A Conversation with Sandy B. on the 12 Steps, Willingness, and the Secret Weapon of Sobriety

Hi everybody. Well, good evening everybody. My name is Sandy Beach and I'm an alcoholic. How y'all doing? Well, I want to thank the committee for inviting me over here. I love AA and I love AA roundups like this where we get a lot of sobriety all in one big room and just rock and roll and celebrate. You know, this is just so great. You try to tell somebody new that you're going to come in to AA, and in not too many months, you're going to be absolutely happy that you are not drinking on a Saturday night. You now what I mean? That is beyond our vision to understand. When somebody told me that, I'm going to happy with not drinking. But I'll tell something if you don't get that way it's going to be a long trip because that's what we had before we got there it was trying to stay sober by just not drinking and you could always spot somebody who is trying to stay sober just not drinking their jaw muscles were out to here and you'd come up to him you say what are you doing so I'm not not drinking. And it was like, it was all you could do. You couldn't chew gum and not drink at the same time because it was so hard to not drink. And somebody said, you're going to do that for the rest of your life? That's impossible. Can't stay that miserable for the rest of our lives. And that's what AA gives us is this wonderful freedom from alcoholism. and it's a spiritual freedom. And sometimes when we're new, we don't even recognize these spiritual miracles that happen. And if you've been around a while and maybe three or four months and it just occurred to you that you forgot to worry about drinking last week, it doesn't get any better than that. You know what I'm talking about? That is what sobriety is. It is total freedom from this thing called alcohol and alcoholism. It does not come up on our agenda to have to deal with. It just is lifted out of us. And that, of course, is how problems are handled on a spiritual basis. It's so different from what we were doing before we got here, problem solving. You know, problem-solving before we get into AA, you would try to figure it out. And then you would come up with an answer to whatever this problem is. And we come in here and we're given these steps and they teach us, if you follow these, your problems will just be lifted away and you won't be worrying about them. They don't get figured out. They don'T really get solved. They just aren't bothering you anymore. And that's how it is. That's what sobriety is, is that my alcoholism just isn't bothering me anymore. And the only explanation that I have for that is I followed a series of actions that I didn't believe in. And I think everybody who works our 12 steps has done the same thing. And it's a funny thing about a spiritual program because it doesn't look like it should work. Now, I don't know if anybody else had this same thing when they were new and somebody says, everything you need to know. I mean, there's all the big book pounders are in the first 164 minutes. You don't need to Know Anything Else. All your problems, they're going to be right in there and especially in these 12 steps. So I don't know. I think I took people at their word and I said, well, all right, they say that the answer to all my problems is in these twelve steps and I had the same problems everybody else has. I had no money. How many of us, when we're new in AA, are broke, broke, broke? I mean, I'm talking about, you know, not only do we not have a lot of money, but we owe a lot of money. I mean we don't see any financial security for decades ahead as you sort of and we don' t have a job so we don''t have any social security and nobody's talking to us in our family and we have no family security, and our sex lives is all screwed up, and everything is just a total mess. So we know what the problems are. And I just wrote them down. There they were, you know, sex, security, and society, just like out of the 12 and 12. It's just boom, boom, boon. And they said all the answers to these problems are in those 12 steps. And I said, all right, well, I'm just curious. I'll just scan these steps. I had them laid out here. let me see where the money step is and there wasn't one so then I went for the sex step there's nothing there how about the job step which step where do you get a job and you go through those steps looking at them and you I don't think you're gonna find any answers in there I didn't find a thing I just said this is And this looks like something you'd do when you got real old and you were just hanging around a lot. You had a lot of spare time. You could surrender and make amends and pray and meditate and inventory all the time, get some conscious contact and have all this wonderful serenity. But man, I'm out here in this damn world, you know. I don't have time to be dropping my guard, turning my back on all these problems to be engaged in whatever this really is. And so I suppose like all other newcomers, I just looked at all of that and could not see how that was going to affect my life. but what saves us is we have these other people who seem to make a lot of sense who tell us yes they do work yes they do work and of course the thing that makes the program work is not logic or anything like that it's power that's why all this works is that these steps put us in touch with the power to make the world no longer overpowering. How many of us have said, you know, life is too much for me? I just got so much on my plate. I mean, it's just overpowerING. That's because it's not me. It's just you or me against all of this. But now we come in here and we're going to be put in contact with infinite power. And when it's me and my higher power, there's nothing out there that looks like a big deal. it's kind of like the little kid in grammar school that had the big brother and somebody would pick on him and he'd say I'll be going to tell my brother and nobody would mess with him you know what I mean because he had this secret weapon and I really think that's what sobriety is that we end up with this wonderful secret power source, personal higher power inside of us that we perhaps never realized existed. We may have had glimpses of it when we were children and maybe were taken to a church. I was and I knew that people talked about this but I never connected with it like I did in AA And so I just want to thank AA for being a spiritual program, for having the arms that are so wide that no matter what our background is, these traditions allow us to come in because there is no definition of a higher power. And the only membership requirement is a desire to stop drinking. You know what I'm saying? So it's just AA opens its heart and its arms and its doors as wide as can be, No matter what your beliefs are, spiritually, you're welcome in here. And all of us had misconceptions, had doubts, had fears about this higher power thing, and we still were able to come in because there wasn't anything to rebel against. There was no definition of a higher power, so we couldn't object to it. You know what I'm talking about? It just said, oh, the higher powers, whatever you say it is. and it's real hard to go well that's not acceptable i'm out of here you know so so we keep hanging around you know and it was just an accident that it ended up that way just was it endedup that way to settle disputes back there in the beginning everybody's fighting about what is higher power going to be this or christianity right around and they came up with this wonderful God as we understood him. And so all these inclusive things allowed me to stay, allowed me to stay here, allowed my ego to not fight to leave here. And I always like to compare spirituality and the steps and things that happen in here, in my life anyway, with drinking because it was the other, drinking is very much like this program it's based on putting a power inside of us a hidden power called alcohol that causes a transformation on the inside that makes the world look great and the world stays the same it's just that I got a buzz on and I suddenly go from having a lousy time and thinking this world is the worst place to live in to where I can hardly contain myself because you people are so wonderful did you ever do that you go in and i remember being in a bar in the midwest one time and i just pulled into town and i went to have a few drinks in the bar and after a while i was sobbing and after about five drinks and the bartender said what's the matter i said i'm just overcome by the magnificence of the people drinking in here you know it's just i've never been in the presence it's such wonderful buy them all a drink I just, I love humanity. That was the power of alcohol. Now eight drinks later, my teeth are getting knocked out and there was a loon. But there was that moment when this power of alcohol just transformed the world and it was what a great place and what great people were in that world. I just loved them. Boy, I just could hardly wait to see them. And the next day when the alcohol went out of my system, They all turned into vampires again And they were mean and they were out to get me And I hated them Hated that sober world When you think about it Our problem was really sobriety That was the problem Whenever I was sober It was awful And that's why I went to a bar I went in there and I said do you have something that can fix sobriety because I've got it again and it's driving me crazy and the bartender being a smart bartender would go how about a drink I've seen that make a big dent in sobriery and I'd pour it down and pretty soon I wasn't sober anymore and it was great so I say, I don't know about you but I say that was my problem I kept getting sober time after time after time I'd come back come back to sobriety and it would be all lousy again and I'd have to work for eight hours because you had to earn drinking money which is what the purpose of a job was So you worked in this terrible world and did some awful job In order to get the drinking money so that you could really live And that was sort of the way I saw the world And so it upset me It used to upset me something awful When I'd hear two people talking next to me On a bus or on a bus stop or in a supermarket and like one little old lady would turn to another little old lady and say, isn't this world wonderful? And I used to look at them going, where the hell do you live? Wonderful. You're living in a different world than I'm living in. This is a terrible world. Matter of fact, I'll tell you, I remember I used this story many, many years ago, probably back in 1980. But I used to think of the world. This is how I saw the world, as you can see already. I have a mental damage has obviously been done, and I see things in a distorted way, but if I don't drink, they don't lock me up. the world seemed to me like a big pinball machine and I was one of the balls down in the thing you know they have a rack down below where the five balls sit and that was like my bar and there was four other guys and me and we're sitting down there and I liked to hang out in there it was dark and nobody could find you and it was very peaceful and all of that but then somebody would choose my machine and that was like the alarm clock going off in the morning you know what I'm talking about the quarter would come in it'd be run run run I'd go oh god here it comes and all of a sudden that plunger would grab me which is my wife pushing me out the door to go to work and it would be blam and I'm up there you know and here it becomes back and wha and now I'm out now I am in life this is what life looked like I'm just out there and there's these bumpers and there is light and I'm over here and I'm going bam bam bam then I'm over here I'm gonna on the side and assist and then I see the little hole that's my favorite bar and all I want to do is to get back in there dive in you know and Jesus what is out what is all this you know it just didn't make any cents at all and you just and you've had the worst day in the world some guy had you over here he rang up at 300,000 points just on this little area and you're coming down into the hole and then all of a sudden the guy gets a flipper and bam you start the whole day over again you're up and you bam bam Jesus and once in a while you get an amateur playing the thing and he doesn't pull the plunger back very far at all you shoot up and you don't hit a thing you just come straight down the middle boom back in the hole and I used to have days like that about once a year you know where you went through that day and nobody touched you they didn't lay a glove on you and that's I'd come in there and I go wow I'd like to have more days likethat you know just And now I'm back where it's safe. But normally, you'd come zipping in that hole and you'd just go, You're not going to believe what happened to me out there. And that's just the way I saw life. It just was, holy jeez, it's just awful. What a rat race out there! Thank God for this place, for this little hole in the wall, where there's nice people and we can talk to each other and reason and get arrested together and just form that camaraderie camaraderie and that true love and that bonding of the spirit. So for me, sobriety was my problem. I just wasn't comfortable in this world. There was something missing. And when alcohol came along, I found the secret of life. It answered all of the problems that I had. It answered how I could feel part of this world I when I looked at the world after a few drinks then I understood the two little old ladies who said isn't this a wonderful world I could see now that it was a nice place but when there's no alcohol in my system I couldn't see it it was impossible for me to see it I had the terrible feeling there was something wrong with me and there was missing there was definitely something missing an alcohol fixed that problem it was a terrible problem I just had that feeling that there was something missing and I came into AA and you told me what was missing was a higher power and it just didn't make sense didn't makes sense to me at all I thought it was a misdiagnosis there were so many other things that it was obvious that this is what the real problem was. But I think what the truth was, I saw money or women or power or some sort of prestige that if I could have those they would then provide me the happiness and serenity and peace of mind that I needed so bad to feel like I was somebody. And AA has shown us how to get this directly we don't have to wait for the million dollars or the big yacht or the perfect husband or the wife for the perfect job we are taught how to have a direct pipeline to our own higher power which will give us the sense from the inside out that all is well with us with the world and the people around us but the power of alcohol was very powerful for me and and And when you think back on it, I remember going to a dance. And I'm sure a lot of the guys had this happen to them. You're 15 or whenever you're going to go to the dance for the first time and you're gonna try to ask somebody to dance and you scared to death and they're gonna say no and you gonna get rejected and you really don't know how to dance. And oh my God, this is a... I can't believe how tough life is. and you're expressing all these fears and sometimes you just go home. It's more than you can handle. I'm not going to try anything that dangerous. Someone saying no to me, I might not live through it. And somebody comes up and says, No problem, pal. Come here. I got just the answer for that. See this glass of whiskey? Just chug it down, pal, and you'll be out there. You'll be dancing. You will be comfortable. And I said, you mean, you're saying, what I'm hearing you say is there are like 10 Arthur Murray lessons in that glass? Is that what you're trying to tell me? He says, yes. I said do you know how preposterous that sounds? Smell that stuff. It smells like motor oil. You're saying contained in here, even though it doesn't look like it, are 10 Arthur Murray. Yeah, that's right. Now, here's my question. What if the guy never took a drink in his life? Just walked away from that. Said, no, no damn way. He will go to his grave believing that there were no Arthur Murray lessons in that glass. Am I right or wrong? he's just going to go there's no way there were 10 Arthur Murray lessons in that glass but those of us that picked the glass up and drank it then something happened that superseded our judgment of just looking at the glass and we knew from the inside out holy cow what they were saying was true There really was 10 Arthur Murray lessons in that class. And I'm the greatest damn dancer here tonight. And you were out there just rocking and rolling. Yeah! But you had to drink it. You had to overcome everything inside of you that said this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, that that would be in there. And that was one thing. But the second thing that drove us to take that was desperation we weren't going to get on the dance floor any other way and so many of us got started because we needed it and when I think about the program I think about same thing somebody comes up with our twelve steps and says oh you want to dance you want a feel serene you want to feel it's all right here and it's like that's glass of whiskey would look at it and we go, I don't think so. I don' t think any of that is in there. And to the people who never take the steps, it's true. It's not there. And if you're going to wait until you can see it there, it'll never appear because spirituality only happens when we do it. So instead of waiting until we believe that this will work, we do It and then the results cause us to believe that it'll work because it already has. So faith is taking action that we really don't know and making a decision to do this based on the desperate nature of our situation and based on the experience of all the other people who tell us and reassure us, if you will really focus on this, you will have incredible transformations in your life. And that's what I think is so wonderful about AA. It causes us to go against our own better judgment. Don't you love working with new people? And they start a sentence with, well, in my judgment. And you go, in your judgment, You're still wearing a goddamn wristband from a nut war. Who cares about your judgment? What do we want to know? Your judgment. The last thing we want to rely on is your judgment. Jesus. But getting our judgment out of the way is no easy battle. You know, we might agree to that for today, but what happens tomorrow when we wake up? Well, my sponsor told me to do this, but you know, I've been thinking. Oh, there's danger already, right? I've Been Thinking. I think he's wrong. So there's one of the great enemies that... And, you know, it's ironic because the only way we can get the program is through our mind and through willpower. And willpower can have nothing to do with staying sober. No way you can stay sober on willpower, but willpower is the only ways to stay sober. So it sounds like you're talking out of your both sides of your mouth at once. But what they're saying is if you're trying to just use your willpower to not drink, Just take the power of your will against alcohol You're gonna lose You're just going to grit. I'm just gonna say I am NOT going to drink. I mean take my willpower I'm not gonna drink Then there's no way to do it on willpower But on the other hand if you use your willpower to go to meetings To get in the car To pick up the telephone That's an act of willpower To call your sponsor To work these steps to read the big book and follow all these directions all taking willpower it puts us in touch with power that can overcome drinking and so it's not our willpower that overpowers the drinking but there's no way to get there without it and so we we taught we learned that in 12 and 12 a lot of places where Bill writes about that and so we find this wonderful sobriety game that I have so much fun with so bright I really believe that when it says God wants us to be happy, joyous and free it's what he wants. And that's the deal. I just think there's this loving source, whatever it is and just says allow me to just hold you and make you experience the wonderful love and joy that is yours for the asking. Please, this is it. It's almost like imagine that the sun was the higher power and just soaking up the rays was how you got everything there was out of life. And you decided to hang out in a cave. You know what I'm saying? And we're going, hey, don't stay in the cave. There's this wonderful sun up here and if you just stay in contact with it, you will have a... Oh, I don't believe that. that's the most crazy story i have ever heard a son up there and i'm gonna sit out in it and i'm going to feel better and all that i i just i'm to stay in the cave unless you can prove to me that that's true now if this is the intellectual position that our egos make us take about aa it's never going to happen. We got to do it. And then this happens. And I really believe, and I find, I've been sober since, oh, I forgot to mention, I got sober on December 7th, 1964. And I've Been Doing This for a Long Time. And my ego does not like AA. It doesn't like God. It doesn'T like the steps because my ego wants to take credit for everything. That's what an ego is for. It's to, you know, it's driven by pride. And I remember my pride saying, look, some people need God. You don't. The weak people need God, the strong people don't, and you know that was my ego talking that it's possible to get through life on your own. That's what this is all about. That's why we have songs like, oh if I was still drinking when that song came out, that would have been my theme song. I did it my way. Now there, I don't care what anybody else thinks, I don't go where anybody else did. I'm here in jail and I got here by myself and I did it myself. And I never chickened out and asked for help. Boom, ba-ba-boom. That would be my song. But then on the other side, there was the Wimpy Song. Oh, these were wimpy, wimpy songs. I used to feel sorry for anybody who could connect with a song like, people who need people are the luckiest people in the world. Oh boy, is that a wimmy song? Right? That's the ego. I don't want to need people. I'm not into any of that stuff. If I'm there, you know, just be out there and do it. And that's why we stay lost a lot. Somebody once referred to AA as the world's biggest lost-to-found department. And, you know, it's a good way to think about life is that we were lost. We didn't know where we were. We Didn't know what was going on. Didn't have any sense of direction. and I think the first time I ever heard anything about being lost was as a boy scout and the boy scout master came out and he had something like my watch here and it was a compass and he just held it up and he said this it will save your life you can put your life your very life can be trusted to this compass. You see, there's a big rock up at the North Pole. And when you push this little button, this needle goes zink and points right up there telling you where north is. And when você coloca isso com uma mapa, você pode sair da praia ou de onde quer que esteja para a civilização antes de se starvar até a morte. Now, when he said that, I didn't sit out there and go to myself. A big rock at the North Pole? Who the heck does he think he's kidding? I'm going up and see the rock. You want me to put my life on a $3 item with a story about a rock at the North Pol- You didn't see us doubting that. We just took that thing and stuck it in our pocket, and we said, man, if I'm ever out there, I'll just pull this compass out, and I'll save my life. So you want to talk about turning your life over to a compass? When you're lost and your life is on the line, you just reach in there. You happily turn your lifeover. And then later on, after I got in the Marine Corps and I ended up being a pilot, and I'm going through flight school, and it was fun. You know, learn we're flying and we're bombing and we were doing all this stuff, And then they go, oh, now we're going to not only you're going to fly when you can see the ground. Now you're gonna learn how to fly when you CAN'T see anything. It's just solid clouds. And I remember just going, whoa, I don't know about that one. Solid clouds? Yeah, we're gonna fly into a very mountainous area and there's a runway right between two huge mountains and you're gunna fly right in there and land on it. I said, oh man, I don't know. That sounds too dangerous. Oh no, don't worry. You don't have to be frightened, you see. Because located right at the end of the airport is this radio beacon. And it has an invisible beam that goes zing right into your airplane. And if you follow that beam, you come down at the last second. Boom! There's the runway. I didn't say to the guy, radio beam is coming up through the through the air into my plane and I come down between the between the two mountains I didn't say that I just got in the damn airplane and went out there and flew right in between the mountains listening you know beep beep beep you know old radio range days and I'm listening to the signal and the A and the N, and I'm getting on the beam. And when you get on the beam, you didn't hear anything. It was quiet. And you knew that you were going to come in and you were going to be fine because there was this great navigation system that could lead us to a wonderful destination. So I didn't doubt any of those things. You all fly airplanes all the time, and that's how they're getting there. Going right between the two mountains with you on it. but we come into aaa and we are lost i mean we are so screwed up and lost and i mean it's just we couldn't be more desperate and we're going to die doctors have told us that and we are told oh we have this map here 12-step map and this if you follow this it'll get you safe and sound and happy to a wonderful destination beyond your wildest dreams now for some unknown reason our doubts come in and we go i see what you're trying to get me to buy there's some higher power up in the sky who's sending me a signal about my life and if i listen to this signal everything's going to be one i don't think so pal this is a real world you know this is society man i mean you got to have a car you got to have a job you got to have dough dough dough that's what you got to have and I can buy my own signal I got radar detectors I got the whole deal man I don't need I'm not going to buy this isn't that amazing our I'm just talking now about you know what I'm really talking about is our second step is that wonderful transition between doubting and coming to believe it's a process that's very difficult for us alcoholics. This process is called changing your mind. It is a huge process for alcoholics The first time an alcoholic changes his or her mind, it could be best pictured, imagine the Queen Mary trying to turn around in Tampa Harbor. there's tugboats about 12 on each end of this ship that's our sponsor trying to get us to change our mind just one time and I remember the first time my sponsor got me turned all the way around like that and I said to him you know Bill you're right you're right he said no you're wrong and I said hey it's the same thing he said say it and it was like I had a bone stuck in my throat it was not wrong I was trying to say I'm wrong and nothing would come out so I can't hear you it just doesn't come natural to us alcoholics to say I'm wrong and you know what sobriety consists of it consists of no matter how long we've been sober we're trying to find something else that we're wrong about so we can get rid of it because everything that we are wrong about is screwing up our lives there was an old guy named Charlie Bruton who was a wonderful AA guy up in washington dc and he's been dead for quite a few years but he had a lot of wonderful sayings and one of them was a joke which i'll do and then i'll tell you the saying i was thinking of he always did this we had this one meeting where the clocks were messed up and the one at the behind the speaker would say 8 45 and the one in the back of the room would say 9 15 and it always some new guy would see this and it would be about the only thing he could focus on for the whole meeting because he was left there not knowing for sure how much time was left before the meeting was over so he'd come up to Charlie and he'd say you know, the clock in the back of the room says quarter after nine the one up here says 845 and Charlie was looking right in the eye and he'd go if they both said the same time we wouldn't need but one clock and he's speaking to that anyway the saying that oh here it is lost my clock and I'm going to talk too long No, we've got some time. The saying I was thinking of about our ideas, that we have to change our mind about all these different ideas, and he used to say, it isn't the things you don't know that kill you, it's knowing things for sure that just ain't so. And that's what we have. All of us came here with our own ideas. And we're not big at sharing, right? So we've had this stuff that we have accumulated over all the years. I'm no good, there is no higher power, everybody's out to get me, people are terrible, tall people especially are awful, short people are no good. Chinese people are not good, black people are bad, Italian people are good, Italian people aren't good, old people are horrible. Whatever we got, you know, the government can't be trusted, if this can't happen, I'm not good. You shouldn't work for anybody. Why do we pay taxes? I can't believe all the things that are wrong. There's no such thing as truth. You can't trust anyone. Don't ever trust anyone, whatever. We have this tremendous, much less all the great information that we learn, at least the guys do, I don't know about the girls, off of bathroom walls when you're growing up. You know, you're in there, you'RE 12 years old and you'RE reading and then you go, whoa, whoa. Whoa! Wow. that's going to be hard to deal with well I better not ask anybody about that or they won't think I'm cool so we have collected all kinds of ideas and prejudices and judgments and stuff that just and they're all up in our head and they are causing us a lot of pain as we go through each day because they're being triggered by the world all around us and that this has happened and that kind of a person and this kind of an idea, this kind of a situation. We were told we'll always be threatened by this situation so every time that comes up we're threatened. So the only way at least this alcoholic could see that I could be comfortable in this world was for the world to change. That was the only way. So I tried, like many of you, to control the people around me. That's what I thought communication was. You know, you get in a relationship and then you go to a counselor and say, you've got to communicate more. And I'd say, okay, I'll tell her more about me. Blah, blah, blah. I don't like this and I don' t like that and I need this and I need that. What else do you want to know about me? Because if you know everything, then you could adjust to me, and then there would be harmony. And that's what I thought communication was, was just telling more about me so that, you know, you would then know that. And we have, you Know, we come in the program, it talks about when we come In here, we acquire the skill to live in harmony with the world. And harmony is a beautiful thing, And we really learned to do that in AA because we have a melting pot in AA. I love the fact that we're all so different. We come from all different men and women and ages and races and social status, and we all treat each other like another drunk. Probably just the way God wants us to treat each Other, just like another person. We just look and go, there's a person over there, a new person. I love that person. Haven't even met him yet. I love him. Doesn't that feel wonderful? If you love someone new who comes in, you haven't even met, and just your heart's going out to them, what does that say about you? It says you're a much better person than you're giving yourself credit for. This is who you really are. You just have a bunch of ideas that are wrong. Because your real nature is a loving person. And our ideas have told us to shut that down. You're not a loving person, you're not going to get along in this world. It can't be that. You can't show any emotion. You can'T do any of that. So we don't do that and then we feel so uncomfortable, so terrible out there, so we can drink to feel comfortable. But that's our fundamental nature deep down inside. As Bill writes, it's the fundamental idea of a higher power what's there, just like the fundamental ideal of a friend. and this is what happens as we follow charlie bruton's thing of getting rid of all the things that just ain't so it's a wonderful process of inventorying ourselves instead of the world we were all experts at inventory in the world we just kept track of everything that was going against us and everything that Was wrong in other people and we come in here and we find if we reverse that, we can then adjust ourselves to be comfortable no matter what the situation is. And you know, we've talked about this and I eat dinner with some guys and get little small groups chit-chatting. And whatever your problem is, let's say traffic bugs you. You know what I mean? It's just like a guy cuts you off or this happens. But if you decided ahead of time, just as an experiment. You know what I mean? Oh, could you do this? Could you get in your car and drive for 30 minutes and let everybody drive any way they want? Just have a special day, sort of a freedom driver's day. And you say, just for a half an hour, just for half an hours, you could get out there and you'd just be going, hey guys, you want to pull in? And be my guest, this is free driver day, man. I'm just letting people just cut me off and pull over and don't signal. What do I care, man? I've decided that it's okay. Well, if we can do it on a trial basis, we could really decide to let go of a lot of things. It just involves changing our mind. Changing our mind That's what really letting go and letting God. My friend Ed up in Washington, his little trick about what sobriety is, his little tricks is as he gets up, and he's a lobbyist, he has to go be in front of, boy, all that power and all that crazy stuff. And as he's going out the door, he lets five people be wrong ahead of time. You know what I mean? So he just goes out and, oh wow, they screwed up the whole meeting. so I already cut slack for that and it's a wonderful technique to get free from our own ideas of how everything has to be and how tough life you know and it all has to do with being willful has to deal with my ego of saying how things are supposed to turn out and then when they don't I'm all upset and so I found a lot of freedom in the program in allowing things to just unfold. And the other thing I want to say, I'm glad, you know, this is a good talk. I didn't hardly talk about drinking much at all. Trust me, okay? I left out the, you now, I ended up in a nut ward and I really am an alcoholic. And so... Had a lot of trouble. But I get more excited thinking about what we've been given here as a roadmap, as a navigation aid, as a signal that can guide us through our life. And these are just some thoughts that I have about spirituality. The program is designed to enable us to get rid of the things that are blocking us from our higher power so that we can end up real close to our higher power. They call it conscious contact, where you just have a sense, wow, and when you're there, there aren't any problems. You know what I'm talking about? I'm sure even if you're new, you've had some of those moments of serenity when you'RE suddenly sitting in a place that's almost a shield that's protecting you from everything that's going on in the world. There is a sense of well-being and that life is wonderful because of this closeness to our higher power. And then there's all these other problems that we encounter in life, but maybe there aren't any other problems other than not being close to our Higher Power. That we just get away, a financial problem comes along, it causes us to worry about money, We stop meditating, stop praying, stop thinking about a higher power, cut off the higher power and we're going to handle the financial problem alone. And now it becomes too big for us and it becomes overpowering. So everything in AA is designed to get us back on this path so that we can stay in touch with this signal. And you know what that signal says? It simply says all is well. All is well, I know what you can see with your eyes. you're seeing commotion and chaos and you may not get promoted and this may happen but if you have a signal inside of you that is going yes, that's all going on but all is well and you see that in AA you see people who get a fatal illness and they just stay in touch with this signal all the way through all the wait till they die and right up to the last moment all is wel that is the power of these steps If you're new, I know it sounds beyond belief. Oh, I don't think I could give him anything like that. I could find something that whenever I turn to it, it would make me feel better. It would make be feel that my problems are manageable. You're saying there's a power like that? And I say, you're the last person that should doubt that. What was your lifestyle before you got here? You turn to a power called alcohol whenever a problem came along. Most alcoholics, I don't ever remember having a problem and saying to myself, well, here's one I won't be drinking over. I'll be handling this one sober. That was not my lifestyle. Step one in problem solving for this alcoholic, I'm sitting in, maybe I'm home, okay? It's in the middle of the afternoon, and the mail comes. I go get the mail. There's a summons. I don't remember. I don' t remember any of this stuff. I am freaking out. What's the first thing you do when you get a summond? You go in the kitchen. You get a glass. You get bottle of whiskey. You pour it down, and you go, I'll know what to do about a summonds shortly. Maybe it takes two of them. And you go oh yeah, I'm going to call Judge Frammer and, you know, I drink with him down there and he'll figure this out. Funny thing, we get the power that comes inside of us and we intuitively knew how to handle a situation that was baffling us. And what I'm going to close on is that that is what sobriety is. It is a series of steps that enable us to move from the intellectual level to the intuitive level. You know how the promises say that? We will intuitively know how to handle situations. That is a part of us. It's a partof our brain and spiritual being that we don't operate at that often because you have to work the steps to get there. But it's still your own mind, and it looks like coincidences. When you're working this program, you really are getting closer to your higher power. There's an endless series of coincidences where things just occur to you to do to solve problems. You've got this terrible problem and then, oh I know it just seems to come and then you just go do it. And Bill writes a lot about we are much more efficient at living life because we don't have to waste a lot of time anguishing over situations. They just come and we look We don't have to react to them. We can just look for answers. It starts out, we call our sponsor. That's the very beginning of this process. We call up, we start trusting in something beyond just ourselves so that we never have problems that are just me against the problems. There's me and my sponsor and my home group and my higher power. I have a whole army to come after every problem I have. But my ego doesn't like that. My ego, and it happens to this day, Yeah, I know I got an army. I know I got a sponsor. I know I got a higher power. I think I'll handle this one alone. And the next time somebody sees you they go what's wrong? What was it? I had a flat tire. The smallest thing can become too big for us. So if you're new, it's time to have fun. It's time to realize that this is an absolutely deadly fatal illness but we have a joyful way of dealing with it. We have a lot of fun in meeting this head on together in a happy environment with a joyful higher power. The directions are here. The signals are loud and clear. Just follow them. Thank you all very much.