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 you know step two says we came to believe that a pound our great and our s could restore us to sanity well if we got to be restored to sanity that indicates we must be insane and many alcoholics are highly offended when you bring this up they say oh don’t tell me I’m insane yeah I do some pretty crazy stupid things when drinking but when I’m sober I’m much like normal people other alcoholics say well I don’t have any trouble with this Insanity cuz I remember the crazy stupid things I did while drinking in either case they’re referring to the stupid things we do while drunk no that’s not Insanity the stupid things we do while drunk that’s caused by a mind that is filled with alcohol which lowers the inhibitions and if your mind is filled with something that lowers your inhibitions look out you going to do some pretty crazy stupid things all right that’s why they give all that free booze down there that’s not Insanity that’s caused by alcohol itself in order for us to understand this we finally had to go back to the dictionary again and to look up the word sanity or the word sane and it’s defined in the dictionary as wholeness of mind or completeness of mind if your mind is whole if your mind is complete that means you can see the truth about everything around you you’ll normally make decisions then based on truth and life turns out to be pretty good an insane mind is one that is less than whole a mind that is less canold cannot always see the truth about everything around it sometimes makes a decision based upon a lie and then life becomes pretty lousy to be inan does not mean you’re crazy if you’re crazy that means you’ve lost more than half your marbles and you got to be locked up somewhere to protect you and Society from you that’s craziness but insanity is just less than whole I think one of the best ways I know to illustrate it is just let’s take a pie set it here in front of us let’s cut that pie into 10 pieces you come along and I give you a piece of pie my pie is now less than whole but hell I’ve still got 90% of it somebody else comes along I give them a piece of pie my pie is now more or less than whole but I’ve still got 80% of it Insanity does not mean you’re all gone it just means you’re not quite all here and when it comes to alcohol from time to time it seems as though we’re not quite all here cuz we can’t always see the truth about alcohol we make a decision based upon a lie then we run into the truth and life becomes an absolute living hell so let’s look within the mind of we alcoholics just before we take the first drink Stone Cold Sober can we or can we not see the truth if we can see the truth we’re sane if we can’t we’re insane now bill is going to show us this by a series of examples he’s going to give us the man of 30 he’s going to look at Jim he’s going to look at the jwalker and he’s going to look at Fred and each time we’re going to look into the mind to see if we can or cannot see the truth about alcohol let’s look at it just a few minutes this chapter is call more about alcoholism it could be called more truth about alcoholism and I’ve heard all my life if you know the truth the truth will set you free and if you’re not free it’s because you don’t know the truth and this chapter here is to give me more truth so I can base my life upon truth rather upon things that are not true he said most of us have been unwilling to admit that we were real alcoholics no person likes to think that he’s bodily and mentally different from his fellows therefore it’s not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove that we drink like other people the idea that somehow someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great Obsession of every abnormal Drinker the Persistence of this illusion is astonishing many pursu into the gates of insanity or death that we learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics this is the first step in recovery the delusion that we’re like other people who presently may be has to be smashed now be careful in these two paragraphs that Joe just read he has used four different words that all mean the same thing and if you catch him at it you know what he’s doing if you don’t you’ll think he’s talking about something else he said the idea that someday somehow someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is a great Obsession of every abnormal Drinker now we know an obsession is an idea that is so strong it can make you believe something not true it can make you believe a lie the Persistence of this illusion is astonishing we know what an Illusionist is an Illusionist is a magician and they can stand in front of you and a slide of hand and a few props they can make you believe something is not true so illusion also means to believe something that’s not true or to believe a lie many pursu it into the gates of insanity or death insanity is to believe something that’s not true the next paragraph he said the delusion that we are like other people are presly maybe has to be smashed delusion means the same thing if you deluded yourself it means you’ve come to believe something that’s not true so you may see using any one of four terms Obsession illusion delusion or Insanity all four mean exactly the same thing to believe something that is not true or to believe a lie let’s go over to page 32 second paragraph let’s look at the LIE the man of 30 believed said a man of 30 was doing a great deal of spre rinking he was very nervous in the mornings after these bouts and quiet himself with more liquor he was ambitious to succeed in business but saw that he would get nowhere if he drank at all once he started he had no control whatever he made up his mind that until he’d been successful in business and retired he would not touch another drop an exceptional man he remained bone dry for 25 years retired at the age of 55 after a successful and happy business career then he fell victim to a belief which practically every alcoholic had that his long period of sobriety and self-discipline had qualified him to drink his other men out came his carpet slippers in a bottle in two months he was in a hospital puzzled and humiliated now he tried to regulate his drinking for a while making several trips to the hospital meantime then Gathering all his forces he attempted to stop all together and found he could not every means of solving his problem which money could buy was at his disposal every attempt failed though a robust man of retirement he went to Pieces quickly and was dead within 4 years now this case contains a powerful lesson most of us have believed that if we remain sober for a long stretch we could thereafter drink normally but here is a man who at 55 years found who has just left off at at 30 we’ve seen the truth demonstrated again and again once an alcoholic always an alcoholic commencing to drink after a period of sobriety we’re in a short time as bad as ever that we’re planning to stop drinking there must be no reservation of any kind nor any lurking notion that someday we’ll be immune to alcohol now we know the truth to be this once an alcoholic always an alcoholic we’ve never seen one single case where one of us was able to go back to successful drinking now to believe anything different than that is to believe something that is not true or to believe a a lie this guy believed that after 25 years of sobriety he could now drink like normal people now based upon that belief he took a drink triggered the allergy couldn’t stop 4 years later he’s dead now is his real problem though the fact that he has a physical allergy to alcohol or a form of insanity that tells him it’s okay to drink alcohol after 25 years of sobriety the real problem centers in our mind telling us we can drink rather than in our body that ensures that we can’t drink let’s go over to page 34 second paragraph for those who are unable to drink moderately the question is how to stop all together we are assuming of course that the reader desires to stop whether such a person could quit Upon A non-spiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he already lost the power to choose whether he would rink or not many of us felt we had plenty of character there was a tremendous urge to cease forever yet we found it impossible this is the baffling feature of alcoholism as we know it this utter inability to leave it alone no matter how great the necessity or the wish how then should we help our readers determine their own satisfaction whether they are one of us the experiment of quitting for a period of time will be helpful but we think we can render an even greater service to alcoholic sufferers and perhaps to the medical fraternity so we shall describe some of the mental states that preced a relapse into drinking for obviously this is the Crux of the problem what sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic who repeats Time After Time the desperate experiment of the first drink friends who have reasoned with him after spree which has brought him to the point of divorce or bankruptcy are mystified when he walks directly into a saloon why does he of what is he thinking our first example is a friend we shall call Jim now we’re going to look in Old Jim’s mind just before he gets drunk and we’re going to see whether he is sane or insane Joe loves Jim yeah I love old Jim I identifi with Jim our first example is a friend wish you’ll call Jim this man has a Charming wife and family he inherited a lucrative automobile agency he had a commendable World War record he’s a good salesman everybody likes him typical alcoholic isn’t he h he’s intelligent man and normal so far as we can see oh except for a nervous disposition now he did no drinking till he was 35 in a few years he became so violent when intoxicated he had to be committed on leaving the treat on leaving the Asylum he came into contact with us now we told him what we knew of alcoholism they told him about step one the physical allergy the obsession of the Mind the powerless condition and the answer we had found they told him about step two the power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity now he made a beginning step a little later on the book says step three is just a beginning so apparently Jim took steps one two and three and immediately things started to get better for him his family was reassembled and he began to work as a Salesman for a business he had lost through drinking and all went well for a time but he failed to enlarge his spiritual life the book’s going to tell us the only way we enlarge on step three is 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 and 12 and Jim didn’t do any of those 1 2 and three to his conation he found himself drunk a half a dozen times in Rapid succession now on each of these occasions we work with him revering carefully what had happened oh these were good AA members Jim got drunk six times in a row each time they went over there and worked with him carefully reviewing what had happened you get drunk six times in a row today they probably won’t have anything to do with you these were good solid AA members he agreed he was a real alcoholic and in serious condition now he knew he paced another trip to the Asylum if he kept home moreover he would lose his family from whom he had deep affection yet he got drunk again and we asked him to tell us exactly what happened they getting a little tired of Jim now they said they said my God Jim this is seven times in a row let’s don’t go through this anymore you sit down here and you tell us exactly how this has happened on page 36 we’re going to see where Jim was sane and then we’re going to see where he went insane well this is his story I came to work on Tuesday morning and we read this book for years before we saw this I came to work on Tuesday Morning where was he all day Monday you know we bad about Monday bad about Monday and he said I remember I felt irritated that I had to be a Salesman for concern I one stone now I don’t think that’s Insanity that’s probably normal thinking I think any of us that had to be a Salesman for a concern we once owned would’ probably be a little irritated by fact too that’s normal sane thinking he said I had a few words with the boss but nothing serious boss probably said say Jim by the way where were you all day yesterday anyhow nothing serious just enough to irritate him he’s a little Restless a little irrit little irritable and a little discontented he said then I decide to drive into the country and see one of my prospects for a car what’s more normal and if you’re a car salesman you want to get away from the shop for a while drive out in the country see somebody we already know that we’re trying to sell a car to that would be normal sane thinking for an alcoholic car salesman on the way I felt hungry so I stopped at a roadside place where they have a bar I had no intention of drinking I just thought I’d get a sandwich what’s more normal than if you’re hungry to stop in a roadside place to get a sandwich the fact that they got a bar there is beside the point we have no intention of drinking we’re hungry we’re going to get a sandwich normal sane thinking for an alcoholic car salesman I also had the notion I might find a customer for a bar at this place which was familiar but I’ve been going to it for years I’d eaten there many times during the months I was sober we’re not going in there to drink we’ve eaten there many times during the months we’re sober we’re going to go in there and get a sandwich and maybe sell a car while we’re in there normal San thinking for an alcoholic car salesman he said I sat down at table and ordered a sandwich and a glass of milk still no thought of drinking what’s more normal than to sit down in a table order a sandwich and a glass of milk normal San thinking for an alcoholic car salesman so I ordered another sandwich and decide to have another glass of milk if you hungry enough there’s nothing wrong with two sandwiches and two glasses of milk unless you’re a member of Overeaters Anonymous you’d better look at it but that would be normal sane thinking for an alcoholic car salesman two sandwiches two glasses of milk now comes the squiggly riding that’s italic he said suddenly suddenly that means right now suddenly the thought crossed my mind that if I would put an ounce of whiskey in the milk it couldn’t hurt me on a full stomach this is absolute Insanity isn’t it for this guy to believe that he can take whiskey mix it with milk and take it on a full stomach and it won’t hurt him now based on the insane idea he makes a decision and takes some action he said I ordered whiskey and poured into the milk and I vaguely sense I was not being any too smart I felt reassured as I was taking the whiskey on a full stomach now we’ve got it inside of ourselves the physical allergy takes over now then we can’t stop the experiment went so well that I ordered another whiskey and poured it into the milk that didn’t seem to bother me so I tried another can you imagine how he’s going to feel with whiskey and milk back and forth what a hangover he’s going to have thus started one more Journey to the Asylum for gy here was a threat of commitment the loss of family in position to say nothing of that intense mental and physical suffering which drinking always caused him now he had much knowledge about himself as an alcoholic yet all reasons for not drinking were easily pushed aside in the favor of the foolish idea that he could take whiskey if only he mixed it with milk whatever the precise definition of the word may be we call this plain Insanity how can such a lack of a portion of the ability to think straight be called anything else and if you were looking for a definition of insanity that would be it right right there the lack of a of a portion of the ability to think straight to be called anything else now it’s Jim’s real problem the fact that he has a physical allergy to alcohol that he has a form of insanity that tells him it’s okay to drink alcohol mixed with milk on a full stomach the real problem centers in the mind telling us we can drink rather than the body that ensures that we can’t page 37 last paragraph our behavior is as Ober and incomprehensible with respect to the first drink as that of an individual with a passion safe for jaywalking he gets a thrill out of skipping in front of fast moving Vehicles now I I don’t understand this guy at all but I can see him out here on the interstate waiting for a truck or a bus to come down through there jumps out in front of it spins around to or three times sees how close it come can come to hitting him without actually hitting him for some some reason he gets a thrill out of it don’t understand him but I can see him doing it he enjoys himself for a few years in spite of friendly warnings people say hey Bill you better quit doing that you’re going to get yourself hurt up to this point you would label him as a foolish chap having queer ideas of fun luck then deserts him and he’s slightly injured several times in succession he’s getting a little older now he can’t move as fast they begin to hit him once in a while nothing serious he just kind of bounces off of you would expect him if he were normal to cut it out but presently he’s hit again this time has a fractured skull now he got hurt bad this time within a week after leaving the hospital the fast moving trolley car breaks his arm he gets hurt bad again now he sings their national anthem he tells you he’s decid to stop jay walking for good he said man I’ll never do that again as long as I live but in a few weeks he breaks both legs on through the years this conduct continues accompanied by his continual promises to be careful or to keep off the streets all together finally he can no longer work he’s just so beat up now he can’t hold a job his wife gets a divorce she started supporting him and the kids and the hospital bills and he’s held up to ridicule he tries every known means to get the jaywalking idea out of his head not his body his head he shuts himself up in a treatment Center hoping to mend his ways but today he comes out he races in front of a fire engine which breaks his back such a man would be crazy wouldn’t he now you may think her illustration is too ridiculous but is it we who have been through the ringer have to admit if we substituted alcoholism for jaywalking the illustration would fit us exactly however intelligent we may have been in other respects where alcohol has been involved we’ve been strangely in Saye strong language but isn’t it true oh I think that’s so appropriate today you know once again because of Education many many people are getting to us before they have to lose everything occasionally you see somebody come in here that’s still married once in a while they come in and they’ve got a job believe it or not I saw one come in about a month ago and he still had an automobile and we we start talking to those people about Insanity they say man don’t tell me I’m crazy I haven’t lost anything I’ve got my job I’ve got my blah blah no uh-uh we’re not talking about that at all we’re talking about one thing and one thing only can we or can we not see the truth about alcohol if we can we’re sane if we can’t we’re insane now the L botom drunk like gim probably easier for him to see his Insanity cuz he lost everything that he had period a high bottom drunk who hasn’t lost a lot of stuff sometimes it’s a little more difficult for them to see it but I’ll tell you whether you’re low bottom or high bottom if you get drunk you’re going to get drunk the same way believing something that is not true let’s go to page whatever the next one is 39 39 my my old pages to tore up I can’t read it anymore and we’re going to look at a guy named Fred now Fred is the opposite of gym Fred is high bottom Fred never lost anything Jim didn’t feel too good the day he got drunk Fred is on top of the world the day he gets drunk yet he got drunk the same way he believed a lie let’s look at his Fred’s lie page 39 Said Fred is a partner in a well-known accounting firm his income is good he has a fine home he’s happily married and father promising children of college age now he say so practicable personality that he makes friends with everyone if ever there was a successful businessman is Fred now to all appearance he’s a stable well balanced individual yet he’s alcoholic now we first saw Fred about a year ago in a hospital where he’ gone to recover from a bad case of the Jitters it was his first experience of this kind and he was much ashamed of it far from admitting he was an alcoholic he told himself he came to the hospital to rest his nerves we see lot of nerve resters in AA today just like old Fred is the doctor intimated strongly that he might be worse than he realized for a few days he was depressed about his condition now he made up his mind to quit drinking all together it never occurred to him that perhaps he could do so in spite of his character and standing Fred would not believe himself an alcoholic he would not take step one much less accept a spiritual remedy for his problem if you can’t take one you can’t take two we told him what we knew of alcoholism they told him about step one and step two and he was interested and could see they had some of the symptoms he said I’m a little bit alcoholic borderline case and he was a long way from admitting he could do nothing about himself now he was positive that his humiliating experience plus the knowledge he had acquired would keep him sober the rest of his life self- knowledge would fix it now we heard no more Fred for a while one day we were told that he was back in the hospital this time he was quite shaky he soon indicated he was was anxious to see us the story he told us is most instructive for here was a chap absolutely convinced he had to stop drinking who had no excuse for drinking who exibited Splendid judgment and determination in all his other concerns yet was flat on his back nevertheless well let him tell you about it he said I was much impressed with what you fell said about alcoholism I frankly did not believe it would be possible for me to drink again and I rather appreciate your ideas about that subtle Insanity which precedes the first drink but I was confident could not happen to me after what I learned I reason I was not so far Advanced as most of you Fells that I’ve been usually successful in licking my other personal problems and I would therefore be successful where you men failed I felt I had every right to be self-confident it would be only a matter of exercising my willpower and keeping on guard now this frame of mind I went about my business and for a time all was well I had no trouble refusing drinks and begin to wonder if I had not been making too hard work of a simple matter we think Fred begin to get drunk right here he begin to say my this staying sober as e easy nothing to this yeah one day I went to Washington to present some accounting evidence to a government Bureau I’ve been out of town during this particular dry spell so there’s nothing new about that physically I felt fine neither did I have any pressing problems or worries my business came off well I was pleased and knew my partners would be too it was the end of a perfect day not a cloud on the horizon everything’s on top of the world for old Fred he’s doing great making lots of money family happy business associates happy everything’s good in Fred’s life he said I went to my hotel and leisurely dressed for dinner as I crossed the threshold of the dining room the thought came to mind it would be nice to have a couple of cocktails and go back to the hospital now that’s the truth isn’t it no way could he drink on the truth his mind said it would be nice to have a couple of cocktails with dinner that was all nothing more now based on the insane idea he makes a decision take some action I ordered a cocktail in my meal then I ordered another cocktail and we got it inside ourselves now the allergy takes over after dinner I decid to take a walk when I returned to the hotel it struck me a highball would be fine before going to bed so I stepped into the bar and had one I remember having several more that night and plenty next morning I have a shadowy recollection of being in an airplane Bound for New York and of finding a friendly taxi cab driver at the Landing field instead of my wife the driver escorted me about for several days I know little of where I went or what I said and did then came the hospital with unbearable mental and physical suffering as soon as I regained my ability to think I went carefully over that evening in Washington not only had I been off guard I had made no fight whatever against the first first drink this time I had not thought of the consequences at all I’d commence to drink as carelessly as though the cocktails were gingerale now is Fred’s real problem the fact that he has a physical allergy to alcohol or that he has a form of insanity that tells him it’s okay to have a couple of cocktails with dinner the real problem centers in the mind telling us we can drink rather than the body that ensures we can’t page 43 last paragraph you know Bill had the idea that self- knowledge would fix it and Roland had the idea that self- knowledge would fix it Fred had the idea that self- knowledge would fix it Bill’s trying to show us they here they all had the obsession of the mind and he tried to show us through the the illustrations of man of 30 Jim Jay Walker and Fred to tell us one thing and the last paragraph says once more so he just went through all this to say once more the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink except in a few rare cases NE neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense his defense must come from a higher power and that is the solution so you can’t heal a sick mind with a sick mind self- knowledge won’t get it the more we try to think our way out of it the deeper into it we get we must come from a higher power our defense must come from a higher power and you notice he didn’t say that the practicing alcoholic or the drinking alcoholic he just said the alcoholic now what that means to me today he said I have no effective mental defense against the first drink left on my own resources invariably I’m going to go right back to drinking again without the aid of a power greater than human power now if you’re the kind of alcoholic that I am and if you were raised in the the church setting that I was raised in by the end of chapter 3 you are now faced with one hell of a dilemma because he’s convinced me in chapter three without the aid of a power greater than I am I’m going back to drinking but I also felt that even though that was true it would be wouldn’t be possible for me to get the aid of a power greater than I am because you see like Joe I was raised in a good old southern baptist church now I’ve got nothing against a good old Southern Baptist Church it’s a great church but when I was a kid growing up I’m I’m sure that from time to time they talked about a kind and loving God but if they did the message never got to the Pew I sat in cuz all I ever remember hearing about God when I was growing up in church was Hell Fire and brim and brimstone and going to hell for lying and cheating and stealing and drinking whiskey and committing adultery by the time I got to AA I’d been doing that for about 20 some odd years and I know that God had already told St Peter when that little four rde sucker gets up here send them downstairs will not need his kind and I knew that if God had anything to do with me it wouldn’t be anything good it would certainly be something bad I remember so clearly when I separated from God in that Baptist Church I grew up in they gave me the rules they said if you do this this and this you’ll be okay if you do that that and that you’re going to hell just sure is anything now I didn’t have any trouble with their rules at all until I got to be about 12 or 13 years old and one day it seemed to me that the preacher looked me straight in the eye and he said Son to think about doing it is just as bad as doing it and I said oh I’ve had it now because I’d been thinking about doing it for a long time in fact I’d been thinking about doing it long enough I was starting to get brain damage from it and I said if you’re going to hell for thinking about it then you might as well just go ahead and do it and I did and I didn’t go to hell immediately and I said that sucker has been lying to me all along I said he and my parents and my teachers have formed together in a conspiracy to keep me from having any fun and I said from this day on I do not attend to pay any attention to what they have to say I don’t have any intention of following God’s rules their rules or anybody else’s Rules From This Day on I’m going to do it my way and I’m going to do it whenever I want to and if they don’t like it to hell with them now when I got to AA I had that attitude of a 12-year-old boy who had defied God his parents and his teachers and I first walked in AA I was 38 years old with a spiritual knowledge of God of that 12-year-old boy no wonder we have trouble with this God thing when we get to AA anybody else ever have those kind of feelings about God and people see and I think Bill recognized that and I think he said sooner or later I’m going to have to ask these people to make a decision about God and I think he said in his mind that they’re not going to be able to make that decision based upon old IDE ideas and that’s what I had when I got here old ideas and I think he said I believe I I need to give them some new information about God where they might be able to discard some old ideas pick up some new ideas and then they’ll be able to make a decision about this God thing and he wrote another chapter called we agnostics which I think is one of the greatest pieces of spiritual information I’ve ever read in my life as I read that and studied that I can see where some of my old ideas old prejudices about God and religion were wrong and when I could see where they were wrong then I could discard them and then I could accept some new ideas about God and then I could make a decision that based on Hellfire and brimstone based on a God of Justice no way could I have ever made the decision about God thank you for listening to sober Sunrise if you enjoyed today’s episode please give it a thumbs up as it will help 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