AA Speakers – Joe & Charlie – “The Doctors Opinion”
AA speakers Joe & Charlie break down “The Doctor’s Opinion” from the Big Book, explaining the physical allergy and mental obsession that define alcoholism and recovery.
In this AA speaker recording, Joe & Charlie work through “The Doctor’s Opinion”—the foundation of how AA understands alcoholism as both a physical allergy and a mental obsession. Walking through the Big Book’s opening statement from Dr. Silkworth, they explain why normal drinkers can stop after one or two drinks while alcoholics cannot, and why willpower alone fails. This is essential listening for anyone trying to understand what alcoholism actually is, not just what it looks like.
Joe & Charlie, classic AA speakers, dissect “The Doctor’s Opinion” from the Big Book, explaining alcoholism as a twofold illness: a physical allergy (abnormal reaction to alcohol that produces craving) and a mental obsession (the mind telling us drinking will solve our emotional problems). They clarify why the allergy cannot be seen but only felt by alcoholics, how the body metabolizes alcohol differently, and why staying sober without addressing emotional pain leads to relapse—which is why the 12 steps, not willpower alone, bring recovery.
Episode Summary
Joe & Charlie are legendary AA speakers known for their deep dives into Big Book fundamentals, and this talk is essential teaching on what “The Doctor’s Opinion” actually means and why it matters to every person in recovery.
The talk opens with historical context: Dr. Silkworth, who worked at Towns Hospital in the 1930s, observed alcoholics entering in terrible physical and mental shape, recovering in 60-90 days, then returning weeks later in worse condition. He noticed something different about alcoholics compared to normal drinkers. While normal drinkers experience alcohol as a depressant (a sedative that makes them want to stop after one or two), Silkworth realized alcoholics experience it as a stimulant—an upper that triggers intense pleasure and craving for more. He theorized an allergy: when alcoholics drink, the body produces a physical craving that makes stopping impossible. But he also saw the deeper problem: the mind, even sober, tricks the alcoholic into thinking a drink will solve their emotional pain.
Joe & Charlie spend considerable time unpacking the word “allergy” because many newcomers reject it. Charlie explains that most people think allergy means you see a rash or get sick. But an alcoholic allergy is invisible—you only feel it. He describes his own physical reaction when he drinks: tingling lips, expanding chest, racing heart, a sense of power and control flooding through him. Normal drinkers experience nausea and dizziness, which makes them stop. Charlie’s body demanded more. That’s the allergy: an abnormal physical reaction that normal drinkers never experience.
The speakers then introduce metabolism science (presented carefully, as AA doesn’t take sides on medical theory, but this helps many understand). When a normal drinker has alcohol, the body breaks it down into acetone, then into a simple carbohydrate, at about one ounce per hour. If they don’t drink faster than that rate, they don’t get drunk. Alcoholic bodies, however, seem to produce fewer enzymes needed to complete that breakdown, so acetone lingers longer in the system—and acetone triggers actual physical craving. The more you drink, the higher the acetone level, the harder the craving. That’s why an alcoholic at midnight after 30 drinks wants another drink more than after 2 drinks at 6 p.m. The craving intensifies, which Joe & Charlie note is why alcoholics never feel like they’ve had “enough.”
But the talk makes clear: that’s only half the problem.
The other half is mental. Sober alcoholics feel restless, irritable, discontented, filled with guilt, shame, fear, and remorse. The mind, desperate for relief, remembers that alcohol once provided ease and comfort. It says, “One or two drinks will make you feel better.” The alcoholic doesn’t think about the 20 drinks or the crash or the consequences—just the relief. And that mental obsession is so powerful it overrides willpower. Joe & Charlie describe trying to quit drinking through sheer force of will: “I’m done. I’ll never drink again.” But without addressing the underlying emotional pain, the emotions build up day after day. The mind wears down willpower bit by bit. By day 90 sober, the mind says, “You’ve proven you’re not an alcoholic. One drink won’t hurt.” Willpower collapses because the mind no longer sees anything wrong with drinking. One drink triggers the allergy, and the cycle repeats.
The solution, they emphasize, is not more willpower. It’s the 12 steps. The steps address the emotional wreckage and the spiritual emptiness that made drinking so attractive in the first place. By working the program, the emotional pain diminishes. The obsession to drink lifts. The person achieves peace of mind—the real prize—and no longer needs alcohol to feel okay.
This is classic AA teaching on why recovery requires both surrender (admitting powerlessness over the allergy) and action (working steps to address the mind).
Notable Quotes
The only time willpower is there is when the mind sees something wrong with what it wants to do, and just before we drink, we don’t see anything wrong with drinking. Willpower becomes non-existent.
Men and women drink essentially because they lack the effect produced by alcohol. They drink to feel better, not to feel worse.
Once the psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol.
The allergy has manifested itself, and now when we can’t stop, we got to have a third drink and the fourth and the fifth and on and on till we’re drunk, sick, and in all kinds of trouble.
If you can’t safely drink because of the body, and if you can’t quit because of the mind, then you’ve become absolutely powerless over alcohol. And that’s our problem.
Big Book Study
Spiritual Awakening
Step 2 – Higher Power
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 1 – Powerlessness
- Big Book Study
- Spiritual Awakening
- Step 2 – Higher Power
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
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welcome to sober Sunrise a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience strength and Hope from around the world we bring you several new speakers weekly so be sure to subscribe whether you join us in the morning or at night there’s nothing better than a sober Sunrise we hope that you enjoy today’s speaker and we’ve had medical people spiritual people throughout our history try to determine what alcoholism is there was a doctor named Dr Trotter that lived in England a long time ago and he said that I believe alcoholism is an illness but he couldn’t explain what it was therefore they didn’t have an answer for it the microphone have a little trouble hearing you good try there was a doctor that lived lived here in the United States named Dr Benjamin Rush he’s one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence he wrote a paper on alcoholism described the alcoholic and he said he felt it was an illness too but he couldn’t name what it was he couldn’t determine it so he had no solution it’s only in this Century that we have been able to find out what alcoholism is and then once we found out what it is then we could find a solution to it you know I don’t think we alcoholics today who are in AA realize how lucky lucky we really are to be living in the period of time when we found out what alcoholism is and we found out the solution to it and as I look at our history which we’re going to be doing a lot of this weekend I’m convinced in my mind that God got tired of saying People Like Us die from alcoholism and he took various different people from around the world and gave us these pieces of information that allows us to recover from that conition today and I think one of the first persons that he used was this little doctor called Dr silkworth when Dr silkworth was in medical school he became very interested in we alcoholics but when he got out of Med medical school he learned like most doctors did it was very difficult to make a living working with alcoholics most doctors do not like to work with alcoholics they said then and they say today that an alcoholic will not tell you the truth that’s certainly true isn’t it and they said they will not do what we tell them to do and that’s certainly true isn’t it but they said the main reason we don’t want to work with them is they won’t pay their bills so Dr silkworth in order to find a way to make a living had to go off into another field field but always interested in we alcoholics and he became very successful in his field but in theate late 1930s or 1920s we had of course the great stock market crash and silky had everything he owned invested in the stock market and he lost it just like everybody else did lost the good job he had and he had to find a job somewhere and Charlie towns from the town’s Hospital who silky had met before through his interest on in Alcoholics offered him a job and said why don’t you come to work here and I’ll pay you $30 a week in room and board and you can help me in working with other alcoholic or working with alcoholics so silky went to work in the town Hospital in 1930 and he began to work with people like us and he began to see us come into the hospital terrible terrible physical mental condition and he began to withdraw us from alcohol build the body up and Etc and 60 or 30 60 90 days later he would see us leave the hospital in reasonably good shape and then a month or two or three or four later he’d see us come back in in worse shape than we were before continually going in and out in and out in and out in and out he also noticed some people had he worked with who drank like we drank but did not go in and out and in and out and in and out he also noticed other people who drank moderately and safely and he began to say there’s something different about these alcoholics there’s something different about the body apparently alcohol does something to them that it doesn’t do to normal people and he be to develop this little idea that when you put alcohol in your body it produces an actual physical craving that makes it impossible for us to stop drinking but he also said even in those days that’s not the real problem with the alcoholic he said the real problem is that the alcoholic cannot keep from drinking he said people who are heavy drinkers people who are moderate drinkers if they want to quit drinking they just quit and it doesn’t bother them at all but he said it seems as though the alcoholic after they quit the Mind begins to play tricks on them and begins to think about one or two drinks and how it makes them feel and he said I idea becomes so powerful that it overcomes the idea that they can’t drink and they take a drink and end up drunk every time he said now if you can’t drink safely and if you can’t keep from drinking then you’re powerless over alcohol now we don’t know whether Bill Wilson’s the first one he told that to or not but we know Bill is probably the first one to act on that information then after Bill got sober and after Dr Bob got sober and after Bill Dodson got sober and after the first 40 got sober based on that information and decided to write the book they went to see Dr silkworth and said will you let us put that information in the book so that other alcoholics can see what their problem is too and they said will you write some of it for us and the doctor said yeah you can use it and I’ll write some of it under one condition that we will call it the doctor’s opinion he said I can’t prove it there’s no facts behind it so we’ll just have to call it an opinion and he said by the way don’t use my name he said they’ll throw me completely out of the medical profession if you use my name on this deal in 1956 when they came out with the second edition 1955 and 56 they came out with the second edition by that time the medical association American Psychiatric association had recognized the fact that alcoholism is an illness and Dr silkworth said in the second edition you can put my name in it now so for the second and third you’ve got silkworth but in here you don’t let’s look at what the doctor had to say for just a little bit let’s go to Roman numeral page 24 that’s XX IV and I didn’t know that when I got sober he said the physician who 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 why we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind now we know there’s no Must In The Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous but there are a lot of musts in this book called Alcoholics Anonymous and there’s one of the first one we must believe that the body is of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as the mind now this is 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 everything up until this time they had talked about the mind only weak will moral character sin and Etc but here we says that see a statement that says the body is quite as abnormal as the mind I think he’s telling us two things that the body is affected also but I think he’s also saying the mind is abnormal when it comes to alcohol we react to it different physically and also mentally in an abnormal Manner and we’ll talk about both of those the first one we’re going to look at is the body it 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 now these things were true to some extent in fact to a considerable extent with some of us bet you but we’re 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 interest us as lame and our opinions to its soundness May of course mean little but as expr drinkers we can say this 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 through the written word to the mind of another human being then it stands to reason the transference of that information is going to be based upon the understanding of the words that are used if the writer of the book uses a certain word and understands it this way the reader of the book reads that word and understands it that’s way a different understanding then the information that comes through is going to be garbled and incomplete information and there seems to be a few key words in the big book that many of us have had difficulty with and I think the first word we’ve had a real problem with is this word allergy you know most of us when we come here we assume already we know what an allergy is I know I did and I knew if you were allergic to something and you got around it or you ate it or you drank it or something like that that there would be some physical manifestation or indicator of that allergy for instance if you eat strawberries and you’re allergic to them you’ll break out in a rash the rash being the manifestation of that allergy if you’re allergic to milk and you drink it you’ll have a bad case of dissenter the dissenter being the manifestation of that allergy if you’re allergic to certain plants such as ragweeds and you get around them your eyes knows itch water and you start sneezing The Itchy watery eyes nose and the sneezing that’s the manifestation of that allergy so I knew if you were allergic to something there would be something there that you could see so they came to me and they said Charlie you’ve got an allergy to alcohol you’ll never be able to safely drink it again and I said how in a hell can I be allergic to alcohol I’m drinking a quart a day how can you possibly drink that much of something you’re allergic to and and I said besides that when I drink alcohol I don’t break out in a rash and I don’t have a bad case of dentary once in a while I might 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 they said all you got to know is you can’t drink it well today I think I know why they told me that I don’t think they understood it a bit better than I did and I went from person to person to person to person trying to get somebody to explain this allergy to me and all they would say is what difference does it make forget the Damned allergy don’t drink and you’ll be all right keep coming to meetings now if you’re if you’re an alcoholic like I am with a keen intellectual alcoholic mind and you get a question like that dangling out here in front of you if you don’t get the answer to it sooner or later it’s going to drive you out of your mind and one day in sheer desperation I went to a source of information it has never failed me since that time I went to the dictionary and I looked up the word allergy and I found several different definitions of it the way you do with any word depending on how you use it but I think I found the one that fit me exactly when it said an allergy is an abnormal reaction to any food beverage or substance of any kind and an abnormal reaction so I begin to to look back over my drinking history to see where I was abnormal and to my amazement I didn’t I found out I don’t know what’s normal and what’s abnormal the only thing I knew about drinking is the way I drank and the way those people drank who drank with me and if they didn’t drink like I did we didn’t drink together so to find out what’s normal to see if I’m abnormal I have to go to the normal social temperate moderate Drinker those who drink alcohol and do not get in trouble with it and I ask them to describe to me how they feel when they take a drink and they said well we come home from work tired tense rough up from the day’s work we can have a couple of drinks before dinner we begin to get a relaxing comfortable feeling we’ll go ahead and have dinner and we probably won’t drink anymore that night well I don’t feel that way when I drink alcohol whenever I take a drink of alcohol it passes over 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 it begin to grow and expand and swell hits my cheeks and they kind of flutter in and out at the same time it’s passing through my sinus cavities up into my forehead and I begin to get a feeling up here in my forehead which is absolutely indescribably wonderful I Haven even swallowed the damn stuff yet I just got it in my mouth when I swallow that alcohol it starts down through my esophagus great things begin to take place the first thing that happens is my chest begins to grow and expand and gets bigger and bigger hits my stomach and just literally explodes like a bomb immediately I feel it racing through my arms and they get longer and longer it’ss my hands and fingers and they begin to tingle and vibrate same time it’s racing through my arms it’s racing through my legs they’re getting longer and longer I’m getting taller and taller and it hits my feet and toes and they get a hot intense burning exitting and get up and go somewhere and do something feeling I don’t understand a comfortable relaxing feeling when you have a drink these people told me something that blew my mind for me they said Charlie whenever we have a couple of drinks we begin to experience a feeling of rest or or a feeling of dizziness a feeling of being out of control and they said we don’t like that feeling therefore one of two drinks is all we want to drink how many times have you and I tried to get them to drink more and they say oh no no I feel this already or or no no no don’t know this is making me dizzy I don’t want anymore but today I realize that’s the normal reaction to alcohol you see for most people when they put alcohol in the system it hits the stomach it immediately goes into the bloodstream immed Ely goes to the brain and for a normal Drinker it acts as a downer it’s a sedative it is supposed to give them a slightly Tipsy outof control feeling now when it goes into my stomach into my bloodstream into my brain instead of me getting a slightly Tipsy out of control feeling alcohol for me acts as an upper it’s a stimulant and my brain gets a very exciting incontrol feeling they have two drinks and they want to go to bed I have two drinks and by God I want to go to town immediately so I react to it differently mentally and another thing they told me is that we have a couple of drinks not only we get 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 and therefore one or two drinks is all we want to take how many times have you tried to get them to drink more they say oh no no no this is making me sick I don’t want any more of it that’s the normal reaction to alcohol alcohol is a toxic substance a destroy of human tissue when you put it in your body your mind and your body is supposed to react to it with nausea and say puke it up and get it out of here when I put it in my body instead of my body experience a feeding of nausea my body experiences an actual physical craving which demands more of the same their body said puke it up mine said put some more in here so not only do I react to it differently mentally but I also react to it differently physically now the only difference between Normal and abnormal is what do the majority of the people do if the majority 9 out of 10 react that way one out of 10 reacts the way I do then my reaction is considered to be abnormal therefore I’m considered to be allergic to alcohol you can’t see it you can only feel it and only alcoholics feel it you see I kept looking for the rash I kept looking for the dissenter no you don’t see our allergy you feel it and only we alcoholics feel it Joe Char said you get in trouble going to town you know that’s the trouble with trouble it always starts off with fun isn’t it how many of you ever went out to get drunk and and and to get into trouble now we go out and you know get drunk and have a little fun and that’s the trouble with trouble it always starts out as fun and at least that’s the way it did with me so go ahead you know I just love to watch normal social temperate moderate drinkers fascinating to watch him saw one on the airplane yesterday yeah yeah he ordered a drink got him a mixer with it and he put his mixer in his glass with ice in it poured his little bottle in there and they buy a little bitty bottle on airplanes I think it cost them $4 today and hell’s not a drink in that bottle period but anyhow that’s what they is and he poured it in there and then he took a little stick and he went through a stirring ceremony I don’t know much about stirring when it comes to drinking but he stirred and he stirred and he stirred and after a while he laid his little stick down you know what he did then he picked up his magazine and started reading his damn magazine I’m sitting there watching him saying drink the damn stuff what the hell did you get it for that’s what we call alcohol abuse now that may be normal but I call that sick to drink like that so I think I’ll read this again said the doctor’s Theory they have an allergy to alcohol interest us as lame in our opinions to it soundness may of course mean little but as expr drinkers we can say that the explanation makes good sense it explains many things for which we cannot otherwise account and the explanation of this explains many things which I couldn’t otherwise account it explained to me why I would go down with a bar every intention of having two the next thing I know it’s midnight or 1 or 2 or 3:00 in the morning or the next day or the next week and I wonder what in the hell happened I just went down there to drink too well this idea about this allergy to alcohol interested me explained many things which I couldn’t otherwise account now let’s go to Roman numeral page uh 26 a good textbook will never tell you anything and what it doesn’t give you more information to back it up he’s talked here about the allergy now let’s go over to Roman numeral 6 first paragraph let’s expand on that just a little bit he see we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholic is a manifestation of an allergy I used to hate that word they call me chronic alcoholic I hated it don’t particularly like it today but I found out too that chronic just means something that you do over and over and over so therefore I was a chronic Drinker or a chronic alcoholic and is a manifestation of an allergy and 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 the habit and found they cannot break it once having lost their self-confidence to Reliance upon things human their problems pile up on them and become astonishly difficult to solve and you know this manifestation analogy that talks Charlie talked about the phenomenon of craving after we take the few drinks and if we don’t have the craving before we take a few drinks it’s only after we take a few drinks that the phenomenon craving develops and then we have to have more and more and more and only alcoholics have that non-alcoholics do not crave alcohol after they take a drink they just don’t they get all they want to drink every time they drink which is two or three maybe and that’s all they want because they don’t have this phenomenon of craving that alcoholics have the action of strawberries on one whose allergic to strawberries is manifested by a rash the action of milk on one who’s allergic to milk is manifested by disent the action of ragweeds on one who is allergic to ragweeds is manifested by itchy watery eyes sneezing and Etc the action of alcohol on one who’s allergic to alcohol is manifested by and he refers to it as the phenomenon of craving he uses the word phenomenon because he didn’t understand it so what it is it’s manifested by an actual physical craving in the body that demands more the same after we once started and the word craving is very very important you know I hear people today say well I came to AA and I craved a drink for 4 years no in the context of the big book that’s the wrong use of the word craving they might have needed a drink wanted to drink desire a drink the only way an alcoholic can crave alcohol is to first put it in the body then the physical craving develops and then we can’t stop and we end up drunk so in the recovery section of the book when you see the word crazy it’s always referring to the body never to the mind we’ll use the word Obsession for the mind the word craving is for the body now he goes on a little further over on Roman numeral 28 and he talks about five different kinds of drinkers then he drives this idea of the phenomenon a craving home being an allergy one more time let’s look at these five drinkers he said a class CL ification of Alcoholics it’s on Roman page 28 the classification of Alcoholics seems most difficult and much detail is outside the scope of this book he said there are of course the Psychopaths who are emotionally unstable we’re all familiar with this type they’re always going on the wagon for Keeps and they are over remorseful and make many resolutions but never a decision we call that type one there is a 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 a 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 least understood by his friends and by of whom a whole chapter could be written that’s type four I always thought I was the next one type five so then there types entirely normal in every respect except the effect alcohol has upon them they’re often able intelligent friendly people God I like that wasn’t that great any more type fives in the room tonight yeah a whole bunch of you now he makes his point one more time 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 which we are familiar permanently eradicated the only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence now I think what he said is this that if all we alcoholics in this room tonight should take a drink God forbid that happen but if we did we would not all react just exactly the same in just a little bit one of us be crying in her beer oh booh hoooo the world’s not treating me right and just a little bit one of them will be up here on this stage hooping and Hauling and dancing and cutting up and having a hell of a good time and just a little bit there’ll be two over in that corner getting in a fight just sure is anything look over here there’ll be a couple one putting the make on the other we tend to do that too when we drink we would do many different things but if we’re real alcoholic there’s one thing that every one of us would do we would start looking for a second drink the phenomenon of craving has taken over now the allergy has manifested itself and now when we can’t stop we got to have a third drink and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth and eighth and the 10th and on and on till we’re drunk sick and in all kinds of trouble now it really doesn’t make any difference whether we’re born with it or whether we drank ourselves into it I was born with it I’m sure first drink I took at age 14 the allergy presented itself that night and I got drunk every time I drank I got drunk I drank 26 years I don’t ever remember taking one drink of anything that had alcohol alol in it it always led to 2 to 3 to 6 to 8 to 10 and Etc some of you I’m sure drank with safety for several years but somewhere you cross the line and the same thing begin to happen to you after several years of drinking that happened to me from the very beginning but what difference does it make the fact is That’s The Way We Are Tonight I know that’s the way we are tonight too cuz if we were not that way tonight we wouldn’t be in this room tonight if you and I could drink without getting drunk where would we be we’d be out there drinking without getting drunk but you see we can’t do that that’s what we’ve got in common in the fellowship of alcoholic synonymous is we can’t drink without getting drunk now back in the 1930s this was the doctor’s opinion in the 1930s they knew very little about metabolism today they know lots about metabolism today they know that if you put anything in your system such as a piece of bread or a piece of beef steak that the mind and body recognizes what that is certain organs of the body begin to produce some things called enzymes they attack that food and begin to break it down and separate it into usable and non-usable items what the body can use such as the proteins the amino acids the vitamins the body will retain what it can’t use it will dissipate through the urinary and intestinal tract they call that metabolism today they have proven that the doctor’s opinion is no longer just an opinion it’s actual truth now we’re going to look at a little picture here for just a minute and I want to stress that this is not AA information AA won’t get involved into why we’re allergic because that might bring controversy but this information presented to us a few years ago by members of the medical profession his so interesting and has such depth and meaning for people like us I think we would be remiss if we didn’t look at it so let’s look at it for just a moment in the center of that picture there’s nine people there that drink safely they are at ease with alcohol they take a drink or two the mind and body senses it the enzyme production starts and the enzymes attacks the alcohol breaks it down into acid alide then to dtic acid then to acetone in the final stages it becomes a simple carbohydrate made up of water sugar and carbon dioxide the water will be dissipated through the urinary intestinal tract the sugar is calories energy empty calories none of the amino acids none of the vitamins but a form of energy the body will burn them store the excess to be as fat to be used at a later date the carbon dioxide will be dissipated through the lungs in the normal social Drinker this takes place at the rate of approximately 1 ounce per hour now I know it’ll vary with different people but the average is 1 o per hour and if they don’t drink more than an ounce per hour they can’t get drunk their body metabolizes it and burns it up and gets rid of it at that rate very seldom do you see a social Drinker drinking more than an ounce per hour if you’re with one of them and they’re drinking more than an ounce per hour you better get out of the way cuz they’re going to puke on you after a while they’ll either go to sleep or they’ll puke on you one of the two every time the left hand side is the one who does not drink safely or is at disease with alcohol and if you want to use the word disease that’s all it means something that separates you from the norm we alcoholics put it in our body the same thing happens the enzymes attack the alcohol break it down di acid alide then to diic acid then di acetone it seems as though in our bodies the enzymes necessary to complete the metabolism breaking it breaking it down from acetone to the simple carbohydrate are not there in the same qualities and or quantities as they are in the body of the non non-alcoholic therefore it stays in our body for a longer period of time as acetone it is proven to today that acetone ingested into the human system that remains there for an appreciable period of time will produce an actual physical craving for more the same the non-alcoholic body it goes through that stage so rapidly the craving never occurs in our body it stays there long enough the craving develops and that Demands a second drink now just think you got most of the acetone from the first now you put that in from the second the acetone level goes up and if the acetone is what causes the craving then the craving becomes harder with the second drink now you put in the third you got most of the first nearly all the second now you put in the acetone from the third and the craving goes up and that Demands a fourth you got most of the first nearly all the second that from the third now you put in the acetone from the fourth and as the acetone level increases the craving becomes harder at midnight we’re laying out in the parking lot they run over us and broken our leg and they come running up to us and say can we help you and we say my God yes give me another drink you see we’re craving it harder at midnight after 30 drinks than we were at 6:00 in the evening after two drinks that explains to me why I never got enough hella drank 26 years I never did get all the alcohol I wanted I got a hell of a lot more than I needed more than I could stand but I never got all I wanted cuz the more you drink the higher the craving the higher the craving the more you want the more you want you just it’s just endless now if this never got any worse we could probably learn to live with this situation but we know not only do we have an illness we have a progressive illness that always gets worse and never better today we know that as we drink the more we drink the longer we drink the more tissue we destroy alcohol is a destroyer of human tissue and the more tissue we destroy it seems as though that it acts upon two organs of the body first which are the liver and the pancreas now today we know that the organs of the body that produce the enzymes necessary to metabolize alcohol are the liver and the pancreas and as we drink and as we damage them the enzyme production becomes less and less the craving becomes harder and harder with the resultant drinking becoming worse and worse we know also that the body begins to shut down on the production of everything as we get older now I wish that were not true but believe me it is I’m experiencing lots of that if I should take a drink today after 20 some odd years of sobriety I wouldn’t start where I left off 20 some odd years ago the craving would be harder the drinking would would be harder and the resultant trouble would be harder due to the Aging Factor so not only do we have a physical illness we have a progressive physical illness due to two factors damage to the body and also due to the Aging Factor now that I see that I can accept the fact that I can no longer successfully drink alcohol until I could see this I knew there had to be a way I could drink without getting drunk and I damn near kill me trying to find it but now that I can see this I can accept the fact that I can no longer safely drink alcohol now if that’s all that was wrong with me and if that’s all was wrong with you we would pass the Hat get up and go home and never have to go to another AA meeting but you see that’s just half of my problem the other half is right up here in my head if I never took the first drink this allergy couldn’t hurt me I have a friend who is allergic to All Things fish every time he eats fish his throat swells up he almost chokes to death but that’s not his problem the fact that he’s allergic to fish is beside the point cuz if he don’t eat fish that can’t happen to him but he got something up here in his head that isn’t right when it comes to fish the switch doesn’t close or a light bulb doesn’t come on or something three french fries short of a Happy Meal yeah from time to time his mind tells him that it’s okay to eat fish and he’ll eat the fish his throat swells up he ends up in the hospital every time and I bet it always starts like this well I haven’t had any fish in 90 days surely I could have one piece of fish or it says it’s that’s Orange it’s that orange ruffy I’ve been eating if I’d eat nothing but Hal but it’d be okay well might even say it’s them damn people I’ve been eating fish with if I just changeed my crowd whatever the reason his mind gives him permission to do so now I’m the same way when it comes to alcohol left on my own resources from time to time my mind tells me it’s okay to drink alcohol then I take the drink and then the allergy takes over so the real problem centers in my mind rather than my body let’s look at the mind for just a few minutes and then we’ll be through for the night Charlie said the doctor said here has never been by any treatment which for familiar permanently eradicated the only relief we have to suggest of the entire absence in other words if we have an allergy to alcohol and We crave more when we drink He suggests we don’t drink and that’s the end to that so now we’re going to talk about the most dangerous part of the illness and the most dangerous part of the illness of alcoholism is when we’re not drinking you know why it’s the most dangerous part of the illness because we’re thinking about drinking so let’s move back now to the Roman numeral page 26 and we’re going to start talking about the Mind twofold illness we talked about the physical allergy in great detail now we’re going to talk about the obsession of the mind it’s in bottom page uh Roman page 26 says men and women drink essentially because they lack the effect produced by alcohol now many alcoholics are highly offended when you say that they say no that’s not the reason I drink they say the reason I drink is cuz I love the taste of alcohol I wouldn’t argue with them whether they do or not I love the taste of cold beer I always have all my life as far back as I can remember I also love the taste of coold mountain spring water I never did sit down and drink a case of coal mountain spring water you see that beer did something for me that that Spring Water didn’t do all All My Life as a kid growing up I was on the outside of the crowd looking in always wanted to be a part of and knew I could not be always knew that whatever I said whatever I did it would be the wrong thing people would laugh and I would be embarrassed you ladies I couldn’t even get around you if I got around you I would just absolutely completely Tongue Tied you scared me to death one night somebody gave me a drink of Moonshine Whiskey and all those fears disappeared and I was allowed to ask a girl girl to dance with me for the first time in my life I was allowed to take her home from the dance for the first time in my life we got in the backseat of a 36 Chevrolet and I was allowed to do some things I’d been wanting to do for a long long time I loved what alcohol did to me for me not to me but for me now if it gave me a slightly Tipsy out of control beginnings of a nauseous feeling I wouldn’t love that but you see it gives me that great exciting incontrol feeling and allows me to function in a manner I’d never been able to function before men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol I think that we can all pretty well identify with that effect in the beginning I certainly had that same effect drink it for the same reasons but we know that alcoholism is a progressive illness too it gets worse over time and after a while I began to do some of those things that Charlie talked about and I began to drink more and more and more and I began to wake up some mornings with a little guilt shame and remorse as a result of things that I was doing while drinking and that brought on more drinking and I had to drink to get rid of those feelings so another effect by which I drank and as the years and time went by and the trouble that I had in my life went by in the end I drank for the sickest effect of all which is total Oblivion and there’s only one thing wrong with Oblivion though isn’t there you wake up then you got to start doing it again so there are many many Effects by which we drink and it progressively gets worse he said the sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious they can After Time differentiate the true from the false to them their alcoholic life seems the only normal one and I couldn’t recognize the true from the false because my alcoholic life had become normal to me everywhere I went alcohol was involved every bar that I went to they drank like that the way I did in that bar I didn’t go to those bars it’s what I was doing down there at the zebra CH you know you know and one time I remember I I woke up one morning and had a a clear thought and I looked over at my wife Phyllis and I said Phyllis do you realize that most people don’t drink like we do now you know what she said I don’t talk this way this what she said she said that’s just what she said everybody we know drinks just like we do you know I thought well that’s true so my alcoholic life he become normal the abnormal had become normal and I couldn’t hardly tell the truth and the false in that light now he begins to describe how people like us feel whenever we’re sober in forced periods of sobriety he said to them they’re alcohol excuse me they are restless irritable and discontented put a few little words in there too says we’re full of guilt shame and remorse and remember you know when we first got sober we were new they said if we didn’t drink we were going to feel better well you’re going to feel better all right you’re going to feel resentment better you’re going to feel anger better you’re going to feel a lot of things better running around feeling lousy as hell wanting to feel better knowing only one way to feel better we begin to think about what one or two drinks will do for us we don’t think about what 20 drinks will do or 30 we think about what one or two will do for us unless they can again experience to sense an ease of comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks drinks which they see others taking with impunity and impunity simply means that those people are drinking and seemingly they don’t have any problems and after they have succumbed to desire again as sub many do after we’ finally given in and taken a couple of drinks and then the phenomenal craving develops they pass through the well-known stages of a spree emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again and how many times have I done that how many times have you done that come off of one of those big drunks and long extended period drunks and promise Ammon yourself and anybody that listen I’ll never do it again I’m through I promise you I’m through and those of you who made those promises you know that we were sincere and we meant that he said this is repeated over and over and over and over and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there’s very little hope for his recovery so he quit talking about the body now he’s talking about the psychic change the Mind later on in our book the the the psychic change is going to be described as a spiritual experience A Spiritual Awakening A personality change all four words meaning the same thing a psychic change there’s very little hope for recovery so the change is going to have to become here in the mind let’s look at this picture up here again for just a moment over here on this side we could see that because of the allergy we can no longer safely drink alcohol but as we said before that’s not going to bother us if we don’t take the first drink so apparently the problem is going to be over on this side the real problem centers in the mind telling us we can drink rather than in the body that ensures that we can’t drink well the doctor told us then and they tell us today there’s nothing that can be done for that so the only possible means of Rec recovery would be to find a way to live where our mind don’t tell us it’s okay to drink and we’re dealing here with our emotions we’re dealing here with the way we think we’re dealing here with the way that we feel whenever we’re sober we are very very complex human beings not only are we complex physically but we also are complex mentally too and all people experience emotions all people experience from time to time anger resentment fear worry depression excitement Elation guilt remorse these are all emotions that all human beings have now somewhere Back In Our Lifetime as we begin to experience those emotions as we grow up we start seeking a solution to them and like me when I was that kid growing up I was just an emotional Basket Case couldn’t hardly function in normal society always scared to death always worried always angry always doing things that I shouldn’t do and feeling the guilt and the remorse associated with that now I used to think only that we only only we alcoholics did that but I found out today that that’s normal as kids grow up everybody experiences these kind of feelings and they start looking for an answer and and many people find it in many different ways some people find that when they don’t feel good emotionally that they can go out here and start working and the excess work seems to make them feel better some people find that when they’re emotionally fouled up they can eat certain foods and that seems to make them feel better some people find that when they’re emotionally disturbed that that if they can just get really involved deeper and deeper into sexuality that makes them feel better and some people find that there’s establishments like this building that if you’re emotionally disturbed you can do a little gambling and that makes you feel better now it doesn’t make any difference what you find that makes you feel better when you find a solution to that emotional problem you your mind has a memory bank it me immediately records the solution and the reason it does that is the next time you have that emotional problem you don’t have to go looking for a solution your mind feeds it back to you well a little gambling made me feel better or that food made me feel better or that work made me feel better whatever now that’s called mental addiction and everybody has that you know we become mentally addicted to certain types of automobiles we become mentally addicted to our hairdressers we become mentally addicted to certain dishwater products that we use dish soap you know we’ve got a problem we find the answer the Mind records it feeds it back to us the next time we have the problem as a kid growing up I had that emotional problem and one night somebody gave me that drink of moonshine whiskey and immediately those problems disappeared and that great exciting incontrol feeling came over me and I was allowed to ask that girl to dance take her home and get in the backseat of that 36 Chevrolet it answered my problem that night my mind immediately recorded what it did for me the next time I got into a solution where I didn’t feel right things were not right my mind said if you could find a drink you’d feel better and I found a drink of whiskey and the god the magic happened the second time in other words alcohol became the solution to my emotional problems now if I had been non-alcoholic and that worked for me that would have been great but I also had that physical allergy over there on that side and when I had the problem and I used the solution it it sure enough made me feel better but also it triggered the allergy and I would drink more than I intended to drink and I would end up drunk and I would repeat that cycle over and over and over and over and over again the Mind causing me to drink the allergy causing me to get drunk the emotions after coming off the drunk to feed the mind cause me to drink and the drink then would trigger the allergy and as time went by it got worse and worse and worse because this is a progressive illness the drinking would become harder and harder the trouble would become more and more the restlessness irritability guilt remorse became more and more the emotions became worse and worse to trigger the idea of taking the first drink the Mind destroying the body and the body destroying the mind now somewhere down the line I said to myself one day Charlie you’re going to have to do something about your drinking now I didn’t say you’re going to quit drinking I said you’re going to have to do something about your drinking so the first thing we alcoholics do to do something about our drinking is we decide we’re going to control our drinking while drinking tonight we’re just going to have two beers we’re just going to have two drinks go to the liquor store and buy a half a pint cuz nobody can get drunk on a half a pint and I spent three or four or five six years trying to control my drinking while drinking anybody in here ever try to control your drinking while drinking well now I can see why that would not work because of the allergy now after four five six years of trying to control my drinking while drinking I said to myself one day Charlie I don’t believe you can drink anymore took me a long time to realize it but I said I don’t believe you can drink anymore so what do we alcoholics do when we finally decide we can’t drink anymore we Trot out the most useful tool we have we put it right there and it’s called willpower and we say sick them will we’re through with that drink and we’ll never take another drink as long as we live now believe me you people that are non that are non-alcoholics when we say we’re going to quit drinking that is exactly what we intend to do you see we are strong will people we can use our willpower to handle all other problems and we assume that we can use willpower here and we really intend to quit drinking now as the days went by I haven’t done anything about my emotions by the way I’ll just quit drinking and as the days go by these emotions begin to build up the fear the guilt the remorse the shame the worry the depression becomes worse and worse that’s not the big things in life that kill us it’s the things that all people have to go through on a daily basis in life it’s getting up every damn morning and going to work it’s a bitching wife it’s a griping husband it’s screaming kids it’s burnt bacon it’s broken shoestrings it’s flat tires all the things that everybody has to go through and these emotions start building up now after a while the mind says a drink would make you feel better but remember I put willpower in here and willp power said no sir we’re not going to drink we’ve quit and that day we don’t drink the next day the emotions are still here and they’re building up a little higher and a little higher and a little higher and it said God I drink could make me feel good and the mind said no sir we’ve quit drinking we ain’t never going to drink again the next day the emotions are still here and they’re building up a little higher and a little higher and the mine begins to say well hell you’ve been sober 90 days you’ve proven you’re not an alcoholic one drink wouldn’t hurt anybody and the mind said no we’re not going to do that we’ve quit drinking hell we’ sworn off we’ll never take another drink the next day the emotions are still here and they’re building up higher and higher and the mind said by Godly anybody’s been sober 92 days owes thems a drink and we begin to think about that great exciting incontrol feeling that comes with one or two drinks we begin to think about the sense of ease and comfort as Dr silkworth talks about here and as we begin to think about what alcohol is going to do for us it begins to push out the idea of what it does to us and we begin to forget the jail house we be forget we forget the last car wreck we forget the divorce courts in the hospitalization and the mind begins to key in on one thing and one thing only what it’s going to do for us then when the desire to drink comes willpower is no longer there because you see the only time willpower is there is when the Mind sees something wrong with what it wants to do and just before we drink we don’t see anything wrong with drinking willpower becomes non-existent we take the drink we trigger the allergy we go through the well-known stages of a spree we emerge remorseful with a firm res solution not to do this again and we repeat that cycle over and over and over the mind the body destroying the body over here the Mind Over Here causing us to drink more and more and if you can’t safely drink because of the body and if you can’t quit because of the V then you’ve become absolutely powerless over alcohol and that’s our problem now if you if you’re going to solve a problem you got to be able to attack it somewhere I can’t attack it over here can’t do nothing about that maybe I can attack it over here if I could find a way to live where I could be sober and not be restless irritable and discontented if I could find a way to live where I could be sober and not be filled with shame fear guilt and remorse just maybe I could find a way to live where I could have peace of mind Serenity and happiness maybe I could find a way to live where I could be sober and have that great sense of ease and comfort that come at once but take it a couple of drinks maybe I could find a way to live where I don’t need to take a drink in order to make me feel better and that’s called recovery as we use our program as we go through the steps these kind of feelings down here begin to disappear and it begin to be replaced with peace of mind Serenity and happiness and under those conditions our emotions do not build up to the level that suggests we take a drink to feel better because we already feel better that’s what the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous do for us Fellowship alone will not bring that about the program will the let’s read the very next statement in the big book and he says on the other hand and strange as this may seem to those who do not understand once the psychic change has occurred the very same person who seemed doomed who had so many problems he Des spared of ever 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 as Charlie said those few simple rules are the 12 steps of alcoholic synonymous and our book says that in the 12 and 12 if practice as a way of life will accept will expel the obsession to drink and make the person happily and usefully hold and that is called recovery and that’s exactly what the 12 steps of alol anus is all about thank you for listening to sober Sunrise if you enjoyed today’s episode please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message until next time have a great day