Thought and Alcoholism

Best-version transcript — the human transcription refined against a word-timed machine transcript of the cleaned audio. Spotted an error? Corrections are welcome.

Today, I would like to talk about thought and its connection to alcoholism. People have often asked me what I mean by that. So today, that’s what I’d like to talk about.

I’ve said many times that mental anxieties and problems come via thought. [unclear 0:35] person that has got into the habit of taking too much alcohol and there’s a reason for that. And that reason too is connected to that person’s thoughts. And these thoughts are the negative experiences that people have had in the past. And because of these negative experiences, the thoughts are [unclear 1:06] true of life. These thoughts create a reality. They create our behaviour. And with the alcoholic, with the negative thoughts or the negative past, these create the feeling of loneliness, the feeling of lack of love, the feeling of being misunderstood.

Many many negative feelings. This feeling is really—it’s like a hellhole. So anybody that has gone through alcohol to the state of being called an alcoholic, you can rest assured they’ll travel down a very lonely road. A road full of sorrow, a road full of loneliness, hate, lack of hope. It’s not a nice life. When such a person has had so many experiences that nothing seems to work for them, so what they’ve got to seek is what you call wisdom. And wisdom is common sense. Now, there’s a beautiful organization called the Alcoholics Anonymous which is there to help people in despair.

Now, most of the people that work in this establishment, they know the ropes because they’ve been through it themselves. And they discovered something better than the alcohol. Now when they discovered something even better than the alcohol, in actual fact, they changed their thoughts, thoughts that had been plaguing them all their lives, thoughts that created the hellhole they lived in. So that’s what they have to do is just change thoughts. Truly, the secret lies if you can understand thought.

It’s thought that makes us angry. It’s thought that makes us sad. I’ve said that already. But I want to emphasize it: it’s only thought. You see, the people that have gone away from drink, who have stopped drinking, as I said, for some reason or another—it doesn’t really matter why—they changed their thoughts to a more positive way. These thoughts in turn, because they’re more positive, they create a more positive reality. That’s why a person says, “Once I really kicked the habit…” They say, “Well, I feel much better now. My life is much more clearer, more understanding. It’s better.” Because the positive thoughts have led to a positive reality.

Now, if you reverse it again and you stick to the negativity, all that negativity—some of the old therapists that really used negativity—all it does is creates the opposite effect. It takes you back to the beginning of those thoughts, where they’re all created. And there are no positive thoughts there, so you’re stuck. You’re being fooled. You’re being hoodwinked because that’s the way you see life. There’s nothing wrong in that. That’s just the way it is.

Everybody in the world has faults because everybody sees with their free will, so they see differently. Perhaps, maybe why I might be alcoholic, the reason why would be my thoughts, but that doesn’t necessarily mean if you had the same experience as me that your thoughts also would lead you to be an alcoholic, because you have a different outlook on those experiences altogether. So they create a different reality for you than they did for me. Now, why I [unclear 5:49] the drink, it doesn’t really matter why, again.

Another example of what I’m kind of talking about. I’ve met people who said the reason they started to drink was because they were the firstborn and they had a big family and they had it really tough. And I met other people who said the reason they became alcoholic was because they were the last in the family and they really had it tough. And also, I’ve met people who said they were the centre of the family and they really had it tough because the first ones got all the attention and the very last ones. So you hear all different stories.

Now, those stories are reality to us. But when we grow up, if it’s a negative reality, then we behave according to what we have experienced or how we have adopted this experience, I should say. How we have accepted it, how we view it. Because some people may view being the first in the family a beautiful experience and other ones not. Then again, it is all from thought.

A lot of people, because of the [unclear 7:25] a bad home or bad conditions and a poor environment, that is their excuse to drink because the “poor me.” That is thought. Because on the other hand, to counteract that, you have the person who has been born into super wealth and has become the same alcoholic. So there’s no justification for it in reality because it’s only thought. And if people can see that their past experiences are—that’s the problem. It’s the past experiences are the problem. So somehow, we have to learn to forget them and start anew. And to start anew, you have to change your thoughts. You have to have another look at life, just a little bit deeper this time and realize it was those past experiences.

You can never forget your past experiences. They’ll always be with you. Just like all my negative past experiences will always be with me. You can’t hide from them because they’re always there. But while they’re there and you don’t understand them, they will create the reality you live in now. However, if you turn the page and you start to realize that those past experiences are simply thoughts now, then this will change your outlook on life. It will change the way you see life.

And in turn, it will change your habit. It will change, because it will take all the falseness away and give you another start in life. Because you can’t start again until you find new thoughts which, in turn, will create a new reality for you, one which is more positive, more loving, more understanding. One where the alcohol is shown for really what it is worth and that is nothing except for a lot of trouble, a lot of anxiety for spouses and families, employers, workers, everybody in life. As we all know, alcohol is quite a wicked drug. It attacks us mentally and physically.

Well, I think that’s just about all for now. But if there are any questions, I’d like to continue this tape. So, please, do that.