Asking for Help as the Spiritual Action the Alcoholic Ego Cannot Tolerate – Sandy B.
About This Speaker Tape
Sandy B. shares his story at the 50th Florida State Convention in Palm Harbor, Florida. He describes growing up in New Haven, Connecticut, feeling isolated and frightened as a child, unable to connect with his family or find comfort in religion. His first drink at Yale transformed his world instantly, dissolving every fear and releasing creativity he never knew he had. He knew immediately that alcohol was the answer to everything missing in his life, and no consequence could change that assessment.
He joined the Marines on a whim, became a fighter pilot, and excelled in the cockpit while drinking escalated alongside every assignment. A maintenance officer who drank heavily himself warned Sandy that his drinking was different, scarier than everyone else's. Eventually anxiety attacks, vision loss, and physical deterioration grounded him from flying. Stationed in Japan as an air traffic controller, he lost 50-70 pounds, survived on soup and vodka, and his fellow Marines watched him dying but felt powerless to help. Back stateside at Quantico, he suffered hallucinations, a grand mal seizure, and was locked in a psychiatric ward for six months.
An AA meeting was brought into the ward at Bethesda, and after release he kept drinking until desperation drove him to call intergroup on December 7, 1964. A Marine captain named Bill T. became his sponsor for the next 42 years. Sandy lost his Marine Corps career, two marriages, and spent 15 years earning less than he owed, but a quiet awareness told him that as long as he kept going to AA, everything would be fine. He and his friend Ed C. lived as the odd couple in a bare apartment, sponsoring newcomers at a redwood picnic table with styrofoam cups.
The talk builds to Sandy's central teaching: that human beings carry an unfillable void that only a spiritual solution can address. He connects Carl Jung's letter to Bill Wilson about alcoholics thirsting for Higher Power to the AA experience of hearing your own story from someone on a level playing field. He describes the promises as the fruit of step work, emphasizes that our worst years become our greatest gift to newcomers, and closes with the image of a master sculptor chipping away defects to reveal the magnificent person hidden inside.
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Timestamps
Full Transcript
Thank you.
Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy B., and I'm an alcoholic. How are you all doing?
Well, I'm honored to be here. The Florida State Convention is just a remarkable event.
I think I spoke at one in 75 or somewhere around there in...
Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy B., and I'm an alcoholic. How are you all doing?
Well, I'm honored to be here. The Florida State Convention is just a remarkable event.
I think I spoke at one in 75 or somewhere around there in...
Thank you.
Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy B., and I'm an alcoholic. How are you all doing?
Well, I'm honored to be here. The Florida State Convention is just a remarkable event.
I think I spoke at one in 75 or somewhere around there in Hollywood, Florida.
Yeah. And I remember back then it wasn't as big as this, but it was just full of spirit.
And Sister Maurice from New York was speaking there. And what a character she was.
So and then I ended up moving to Florida. And of course, every time I fly back into Tampa, I just go, I am so glad I live here.
I mean, I just travel all over and this is just the greatest. So anyway.
My sobriety dates December 7th, 1964. And my home group is the Saturday Night Fever Group in Tampa, Florida.
And if you're over that way on Saturday night, please drop in.
We'll probably ask you to speak because we're always I can't find a speaker.
So that would be something we'll be glad to do before I get started.
I'm going to try. I've tried this announcement over the years, but I got to thinking that.
I'm looking for this guy. And he's old enough now to be retired.
And since most people come to Florida after they retire, there's a good chance that you could be in the audience.
And if you're the guy, you and I were in the same mental military mental institution in 1964.
And I was a captain in the Marine Corps and you were a luger.
And I was a lieutenant commander in the Navy.
And you and I were in the same clay class.
And they were having an ashtray making contest.
And I had clearly and the doctors were judging it the next morning.
And I had.
I had clearly made the best ashtray.
All the other patients locked up in there agreed that mine was clearly superior to that thing that you had made.
And you came into my room the night before smoking that big cigar, acting real casual.
And then as if by accident, you put it out in my ashtray and knocked it on the floor and it shattered.
And you won the contest.
Now, I myself have forgotten about this incident.
And but I figure anybody that would do something like that is probably an alcoholic.
And if you were an alcoholic, you could have ended up in a.
You could have moved to Florida.
You could be working.
You could be doing the steps and you have this one a man that you're unable to make.
So I'll be right outside after the meeting.
One chance in a million.
What the heck?
Let's see.
I briefly my story.
I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut.
I got one sister.
She's got almost 30 years in AA.
You know, our parents went through the Depression and money was real tight, but they were great providers.
And my sister and I shared about this and she thought it was just the happiest little family.
And I thought it was very intimidating.
I didn't belong.
I sat at the table and they all seemed like a unit and I was somewhere else all in my mind.
And the Catholic Church frightened me.
My sister thought it was the greatest place in the world.
She thought the nuns were cute.
The Latin was great.
The incense smelled good and all is wonderful.
And I sat there like I was in a Nazi boot camp of some sort and was very frightened by it all.
And when I was about eight or nine, I remember looking at the crucifix and it's kind of spoke to me and it just looked down and it said, little boy, do you see this?
And I said, yes.
Well, this is what God did.
It was the only son that he loved.
Guess what he's going to do to you?
And of course, that's not what the church was teaching.
That has nothing to do with anything except I thought up that thought.
And that thought scared me almost into a fainting condition on the front pew.
I mean, that's our thoughts are so powerful.
Someone told me once.
That if you're sitting in a room and you see a person on the other side of the room and you think that they don't like you, the physical and emotional reaction that you have to that thought will be equal to the one as if that person walked over and said, I don't like you.
That's how powerful our thoughts are.
They create the reality that we react to.
So it's no wonder that we try to get rid of old ideas.
And that was certainly one that just paralyzed me.
And so I had no comfort in thinking about a higher power.
I just was I felt like I was isolated.
And I just still have a lot of those tendencies.
I was a good little student and athlete.
And I went to a little prep school fed right into Yale University in New Haven.
I got there and everybody who arrived from all over the country was clearly superior to me.
My God, they all had where they were rich.
They had confidence.
They had convertibles.
They knew what was going on.
And I felt like they were going to expel me, that they're going to find out an imposter was in their midst.
And what was I doing there?
Who do I think I was to be with these people?
And I've been there a couple of months and my roommates are going, you're not drinking.
No, no, I'm not going to drink.
I'm going to get high grades and all that.
And I was at a social function where there was 20 people were supposed to meet each other.
And I find that very difficult.
And as I approached each group, the guys looked at me and very clearly with their eyes said, we do not want to know you.
Do not come any closer.
And boy, I could pick that up.
You know that energy when you can see it?
And boy, they don't like you.
They don't like you.
And I went to the other group and the other group and they all had the same basic message.
We have plenty of friends.
We don't need a creep like you.
And so I was thinking of leaving and there was a bar there.
And I said, well, maybe I'll get it.
I'll drink.
It'll help me feel better.
I ordered something in soda, had two, starting third one, didn't think anything was happening, decided to leave.
And I turned around and it was as if those guys were gone.
And these 20 or 25 of the friendliest people in the world, they were all looking at me, begging me to be their best friend.
Please join our group.
Please come over here.
And I'm looking.
And I.
I felt like Alice in Wonderland.
I had just gone into a new world, a new level of existence where everything was wonderful.
Alcohol didn't change me, but it changed the world that I lived in.
And it was wonderful.
And I went up and I intuitively knew how to handle things.
Now I could talk about anything and gabbing and talking and everybody's going, yeah, this guy is funny.
He's telling jokes.
He's doing all that.
And I realized prior to alcohol.
All my anxiety and my fears had all my creativity stopped up inside of me.
I was afraid to try anything.
And suddenly I'm released.
It was like a reawakening and being reborn.
It was just so exciting.
It was remarkable.
And eventually I talked to everybody so much they left.
And even then I was going, don't go home.
Don't go home.
You know, I don't want the party to stop.
And so I went back to the bar and said to myself, boy, if three drinks do that, what will 20 do?
You know, I might as well find out.
So I stayed there for quite a while, just pouring down tons of alcohol and enjoying every drink.
Got better and better.
And I got back to the dorm.
And then, of course, I started getting sick.
You remember when you first start drinking and I'm in the bathroom on the cold tile floor,
which, as I was to learn, is a great place to hang out when you're throwing up and trying to feel better.
And I vomited most of the night and sat on the bed the next morning feeling like a hatchet was in the back of my head.
Absolutely just dying.
And the thought occurred to me, are you going to drink again tonight?
And it was like that.
And I went, of course.
I said, this hatchet in the back of the head and this sense that I may die in the next 15 minutes
is a small price to pay for what I had last night.
So.
That's why I'm an alcoholic, because what alcohol did for me was worth any price.
Now, I didn't know I was making that decision.
I thought I was the same as everybody.
But that's how I reacted to it.
This stuff is so incredible and it solves every problem I've ever had since I was a little kid.
All in 10 minutes.
I will.
This is going to be my way of getting through life.
I mean, that's a lot to happen.
You only been drinking one day.
But I knew that I knew inside that I had discovered what was missing in my life, a power greater than myself.
And so I devoted myself to this new way of life.
And I started flunking out.
No more athletics, getting in fights, going to jail, all kinds of things happening.
And none of them caused me to reassess my decision.
So you get in.
You get in trouble.
But boy, we look what you get for it.
It was always fine.
What's the problem?
And very briefly, I did finally graduate and the Korean War was going on.
Everybody had to join the military.
And we were drinking beer one afternoon.
Two or three other guys said, we're going down to join the Marines.
Why don't you follow us?
Yeah, OK.
Let me finish my beer.
I'll go.
Sounds like fun to me.
And I'm sure.
That recruiting sergeant saw us coming in.
He just went, oh, boy, have we got some live ones.
And yes, sir.
Signed our name.
Raise our hand and all that.
And the first 10 weeks were a little shocking to me.
I was.
I knew it was a mistake to have brought my golf clubs.
Let's just put it that way.
Anyway, somehow we survived that.
And, you know, actually, in the middle of all of that, I started liking it because there was so much.
There was so much discipline and I couldn't drink and I was getting healthy and I was feeling better.
And I was starting to get this camaraderie feeling.
Keith knows all about it.
And it was great.
You just felt like you were part of something, which is what a enables us to be is not to be something, but to be part of something.
And it felt good.
You're something is more important than you.
The core.
And you just people die for it.
It's just, oh, my God, what a change in perspective.
And so six months training.
You're an infantry platoon leader.
And that's what I was trained as.
And we're ready to go.
And I saw a training movie about pilots.
And I had second thoughts.
The pilots were at a bar.
They were talking with their hands.
There was some blondes in the background.
And I paused a second.
They weren't sleeping in sleeping bags.
They sleeping in big rooms with TVs and that kind of stuff.
So I asked somebody, what's the what's that?
The pilot stuff.
I'd never been in an airplane.
And they said, oh, they.
You don't want that.
You have to sign up for three more years.
Don't sign up for three more years.
What is that?
So I signed up and passed all the tests.
Got my orders to Pensacola, Florida.
To start 18 months of training.
I met this lovely woman while home on weekends one time.
And we had gotten engaged.
And so we're off on our honeymoon to Pensacola, Florida.
And I remember getting on a DC three in New York.
To go to Atlanta.
And I got air sick all over that plane.
It was just, oh, boy.
And then I got on another one from Atlanta to Pensacola.
And got air sick all over that plane.
And got to flight school.
And the first six flights, I got air sick.
And it looked bad.
But the motion sickness went away.
And then I became very good at it.
I would be number three in our class, number two or whatever.
And I just said, I am in heaven.
I'm being paid to do this.
It was so much fun.
And.
So I got through all of the gunnery and carrier qualification.
And instruments and formation.
And all the stuff you do.
Went to advanced training in Kingsville, Texas.
Drinking and drinking and drinking.
But not enough to not do well in the school.
And finally, after 18 months, I got my orders to Japan.
With a four-month layover at El Toro, California.
Living on Balboa Island.
My God.
Had a rental unit for about $120.
$120.
A month.
I have no idea what it would be today.
And I couldn't have been happier.
Finished that Marine Corps training.
And then went over to a fighter squadron in Japan.
The war had ended.
And there wasn't much to do except fly high-performance planes and drink.
And, boy, we did it.
And we drank as a unit.
The colonel would have us all at the table in the officer's club.
And we had a big model plane in the middle of it.
And you did not order a drink on your own.
The colonel ordered the rounds.
He'd call the waiter.
We want another round.
And they were drinking fast enough for me.
So I was never sitting there going, man, I've got to order another drink.
They were drinking as fast as I do.
The colonel said, boy, this is wonderful.
And so a lot of wonderful stories and all that.
But about nine months into this thing,
I was on the end of the runway with a major who was the maintenance officer.
He was one of my heroes, a big Irish guy.
And he was telling me that we were watching field carrier practice.
He was telling me he's going to get a fighter squadron in about a year and a half.
He'll be a lieutenant colonel.
And he wants nothing but the best pilots in the Marine Corps.
And he points to me, this young lieutenant, and he said, and I want you.
And I felt like, oh, my God, I've died and gone to heaven.
And then he said, but I wouldn't let you go.
I wouldn't let you drink.
And I'm going, I get drunk with this guy all the time.
What does he mean?
He wouldn't let me drink.
Everybody drinks.
And it wasn't until I got to AA that I realized in the middle of real heavy drinkers,
my drinking scared him.
There was something about the intensity with which I drank that scared him.
He just said, this guy.
He's out somewhere that we don't know about.
This is not partying like the rest of us are doing.
And he was right.
And I went on and I, you know, look like success.
I have different assignments.
We ended up with six children.
I got promoted to captain.
I'd been all over the place and flew photo planes in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
But the.
Alcoholism was going to bring everything to an end and I started going the physical
symptoms, the withdrawals, and I started getting on those F8s and I didn't want to
get in there because I was anxiety attacks and I was losing vision and my heart would
race and it was just like something's going to happen.
I knew I was going to pass out and there's no one else in the plane and this was going
on for like a year.
And I'm still going out and getting in the plane and I just, I knew something awful was
going to happen.
Um, so I went to the doctors and I only go there as a last resort and I went in.
I said, something's happened to me in the plane.
They said, what?
Well, I'm starting to lose vision.
I feel like I'm going to pass out.
I'm sweating.
They saw my heart is racing.
If something is happening to me.
And of course that scared him to death.
And they said, well, you're not going to fly anymore until we find out what this is.
They sent me back to Pensacola for two weeks for all the doctors to study me.
And of course there was no such thing as the disease of alcoholism.
There were no alcohol programs.
And so that was out.
It had to be something else.
And it was, now I look back, it was really funny to watch the heart guys test me and
then the nerve guys and stomach guys and the dentist, the dentist came the closest because
he's looking in there and that gets him real close to my breath.
And he said, you reek of alcohol and it's 12 noon.
And I said, well, I got drunk last night.
And he said, oh, okay, well that, that's probably why you reek of alcohol.
And just went on with the exam.
And we went through all of the different tests and they could find nothing physically wrong.
So they left it up to the psychiatrist.
He interviewed me.
It was a bizarre interview.
I don't even remember some of the questions.
And he concluded that I had a childhood fear of flying that just showed up after 13 years
of flying and I can't fly anymore.
And so that killed me because that's who I was.
That was my total identity with wearing those wings and just here we are.
And now I'm going back up to Cherry Point and it's waiting orders from headquarters,
because I had gotten a regular commission.
I was making a career.
This was my career.
And it took about three months and they gave me orders to become an air traffic controller.
I went to air traffic control school and passed.
That's a hard school.
And somehow I got through the hardest part with my hand shook so bad I could hardly fill
out those little strips.
There was no computers.
It was, you did it manually.
And I was sent overseas to be in charge of an air traffic control unit.
In Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan for 14 months.
And I got there and thank God, the senior enlisted men, E8, came up to me when I took
over the unit and, oh, Captain, we're glad to have you, but here's your tent and put
your bike over here, blah, blah, blah.
And he took one look and could smell me and he just said, sir, I think we should have
an understanding that you personally never talk to an airplane.
.
And I went, right.
So my job was to try and show up.
That was basically what I would try and do is to ride my bike to work and stay there
and yeah, yeah, yeah.
But mostly I was drinking.
I now didn't have to wait 10 hours before flying.
And during that year I lost 70 pounds, 50 pounds.
And I had malnutrition.
I stopped hanging out with my buddies.
I didn't go to happy hour.
I just stayed in Quonset hut, went to work and tried to stay alive on soup and vodka
and juice because hard food, solid food just wouldn't not start to chew it and it would
just start throwing it up.
And so that was a very bad year.
And I was just so sick.
And the funny thing is about that year, I was in an outfit.
outfit that had incredible spirit. We had reunions later on back in Washington. It was
just a wonderful group of guys, half of them pilots and half of them other Marine officers.
And we got together after I'd been in AA about 15 years. And we're sitting around talking
and, you know, they were drinking a beer or two. It wasn't a big party or anything. We're
just reminiscing a lot of funny stories. And two of them were talking to me privately
and they said, you know, we knew you were dying. I mean, it was obvious you were throwing
up blood and we just knew you were dying. But there wasn't anything we could do for
you. Now, that's a heck of a statement. The Marine Corps goes back to get their dead,
even if they lose other people. I mean, this is you do not leave anyone anywhere and
yet with as far as the disease of alcoholism was concerned, they were powerless. There
was nothing we could do for you. And I remember, boy, wow, what a statement to make. There
you are. Sorry, we can't help you. And that's where we were as far as the disease was concerned
in 1963 and 64. Somehow I made it through the year and I came back of all places to Quantico,
Virginia, to go to a career school to become
a bird colonel or something. And most of the time I couldn't find the school. I was now getting the
hallucinations and things were really starting to go freaky in my head. I mean, I remember every
time I would find the school, I couldn't find the room I was in. And when I came to the room,
generally late, I would stand there. Which table am I at? We were divided up in groups and guys
would be going here. So I'd go over and sit at the table and then there'd be PT and everybody's
going to their locker to get their athletic gear. And I wouldn't know where my locker was. And so
somebody would show me and then I couldn't work the combination lock, even though I had the
combination. Three right. And then we'd go back. Did I do three right? Have I already done three
right? Maybe I got to do three right again. So I'd never get my locker open. So you can see it was
like, whoa, things are bad.
And right about then I had a grand mal seizure, almost bit my tongue right in half and ambulances
came and off I went to Bethesda to see what caused it. I was there about four days while they're
studying me to see what could have caused a grand mal seizure. When I went into the DTs where you
hallucinate and I saw the CIA was trying to break me with memory tests. None of it's real, but you
know, when you go in a nut word,
every nut word I've heard about you go in, they go, ask you your name. And then they go, listen,
would you mind counting backwards by sevens from a hundred? Oh, I see a lot of people. It's okay.
And what happens is you go 93 and you never get another one. That's the end of
see, that one's hard to do when you're sober and okay. But wow, 93 minus seven.
Let me start over again. Okay.
93. So you can't do it. So that must've got my mind going. They're trying to embarrass me and
break me. And so then they CIA came in and asked me all these questions and then they would move
everything. So when I went out to tell them what was there, they had changed it and they moved
walls. That was clearly, they were trying to drive me crazy. And evidently I reacted to this and ran
out and they caught me and put me in a straight jacket and we were live. I was locked up for six
months. So that was the finale.
re yeah.
And during that period,
huh,
there was no AA. They were handling everything psychiatrically
and we would go and sit with all the other people talk about our mother,
talk about whatever. and one day the a group from Bethesda
talk to intersection to letting them bring it Mac meeting in.
And that's how I heard about AA.
now. It didn't take right them. I was very excited about it,
but I am
but I wasn't sure I was an alcoholic.
I didn't have enough evidence.
And so when I was released as an outpatient,
you could go home at night and come back during the day and go home on weekends.
It wasn't long before I was having a few drinks at home to watch the Redskin Games.
And they told me if I had another drink, my career was over.
And I said, well, they didn't mean that.
They meant if I ever got drunk.
And it wasn't long before I was bringing vodka into the nut ward because I needed it.
I knew they were going to catch me.
And out of desperation on this Pearl Harbor day, I called the intergroup,
and they sent over another Marine captain by the name of Bill T.
And I haven't had a drink since.
And he's been my sponsor for almost 42 years.
And...
And his anniversary is tomorrow.
And his home group has called me and asked me if I could come up there
because he's had lung cancer for a long time,
and they think this could be, you know, the last one.
So I'm going up there.
I'm going home tonight, and I go up there tomorrow morning.
Anyway, this guy just came to my...
To my house, put me in the car, took me to Manassas, Virginia,
to my first AA meeting.
I'd been sober about four hours.
It was a group anniversary.
God almighty, they had ham and turkey and all this stuff that was going on.
I couldn't eat, and I was sitting in this smelly room with a space heater blowing down.
And the bathroom was not the flush type.
And so when you went in there, you had to take a deep breath outside
and then get in.
Get in there and get back out.
And then they had square dancing.
They had fiddle players.
They had all this country stuff going on.
And that meeting lasted about five hours,
and now I'm sober about nine hours.
And I'm trying to get out of there, but it's so remote.
I looked out.
There weren't even streetlights.
And it was like almost raining snow.
And just terrible night.
So I was thinking, I'm just going to make a break for it anyway.
It looked like they were going to stay there.
And I felt a hand on my shoulder,
and it turned out it was an Al-Anon lady by the name of Betsy Lynch.
She saw what was going on.
And I turned around to see who it was,
and it was like an angel was standing there.
And I looked at her, and she said,
everything's going to be fine.
And it was like I believed her.
And I just went back in.
That was a very big turning point,
was that hand on my shoulder,
and everything's going to be all right.
And I went back in, and, God, it wasn't long after that.
About ten months, I was driving along in my car
and had sort of an awareness.
It was as if my higher power told me,
as long as you keep going to AA, everything will be fine.
And for some unknown reason, I believed that,
because a lot of things bad started happening.
After I got sober, I lost my career in the Marine Corps,
I lost my marriage,
and I couldn't make money.
You know, I had six kids.
There was eight of us, and I get thrown out of the Marine Corps,
and I didn't know, I wasn't prepared for anything.
And I wasn't very good in my mind at promoting myself
or even asking anybody for a job.
And so it was really, went years.
I think I had about 15 years before I earned more money than I owed.
So when I hear new people talking about financial problems,
I go, do you have more than 15 years?
Well, then I'll listen to you, but up to 15, what's the problem?
So?
So you got to wait till payday to buy a new battery for the car,
so you have to walk.
So?
So?
You remember all that, oh, the power's off for only two days,
and we'll have it back on.
But it was a little difficult bringing people over to my house to sponsor,
if you want what I have and are willing to go to any length to get it.
Yet, June was asking about Ed C. from San Antonio,
and he and I got sober with Hal Marley,
got sober in 1916.
He's 64, and we were the class of 64, and Tom is in the class.
And Ed had the same kind of stuff.
In early sobriety, everything was great.
And then the congressman he was working for didn't get reelected,
and Ed's back in San Antonio and had about 11 years of sobriety
and couldn't get a job, and he's getting depressed and all that.
And Hal called him up and said,
come on up to Alexandria, Virginia.
We'll put you in the men's home.
And he said, well, I got 11 years of sobriety.
Well, are you willing or not?
So up he comes.
He goes in the men's home.
I'll never forget, and I was getting divorced again
and now had whatever possession I had, they were now gone.
And Ed is in the men's home, and he wants to get out and not live there.
So we became the odd couple in a one-bedroom apartment in Alexandria
that we call the Hotel California.
And I had bedroom furniture.
Somehow I had saved that.
I had rescued a single bed and a bureau.
So when you went in my little bedroom, things looked cool.
But Ed was sleeping in the dining room, and he had a bed and a box with a table,
and he was a night watchman in a motel, and they gave him a used TV.
So he had the TV.
We had a TV there, and the living room had nothing in it
except the bicycle and the 5AA slogans, scotch-taped on the wall.
And we each had a knife and a fork and a spoon.
I don't know where we got them.
And we used paper cups and paper plates and all that kind of stuff.
And then we chipped in, and we bought a redwood picnic table that we assembled
and put it in the kitchen.
But then people who wanted us to sponsor them,
we'd invite them over to the picnic table,
and that's where we'd sit.
And you could see them walking through the living room kind of looking up.
And then we'd sit at the table, and I'd say,
do you want some coffee?
And we'd get the styrofoam cup.
I'd take mice.
I'd take a spoon out of the sink.
I'd rinse it off.
Get a whole dirty towel and wipe it off.
Make them a cup of instant coffee,
and I would explain the promises to them.
Especially the part about sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
Slowly.
Anyway, Ed and I, that was kind of a turning point.
He got plugged into a...
Actually, it was the Machine Tool Builders,
the huge trade association.
He became their top guy, top lobbyist.
And when he retired out of Washington,
half of the Congress came to his retirement party,
and he went back to San Antonio.
And I ended up with a wonderful job
with the credit union movement of the United States.
And worked there for 20 years,
writing speeches and testimony on behalf of the credit unions,
which are a great group of people.
Remind me a great deal of AA.
So you can see that God has been very good to me.
And it's...
And of course, I don't deserve it.
None of us do.
You get rewarded for messing up big time.
And you go,
why would that happen?
You know, when you ever think about that,
why do you get rewarded for messing up big time?
Well, this is my thoughts.
Until you mess up big time,
you rarely ask for help.
And if you don't ask for help,
you never get help.
So if you wonder why God hasn't helped you,
you've probably never asked.
Never asked.
Because I really believe God's will for me
is to be happy.
He'd be glad to personally be involved
every day of my life.
Just saying,
I will personally guide you through each day
telling you exactly what you should do.
And I will supply you the power
to do that on a daily basis.
That's my commitment to you.
The problem is that God's real stingy with this help.
He only gives it
when I ask.
And most of the time,
I don't need that help.
Matter of fact,
95% of the time,
I don't need that help.
And I don't get it.
And then I go,
I guess God's busy.
Must be helping somebody else.
Must not be interested in me.
And that's the spiritual dilemma
that we all have.
Is this,
inability to pick up the phone.
Inability to stop somebody at a meeting
and say,
can I talk to you about something?
You remember that feeling?
It's right here.
You can feel it.
When this meeting ends,
when this discussion meeting,
as soon as they say the Lord's Prayer,
I'm going over to Harry,
who I really trust,
and I'm going to ask him
about this situation.
And the meeting ends,
and we start over,
and then we go talk to Fred
and go out for coffee or something.
And we almost asked for help,
and that's such a hard thing to overcome.
Newcomers talk about the 15-pound telephone.
I went over to call my sponsor
and I couldn't get the phone up off.
It was just too hard to ask for help.
So why is that?
Because in our eyes,
in our self-centered ego eyes,
asking for help is a sign of weakness.
It is a sign that you are unable
to be self-sufficient
and you can't handle life on your own.
And, of course,
that causes a great deal of problems for us.
Somehow, because we're together,
we keep reminding each other of the solution.
I was talking with Bob at lunch,
and I reminded him of the letter
from Carl Young to Bill Wilson
when he was thanking Bill
for letting him know about AA and Roland Hazard
and how Dr. Young had always felt
that alcoholics were really looking for God.
That that's what they were doing.
They had a thirst for spirituality
and found it in alcohol
and it appeared to be working,
but, of course, that isn't God.
And so that's why he sent Roland Hazard
to find a spiritual solution,
the Oxford Group, etc.
So then after thanking Bill,
he just was talking in a general way
about,
about human beings.
And he said,
I've been studying human beings
and he's a very spiritual person
for, you know, 60 years.
And this is what he,
what I think,
that's what he said.
He said,
I think that every human being
has to struggle with evil.
Now, in AA,
it would say character defects.
And evil always wins.
That's a pretty negative thing.
Evil always,
always wins.
With one exception.
People who have had a spiritual awakening
and are in a society
that helps them maintain
that spiritual awakening,
which I think describes
Alcoholics Anonymous to a T
and enables us to be
in a rather small percentage
of people who actually have
a character defect.
We don't have a chance
at discovering what life
is really all about,
which has nothing to do
with the set of rules
and ideas that we thought
was what life had all to do about.
We suddenly realize
the reason
that life is so difficult
and so hard to do
is what causes us
to look for God.
Without that,
we'd never do it.
So it's almost like
it was built into us
as part of the package.
And our Creator
wants us to return to Him.
He just can hardly wait
for us to turn and go,
I don't want all this.
I don't want a big yacht
and a thing on the beach.
I want you.
Well, why would we ever do that?
Because it's too painful
to not do it.
And that's what the whole deal is.
There is something inside
of every human being
that is unfixable
except by God.
No matter what we try,
it's still there.
There's a sense
that something's missing.
There's something wrong.
Even when you're on a roll.
Okay, I'm there.
Now everything's fine.
Now everything's fine.
Then you go lie down in bed
and it goes,
no, it's not.
No, it's not.
You are not there.
Well, what is it?
And of course,
we heard this
when we went to church
or we read spiritual books,
but we didn't connect
until we got in here.
Because out there,
and this is what Bill talks about this,
we just didn't like to listen to authority.
We were always being talked down to.
You know what I mean?
The cop,
the judge,
no offense,
looking down at us.
You know what I mean?
How many times you stood in front of the judge?
You were all,
I was like this.
Ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma.
And so that's how we saw
the wonderful ministers and priests in our lives.
Ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma.
It was sort of down, down.
It wasn't meant that way,
but that's how we saw it.
And in AA,
the first time,
the teacher was looking at us
from a level playing field.
It was one other sinner
talking to you.
Going, welcome, drunk.
Here's my story.
And you go, wow, that's worse than me.
And so we listen
for the first time in our lives.
So if you're new and you're so ashamed
of your horrible past,
and you go, God,
why did I have to waste all those years?
Why did I have to do all those horrible things?
Isn't it awful
that I wasted all those years?
And then you come in here,
and you find out
that those years
are the reason
that you are able to help
the next alcoholic
save his life.
That is your gift.
Thank you.
In essence,
that is
the most valuable part of you
that we have.
Is the pain
and suffering
that we went through
that caused us to become
desperate enough
to take spiritual actions.
And that is the connection
that the new person makes.
And when they realize,
this guy, this gal,
is just like me.
He's talking to me on the level playing field,
looking me in the eyes,
and he went through it,
so I have visual proof
right in front of me,
that it could work.
And we instilled in the new person
this hope
to try this plan.
And if you're new,
that's the greatest thing
that will ever happen to you.
Because the spiritual power
that is achieved
by working the 12 steps
as your sponsor guides you through them
is designed to cause results.
And these results are magnificent.
And we talk about them in the promises.
And possibly the greatest promise
that we get
is at the very end.
And I believe this is
the spiritual waking itself.
It says,
we suddenly realize
that God is doing for us
what we could not do for ourselves.
This is a realization
that you have as an individual.
You suddenly go,
oh my God,
this is all due to my God.
And that is the moment.
And in the 10th step in the big book,
after that 9th step,
it says,
we now enter the world of the spirit.
And that was the transformation.
Now we want to maintain this,
improve this,
and learn to get rid of
as many old material ideas as possible
and get out from under their influence,
get out from under their power,
and totally be directed
by this new loving force.
And this is the struggle
of the rest of our sobriety.
And we would always,
all fail
if we were trying to do it on our own.
It just,
there's something about
being in a group,
in a family,
being part of something
that continuously refocuses us
on the spiritual answer.
Because our mind and the TV,
like Bob was talking about yesterday,
every other message
that we are bombarded with
tells us it's something
other than the spiritual answer.
And so when we come back to AA,
we should have a sign out there
that says,
spiritually spoken here.
And this is the language
that we talk to each other in.
And Bill has called it
the language of the heart.
And when one heart
is talking to another,
there is a power
that is beyond comprehension.
It needs no translation.
You simply respond to it.
You simply experience it.
You don't explain it.
You don't have to intellectually understand it.
You simply experience it.
Which is why
every time we go to a meeting,
we feel better.
It wasn't what was sad
or this or that.
We went there.
There was a connection made
between hearts.
And the healing process took place
in spite of ourselves.
And we walk out of there going,
I don't get it,
but I feel better now
than I did when I walked in.
I feel better.
I feel better.
I feel better.
I feel better.
I feel better.
And that's the spiritual power
of love,
of fellowship,
and of commitment.
And if you're new,
the biggest present you'll ever get
is a new vision of yourself.
I heard it said,
and I can't remember who said it,
but you really are
all that you can ever become.
You are the most important thing
and the most magnificent creation
that you can imagine.
You just can't see it yet.
And you cannot become that.
You can only allow yourself
to be shaped into that.
You are the incredibly beautiful statue
that is inside of a block of marble.
And there is a master sculptor
who is going to chip away
at all of the defects
that are not you.
And when this work,
the work of your higher power,
is finished,
there will be a sight to behold.
And one day you're going to look in the mirror
and you're going to thank God
that you stuck around
for the entire process.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you.
Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy B., and I'm an alcoholic. How are you all doing?
Well, I'm honored to be here. The Florida State Convention is just a remarkable event.
I think I spoke at one in 75 or somewhere around there in Hollywood, Florida.
Yeah. And I remember back then it wasn't as big as this, but it was just full of spirit.
And Sister Maurice from New York was speaking there. And what a character she was.
So and then I ended up moving to Florida. And of course, every time I fly back into Tampa, I just go, I am so glad I live here.
I mean, I just travel all over and this is just the greatest. So anyway.
My sobriety dates December 7th, 1964. And my home group is the Saturday Night Fever Group in Tampa, Florida.
And if you're over that way on Saturday night, please drop in.
We'll probably ask you to speak because we're always I can't find a speaker.
So that would be something we'll be glad to do before I get started.
I'm going to try. I've tried this announcement over the years, but I got to thinking that.
I'm looking for this guy. And he's old enough now to be retired.
And since most people come to Florida after they retire, there's a good chance that you could be in the audience.
And if you're the guy, you and I were in the same mental military mental institution in 1964.
And I was a captain in the Marine Corps and you were a luger.
And I was a lieutenant commander in the Navy.
And you and I were in the same clay class.
And they were having an ashtray making contest.
And I had clearly and the doctors were judging it the next morning.
And I had.
I had clearly made the best ashtray.
All the other patients locked up in there agreed that mine was clearly superior to that thing that you had made.
And you came into my room the night before smoking that big cigar, acting real casual.
And then as if by accident, you put it out in my ashtray and knocked it on the floor and it shattered.
And you won the contest.
Now, I myself have forgotten about this incident.
And but I figure anybody that would do something like that is probably an alcoholic.
And if you were an alcoholic, you could have ended up in a.
You could have moved to Florida.
You could be working.
You could be doing the steps and you have this one a man that you're unable to make.
So I'll be right outside after the meeting.
One chance in a million.
What the heck?
Let's see.
I briefly my story.
I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut.
I got one sister.
She's got almost 30 years in AA.
You know, our parents went through the Depression and money was real tight, but they were great providers.
And my sister and I shared about this and she thought it was just the happiest little family.
And I thought it was very intimidating.
I didn't belong.
I sat at the table and they all seemed like a unit and I was somewhere else all in my mind.
And the Catholic Church frightened me.
My sister thought it was the greatest place in the world.
She thought the nuns were cute.
The Latin was great.
The incense smelled good and all is wonderful.
And I sat there like I was in a Nazi boot camp of some sort and was very frightened by it all.
And when I was about eight or nine, I remember looking at the crucifix and it's kind of spoke to me and it just looked down and it said, little boy, do you see this?
And I said, yes.
Well, this is what God did.
It was the only son that he loved.
Guess what he's going to do to you?
And of course, that's not what the church was teaching.
That has nothing to do with anything except I thought up that thought.
And that thought scared me almost into a fainting condition on the front pew.
I mean, that's our thoughts are so powerful.
Someone told me once.
That if you're sitting in a room and you see a person on the other side of the room and you think that they don't like you, the physical and emotional reaction that you have to that thought will be equal to the one as if that person walked over and said, I don't like you.
That's how powerful our thoughts are.
They create the reality that we react to.
So it's no wonder that we try to get rid of old ideas.
And that was certainly one that just paralyzed me.
And so I had no comfort in thinking about a higher power.
I just was I felt like I was isolated.
And I just still have a lot of those tendencies.
I was a good little student and athlete.
And I went to a little prep school fed right into Yale University in New Haven.
I got there and everybody who arrived from all over the country was clearly superior to me.
My God, they all had where they were rich.
They had confidence.
They had convertibles.
They knew what was going on.
And I felt like they were going to expel me, that they're going to find out an imposter was in their midst.
And what was I doing there?
Who do I think I was to be with these people?
And I've been there a couple of months and my roommates are going, you're not drinking.
No, no, I'm not going to drink.
I'm going to get high grades and all that.
And I was at a social function where there was 20 people were supposed to meet each other.
And I find that very difficult.
And as I approached each group, the guys looked at me and very clearly with their eyes said, we do not want to know you.
Do not come any closer.
And boy, I could pick that up.
You know that energy when you can see it?
And boy, they don't like you.
They don't like you.
And I went to the other group and the other group and they all had the same basic message.
We have plenty of friends.
We don't need a creep like you.
And so I was thinking of leaving and there was a bar there.
And I said, well, maybe I'll get it.
I'll drink.
It'll help me feel better.
I ordered something in soda, had two, starting third one, didn't think anything was happening, decided to leave.
And I turned around and it was as if those guys were gone.
And these 20 or 25 of the friendliest people in the world, they were all looking at me, begging me to be their best friend.
Please join our group.
Please come over here.
And I'm looking.
And I.
I felt like Alice in Wonderland.
I had just gone into a new world, a new level of existence where everything was wonderful.
Alcohol didn't change me, but it changed the world that I lived in.
And it was wonderful.
And I went up and I intuitively knew how to handle things.
Now I could talk about anything and gabbing and talking and everybody's going, yeah, this guy is funny.
He's telling jokes.
He's doing all that.
And I realized prior to alcohol.
All my anxiety and my fears had all my creativity stopped up inside of me.
I was afraid to try anything.
And suddenly I'm released.
It was like a reawakening and being reborn.
It was just so exciting.
It was remarkable.
And eventually I talked to everybody so much they left.
And even then I was going, don't go home.
Don't go home.
You know, I don't want the party to stop.
And so I went back to the bar and said to myself, boy, if three drinks do that, what will 20 do?
You know, I might as well find out.
So I stayed there for quite a while, just pouring down tons of alcohol and enjoying every drink.
Got better and better.
And I got back to the dorm.
And then, of course, I started getting sick.
You remember when you first start drinking and I'm in the bathroom on the cold tile floor,
which, as I was to learn, is a great place to hang out when you're throwing up and trying to feel better.
And I vomited most of the night and sat on the bed the next morning feeling like a hatchet was in the back of my head.
Absolutely just dying.
And the thought occurred to me, are you going to drink again tonight?
And it was like that.
And I went, of course.
I said, this hatchet in the back of the head and this sense that I may die in the next 15 minutes
is a small price to pay for what I had last night.
So.
That's why I'm an alcoholic, because what alcohol did for me was worth any price.
Now, I didn't know I was making that decision.
I thought I was the same as everybody.
But that's how I reacted to it.
This stuff is so incredible and it solves every problem I've ever had since I was a little kid.
All in 10 minutes.
I will.
This is going to be my way of getting through life.
I mean, that's a lot to happen.
You only been drinking one day.
But I knew that I knew inside that I had discovered what was missing in my life, a power greater than myself.
And so I devoted myself to this new way of life.
And I started flunking out.
No more athletics, getting in fights, going to jail, all kinds of things happening.
And none of them caused me to reassess my decision.
So you get in.
You get in trouble.
But boy, we look what you get for it.
It was always fine.
What's the problem?
And very briefly, I did finally graduate and the Korean War was going on.
Everybody had to join the military.
And we were drinking beer one afternoon.
Two or three other guys said, we're going down to join the Marines.
Why don't you follow us?
Yeah, OK.
Let me finish my beer.
I'll go.
Sounds like fun to me.
And I'm sure.
That recruiting sergeant saw us coming in.
He just went, oh, boy, have we got some live ones.
And yes, sir.
Signed our name.
Raise our hand and all that.
And the first 10 weeks were a little shocking to me.
I was.
I knew it was a mistake to have brought my golf clubs.
Let's just put it that way.
Anyway, somehow we survived that.
And, you know, actually, in the middle of all of that, I started liking it because there was so much.
There was so much discipline and I couldn't drink and I was getting healthy and I was feeling better.
And I was starting to get this camaraderie feeling.
Keith knows all about it.
And it was great.
You just felt like you were part of something, which is what a enables us to be is not to be something, but to be part of something.
And it felt good.
You're something is more important than you.
The core.
And you just people die for it.
It's just, oh, my God, what a change in perspective.
And so six months training.
You're an infantry platoon leader.
And that's what I was trained as.
And we're ready to go.
And I saw a training movie about pilots.
And I had second thoughts.
The pilots were at a bar.
They were talking with their hands.
There was some blondes in the background.
And I paused a second.
They weren't sleeping in sleeping bags.
They sleeping in big rooms with TVs and that kind of stuff.
So I asked somebody, what's the what's that?
The pilot stuff.
I'd never been in an airplane.
And they said, oh, they.
You don't want that.
You have to sign up for three more years.
Don't sign up for three more years.
What is that?
So I signed up and passed all the tests.
Got my orders to Pensacola, Florida.
To start 18 months of training.
I met this lovely woman while home on weekends one time.
And we had gotten engaged.
And so we're off on our honeymoon to Pensacola, Florida.
And I remember getting on a DC three in New York.
To go to Atlanta.
And I got air sick all over that plane.
It was just, oh, boy.
And then I got on another one from Atlanta to Pensacola.
And got air sick all over that plane.
And got to flight school.
And the first six flights, I got air sick.
And it looked bad.
But the motion sickness went away.
And then I became very good at it.
I would be number three in our class, number two or whatever.
And I just said, I am in heaven.
I'm being paid to do this.
It was so much fun.
And.
So I got through all of the gunnery and carrier qualification.
And instruments and formation.
And all the stuff you do.
Went to advanced training in Kingsville, Texas.
Drinking and drinking and drinking.
But not enough to not do well in the school.
And finally, after 18 months, I got my orders to Japan.
With a four-month layover at El Toro, California.
Living on Balboa Island.
My God.
Had a rental unit for about $120.
$120.
A month.
I have no idea what it would be today.
And I couldn't have been happier.
Finished that Marine Corps training.
And then went over to a fighter squadron in Japan.
The war had ended.
And there wasn't much to do except fly high-performance planes and drink.
And, boy, we did it.
And we drank as a unit.
The colonel would have us all at the table in the officer's club.
And we had a big model plane in the middle of it.
And you did not order a drink on your own.
The colonel ordered the rounds.
He'd call the waiter.
We want another round.
And they were drinking fast enough for me.
So I was never sitting there going, man, I've got to order another drink.
They were drinking as fast as I do.
The colonel said, boy, this is wonderful.
And so a lot of wonderful stories and all that.
But about nine months into this thing,
I was on the end of the runway with a major who was the maintenance officer.
He was one of my heroes, a big Irish guy.
And he was telling me that we were watching field carrier practice.
He was telling me he's going to get a fighter squadron in about a year and a half.
He'll be a lieutenant colonel.
And he wants nothing but the best pilots in the Marine Corps.
And he points to me, this young lieutenant, and he said, and I want you.
And I felt like, oh, my God, I've died and gone to heaven.
And then he said, but I wouldn't let you go.
I wouldn't let you drink.
And I'm going, I get drunk with this guy all the time.
What does he mean?
He wouldn't let me drink.
Everybody drinks.
And it wasn't until I got to AA that I realized in the middle of real heavy drinkers,
my drinking scared him.
There was something about the intensity with which I drank that scared him.
He just said, this guy.
He's out somewhere that we don't know about.
This is not partying like the rest of us are doing.
And he was right.
And I went on and I, you know, look like success.
I have different assignments.
We ended up with six children.
I got promoted to captain.
I'd been all over the place and flew photo planes in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
But the.
Alcoholism was going to bring everything to an end and I started going the physical
symptoms, the withdrawals, and I started getting on those F8s and I didn't want to
get in there because I was anxiety attacks and I was losing vision and my heart would
race and it was just like something's going to happen.
I knew I was going to pass out and there's no one else in the plane and this was going
on for like a year.
And I'm still going out and getting in the plane and I just, I knew something awful was
going to happen.
Um, so I went to the doctors and I only go there as a last resort and I went in.
I said, something's happened to me in the plane.
They said, what?
Well, I'm starting to lose vision.
I feel like I'm going to pass out.
I'm sweating.
They saw my heart is racing.
If something is happening to me.
And of course that scared him to death.
And they said, well, you're not going to fly anymore until we find out what this is.
They sent me back to Pensacola for two weeks for all the doctors to study me.
And of course there was no such thing as the disease of alcoholism.
There were no alcohol programs.
And so that was out.
It had to be something else.
And it was, now I look back, it was really funny to watch the heart guys test me and
then the nerve guys and stomach guys and the dentist, the dentist came the closest because
he's looking in there and that gets him real close to my breath.
And he said, you reek of alcohol and it's 12 noon.
And I said, well, I got drunk last night.
And he said, oh, okay, well that, that's probably why you reek of alcohol.
And just went on with the exam.
And we went through all of the different tests and they could find nothing physically wrong.
So they left it up to the psychiatrist.
He interviewed me.
It was a bizarre interview.
I don't even remember some of the questions.
And he concluded that I had a childhood fear of flying that just showed up after 13 years
of flying and I can't fly anymore.
And so that killed me because that's who I was.
That was my total identity with wearing those wings and just here we are.
And now I'm going back up to Cherry Point and it's waiting orders from headquarters,
because I had gotten a regular commission.
I was making a career.
This was my career.
And it took about three months and they gave me orders to become an air traffic controller.
I went to air traffic control school and passed.
That's a hard school.
And somehow I got through the hardest part with my hand shook so bad I could hardly fill
out those little strips.
There was no computers.
It was, you did it manually.
And I was sent overseas to be in charge of an air traffic control unit.
In Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan for 14 months.
And I got there and thank God, the senior enlisted men, E8, came up to me when I took
over the unit and, oh, Captain, we're glad to have you, but here's your tent and put
your bike over here, blah, blah, blah.
And he took one look and could smell me and he just said, sir, I think we should have
an understanding that you personally never talk to an airplane.
.
And I went, right.
So my job was to try and show up.
That was basically what I would try and do is to ride my bike to work and stay there
and yeah, yeah, yeah.
But mostly I was drinking.
I now didn't have to wait 10 hours before flying.
And during that year I lost 70 pounds, 50 pounds.
And I had malnutrition.
I stopped hanging out with my buddies.
I didn't go to happy hour.
I just stayed in Quonset hut, went to work and tried to stay alive on soup and vodka
and juice because hard food, solid food just wouldn't not start to chew it and it would
just start throwing it up.
And so that was a very bad year.
And I was just so sick.
And the funny thing is about that year, I was in an outfit.
outfit that had incredible spirit. We had reunions later on back in Washington. It was
just a wonderful group of guys, half of them pilots and half of them other Marine officers.
And we got together after I'd been in AA about 15 years. And we're sitting around talking
and, you know, they were drinking a beer or two. It wasn't a big party or anything. We're
just reminiscing a lot of funny stories. And two of them were talking to me privately
and they said, you know, we knew you were dying. I mean, it was obvious you were throwing
up blood and we just knew you were dying. But there wasn't anything we could do for
you. Now, that's a heck of a statement. The Marine Corps goes back to get their dead,
even if they lose other people. I mean, this is you do not leave anyone anywhere and
yet with as far as the disease of alcoholism was concerned, they were powerless. There
was nothing we could do for you. And I remember, boy, wow, what a statement to make. There
you are. Sorry, we can't help you. And that's where we were as far as the disease was concerned
in 1963 and 64. Somehow I made it through the year and I came back of all places to Quantico,
Virginia, to go to a career school to become
a bird colonel or something. And most of the time I couldn't find the school. I was now getting the
hallucinations and things were really starting to go freaky in my head. I mean, I remember every
time I would find the school, I couldn't find the room I was in. And when I came to the room,
generally late, I would stand there. Which table am I at? We were divided up in groups and guys
would be going here. So I'd go over and sit at the table and then there'd be PT and everybody's
going to their locker to get their athletic gear. And I wouldn't know where my locker was. And so
somebody would show me and then I couldn't work the combination lock, even though I had the
combination. Three right. And then we'd go back. Did I do three right? Have I already done three
right? Maybe I got to do three right again. So I'd never get my locker open. So you can see it was
like, whoa, things are bad.
And right about then I had a grand mal seizure, almost bit my tongue right in half and ambulances
came and off I went to Bethesda to see what caused it. I was there about four days while they're
studying me to see what could have caused a grand mal seizure. When I went into the DTs where you
hallucinate and I saw the CIA was trying to break me with memory tests. None of it's real, but you
know, when you go in a nut word,
every nut word I've heard about you go in, they go, ask you your name. And then they go, listen,
would you mind counting backwards by sevens from a hundred? Oh, I see a lot of people. It's okay.
And what happens is you go 93 and you never get another one. That's the end of
see, that one's hard to do when you're sober and okay. But wow, 93 minus seven.
Let me start over again. Okay.
93. So you can't do it. So that must've got my mind going. They're trying to embarrass me and
break me. And so then they CIA came in and asked me all these questions and then they would move
everything. So when I went out to tell them what was there, they had changed it and they moved
walls. That was clearly, they were trying to drive me crazy. And evidently I reacted to this and ran
out and they caught me and put me in a straight jacket and we were live. I was locked up for six
months. So that was the finale.
re yeah.
And during that period,
huh,
there was no AA. They were handling everything psychiatrically
and we would go and sit with all the other people talk about our mother,
talk about whatever. and one day the a group from Bethesda
talk to intersection to letting them bring it Mac meeting in.
And that's how I heard about AA.
now. It didn't take right them. I was very excited about it,
but I am
but I wasn't sure I was an alcoholic.
I didn't have enough evidence.
And so when I was released as an outpatient,
you could go home at night and come back during the day and go home on weekends.
It wasn't long before I was having a few drinks at home to watch the Redskin Games.
And they told me if I had another drink, my career was over.
And I said, well, they didn't mean that.
They meant if I ever got drunk.
And it wasn't long before I was bringing vodka into the nut ward because I needed it.
I knew they were going to catch me.
And out of desperation on this Pearl Harbor day, I called the intergroup,
and they sent over another Marine captain by the name of Bill T.
And I haven't had a drink since.
And he's been my sponsor for almost 42 years.
And...
And his anniversary is tomorrow.
And his home group has called me and asked me if I could come up there
because he's had lung cancer for a long time,
and they think this could be, you know, the last one.
So I'm going up there.
I'm going home tonight, and I go up there tomorrow morning.
Anyway, this guy just came to my...
To my house, put me in the car, took me to Manassas, Virginia,
to my first AA meeting.
I'd been sober about four hours.
It was a group anniversary.
God almighty, they had ham and turkey and all this stuff that was going on.
I couldn't eat, and I was sitting in this smelly room with a space heater blowing down.
And the bathroom was not the flush type.
And so when you went in there, you had to take a deep breath outside
and then get in.
Get in there and get back out.
And then they had square dancing.
They had fiddle players.
They had all this country stuff going on.
And that meeting lasted about five hours,
and now I'm sober about nine hours.
And I'm trying to get out of there, but it's so remote.
I looked out.
There weren't even streetlights.
And it was like almost raining snow.
And just terrible night.
So I was thinking, I'm just going to make a break for it anyway.
It looked like they were going to stay there.
And I felt a hand on my shoulder,
and it turned out it was an Al-Anon lady by the name of Betsy Lynch.
She saw what was going on.
And I turned around to see who it was,
and it was like an angel was standing there.
And I looked at her, and she said,
everything's going to be fine.
And it was like I believed her.
And I just went back in.
That was a very big turning point,
was that hand on my shoulder,
and everything's going to be all right.
And I went back in, and, God, it wasn't long after that.
About ten months, I was driving along in my car
and had sort of an awareness.
It was as if my higher power told me,
as long as you keep going to AA, everything will be fine.
And for some unknown reason, I believed that,
because a lot of things bad started happening.
After I got sober, I lost my career in the Marine Corps,
I lost my marriage,
and I couldn't make money.
You know, I had six kids.
There was eight of us, and I get thrown out of the Marine Corps,
and I didn't know, I wasn't prepared for anything.
And I wasn't very good in my mind at promoting myself
or even asking anybody for a job.
And so it was really, went years.
I think I had about 15 years before I earned more money than I owed.
So when I hear new people talking about financial problems,
I go, do you have more than 15 years?
Well, then I'll listen to you, but up to 15, what's the problem?
So?
So you got to wait till payday to buy a new battery for the car,
so you have to walk.
So?
So?
You remember all that, oh, the power's off for only two days,
and we'll have it back on.
But it was a little difficult bringing people over to my house to sponsor,
if you want what I have and are willing to go to any length to get it.
Yet, June was asking about Ed C. from San Antonio,
and he and I got sober with Hal Marley,
got sober in 1916.
He's 64, and we were the class of 64, and Tom is in the class.
And Ed had the same kind of stuff.
In early sobriety, everything was great.
And then the congressman he was working for didn't get reelected,
and Ed's back in San Antonio and had about 11 years of sobriety
and couldn't get a job, and he's getting depressed and all that.
And Hal called him up and said,
come on up to Alexandria, Virginia.
We'll put you in the men's home.
And he said, well, I got 11 years of sobriety.
Well, are you willing or not?
So up he comes.
He goes in the men's home.
I'll never forget, and I was getting divorced again
and now had whatever possession I had, they were now gone.
And Ed is in the men's home, and he wants to get out and not live there.
So we became the odd couple in a one-bedroom apartment in Alexandria
that we call the Hotel California.
And I had bedroom furniture.
Somehow I had saved that.
I had rescued a single bed and a bureau.
So when you went in my little bedroom, things looked cool.
But Ed was sleeping in the dining room, and he had a bed and a box with a table,
and he was a night watchman in a motel, and they gave him a used TV.
So he had the TV.
We had a TV there, and the living room had nothing in it
except the bicycle and the 5AA slogans, scotch-taped on the wall.
And we each had a knife and a fork and a spoon.
I don't know where we got them.
And we used paper cups and paper plates and all that kind of stuff.
And then we chipped in, and we bought a redwood picnic table that we assembled
and put it in the kitchen.
But then people who wanted us to sponsor them,
we'd invite them over to the picnic table,
and that's where we'd sit.
And you could see them walking through the living room kind of looking up.
And then we'd sit at the table, and I'd say,
do you want some coffee?
And we'd get the styrofoam cup.
I'd take mice.
I'd take a spoon out of the sink.
I'd rinse it off.
Get a whole dirty towel and wipe it off.
Make them a cup of instant coffee,
and I would explain the promises to them.
Especially the part about sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
Slowly.
Anyway, Ed and I, that was kind of a turning point.
He got plugged into a...
Actually, it was the Machine Tool Builders,
the huge trade association.
He became their top guy, top lobbyist.
And when he retired out of Washington,
half of the Congress came to his retirement party,
and he went back to San Antonio.
And I ended up with a wonderful job
with the credit union movement of the United States.
And worked there for 20 years,
writing speeches and testimony on behalf of the credit unions,
which are a great group of people.
Remind me a great deal of AA.
So you can see that God has been very good to me.
And it's...
And of course, I don't deserve it.
None of us do.
You get rewarded for messing up big time.
And you go,
why would that happen?
You know, when you ever think about that,
why do you get rewarded for messing up big time?
Well, this is my thoughts.
Until you mess up big time,
you rarely ask for help.
And if you don't ask for help,
you never get help.
So if you wonder why God hasn't helped you,
you've probably never asked.
Never asked.
Because I really believe God's will for me
is to be happy.
He'd be glad to personally be involved
every day of my life.
Just saying,
I will personally guide you through each day
telling you exactly what you should do.
And I will supply you the power
to do that on a daily basis.
That's my commitment to you.
The problem is that God's real stingy with this help.
He only gives it
when I ask.
And most of the time,
I don't need that help.
Matter of fact,
95% of the time,
I don't need that help.
And I don't get it.
And then I go,
I guess God's busy.
Must be helping somebody else.
Must not be interested in me.
And that's the spiritual dilemma
that we all have.
Is this,
inability to pick up the phone.
Inability to stop somebody at a meeting
and say,
can I talk to you about something?
You remember that feeling?
It's right here.
You can feel it.
When this meeting ends,
when this discussion meeting,
as soon as they say the Lord's Prayer,
I'm going over to Harry,
who I really trust,
and I'm going to ask him
about this situation.
And the meeting ends,
and we start over,
and then we go talk to Fred
and go out for coffee or something.
And we almost asked for help,
and that's such a hard thing to overcome.
Newcomers talk about the 15-pound telephone.
I went over to call my sponsor
and I couldn't get the phone up off.
It was just too hard to ask for help.
So why is that?
Because in our eyes,
in our self-centered ego eyes,
asking for help is a sign of weakness.
It is a sign that you are unable
to be self-sufficient
and you can't handle life on your own.
And, of course,
that causes a great deal of problems for us.
Somehow, because we're together,
we keep reminding each other of the solution.
I was talking with Bob at lunch,
and I reminded him of the letter
from Carl Young to Bill Wilson
when he was thanking Bill
for letting him know about AA and Roland Hazard
and how Dr. Young had always felt
that alcoholics were really looking for God.
That that's what they were doing.
They had a thirst for spirituality
and found it in alcohol
and it appeared to be working,
but, of course, that isn't God.
And so that's why he sent Roland Hazard
to find a spiritual solution,
the Oxford Group, etc.
So then after thanking Bill,
he just was talking in a general way
about,
about human beings.
And he said,
I've been studying human beings
and he's a very spiritual person
for, you know, 60 years.
And this is what he,
what I think,
that's what he said.
He said,
I think that every human being
has to struggle with evil.
Now, in AA,
it would say character defects.
And evil always wins.
That's a pretty negative thing.
Evil always,
always wins.
With one exception.
People who have had a spiritual awakening
and are in a society
that helps them maintain
that spiritual awakening,
which I think describes
Alcoholics Anonymous to a T
and enables us to be
in a rather small percentage
of people who actually have
a character defect.
We don't have a chance
at discovering what life
is really all about,
which has nothing to do
with the set of rules
and ideas that we thought
was what life had all to do about.
We suddenly realize
the reason
that life is so difficult
and so hard to do
is what causes us
to look for God.
Without that,
we'd never do it.
So it's almost like
it was built into us
as part of the package.
And our Creator
wants us to return to Him.
He just can hardly wait
for us to turn and go,
I don't want all this.
I don't want a big yacht
and a thing on the beach.
I want you.
Well, why would we ever do that?
Because it's too painful
to not do it.
And that's what the whole deal is.
There is something inside
of every human being
that is unfixable
except by God.
No matter what we try,
it's still there.
There's a sense
that something's missing.
There's something wrong.
Even when you're on a roll.
Okay, I'm there.
Now everything's fine.
Now everything's fine.
Then you go lie down in bed
and it goes,
no, it's not.
No, it's not.
You are not there.
Well, what is it?
And of course,
we heard this
when we went to church
or we read spiritual books,
but we didn't connect
until we got in here.
Because out there,
and this is what Bill talks about this,
we just didn't like to listen to authority.
We were always being talked down to.
You know what I mean?
The cop,
the judge,
no offense,
looking down at us.
You know what I mean?
How many times you stood in front of the judge?
You were all,
I was like this.
Ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma.
And so that's how we saw
the wonderful ministers and priests in our lives.
Ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma.
It was sort of down, down.
It wasn't meant that way,
but that's how we saw it.
And in AA,
the first time,
the teacher was looking at us
from a level playing field.
It was one other sinner
talking to you.
Going, welcome, drunk.
Here's my story.
And you go, wow, that's worse than me.
And so we listen
for the first time in our lives.
So if you're new and you're so ashamed
of your horrible past,
and you go, God,
why did I have to waste all those years?
Why did I have to do all those horrible things?
Isn't it awful
that I wasted all those years?
And then you come in here,
and you find out
that those years
are the reason
that you are able to help
the next alcoholic
save his life.
That is your gift.
Thank you.
In essence,
that is
the most valuable part of you
that we have.
Is the pain
and suffering
that we went through
that caused us to become
desperate enough
to take spiritual actions.
And that is the connection
that the new person makes.
And when they realize,
this guy, this gal,
is just like me.
He's talking to me on the level playing field,
looking me in the eyes,
and he went through it,
so I have visual proof
right in front of me,
that it could work.
And we instilled in the new person
this hope
to try this plan.
And if you're new,
that's the greatest thing
that will ever happen to you.
Because the spiritual power
that is achieved
by working the 12 steps
as your sponsor guides you through them
is designed to cause results.
And these results are magnificent.
And we talk about them in the promises.
And possibly the greatest promise
that we get
is at the very end.
And I believe this is
the spiritual waking itself.
It says,
we suddenly realize
that God is doing for us
what we could not do for ourselves.
This is a realization
that you have as an individual.
You suddenly go,
oh my God,
this is all due to my God.
And that is the moment.
And in the 10th step in the big book,
after that 9th step,
it says,
we now enter the world of the spirit.
And that was the transformation.
Now we want to maintain this,
improve this,
and learn to get rid of
as many old material ideas as possible
and get out from under their influence,
get out from under their power,
and totally be directed
by this new loving force.
And this is the struggle
of the rest of our sobriety.
And we would always,
all fail
if we were trying to do it on our own.
It just,
there's something about
being in a group,
in a family,
being part of something
that continuously refocuses us
on the spiritual answer.
Because our mind and the TV,
like Bob was talking about yesterday,
every other message
that we are bombarded with
tells us it's something
other than the spiritual answer.
And so when we come back to AA,
we should have a sign out there
that says,
spiritually spoken here.
And this is the language
that we talk to each other in.
And Bill has called it
the language of the heart.
And when one heart
is talking to another,
there is a power
that is beyond comprehension.
It needs no translation.
You simply respond to it.
You simply experience it.
You don't explain it.
You don't have to intellectually understand it.
You simply experience it.
Which is why
every time we go to a meeting,
we feel better.
It wasn't what was sad
or this or that.
We went there.
There was a connection made
between hearts.
And the healing process took place
in spite of ourselves.
And we walk out of there going,
I don't get it,
but I feel better now
than I did when I walked in.
I feel better.
I feel better.
I feel better.
I feel better.
I feel better.
And that's the spiritual power
of love,
of fellowship,
and of commitment.
And if you're new,
the biggest present you'll ever get
is a new vision of yourself.
I heard it said,
and I can't remember who said it,
but you really are
all that you can ever become.
You are the most important thing
and the most magnificent creation
that you can imagine.
You just can't see it yet.
And you cannot become that.
You can only allow yourself
to be shaped into that.
You are the incredibly beautiful statue
that is inside of a block of marble.
And there is a master sculptor
who is going to chip away
at all of the defects
that are not you.
And when this work,
the work of your higher power,
is finished,
there will be a sight to behold.
And one day you're going to look in the mirror
and you're going to thank God
that you stuck around
for the entire process.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you.
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