 – 2013-05-09.mp3 File: brian-h-and-pat-r-the-doctors-opinion-disc-2-2013-05-09.mp3 Duration: 00:55:39
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What we have done, and exactly what we did, and with clear-cut directions, right? So Alcoholics Anonymous has a very specific, precise set of directions for recovering from alcoholism. I didn't know that until I came to a Big Book seminar. I didn't know that until I started listening to people who studied the Big Book. I thought that there were many ways of recovering from alcoholism, and Alcoholics Anonymous was about talking about them all. If you have a way to recover from alcoholism that doesn't use our formula, that's great, but keep it out there.
The way we recover from alcoholism in Alcoholics Anonymous is reflected in here. I once was at a meeting with a guy who was sober 25 years, and I was sober maybe 10 at the time, or 12, or something like that. And he had this room, and everybody pays attention to time. I don't know why. People that know me usually know better, but he was talking about how I had led the Big Book meeting, and I talked about the doctor's opinion.
And he had shared afterward—it was a speaker discussion meeting—and he had shared afterwards about how he disagreed with the information. And I thought, that's a little odd, you know? And the discussion continued, and I found out after the meeting that he's sober 25 years, and he said so while he was talking, he had been in AA for about six months. Right? He got sober out there, and then all of a sudden wanted to bring that in here. Like, okay. I mean, Alcoholics Anonymous, we have traditions, everybody's…
But that's not—in Alcoholics Anonymous, we have a very precise, specific, clear-cut set of directions for how we recover from alcoholism. If you've got another way to recover, that's great, but this is how we do it in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's sort of like if you think of the specific instructions, like if you were going to—let's say we went to a potluck meeting, right? You ever potluck meetings where you are?
Every now and again, everybody gets together, everybody brings something, especially the desserts. Don't you love the desserts at the potluck meeting? Oh, man. We have some people—you know, we have a spaghetti dinner every year, and somebody usually makes a dessert, makes a cake, right? I love chocolate cake. Love chocolate cake. Well, you know. I bit into a piece of chocolate cake. It was the best chocolate cake I ever ate, right?
And I raved about this chocolate cake. And you know, the lady who made the cake offered me a precise set of directions on how I can make that cake, right? That set of directions included the ingredients that she used to make it, the sequence in which she mixed them, the temperature at which she baked it, and how long she baked it for. She gave me an exact set of directions on how to make that cake. You didn't follow them, though. No.
I got all the ingredients to make the cake and brought them home into my kitchen. And of course, my keen intellectual alcoholic mind started going to work. And of course, I like my cake sweet, so I added a little extra sugar. And I don't like eggs so much, so I skipped a couple of those. I was in a little bit of a hurry, so I figured if I bake it a little hotter, maybe I can get it a little quicker.
And you know, when it was all done, I had a halfway decent chocolate cake, right? But it was not the same cake that I had tasted in that meeting, right? And why should I expect it to be, right? Why should I expect it to be? So we're going to be given a precise set of specific, clear-cut directions. They're going to tell us exactly what they did. And if I follow it precisely, I probably will get the same results.
And if I make changes to it, I might should expect different results. Let's move into the doctor's opinion. This is kind of where the page numbers start to get a little wiggy. If you have a third edition Big Book, you might be off two pages here. Yeah. So try to— It's two less in the third edition, right? Because of the fourth edition. Correct. Look at it, Tom. I said earlier there was no changes in the book.
That's not exactly true. There's one that occurred right here, actually. It had nothing to do with the text. The text stayed identical. But in the first 16 printings, in the first edition of the Big Book, the doctor's opinion was on page one. And for some reason, nobody knows why, there's no documentation as to any group conscience or any conference decision, the doctor's
[00:05:02]
opinion for some reason got moved into the Roman numerals in the second edition in 1955. And nobody really knows why that happened. And I believe it was one of the biggest mistakes ever, because I pick up a book and I pick up it, page one. You know, I don't care about the accolades and, you know, all that stuff. I never read the forewords and the prefaces until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and saw how important it is. Now when I pick up a book, I do.
I go back and I see what's going on in those. But who knew, right? And if you miss the doctor's opinion here, you miss the description of the problem in Alcoholics Anonymous, and you start reading a novel. What do you read? War fever ran high on a New England town, right? It puts you right out, you know. One of the biggest mistakes ever, I believe. But that's up to us to carry that message, isn't it?
Look, alcoholism has been documented for thousands of years. It actually, in the Big Big Book, Solomon actually writes about alcoholism, and I'm going to read that for you. It's in Proverbs 23, 29 through 35. And see, Solomon was the wise man at the time. If anybody was baffled or had any questions, they went to Saul and they asked his some information on it. This is what Solomon wrote. Yeah, Saul.
He's a good friend of mine. Yeah, we always shorten the name. Call him Saul for short. Yeah. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who tarry long over wine, those who go to try mixed wine and have the hard stuff. They were all winos back then. Do not look at the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly.
In the end, it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart will utter perverse things. Trust me, honey. You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea. You guys know that feeling, right? Like one who lies on the top of the mast. They struck me, you will say, but I was not hurt. They beat me, but I did not feel it. This is where he really describes us.
When I shall awake, I must have another drink. We're talking what? Thousands of 23, 29 through 35. Thousands of years ago. Thousands of years ago. There were—Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in the late 1700s, was 1776 area, wrote a paper on alcoholism describing some ideas that he had on alcoholism, but had no solution to the problem. It was always just, Don't pick up a drink.
Just don't drink. It was always an issue of mental control or sin, if you will, a moral issue. Dr. Trotter in England in the 1800s also wrote a paper that we know of on alcoholism and the effects of alcoholism. Still no idea where it was coming from and no solution except for, These guys just shouldn't drink. You just need to put your mind to it and not pick up the drink. It was always a mental issue or a moral issue.
It wasn't until Dr. Silkworth came along and had this theory on this physical nature of the illness, this allergic reaction that the alcoholic suffered from, coupled with this mental obsession, did these theories start to take hold. And this is a smart guy. This is a Princeton grad, got his medical degree at New York Bellevue. Neurology was his specialty, and that's kind of how he crossed paths with the alcoholics because of the psychiatry link to the neurology.
So he was always interested in alcoholics and was always amazed by them and always wondered whether there was anything he could do to help them. But there's no money in it. You know, you can't treat alcoholics for a living. It's just impossible. Y'all know that when you go there, you only have a couple, right? I mean, nobody ever tells the doctor the truth. How much do you drink? A couple. How often? A few days a week.
Right? So they rarely tell you the truth, right? If you give them any solution, they don't follow the directions, right? And the worst reason of all is that they don't pay their bills. So there's absolutely no money in treating alcoholics. But Silkworth was very successful, had his practice, and like everybody else, when the market crashed in the late twenties there, he lost everything. Most people did. He was invested heavy in the market and took a job from Charlie
[00:10:03]
Towns at Towns Hospital in New York for about 40 bucks a week. Working really in the drunk tank, treating alcoholics and cocaine addicts. There was a big cocaine issue even back then, and literally worked with thousands, thousands of alcoholics. And this is where he came across Bill Wilson. Like Brian was saying, Bill was there four times. We know of three that the Big Book talks about where he had any interaction with Dr. Silkworth. And he shared, I don't know if he's the first one that ever told this information to—it's the first time in history we know of anybody getting this information.
Surely Bill was the first one to ever use it and do anything with it. Right, like write it down. Right, like write it down. But Bill, when writing the book, asked if he could use this information, and Dr. Silkworth said, Of course you can use it, but don't put my name in it. And you'll see in the first edition that Dr. Silkworth's name is not in it. That's another change that they made in the book, a slight change, not in the text, but it says Doctor dash dash dash dash dash dash in the first edition.
But when the AMA adopted alcoholism as an illness, as a disease, he said, Okay, now you can put my name in it. Before that, he really had no documentation. It really was his theory. It wasn't—they didn't have the kind of medical technology that they have today. I mean, look, Dr's opinion is fact today. They can map DNA. They're talking about shutting off receptors and curing alcoholism with a pill.
I don't know about all that. They don't know us very well, do they? Well, they're having success with rats. Yeah, real success. Well, what they don't know about us is that if one pill makes you feel good— Right? You get it. You get it. You guys belong here, right? Then two will make you feel twice as good, right? Yeah. Yeah, the Bible really does, right? Why stop at five? And then we'll have a few people crushing it in the bathroom, you know what I mean?
That's an outside issue. Want a faster delivery method. That's all I'm saying. All right, so the first part of the doctor's opinion is a letter of endorsement to Alcoholics Anonymous, and we're going to skip over to page XXVI in the fourth edition to less in the third edition. It's the piece in between the two letters. It starts, The physician who… Yeah, right after 'Very truly yours, William D. Silkworth, M.D.' It says, The physician who, at our request, gave us this letter has 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. No musts in the fellowship. There's a lot of musts in the program. Yeah. That the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. Now, this is the first time we know of in written history that somebody is addressing the physical aspect of alcoholism. Everybody has always been on the page that it's a moral issue, it's a mental issue, it might be a sin, but nobody had ever addressed, until we see it here, the physical nature of the illness.
It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we were 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're sure that our bodies were sickened as well, and our belief any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete.
He's saying it's wrong, right? 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. So there's going to be some key words here in the Big Book that we're going to stop and, like, take a look at because it's really important that we get the context that they're used in. If the purpose of this book is to transfer knowledge from one person to the other, then we need to know what that person is trying to transmit to us. I mean, most of us can get our minds around what an allergy is. You know, I have hay fever, goldenrod or ragweed, whatever you call it, I'm allergic to. And when I'm around it, I get itchy, watery eyes, my nose stuffs up, I have a hard time breathing. That manifestation of that allergy to ragweed is those itchy, watery eyes and stuffed up and can't breathe.
If you're allergic to strawberries, the manifestation of that allergy is is a manifestation of that allergy is a rash.
[00:15:01]
Allergic to shellfish, your throat closes up. That's the manifestation of that allergy. Milk. A lot of people—my sister was allergic to milk. Bad dysentery. That was the manifestation of the allergy to milk, right? So I hear this talked about in the rooms, that I have an allergy to alcohol, and I'm thinking, damn, I'm drinking a gallon of this stuff. I'm not seeing no rash or itchy watery eyes or any allergic reaction to this alcohol.
So I start asking, like, people, what do you mean by I have an allergy to alcohol? Don't worry about it, kid. You know, you just have one. You know, and I think the fact is that most people didn't know any more than I did about what the allergy to alcohol was. I had no clue until I got the information from this Big Book seminar what they were talking about. And so, and back to what Bill was trying to say is, what was the context that he was trying to transmit here in the word allergy?
You know, the best definition that we found—you go to Webster's Dictionary, and they got a bunch of different definitions of the word allergy—but the best one that I think applies and what Bill was trying to apply here is that it was an abnormal reaction to any food, drink, or substance. An abnormal reaction. Now look, I didn't see anything abnormal with the way I was drinking, you know, because everybody I drank with drank like that, right?
If you didn't drink like I did, we didn't hang. You know, that was just the way it was. So you kind of got to find somebody that, like a social temperate drinker, to find out what it means to drink normally rather than abnormally. So I got a couple of them in my family, not many. You know, I have a brother. Who, who, who drinks normally. And talking to my brother, you know, he talks about coming home from work, cracking open a Budweiser, you know, and getting this comfortable, relaxing feeling, and then not drinking anymore. Goes and eats dinner and then goes to bed, you know. Maybe he'll have one more, maybe not.
It's not an issue. Well, I don't get no comfortable, relaxing feeling when I drink alcohol. I don't know what he's talking about, because when I put a drink in my mouth, it goes straight to my sinuses and my head, man, and all of a sudden, I get this, just this breath of fresh air, and all of a sudden Tom and I are arguing quantum physics. You know, I get, like, real smart. It's as I can go into a political science debate, right?
And it doesn't matter that Tom knows about quantum physics. I know more than he does, you know. I become the smartest man on Earth immediately. And as it works its way down my body, my arms get bigger and stronger, you know, and I start, like, irritating people in the bar that are much bigger than me because I'm starting to grow, you know. And as it gets down my legs, I get taller and I get stronger.
And as it passed through my gut, I started getting some real confidence, and I started thinking I was pretty tough. And when it hit my feet, I got a get up and gotta go do something kind of feeling, right? I don't know nothing about some comfortable, relaxing feeling, because I'm off to the races, dude, you know. And then you started talking about it, talking to him a little later, he says, you start offering him drinks, and he says, No, I'm starting to feel it, you know. What?
Yeah, yeah, I'm getting this slightly tipsy, out of control feeling, and I don't like it. I'm like, really? Right? Because I'm getting a hot, intense, in-control feeling. He's getting a slightly tipsy, out-of-control feeling. See, I'm out of control sober. I'm starting to feel in control while I'm drinking, and the more I drink, the more in control and confident I am. Right? So the first abnormal reaction I have is the way my mind treats alcohol.
It's the mental reaction to the alcoholism. But you continue to talk to these people, and you start offering them more drinks, and they say, No, no, no, no. I'm starting to feel nauseous. Right? What? Yeah, yeah, I'm going to be sick if I continue down this road. You're kidding. Right? Look, alcohol is a toxic substance, right? The normal reaction when the body starts getting too much of it is to reject it, right? So he's starting to crash.
It's a depressant, right? He's starting to crash and come down. I'm on my way up, right? He's starting to feel sick. And by the way, what happens when you give them another drink and you force them to take a few more? Look out, because they're going to hurl, right? Because that's the body's reaction, is to protect itself and let's exit, right?
[00:20:02]
I take a drink, and my body immediately has to have another drink. And then I take another drink, and I have a physical craving for another drink. And now I need a drink twice as bad as the first one. And the more I drink, the more I want. I don't know nothing about this nauseous feeling. So the second abnormal reaction I have is this physical reaction to alcohol, where instead of not taking a drink. I have to have a drink.
He's not taking a drink because he's going to be sick. I have to take another drink because my body demands it. This allergic reaction to alcohol that manifests itself in a physical craving for more. Have to have another. I don't have a choice in the matter. And it's beyond my mental control once I take the drink. Do you ever watch them? My brother's one of them guys that goes fishing with a six-pack and brings five and a half back, you know?
Right? We're out drinking. I'm like, Drink this shit. It's getting warm, you know? I mean, come on, put it on, do something with it. And he's halfway through his beer and he dumps it because I said, What are you doing? He said, It's warm. Drink it faster. Now, if there's anything that's alcohol abuse, that's alcohol abuse right there, right? My mom's the other one in the family that's an average drinker.
You know, we have the Thanksgiving dinners and the holiday dinners and, you know, we're sitting around after and we're all drinking coffee and she mixes up, you know, gets this little itty-bitty, you know, rum and puts it in this glass about this big full of Coke and some ice in it, and she sits there and stirs it and stirs it and stirs it and stirs it. And she might not even take a drink. She might get up and start doing dishes, right?
And then comes back to it and takes a little sip of it and then goes back and starts talking to somebody in the other room. Comes back to it and sips it and gets this look on her face and dumps it. What are you doing? It's watery. Not a second thought. Now that's alcohol abuse, as far as I'm concerned. So their bodies and minds are reacting normally to alcohol, and an alcoholic has an abnormal reaction, a physical craving which demands more alcohol.
And the thing is that it gets confusing because you can't see it. The non-alcoholics cannot see. They don't understand. The only thing they know about a reaction to alcohol is how they react to it, right? They've never felt a physical craving, so they don't understand us. So they're always looking at us saying, Hey, why don't you just control it? Hey, why don't you quit after the second? Hey, why don't you, you know?
And because they've never experienced this craving. You cannot see our allergic reaction to alcohol. You can only feel it, and only alcoholics feel it. Only alcoholics feel it. They're never taking drinks they don't want to take. That's right. Right? They're never taking a drink against their own better judgment. How many times have you taken a drink against your own better judgment, right? Facing jail, facing divorce, facing lost job, facing a driver's license loss, already lost your license and driving anyway, right?
I know none of you guys, right? I know. Yeah, you're all too well for that, you know. How many times I've taken a drink against—because I'm only going to have two or three, right? Because I believe the lie. I'm just—I'm going to stop at two. I'm going to stop at three, not knowing that my body demands another drink. So a good writer will always reiterate what he just told you and back up the information with more information. So let's skip over a page.
XXVIII in a fourth edition. That's the national anthem here, I-I-I. Two less than a third. The paragraph starts, We believe. 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—he uses the word phenomenon because he doesn't—it's unexplainable—this 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. Once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, the reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. Once again, let's look at the word craving in the context that Bill's using it here. He's talking about something that happens after we take a drink, not before we take a drink. You hear people in the fellowship say, I craved a drink for years.
That's not the context that we're using it in here. We obsessed on a drink for five years, but the physical craving didn't actually take place until we put a drink in us, right? The manifestation of the allergy to strawberries: a rash. The manifestation to the allergy to ragweed: itchy, watery eyes, stuffed-up nose. The manifestation of the allergy to alcohol is an actual physical craving that takes place
[00:25:02]
after we pick up a drink, and only alcoholics feel it. Right? This blew my mind. I finally realized why I never went home. I mean, I really didn't know. I really didn't know. I would leave work, call my wife, say, I'm on my way home. I would go through the drive-through pick and pack right across the street and get one tall Budweiser. One. One tall Budweiser. And you put it in the brown paper bag because nobody knows what's in that, right?
In case a cop sees you, they won't know, right? I drink my iced tea in a brown paper bag all the time. Not. Look, I had enough money to buy a keg. I had enough money to buy a case. I could have bought whatever I wanted. I wanted one beer for the ride home. I never made it. I'm talking never. I never made it. It became an ongoing joke. Yeah, see you soon. See you tomorrow. Some of it was after a while.
I would find some reason to stop and see the fellas, or stop at Kokomo's, or stop at Surrey's, or stop at Brady's, and just have a couple of more with the fellas before I hit the house, because I still have time, because dinner's not going to be ready for another 20, right? And two, three, four in the morning, I'm going, Oh my God, I did it again. I did it again. And I would swear off. I promise you this time.
And I love the next line. It says, Frothy emotion, seldom suffices. You know what that is? Dad, are you coming to my football game this Friday? Because you said last Friday you were going to be there and you didn't make it. Are you really going to? Yes, son. I promise you. I promise I will be at that football game tonight. I swear to you. Please, Dad, I'm kicking off. Please come to the football game. It's a true story.
Never made it. I would just stop for that one beer, or I'd intend to go directly there. I just never made it directly there. I had no idea why I never made it there. Sometimes I thought I just changed my mind, or I'll catch them next week. You know, just some trivial reason, and then boom, the allergy would kick in and I was off to the races. It explained, like it said in the paragraph before, it explained some things that were difficult to explain before.
I had no idea why I couldn't make it home, and now I knew exactly why I couldn't home. And that's the information that Brian gave me in that Mazda behind the Fifth Chapter Club that I desperately needed, desperately needed to know why. On the bottom of the facing page, XXIX, what's that, Roman numeral 29? Something like that, something like that. At the very bottom, the very bottom paragraph says, I do not hold with those, I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a problem of mental control.
I have had many men who had, for example, worked a period of months on some problem or business deal which was to be settled on a certain date favorably to them. They took a drink a day or so prior to the date, and the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount to all other interests, so the important appointment was not met. These men were not drinking to escape. They were drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control.
This is the kind of thing that the doctor was witnessing in these men that he was treating in the hospital. He was noticing that there was something, that this wasn't about escaping. This wasn't just a mental condition or a moral condition. These people had worked hard for months on this deal, right? It's to be settled on a certain date, coming up favorably to them, right? They have no reason not to make the appointment.
They make the appointment. They make a ton of money. What's the reason not to show up? They took a drink a day or so prior, and all of a sudden they're craving alcohol, and they can't do anything else but satisfy that craving, right? How many of us have been there, right? Missing the most important things in our lives because we had to satisfy that craving. The doctor is witnessing these things in the people that he's treating, and he's coming up with this theory about this physical craving.
And that's kind of because he's not an alcoholic himself. That's kind of how he came upon the observation of what was going on. So he shares this story with us to let us know that this is not just a mental condition. This is a physical condition, and without that physical factor, the information about the problem is incomplete. And really, that's Dr. Silkworth's greatest gift to Alcoholics Anonymous and to the world as far as recovery from alcoholism goes, because he's the first person to ever put down in any written form this idea that the body of an alcoholic reacts differently than a non-alcoholic, that we actually react with a craving.
The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult.
[00:30:00]
Now here they're going to describe five different types of alcoholics. There's probably as many different types of alcoholics as there are in this room, but they're going to describe five of them here. There are, of course, the psychopaths. None of you guys. Let's start there. Who are emotionally unstable. We're all familiar with this type. They are always going on the wagon for keeps. They are over-remorseful and make many resolutions, but never a decision.
We have one of those in the registration room. Oh, 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 and his environment. Type two. A lot of us can relate to that. 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. Type three.
There is a manic-depressive type who is perhaps the most misunderstood by his friends and whom a whole chapter could be written. Type four. I think this one's me here. Yeah, I always thought I was type five. Then there are types entirely normal in every respect except the effect alcohol has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, and friendly people. Type five. All these and many others have one symptom in common.
They cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. The phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people and sets them apart as a distinct entity. It has never been by any treatment of which we are familiar permanently eradicated. The only relief we have suggested is entire abstinence. And I think what he's trying to say there is that, God forbid, we all take a drink in this room. It would be ugly.
It would be bad for the Sheridan. Well, the good news is they probably don't have enough. So God forbid. I think you would see a lot of different reactions, right? You would see the depressant, right? The, Oh, poor me. Everybody's picking on me. You know, I'm always the victim here and crying over in the corner, right? And then you'd see the one that wants to get up on the bar and dance, right? And, you know, here we are, let's go, turn up the music, right?
You'd see the fighters in the room. Somebody would be trying to start an argument. I'm an instigator. I'm way bigger mouth than my body. There's no doubt about that, you know. Never could back up the one with the other. And, you know, you'd have somebody making the move on one of the girls over in the corner over there, you know, the Casanovas. And so I think what he's saying is that we all may react totally different once we pick up a drink, but the one thing that we would all have in common is that we would be seeking another drink, right?
The manifestation of the allergy would start. This physical craving would engage, and we would need another drink. We would all be searching for another drink. We talked about how, you know, this is the doctor's opinion. That doesn't look quite right, does it? Hmm. Let's try this again. There we go. This is just the doctor's opinion. Well, since the doctor's opinion, the American Medical Association has confirmed the doctor's opinion. They've more or less, they know more about what's going on with an alcoholic physically.
Let me preface this by letting you know that Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on the medical, you know, what exactly happens. It doesn't matter. It's enough for us to know that I react physically different to alcohol and that I react differently mentally. That's enough for us. Every alcoholic relates to that. We don't take a side or have a stand on what actually happens, what the medical community says is going on in our bodies.
But for those that want to know, here's some information. The other thing that you need to know before I present this is that I am not a doctor, and I am not qualified to talk about what I'm about to talk about. So listen closely. Just like at your home group. This is the disease concept of alcoholism, and you have this in your booklet as well. It's one of the pages in there. It's going to look a little bit different on the screen because we had a good AA member modernize this for us and put in some new gimmicks, so it's pretty cool. So we're going to talk about metabolism.
Metabolism is everything that we ingest metabolizes, right?
[00:35:00]
And so we take in a piece of beefsteak even, right, and we chew it and we break it down, and our body either has readily available enzymes or it creates enzymes, mostly in the liver and the pancreas, right? Enzymes are extracted in order to break that down, right? And so they break the one piece down into multiple pieces, and then there's different enzymes that come into play to break those things down into other pieces until we can finally use or get rid of what we've ingested.
And everything that we ingest into our bodies, whether it's food or a beverage or a medicine or what, has these properties, right? And so the normal drinker, nine out of ten drinkers, let's say, ingest alcohol this way. This is the medical, this is the main components of the metabolism of alcohol. They take a drink. They have enzymes of sufficient quantity or quality. Their body breaks alcohol down into one of the components, one of the tracks is they break it down into acetaldehyde.
Other enzymes come into play and break that acetaldehyde down, and you end up with diacetic acid. The diacetic acid then has enzymes that break it down, right, and they break that down into acetone. You heard me correctly, acetone, right? That's your nail polish remover for the ladies and the paint thinner for the guys, right? Acetone. If you ingest acetone, you will die, right? But our body actually, one of the ways in which it metabolizes alcohol is it turns it into acetone, right? So acetone.
And then the acetone has enzymes that break it down into a simple carbohydrate, which finally gets broken down into water, sugar, and carbon dioxide. And so our body can get rid of the water and the sugar and the carbon dioxide, right? The water goes out through the urinary tract. That's why I didn't put it in the middle. The sugar gets used as energy or stored as fat, right? And the carbon dioxide gets exhaled, right?
So that's how the normal drinker, that's how normal drinkers, not us, but normal drinkers, that's the metabolism process of alcohol. That's what they do with it. The alcoholic, one out of ten drinkers, right, they start off the process the same way, but they have enzymes of insufficient quantity or quality. They break the alcohol down into acetaldehyde just fine. They break that acetaldehyde down into diacetic acid just fine.
This is actually probably hard for you to read, isn't it? I probably need to make those bigger. You're right in front of it. How about you back there? The diacetic acid is broken down into acetone just fine. So far, so good, right? We get to the acetone just fine. And then our bodies have an insufficient quantity or quality of the enzymes necessary to break that acetone down and finish the job into the simple carbohydrate and then the water, sugar, and carbon dioxide. So they know now that that increased acetone level triggers a physical craving for more alcohol, right?
And so I take a drink. I have an increased level of acetone. My body doesn't get rid— By the way, back over here on the normal drinker side, we're going to find out how many of you have been to DWI school. Our body does that at a rate of about an ounce per hour. Yeah, you were paying attention in DWI school. That's good. That's good. Now, that's the normal drinker. The normal drinker can metabolize an ounce of alcohol at a rate of about an ounce per hour. Now, the alcoholic has a couple of problems.
Number one, I'm not drinking an ounce per hour. Did you drink an ounce per hour? That's problem number one. What's the point? Problem number two is that after an hour, I still have most of that acetone in my body, triggering a craving for another drink. So I take another drink, right? Now I've got most of the acetone from the first drink and all of the acetone from the second drink, and I'm craving it even harder, right?
What do I do? I take a drink. I have most of the acetone from the first drink, all of the acetone from the second drink, and the acetone from the third drink, and I'm craving it even harder. That's why at two o'clock in the morning, I've been tossed out of the bar. I've been run over by a car. I'm lying still in the parking lot of the bar, and you're coming into the bar
[00:40:04]
going, Hey, man, can I help you? And I go, Yeah, you can get me a drink. That's how I end up in that condition, right? My body reacts with this physical craving, and it demands another drink and another drink and another drink, and I'm craving it harder and harder and harder as it goes along. I am absolutely powerless over alcohol. This acetone level creates this craving, and I cannot stop drinking once I start to drink.
And it doesn't matter, by the way, how you acquired this physical allergy to alcohol. I believe I caught the genetic bullet. You know, if you look at my family tree, a couple of handfuls of dead people directly related to alcohol. Both my grandfathers, my one grandmother on the Irish side. I've lost a sister not too long ago to this illness. I've got two—I had two sisters and a brother. One sister overdosed. The other sister is two years less than me, and I'm in the program. My dad had five brothers and two sisters.
He has one sister alive today. You know, it's rampant. There's obviously a genetic link. I don't know anything about controlled drinking. I have never controlled drank in my life. I was an alcoholic, and all you had to do was add alcohol. You know, it took me three days to find a police officer after my first drink, right? And it was on a telephone pole. You know, so it didn't take me long for other people to say, That dude's got a problem with drinking, and I'm going, No, no, no, it's just fine.
Don't worry about it. It's worth the pain. You can drink your way into it. Brian just mentioned it. The liver and the pancreas are the main organs of the body that process the alcohol. Alcohol is a destroyer of tissue. As it destroys the liver and the pancreas, we get physically sensitive to the alcohol. It stops. You no longer have insufficient quality or quantity of the enzymes to process the liquor, and you become allergic to alcohol.
Obviously, with age. That's why you see people coming in later in life. They were able to control their drinking up to a period of time. The liver and the pancreas don't process it like they did when you were in your 20s or your 30s, and you become allergic to alcohol. It doesn't matter how you got it. Fact is, though, once you got it, you got it. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, right? You never change.
The cucumber—what is it? The pickle never changes back to the cucumber, right? So, like having that knowledge that Brian just presented and that we got from Silkworth, we just stop drinking. We'd come here, get that information. You guys leave. End of story. Just don't pick—just say no, Mrs. Reagan would say, right? Just say no. Don't pick up another drink again. The problem is that there's another aspect of this illness, isn't there, right? And look, I'm allergic to goldenrod.
I'm allergic to this ragweed. It only took me one time to find out that I'm allergic to it in Florida too. You know what I mean? Like, I came from Pennsylvania to Florida, and I go, Oh, there's that stuff I'm allergic to up north, and I slapped it around. Guess what? I'm allergic to it here too, right? My brother, although he's not an alcoholic, is allergic to bananas, right? When he eats a banana, his lips puff up.
It's really kind of funny, actually. It's not funny. He's never obsessed about eating bananas. Now, he's often—he's thought about it. Like, I remember talking, like, you know, maybe if they were in a milkshake, I wouldn't be allergic to it, you know? Not true. Not true. Well, maybe I'm just eating the bananas with the wrong people, right? Maybe I need to move and eat the bananas there, right? I know what it is, the Chiquitas. That's Chiquita, right?
I gotta eat them Dole bananas, and it would be different. But isn't that the kind of insanity that we try? It's those people, it's that brand, it's that place. If I could just switch that, I'd be able to somehow gain control of this thing. This explains why I couldn't control my drinking while I was drinking, right? I mean, that's the first thing I tried. Look, you're having a problem drinking. Okay, I'm going to control it. Well, I'm incapable of controlling it, because the more I drink, the more my body craves the alcohol.
The more acetone that's in my body, the harder I drink. So it was impossible for me to drink. So the main problem of the alcoholic centers in the mind rather than the body. So we're going to go back to page… So we're going to go back to page XXVII. We're going to go back to that page. We're going to go back, just flip the page backwards once, and then go to the bottom of that page.
[00:45:01]
And he's going to explain the mental part of this disease, why it is we think that Chiquita bananas are our problem. He says men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. Ah, we like the effect produced by alcohol. Sometimes people will argue with you about this. They go, No, no, no, no, I love the taste of beer. That's why I drink it. Hey, I'm there. I'm with you. I love the taste of beer too.
I also love the taste of Coca-Cola. I never sat down and drank a case of it. I'm drinking the beer because it does something. I like the effect produced by the beer. That's why I'm drinking the beer. It's not because of the taste. The beer does something that Coca-Cola don't do. That's right. The sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious—you know what they mean by injurious, right? Wrecked cars, lost jobs, right?
Wife walks out on you, right? Yeah, yeah. Bankrupted another checking account, right? That's injurious. They cannot, after a time, differentiate the true from the false, right? I can't see the true from the false. That's my problem. Just before taking a drink, I believe a lie. I believe something that is untrue. I believe that I can take the drink and not end up in jail, right? It's never happened. But that's the way it's going to be this time, right?
Just before I take a drink, I believe I'm going to be able to drink and not wreck my car, not lose my job, not disappoint my family and friends again, right? That's how I think it's going to be, and I have a plan for how it's going to happen, right? It's never happened. Piles of evidence to the contrary, right? But just before taking a drink, I don't see that. I don't see the things that alcohol has done to me.
I only see what alcohol is going to do for me, and it allows me to take that drink. I believe a lie, which allows me to take the drink, and then once I take the drink, I aggravate the allergy and I'm off to the races again, right? I cannot see the truth from the false just before taking a drink, right? He says they are— To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one, right? You know, you wreck your car once, that's abnormal.
You wreck it five times, that becomes normal, right? You go to jail. The first time I went to jail, that was very abnormal, right? The eighth time I was in jail, it became normal, right? My alcoholic life seemed the only normal one, right? He says they, but here he really knows this here. They are restless, irritable, and discontented unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks, right?
Restless, irritable, and discontented. That's, you know, Pat was mentioning how, you know, alcoholics, we feel our disease when we're sober. This is what he's talking about, right? When I'm sober, this is how I feel. I'm restless. I'm irritable. I'm discontent, right? Life doesn't make any sense. Why am I getting up and doing this? People don't appreciate me. And it's not big problems, right? It's going to work or going to my first appointment or going to work and realizing I don't have enough gas to get there, and now I'm going to be late, right?
Restless, irritable. You know, it's just everyday life makes me restless, irritable, and discontent. But here's the thing. The mind's job is to remember what works, right? My brain remembers restless, irritable, discontent. I got a solution for that, right? The ease and comfort that comes at once by taking a few drinks. My mind remembers that alcohol fixes that for me, right? So, hey, so I get tricked into it.
But, you know, I had a bad experience the last time, so I'm not going to do that, right? So I go through the day fighting it off, right? And then, you know, later on, I'm feeling a little more irritated, a little more restless, a little more discontent. And eventually, my mind, it wears on me. How I'm feeling wears on me. I remember a solution. I know that solution's not good for me. And sooner or later, I forget that that solution.
My brain effectively pushes out the knowledge and the understanding of how taking a drink would be bad for me, and only sees the ease and comfort that will come at once. It remembers what works. It forgets what doesn't. It allows me to take that drink, and I'm off to the races again. He says, Oh yeah, drinks what they see others taking with impunity. I mean, people around me are able to have a couple of drinks after work, and they don't get in trouble. I grew up with two brothers.
I mean, they were able to drink and do their homework, right, and show up for class and get good— I did most of my drinking, all my drinking when I was
[00:50:01]
a teenager. So, you know, they were able to do the things that were expected of them, right? I had other friends in school who drank, and they were able to do those things. Obviously, I can too. That's part of the delusion, right? I don't know that I'm different from those people. I think I should be able to do it because they can do it, right? I see them doing it. After they have succumbed, the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, because that's what happens.
I take that drink, that phenomenon of craving—remember, phenomenon just means that we don't have an explanation for it. We don't know how it happens, but we know that it happens. I crave alcohol, right? The phenomenon of craving develops, and I pass through the well-known stages of a spree. I emerge remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again. He says this is—and so the mental part of the disease, this is what Pat was just referring to as the cruxs of the problem, right?
This is, you know, it's almost as if the mind is like this emotional barometer, right? And inside of this, you know, my mind, as long as that restlessness and irritability and discontentedness is down here at this level, right, I have an excellent defense against a drink. It's called willpower. Don't let anybody tell you alcoholics don't have willpower. You need a lot of willpower to become an alcoholic, right?
If you don't have willpower, the first time you puke, you quit, right? It isn't that alcoholics lack willpower. It is that willpower is not an effective defense against the insanity for alcohol. And maybe it's like this. Maybe as long as that restlessness, irritability, and discontentment, maybe as long as the feelings that I have when I'm sober are low at this level, I don't—it's okay. I can fight that off.
I can see the truth. The alcohol is going to cause another DUI. I'm going to piss off a friend. I'm going to lose a job. It's never turned out good. Fine, right? But then eventually what happens is it grows to this level, right? And that restless, irritable, and discontentness grows to a level where one of those suckers slips across there, right? And I take that first drink, right? And that drink aggravates the allergy, right?
Now I got to take the second drink and the third drink and the fourth drink and the second day and the third day and the fourth day, right? And I'm coming out on the other side restless, irritable, and discontent, full of guilt and remorse, right? You know, here I let people down again. I got in trouble again. I didn't show up for work. I lost another job again. I didn't pay the bills again, right?
And so this is repeated over and over and over again. He says that this is repeated over and over. I'm restless, irritable, and discontent, filled with guilt, remorse, resentment, and self-pity and fear, right? That makes the problems on the other side with the emotional barometer, my problems are piling up, right? I'm even more restless, more irritable, more discontent. One of those suckers slips across there. I take that first drink, and I'm back over aggravating the allergy, and that's repeated over and over and over again.
I am powerless over alcohol. I cannot quit drinking, and I cannot control my drinking, and I have absolutely no defense against this. I am completely powerless over alcohol. So this is repeated over and over again. And this is the cycle that I was stuck in. My life is naturally restless, irritable, and discontent. I mean, that was a state. Bill talks—he'll refer to it later as a spiritual malady, this internal condition that I remember when I was five.
And when I found alcohol, I had a spiritual awakening, let me tell you. I mean, it fixed restless, irritable, and discontent. It was a solution to restless, irritable, and discontent. And I'm just caught up in this vicious cycle of restless, irritable, and discontent, ease and comfort, the spree, the guilt, remorse, and shame, and then the trouble that I got into. And just thinking about the trouble I got into made me restless, irritable, and discontent again.
And now I'm off to the races again. I would promise a judge that I would never pick up again if he'd let me go, and I'd be drunk before I got home, because I'm thinking about, oh my God, I got to get an attorney, and I can't afford an attorney. I need this drink to take the edge off. Boom, and I'm drunk before I even make it home, and just caught in this vicious cycle. And isn't that the trick here?
Isn't that what we got to fix, is restless, irritable, and discontent? And we have to find a way to be content so that we don't need some kind of outside force to affect our feeling good, or affect our spiritual condition, or our internal condition. I mean, that's the solution here. Give me something for restless, irritable, and discontent. And let me tell you something: not drinking and going to meetings doesn't treat that.
I tell you that firsthand. But on the other hand, as strange as this may seem to those who do not understand, once a psychic change has occurred—spiritual awakening—ideas and emotions and attitudes changed, personality change has occurred. The very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever
[00:55:04]
solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules. What do you think they are? The Twelve Principles, right? I think that's it. We'll see you tomorrow morning.