AA Share of the Day | | | DR PAUL OHLIGER - EVERETT, WA 11-28-97 |
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Dr Paul is the author of the 3rd Edition Big Book Story, “DOCTOR, ALCOHOLIC, ADDICT.”
Dr Paul's story was renamed, “ACCEPTANCE WAS THE ANSWER” in the 4th Edition. Doctor Paul Ohliger is often called, the “Funniest Man in Alcoholics Anonymous,". Doctor Paul lived in California. In Addition to his Big Book story, he has also written a few complete books of his own. He’d been sober since July of 1967. Dr. Paul died on May 19th, 2000 but his great insight and dry humor live on in a series of Alcoholics Anonymous speeches he made throughout his later life. Dr Paul’s AA talks are kind of hard to describe. He definitely gets serious at times but for the most part his talks consist of short, very descriptive and humorous stories about his life. The crowd is almost continually laughing. He’s got a very meek sounding voice which makes his experiences that much funnier. Here are some of the things Dr Paul talks about. Thunderbird was his favorite white wine – Ripple was his favorite red wine. He’s just had his 30th sober anniversary. He said that’s the longest he’s ever gone without a drink. “If this keeps up I may just give up drinking.” Dr Paul ended up in the nut ward of the hospital where he was on the staff. He was once told by his sponsor that if he is distracted by people talking during a meeting, he has every right to ask them to kindly leave the room. Then he began to think. “I wonder if that will work with all the people in my head?” He tells the crowd that he’s glad they can’t hear what’s going on in his head because some of his thoughts are illegal and even more of them are lewd. Dr Paul goes on, in an extremely funny way, about all the voices in his head. He says that there is just one voice in his head that, no matter what his mood is, happy, sad, depressed, etc. this one voice’s answer is, “Let’s have a drink.” When that one voice would win out, all of the voices got drunk. He says that there is a place amidst all these voices that is always absolutely calm. That’s where his higher power is. That’s where his higher power has always been. We’ve heard a lot of AA speaker talks, but as far as making you crack up; Dr Paul has it down to a science. | |
