STEP 1

0:12 [Applause] [Music] tonight we are at our first step in which we admitted that we were PR of so alcohol but our lives have become unmanageable as we begin the the the 12 steps

1:00 as we said they are the outline of the big book alcoholic synonymous a stepbystep plan to recover as the first 100 people recover from this illness they laid down a stepbystep plan for those who came behind and I thank God for the first 100 people because they left a a path for us to walk and this path was clearly marked by 12 steps and as we guide us through the big book alcoholic synonymous and as we go through these steps before we begin know recover from alcoholism is just like recover from any other problem the the procedure is simple uh and it's It Was Made Simple for a lot of confused mixed up

1:47 people it was just a path that was laid out in order to recover from a a problem there is but one way to recover from a problem the first step in recovering from a problem is to find out what is the problem and that's very important that part of the procedure and that's what we're going to be talking about tonight because that's the foundation of recovery what is the problem that is the first step and once we find that that information is the is is really the foundation because it affects everything else that we're going to talk about and this is why the first step is so important the first step our first step

2:33 is a problem statement the problem is that we're powerless of alcohol and our lives have become unmanageable now once we have the problem and then is from the problem from the first step that all the other information is gathered because once we see the problem is from the problem that we determine the solution which is the second step now we're going to understand the problem really is powerless and if the problem is powerless then the solution would be power so the first step shows us what is

3:21 the problem which is paress and the second step is going to talk about the solution being power the in the last 10 steps of recovery is simply a plan to find that power steps 3 through 12 will show us how to find that power which will solve the problem but we can see how important the first step is because if we don't have the first step if the problem if we don't understand the problem correctly the solution will be wrong and the plan program of action will be wrong so the foundation of the whole thing is what is the problem and this is the first step

4:08 alcohol has been a problem since the beginning of time it's the oldest known drug used by man kind in the world and alcohol is a drug and uh in the beginning certain people uh we always wonder you know there a lot of Stories on how this all began we said I remember one I guess as good as than the other about how this caveman was in his cave one day mashing some he had some grapes and he was throwing his grapes in the back of the cave and he would just loved grapes and U while he was doing that a big fat Hog Run by his door and he said he you know he said boy I'd like to have some barbecue and and place these grapes so he he he just run off and he dropped

4:54 what he was doing and started chasing this hog and with with the tools and the weapons he had of his day time he caught up with the hog and did The Killing job and dressed him and got him back it was a few days when he got back to his cave his uh his grapes had gotten Sor and spoiled he felt and he was so hungry just went over and got a big hand full of the juice and put up to his mouth and something magic happened to him bang you know he probably said I ain't going to waste no more of them damn grapes you know I found something here and as people begin to have problems with alcohol in the beginning of time it was the non-alcoholic people some of the people who could drink and

5:40 some of them who didn't drink at all it was a non-alcoholic people who tried to find out what was what was wrong with the alcoholic see the attitudes toward the attitudes and the images of alcoholism were created by the non-alcoholic it was the non-alcoholics who said well uh he what is the problem they said well maybe he's weak um maybe he's sinful it's a moral issue they were trying to find out what was the problem with the Drinker the Drinker was probably drinking he didn't care what the problem was but over the years there was a non-alcoholic people who developed the attitudes and the images of the alcoholic you know that he's a bum all that was created by a non-alcoholic

6:27 people down through history no one stood this problem but everyone tried Solutions and did they try solutions they tried everything on the alcoholic there's not nothing that been invented hadn't been tried on the alcoholic um but no one understood this in the beginning of time we can go all the way back to the book of books and this was the earliest description of alcoholism was a Solomon I love this in Proverbs one of my favorite things he says you know Beware of the wine buo is right in his cup it's pretest red and it but it lies it's body like a St Serpent and it sting is like an atam he says you know he goes on to in the beginning he talks about uh who has a redness of eyes

7:13 you know what I mean uh he goes He describes alcoholism and how it affects each individual you mean and he said you will Beth one who lith down in the midst of a sea you know you sway around a lot or sleeping at the top of a mass you know at a mass of the ship sleep just tosses and he said you will say they have beaten me and I felt it not you know some next morning you feel like somebody was beating on you night before and you're trying to recall what happened you know you got them bruises all over you and drunk bruises and then he says you know he sure knew some of us fellas cuz he said Thine Eyes Shall Behold strange women and this was Solomon thousands of

8:00 years ago it seemed like they were just like us and and thy heart will utter perverse things you'll say a lot of things you don't want to say but then he said but still yet they will rise in the morning and they will seek it yet again they get up and still he didn't none of the great minds understood alcoholism and we didn't understand the problem and before that before this time when we didn't understand the problem of alcoholism then we were a victims of the problem if you don't understand the problem there's no way you can find a solution there's no way you can treat it today you know we have we're the same word with cancer you know we we don't

8:46 have a Sol solution for cancer and we don't have a treatment for cancer because we don't understand it what is the problem once the researchers are trying to find out what is the problem of cancer the solution probably already exists and then we'll know what to do before 1935 we didn't understand alcoholism and this wasn't the first time you know God this information came to the world many years ago just recently I was just enthused with the looking uh how God has worked in this world in the lives of Alcoholics I think it was early and early in U 1787 there was a a a a psychiatrist a doctor in this country who said

9:31 alcoholism was a disease he was the first person to say that he he really couldn't describe it too well but uh this this went unheated didn't anybody pay attention to him later on in 1812 the temperance movements begin this country because alcohol was a problem in this country alcohol has always been a problem in America since the beginning of time they said when the mayr came over when the car when it landed most of the cargo was booze there been a problem and people were dying and they they went to do something about get people to cut down on their drinking and tempered their drinking they didn't understand the problem but they they could they they began some effort and and and it's amazing the success they had as we look back on it

10:17 these Temperance movements had about onethird of the population signed a pledge not to drink onethird of the population of this country at that time but it faed later on you know the Washingtonian movement began and the washingtonians were uh as this movement it was a bunch of of people sitting around a taban one night alcoholics probably and there was a temperance movement down the temperance move was having a meeting down the street and this was in Chase's terrible in Baltimore American Baltimore Marland in 1840 there was six alcoholics sitting around the table and they went to this meeting and they went down there to inest you know to to make fun of the people or to uh to see what they were doing and and something happened to them

11:03 they were very struck by something that was said there and they came back and the next night they met there and they decided to to form a society of nine Drinkers and and they did and they started a movement in a year they had a th members and they spread and spread and spread 6 8 10 years they they accredited with having 700,000 members they were more successful than short period of time than AA movement they had spiritual Concepts and and the Gest of their meetings were they would have people come up and talk about their drinking this is where it began and they would tell their stories and they had spiritual Concepts but they didn't have any Traditions they didn't have any guidelines to their program

11:50 they got mixed up with other things and the main reason they failed they didn't have a plan program of recovery they didn't have a program and then in 1935 you know God saw fit that that man this thing take place again and it beginning went to do and beginning in the mind of Dr silor you know Dr silor was a Town's hospital he had went there to take a job because he couldn't find another one uh he wanted a job and he took a job at the town's hospital for $40 a week uh uh Dr sorth didn't plan to do all this he didn't plan to work with no doctor their plans to work with alcoholics by the way they don't really like to work with alcoholics in fact they say alcoholics don't do what you tell them which is

12:38 true some of the medical people say it's a self-inflicted illness which is not uh and then he says drunks don't pay the bills no way which is true you know it a lot of Point work with Doctor work with people like that but Dr silkworth you know was on the fire he was there at the towns remember he went there in 1930 until 1933 during his early years every day he was on the job on the job working with people and the people he worked with came back and forth back and forth no one understood the problem he couldn't do anything about the problem because he didn't understand it and he saw people continue to come back and he saw people die he saw no one recover I

13:24 could see the frustrations this man went through and all all most of his colleagues said it was a sin it was a weakness anyway he began to he he began to discern some something within these people he said I believe um I know I see some driving force Within These people there driving these people to this destruction and he said I can discern something within these people and he was able to take this thing and he was able to split this force in the two things part of it in the mind and part of it in the body and he was he came up with the concept up and he said this was just his opinion and he shared it with Bill when bill came to the town's Hospital in 1933 though really this was the beginning of alcoholic synonymous at the

14:11 town's hospital when Dr silkworth discovered what is the problem and I think we're very blessed as alcoholics tonight you know the only alcoholics on in the United States or in the world rather the only alcoholics in the world are in Alcoholics Anonymous the rest of those people out there are not alcoholics I don't they don't know that they're alcoholics but they don't know the alcoholics and alcoholism is a very strange illness it's a unique illness is the only illness it's very hard to make this diagnosis and the first step is what is the problem is a diagnosis and this is the first step in recoveries to make a diagnosis and it's hard to make this diagnosis because alcoholism is the

14:58 only illness that tells the victim he ain't got it you know you can tell an alcoholic because the one that swears he ain't got it's got it you know one of these social drinkers said you know you say you you might be an alcoholic he'll probably say I might be he ain't got it it's the one that ain't got it's got it and the only way you can get weth from anything is find out you got it right you know you do the same thing with a coold you know you go around and the moment you catch a coal you you know you don't realize it but you have caught in a cal you go sneezing a little bit and you say oh something in my throat that's lying you me then you your nose get stopped up you say got something in my nose my eyes get running I got something in my eyes you know and so you

15:44 deny long and finally you know you keep on say hell I'm catching the Cal that's the moment you can start taking some medicine see me see we do that with our we we do that and and and so the first step is what is the problem and I as an alcoholic and and my my experience with alcoholism you know I did not know I was an alcoholic I knew what I didn't even know what an alcoholic was but I knew I wasn't one that's smart is you know I'm not alol now so the first step and Dr silkworth told

16:32 Bill he said first thing he said I this is a disease and I think the first thing he said Bill he said you're not uh you're not you're not sick you're not sorry not not weak he said you have an illness you have a disease you know words won't change our lives ideas is what changes our lives and there a one there one bad thing about ideas in order to convey them you have to put them into words to transfer them from one mind to the other and sometimes you know uh the idea gets mixed up in the word the person gets the word but he don't get the idea so we have to be very careful that we get the

17:19 idea and disease is is is a self-explanatory word it's real simple you know nine out of 10 people who drink alcohol are ease we see them every day Godly I don't know much about it but whatever they doing it they at ease with it they take one or two drinks and and walk around and Shake on it might might not take another one leave it and say come back give me a first one that was and got worn now they had ease with alcohol no problem whatsoever and one person over here and that's me he is this now this means back from away

18:05 from you know if nine people drink alcohol at ease and one of them is away from ease then there is a condition that separates these people something causes this separation and our and the disease is alcoholism alcoholism is a condition that separates people from the normal patterns of Health this person is healthy and this person is ill and what causes this is alcoholism once we have a disease we have to find out in order to recover from it we have to know the exact nature of the disease and and in my case you know I I

18:51 never could I had a hard time because many years I i' I didn't know what my problem was and finally I come to the conclusion that was drinking you what I mean after about 14 years of drinking I said I don't believe you can drink you know that's the only thing I worked at and got worse you know usually practice makes perfect you know but practice in this thing May got worse and after about 13 to 14 years I said I don't believe you can drink so then I decided to quit you know I found out I was just as bad as quitting as I was at drinking you know so he says that this this disease is a two-fold illness he says we have a

19:38 physical allergy the alcohol and a mental Obsession of the mind and a physical allity these two things coupled together make us powerless over alcohol for many many years the medical people people tried to to treat the alcoholic they sent a doctor they sent a lot of drunks to the medical doctors many years ago and they said those doctors killed a lot of drunks beating them on the knees with a little rubber hammers you know and they said well I don't know I can't see no problem here he was just looking at one way see me he saw nothing medically wrong and then they say him to the psychiatrist and he asked psychiatrist

20:25 asked him a lot of dumb questions he gave him a lot of dumb answers and he could not see he looked at it just as a mental problem but Dr silkworth was able to step back and look at look at and see the picture he said I believe it is half and half he says I believe he begins to talk about the physical allergy to alcohol you know and he uses that word there's another word that transmits ideas what is an allergy you know I had a I had a lot of you I could understand the word but I really didn't convey you know how was I allergic to alcohol now I didn't even know what it was I you know we say an allergy is an abnormal reaction to a food or chemical substance we we have an abnormal reaction to to

21:11 alcohol now it's pretty hard you know if you're an alcoholic and you have been for quite a few years or three or four years it don't take long you get kind of used to that now if you've been an alcoholic for quite a few years if you've been an alcoholic since you first started drinking it is very difficult for you to understand that you're an abnormal Drinker see we abnormal drinkers have been drinking abnormally for so long and we've been drinking with some other abnormal drinkers so abnormal is normal to us how do you know you abnormal oh how much you drink oh but like everybody else boy I'm sure glad I'm sure glad everybody else didn't drink like me

22:00 But but so we have to really to understand how you're an abnormal drun you have to first understand what is a normal Drinker I never looked at that you know they say normal normal so-called social drinkers or whatever want to call those people so they they take a drink of alcohol and alcohol is a a toxic drug it is a is a it actually can be poisoned to the system if you put enough into the system so it's a poison now our body is uh we have we are we are marvelous mechanisms mentally and physically with God's greatest creation there's nothing on the earth like this human body that we all have the mind and the body that we

22:46 have now once anything goes into the system our bodies our body has a unique way of of of immediately diagnosing what it is we put in and then it and it reacts uh chemically and produces certain enzymes or chemistries to handle whatever we if we put in a piece of steak and it says steak right if we put in some sweet potatoes it says sweet potatoes you know you can't food to buy you can't put in sweet potatoes and they you know sweet potatoes whatever we put in our body knows exactly what it is and it signal certain organs in the body uniquely to act to whatever it was we put in it and the average uh when the soldier drink he puts alcohol into his system

23:32 it's a poison his body recognizes is a toxic poison he has certain chemistries and certain he has a certain reaction to it first thing they say to a normal sour of drink it makes him dizzy one drink one two it gets kind of dizzy um and that's a that's a normal reaction to a drug like alcohol and it says that uh it makes him so noisest a couple of drinks in his system he gets kind of noisest at the stomach and it gets and after a while he gets a sense of being out of control and that's a normal reaction to alcohol that's what happens when a normal social Drinker takes a drink now that didn't happen to me I took a drink I didn't get dizzy and

24:20 I didn't get noises if I did I put another one down there on top of it real quick in this stage and I didn't get a sense of being out of control I got a sense of being in control but the main thing that separates me and immediately I wanted another drink I said that is an abnormal reaction to alcohol Dr silkworth said the craving of alcohol is a manifestation of the allergy and never occurs in the average tempered Drinker normal people do not crave alcohol you know I couldn't I never figure that out about those social drinkers every time they drink they get all they

25:09 want I drank for 16 years and I never remember one time saying I got enough that night I never did get enough so my reaction uh is different than other people and we look at this you know he talks about the allergy to alcohol he said there are many different types of Alcoholics you know he talks about the in the book the five types of alcohol the cyclopath and we W this and all these people if we all took a drug we always try to compare ourselves with other people oh am I alcoholic well you hear somebody well he went he got 3 DWI I didn't get but two I don't believe I'm alcohol come here she been married six times you know

25:54 she's alcoholic I ain't been I just made four so I'm not an alcoholic and we go around comparing this is not the way we do this we study our the doctor's opinion doctor's opinion say there are many different types of people you know if we all took a drink tonight God forbid that we do in this place you boy I just couldn't imagine that but if we everybody took a drink tonight here what you know would be a lot of no two people would react the same no two of us would do the same things you know one of us would immediately be up on top of there dancing and raising hell you know I mean this have a good time one would be sitting over here

26:40 crying in his Beer World ain't me right two of us will start a fight back in that corner and two over here be putting the make on each other you no two of us would act out and behavior wise and and do the same thing but all of us as alcoholics we would not have but one thing that we would all do just one thing that we have in common all of us would immediately want another drink see that's the one thing we have we would all crave another drink although

27:25 we would act different so you know we are abnormal drinkers the doctor says the only thing that we suggest his entire absence and this is all the doctor knew about at that time and you know he didn't know anything about the breakdown of alcohol and the enzymes CU they had really talked about that but nowadays you know as we learn we're learning more more about the disease of alcoholism and the things that we're learning are are actually bringing out the doctor's opinion in 1935 you know what what is the normal reaction to alcohol and we and he says that what and we'll take the nine people who who drank normally and once they take a drink of alcohol they put it into their system and the body the body re

28:12 the body produces certain enzymes or chemicals to metabolize alcohol when alcohol comes into the system alcohol is a toxic substance in other words it can destroy the body so the body has certain protective enzymes to attack alcohol in the normal drinker and he breaks it down to acid alides down to diic acid down to the acetone level which is broken up into simple carbohydrates then this is broken into three three products water sugar and carbon dioxide the water is pasted off by the body uh the carbon dioxide is given off through the lungs and the sugar is burned up I stored as simple energy by the body this is a normal way to metabolize alcohol takes a the the alcoholic take

29:00 the normal person about an hour to metabolize an ounce of alcohol if he drinks any his face and that will build up he'll get nois this and dizzzy and most cases he uh he'll pass out or vomit or do something you what I mean but they really no problem with these people now let's look at this guy over here that's this boy was I this now this we put a drink of alcohol into our system our body Rec orze it but some reason yet unknown our bodies does not produce enough of these enzymes as we compare these two we don't produce these in a sufficient quantity or quality like the normal Drinker just like some people are

29:45 are diabetic they don't produce enough insulant to break down sugar the alcoholic doesn't produce enough of defensive chemistries against alcohol so he breaks the alcohol down to the acid alides down to the diic acid he gets it down to the acetone level as far as he can go with it at that time later on you know as he he will metabolize it out but it stops at this point and this is the real villain because when this chemistry is made up which is a bioproduct of the alcohol it gets to gets with certain chemistries in the brain cavities natural to the brain cavity and it produces a physical craving for alcohol you know once we take a drink

30:33 gets into this chemistry and immediately We crave the next drink now I think you know he said this does not occur in the average temper Drinker he says the craving of alcohol is a manifestation of the allergy it's an abnormal reaction to alcohol and he these if these people will never be able to safely use alcohol in any form we can't safely use alcohol now you know I the craving is what gets us you know we alcoholics and I often I can I can now understand the problem I can see why I can look back and see how I was a victim of this thing and many many times in my

31:18 life I wonder how did it do now I know how it happened see I'd get off from work and I'd say my wife said I want you to come home and cut the grass oh man that hell the grass you know how we feel got to cut the damn grass you well okay she's raing so much hair so I got to really do it this time but you know everybody knows you can cut the grass better with one drink so we stop in the bar and we have one little innocent drink drinks that we see other people sitting in there these normal soci drinkers they in there having one what's wrong with me having a drink so I go in there and have one drink and uh I got a visit with my buddy

32:04 on the bar so the phenomenal craving can develop you know while I'm visiting there this phenomenal craving begins to grow from one drink and the craving starts see it equals one drink one drink one unit of craving but that one that one drink produces a craving of of of of one drink and the craving says why don't you have two ain't nothing wrong with two and then go cut the gray but that second drink doubled the craving because the craving is is doubled now it

32:50 intensifies because if if the craving comes from alcohol when I put more alcohol in the craving is going to build up so the craving is stronger and then my mind says well don't forget about that grass and when I say oh well three won't make any difference then we'll go so we take three by this time you say man I really got to cut that grass and the third drink produces the craving is triple and by that time you know you take the fourth Drake and your partner say what would you say about that you said the hell with the

33:36 grass the more we drink the more alcohol we put into our system the craving gets stronger with each drink so really we crave more after the fourth or fifth drink than we did after the very first drink and the craving become be beyond our control we go through the well-known spree come we drink and drink and drink and we never we have never i i as an alcoholic I remember my experience as an alcoholic I never remember satisfy satisfying that phenomena I have never had enough to drink I had too much but I never experienced one time when I said I got enough that time I didn't I never got

34:25 enough now so it and this and this will always happen you know as a as an alcoholic we know that this will always get worse uh the chem chemical deficiency will never get any better the older we get even though we don't drink the chemical deficiency gets worse if you got a the deficiency with your system it will get worse with AIDS whether you drink or not like I say I haven't had drink in over 24 years but if I would take a drink tonight the would be worse because the chemical deficiency is worse because I'm older and I produce less of the chemistries metabolized alcohol that I did 24 years ago it say there's no

35:11 known way to treat this but the doctor is simple he said that's simple if you're allergic to alcohol and every time you take a drink you crave it he said don't take the first drink and you will never experience the craving of alcohol that's simple so he said these people can never drink safely so because of this side I can't drank safely and there will able to be that's but now that I understand that part of my problem Dr silkworth says later on our book says rather this is a we should understand this every alcoholic should understand completely understand his illness you

35:57 know after all you know if you if you got to live with this need to understand what it is but he says the main problem of the alcoholic sence in his mind rather than his body although we need to know this the main problem is in our mind the main problem is what makes me take the first Drake why then do I take the first Drake you know he explains it you know over here and with to illustrate it everybody has a very complex emotional life we're going to be doing all our work in here this is where we're going to recover from we all have feelings uh they're god-given things and we're not going to get rid of them they're

36:43 supposed to be in life we have loneliness we have fear we have resentment we have all there's anxieties these are part of our our human makeup all people have problems with these now we not the only people on Earth that have problems with their emotions no one is free from this they might look you know like a great friend of ours he always say you know we always go around comparing my insides with your outsides he looks good outside but they got them too now they they they they are the root of all human problems and we see all sort of behavior problems in in people as a result of these misdirected instincts but we alcoholic somewhere in the

37:29 development of the alcoholic in his past life you know he has these little emotional buildups Dr silkworth describes this as with Restless irritable and discontent know I had these all my life you I mean I all it was natural to me I didn't know I was sick I was just naturally sick you know you know I was always like this you know never really you know I had some comfortable moments but never really satisfied with me you know comparing myself with other people uh didn't fit in these things just went with me constantly and it was a problem you know other people you know some people commit suicide some people

38:15 have nervous breakdowns you don't ever see an alcoholic he breaks down drunk you know he knows he finds another release for this somewhere along the line you know while having one of these emotional buildups while having one of these problems uh he has the opportunity to drink or as a drinking occasion and he notied while having a few drinks while having a few drinks that these few drinks depress his emotional level and when I took a few drinks he Associated these two things together I was and I can now can go out and talk to people you know it depressed my fears I

39:02 don't feel inadequate anymore I'm a good dancer goly boy I can dance now me I can talk to people these few drinks become a solution now we have the combination the problem and the solution we lived with this little old problem and now you know I don't have to do that no more I have an answer to it and we add these two things together put the big Plus in there and we add these we add certain moods with with chemicals and and we we come in our

39:49 heads with addiction add addiction means to add together certain moods with the chemical and we find our answer you know we said that you know it's the only problem in which the answer becomes the problem yeah the answer becomes the problem and you know he says we build up to this point again we become restless nerble and discontent we build up to this point again and it triggers this line and this line is Obsession an obsession is an idea that overcomes all all other ideas that's a powerful thing now this idea will overcome many many other

40:37 ideas you know it was my wife's idea that I shouldn't drink my boss's idea that I shouldn't drink the police suggested it a couple of times you and a couple of Judges you know very influential people I mean the doctor you know he knew medicine and even at certain times I myself said you can't drink no more for the rest of your life but at a certain given moment when I became restless nerble and discontent within me the idea to drink came up and this idea to drink overcame my own idea the doctor's idea the judges idea and the police's idea it was so

41:24 strong it overcome mine and everybody else's idea and I took a drink so when we build up there we have no defense over this once this obsession is triggered the obsession the idea to drink and we said all action is born in thought and when you take a drink it's preceded by the thought to drink it has to be triggered in the mind all action is triggered in the mind and we reach over and we take a few drinks and that's the the triggering mechanism of the whole illness and this is where we're going to do all the work now once we put the alcohol in the system then quite naturally it goes over and sets off the physical craving the

42:09 Mind triggers the body and the craving is the acetones are are manufactured the craving is started and craving makes the first drink and the second drink and the third drink and the fourth drink we play that all game we go through the well-known spree and down here at the bottom when we we come up for air we repeat our alcoholic national anthem I will never do that again now that's we all say that and we really we really mean it some people don't believe we mean it but we mean it but if you were if you were sick as we were we really mean it and we slowly start another buildup you know we still Restless we still

42:55 ilable we still discontent we're still lonely we still feel like we don't fit in so we we'll say boy after I got in trouble I'll never do that again but we go along for a few days and it gets worse and finally we build up and our mind says take a drink and we take a drink to feel better we reach over here to take the few drinks the few drinks do depress this it go it does the job son it still makes us feel better but it sets us thing off again if we feel better when we take the drink yeah but it sets off this circus in our life again we go through the well-known

43:40 spree and the doctor said this is repeated over and over again this vicious cycle and it kind of gets smaller each time as the years go by the Trap gets smaller and smaller the mind is triggering the body because because the moral mind makes you take the first drink the chemical deficiency gets worse over the years the craving gets harder and as the craving gets harder drinking gets harder as the drinking gets harder then more emotional problems we got to got to take a drink to get over what we did over here it's really you know it's like a it's like a tennis ball it's like a tennis ball in a tennis match boom boom boom boom and there's the alcoholic in the

44:26 middle you when he settles down somebody knocks him back over on the other side and he says I'm going to quit so if we can't drink because of the body and can't quit because of the mind and as long as we playing this game we can't quit taking the first drink and if we can't drink because of the body and can't quit because of the mind then the conclusion is simple we are par over alcohol you can't drink and you can't quit you're pess this is the first step the first step in recovery is to see the Trap we in this is

45:13 it you know it's been said many many years ago the solution is simple once we understand the problem once we understand the problem and this it was you know for many years I didn't understand this in my life and thank God for Dr silor he gave it to Bill and the bill gave it to the first 100 the first 100 to give it to other people to put it in front of a big book Alcoholics Anonymous and today a million and a half people alcoholics have been able to understand their problem this is the foundation of their recovery now for many many years I couldn't understand I I I see why I fail I try to control my drinking while drinking I don't know if any of y'all did that yeah you know I'm going to say just three and

45:59 just two and just four and you know I try to count them and I never was successful at that because the craving I realized today the craving got me I didn't know what I was doing you know I mean just like a lot of people you know trying to treat themselves and so for about you know a number of years I said well after about of doing this constantly I finally come up come to conclusion after about 12 13 years I said I don't believe you can drink after all this trouble you know I said you know a thousand people said it finally I said you know I don't believe you can drink every alcoholic has been there so I said well just quit oh yeah that's obvious that's the problem if if

46:44 drinking is all it is just quit Okay so I quit and uh just just quit didn't do anything about my life see I didn't understand this part I'm ain't got nothing wrong with me I just quit drinking so I I was still restless and ear discontent these things these pressures were built up on me and I went for nine months without taking that first drink and I did like you I got did all the routines you know eat sweet stay busy and don't go to them places and just be bored like hell you know everybody around you nervous you nervous rest of tipping you around you and everything boy it was

47:31 tough but I just quit and the I would I would build up and the obsession to drink would come at me constantly but when the alcoholic decides to do this he gets his number one weapon out and when he means business he messes around for a while but finally he says I'm through and he means it so he gets his number one weapon out he gets old wheel and he gets will out he means business so I put old wheel up there and I blocked him off for nine months and finally my one morning my mind say oh it's all right willp power went out the window that little devil got through and I took the drink and I was gone

48:17 again so what Dr Sil was give us this what is the problem you're another great position um psychiatrist Dr Carl Yun said I believe that the solution is in a vital spiritual experience I believe this can produce personality changes sufficient to recover you say I believe this is a solution to alcoholism I believe if people could make some personality changes and adjustments if they could live below that line then they could live below that line then they would never take the then they would never have the obsession to drink if they never have the obsession to drink they would never take the first

49:02 few drinks and if they never take the first few drinks they would never set off the craving of the body this we believe is a solution to alcoholism some personality changes came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity you know where we can make sane decisions about alcohol so next week we'll go into the second Second Step the solution and and how to what what identifies as that solution just as it lays out now that is is is diagnosed a problem the next week is going to write the prescription of what is the solution to the problem

49:53 [Music]