Today I was reminded to go back and recall what happened, when I came into the program. That memory brought back my introduction to the BB. And the BB was a volume, which showed me, for the first time, just what was wrong with me.
No wonder I was powerless over alcohol. Everything about me was not ever going to help me to recover from this disease. First of all, I discovered that this was a physical disease to begin with.
It told me that I was as abnormal physically, as I was mentally. Physically I had been compelled to drink. Every time I put a drink in me it aroused craving for another drink. And that craving began to grow an obsession within my mind. Like the doctor said, this craving was a phenomenon which only the alcoholic suffered.
Powerless over a disease that was probably within me from the very beginning. All it took to activate and move this disease forward was a drink. And eventually I took that drink, totally unaware of where this was going to lead me. And once the disease became full blown, there was no way anything could stop me from drinking. I had to drink in spite of myself.
I was just like that man standing before Dr. Carl Jung. And I’m sure that Jung would have told me the same thing he told that young man. “You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic.” That certainly described me. Then he told him that he had never seen anyone recover, who had that kind of mind to the extent that our young friend did. Had he said that to me, I would have felt the same way that man did. The gates of hell had clanged shut.
I probably wouldn’t have said anything more at the time, but that young man did and was given the solution as a result. A spiritual experience. Or, as the BB puts it, a spiritual awakening. And that’s exactly what happened to me and so many others I have come to know. Powerless yes, but we all found a power greater than ourselves, who could and did restore us to sanity. The result is that we are sober today. Amazing how this program works. All I had to do was read the BB, follow its directions, and listen to all those old timers and my sponsor.
All I had to do was throw away all those things I thought I knew. I found, as my sponsor said, that I was educated beyond my intelligence. None of the stuff I knew was ever going to help me get sober. I had to learn a new way of thinking and eventually living. Thank God I listened. I heard what I needed to hear and I still do. I can’t remember all the brilliant minds and professions I have met in here, who had to do the same thing. Leave everything outside the doors of the rooms and come in hear and listen and learn. And, like I said, we’re all sober today because we did.