(Tape 2 Side B)
J: So now this morning we're going to find out how our lives become unmanageable as a result of the problem we found in The
Doctor's Opinion.
C: As Joe says, we learned certain things when we studied The Doctor's Opinion. Based upon that information, as we go to Bill's Story, following the standard textbook idea, we'll be able then to pick up more ideas about alcoholism, to add to what we learned last night. Another thing we're going to learn in Bill's Story, is we're going to see identification.
Back in those day, they did there in Akron, Cleveland, and New York City he same thing we do today, when they worked with a new alcoholic. They went out to the new alcoholic and sat down with them wherever it might be, hospital, jailhouse, home, or wherever. They sat down with them, and explained to them their own disease of alcoholism.
This is the greatest thing that can happen to a practicing alcoholic. Everybody in the world has been talking to the practicing alcoholic about his or her alcoholism. The wife, the spouse, the husband, the doctor, the police, and everybody else, has been talking to the. about his alcoholism.
The A. A. member sits down and talks about their own alcoholism. This is a great relief for the practicing alcoholic. In discussing their own alcoholism, they can help the new alcoholics see where they are. In discussing their own disease, they can help the new alcoholic see what the disease of alcoholism is. In doing that, if they do it in the right manner, we make an identification process, one alcoholic speaking to another.
They knew, though, when the Big Book was written that it was going to be coming to places like Arizona, California, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nebraska. They were not going to be able to see those people on a one on one, face to face basis. So the Big Book would have to do the identification process. In putting Bill's Story exactly where it is, the person who has read and studied The Doctor's Opinion, they will now be able to identify with another alcoholic in Bill's Story.
They also will be able to, perhaps, get the beginning of belief, believing that what has happened to Bill could possibly happen to them also. We will see the beginning of hope, hoping that what happened to Bill (can happen to us). We'll see his recovery.
If we're like Bill and we've identified, then we can develop hope that maybe that can happen to us also. So Bill's Story fits in here exactly where it should. Some people say, well, I can't identify with Bill, because after all he was a night school lawyer in New York City.
Most of us were not night school lawyer. Or some of us say, well, he was a stockbroker and worked in the stock market, and we did not.( We) couldn't identify with him. And where Joe and I come from we say, yeah, and he was a Yankee also, that's part of the difficulty. (laughter) But if we read and study Bill's Story, I think we'll be able to find all the identification that we need, to identify with Bill, and begin to believe and hope that maybe this could happen to us also.
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