Big Book – There Is a Solution Workshop – Part 2 of 14 – 2004 – Sandy B.

And Bill made the other connection in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel was Bill discovered at that moment that he needed to talk to another drunk not to help the other drunk but to maintain his own sobriety. That was not a small revelation that he made. So when he went to that man, it wasn't to inform the man. It was also to maintain His own sobrietty. There was a humility in that approach that might not have been there when you were trying to tell someone about your spiritual revelation. so at that moment Bill said we've got to get this message out there's just lots of people who need this message and they made a decision to write the book and over the next year and a half they wrote the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous primarily authored by Bill but the first three or four chapters were roughed out by Bill sent to both groups in New York and Akron and kind of jostled back and forth and then when the project kind of bogged down Bill kind of took it by the horns as I understand it and wrote most of the rest of the book and then they sent out the manuscripts I don't know how many they sent to people and many of you have probably seen the original manuscript where the steps are in the eye form and after you get done when you read how it works and you get down and it says that probably no human power could have relieved it God couldn't if he were sought and it said if you've read so far and don't agree with this please throw it away or else re-read it But there were a lot of comments, maybe the greatest of which is that the we got put into the steps rather than I. And so here this book, they didn't have enough money to publish it. They got a loan from Rockefeller and a loan from Bert, the guy who had the clothing store and they got enough money to get the 5,000 volumes of the book and the publisher kept most of the volumes. They broke free from some of those. And then they had the article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and they got 800 members come in. Then Rockefeller has the dinner, and they give all the books out to the big shots, and they hope they're going to raise money. And they got about 1,500 bucks from those dinners for a number of years that they eventually paid back. But if we know more about that story, it is just at the last moment. I mean, they didn't have the money, and somehow it came. and they just, you know, couldn't get the books. And, you Know, I mean, it was just... And for a man to have written that book with three-and-a-half years of sobriety, or four-and‑a‑half years OF sobriete, you know Bill got sober on December 11th, 1934, so I guess, you Now, and the book got published in April of 1939, so there was, You Know, five years between the... You Know what I Mean? Most people with five years OF Sobriety wouldn't let them cut your yard. And, You know, I Mean, he has... You know, and here is this guy who, you know, that's a joke. It's not five years. Maybe five months. But, I mean, here's this guy. Yeah, I asked the guy to paint my porch, you know, came back after he painted it and said, that wasn't a porch, that was a Mercedes. You know. But Rockefeller throws a dinner. Bill wanted to get the Reader's Digest to review the book, and Bill wanted Rockefeller to give him a big endorsement, and Bill went on to make a lot of money. They sold stock. They raised the stock to go do the book. And then at the dinner, Rockefeller said that money was going to ruin this thing by accident. By accident, what he said is this is a work of, you know, I mean we've got some of the greatest principles that have helped us stay alive over a period of time, and then the Jack Alexander article in 1941. But the book, the codification of the principles, spiritual principles that we have. First of all, for a man with four years of sobriety to have written a book that has stood the test of time unbelievably well. I mean this is a time when people specialize in tearing apart things of God. Very difficult and there is, I mean almost all of us when we read that book you might argue with pronouns or think, but you read that book and you just go, oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean it is really, and the nature of spiritual books is that they don't inform. The nature of a spiritual book is when you read it, you have an experience. And that is why it is new when you're reading it. Because you're not getting information. Your mind isn't engaged. Your soul and your heart is engaged. And when that's engaged, it's always new. So when you read the book and you happen to be really plugged into it, but what happened to our society is from April of 1934, I'm sorry, 1939 when the book was written, to March of 1941, we went from 100 people to 8,000. And that's what made that possible. There would have been no other way we could have kick-started our society without having the book and they really thought that you could send people the book they'd read the book they've had the experience and they themselves they didn't they never really thought we were going to be necessarily in the form that we are today but you can just see that to me the hand of God everywhere in our fellowship one of the great differences that I see today is our society is very different today in 2004 than it was in 1934 You could talk about things that were spiritual. You could talking about things that were religious. People expected them. They were normal. There was general agreement about the principles and values of that sort of thing. You might argue about which particular branch that you should do, but by and large, most people were churched. Today, we can't have a cross in a state seal. We can't be a church We can have the commandments out in front of a state capitol. So, I mean, we are in a society today that is very different than the society. We are the cult of self. We are the cult of individual. We do not, you know, so there's just a lot of us today that are not church that are given all the encouragement by our society. Poor baby, you're suffering. Things shouldn't be tough. Go take a pill. We'll get you something, you know, calm down. It'll be okay. And you should need the answer now. Immediate gratification. And then we have all these wonderful gambling casinos and porn on the Internet and credit cards being mailed to you. I mean, there's a vortex and a wind blowing out there today. I mean there's always been issues. But I really believe that our society today has somewhat the form of addiction that actually pushes us to instability. When our society, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded, I believe society supported stability. And so some of us, if we're sitting out there wondering why our thinking always isn't very good, wondering why we're having trouble, if you're not kind of centering yourself in some of the messages that we have and you're unaware that the wind's blowing and you wonder why your golf ball is going left. I mean, there's a 40-mile-an-hour wind out there, Tiger, and if you aren't hanging on to something, you're going to go left. And I really think that that is one of the great differences today is that I think those men and women in the early days that got sober really wanted to conform. They really felt the pain of nonconformity and wanted to take on the responsibilities of their life. Today, the message of the world is your responsibility is to you. Just do your own thing. Take care of yourself. You're the most important person in the world. And as we will get into spiritual principles, our book says serving others is important. Having God be the center of your life. And I really think that message is not out there in society today, and it is hard for us to grab a hold of and hang on to. And that's part of what happened when Jung says, you know, there's been spiritual transformations, a central idea. What he said to Roland, there are people that the very central ideas and values of their lives are transformed. That's not an alteration. That's nicht ein Verbesserung. Das ist eine Veränderung. And when those are changed around, when you have an alteration in how you be, everything you do changes. That's a transformation. And that's what I think when Sandy talks about we've got a solution. I mean, it's really a solution。 It is a change of heart, as they talk about in the chapter working for others. It isa change of hearts. And that' s what we're looking for. It needs to be encouraged. And I think our book, the history of how our book came to be and the role that our book has played over a period of time is one of the great stories and God's stories in AA. Well, that was a nice break. I got some good snacks and coffee and we're ready to go again. And I think we decided last night, I don't know how I get to be, have to start, but Bob talked me into that. To try and describe the solution. That is an interesting word. the solution. And so I thought I'd start by telling you a story. And it's about a guy named Joe. And he's about 30 years old. And ever since he was born, he has felt not right in his skin. and he's just filled with anxiety. He's afraid of things. He doesn't feel the same as anybody. He just doesn't fit in anywhere, not in his family, in society. But he's trying to hang on. He's keeping his job. He's free to ask girls out. He can't dance. He just has that feeling like, man, is it hard to just be alive? And as that burden of being so uncomfortable in his own skin got greater and greater, you know, by the time you're 30, if you've just been handling this all your life, you're just almost desperate. And sometimes the idea of maybe I should just jump off a bridge or something. and he's talking to his friend and he said I know a guy named Ralph I don't know why but something tells me to talk to this you ought to talk to him I want you to get together with him and so he goes over and sees Ralph and they're sitting in the kitchen at Ralph's place and Ralph is going now tell me about yourself and he told him about it and he says oh man that's me He said, I would just like that. And he said, there is a solution to this. He said have you ever tried drinking? And he said no my parents were teetotalers and they told me when I was a little boy that if I ever drank my hair would fall out, I'd go blind. that no one would ever talk to me again and it would be the end of the world and so I don't, no, I'm not. No, I am not interested in that. And he reached under the table and he took out a bottle of scotch and he put it on the table and he said, I'm telling you right now there is a solution and it's right here. He said, for about 90% of the people in this country, when they drink, it's just another event. It's just like having a donut. It's not a major thing. But he said there's 10% of us that have something happen when we drink that is absolutely remarkable. And the guy's going, oh, come on, come on. What are you talking about? He said, the type of problem that you have, the only way out of it is to have an awakening. There's no other way for you to achieve this. You're trying to go through life on your own. You're being overpowered by life. And what you need is something bigger than yourself. And I'm telling you, it's here. So what you needs to do is to get rid of those old ideas. You thought those ideas up when you were a kid. And you're a grown-up now. You've got to rethink these things. I need you to get an open mind. I want you to try this. And he's going, no, I'm not going to do that. That stuff, no my parents told me that and I'm not going to do that, and I'm not interested. And he said, well, let me read something out of here about what an awakening is, and maybe this will help you with your thoughts. He says, when you have an awakening, the most important meaning is that you will now be able to do, feel, and believe that which you could not believe before on your unaided strength and resources alone. You will be granted a gift which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being. You will set on a path which will tell you you're really going somewhere. That life is not a dead end, not something to be endured or mastered. In the very real sense, you will be transformed because you will have laid hold of a source of strength which in one way or another you have hitherto denied yourself. You will find yourself in possession of a degree of honesty, tolerance and selfishness peace of mind and love which you thought yourself quite incapable. What you will receive is a free gift and yet at least in some small part you have to make yourself ready to receive it. and so when we talk about you starting to drink this wonderful answer, we call it a spirit. That's what this liquid is called, is a spirit, and this is a solution to your problems. If you will do what I suggest to you, you will know how to dance. you will not be afraid to ask girls out as a matter of fact I'm going to tell you something if you start drinking this bottle of scotch you will be amazed before you're halfway through you are going to know a new freedom and a happiness you will not regret the past you will comprehend the word serenity and you will know peace and the guy's looking at the bottle and he's just going what? I'm not through you will intuitively know how to handle everything and the man says I think those are rather extravagant promises myself And he said, no, they're not. All of these will come true, but you have to work for them. I'm going to tell you something about this before you start. Half measures will avail you nothing. Sippers do not make it in our program. you must completely abandon yourself to this bottle you must take the idea that somehow you can exist without this and that idea has to be smashed you have to surrender absolutely and these great things will come to pass and the guy looked at it and looked at him And he said, can I get you a glass? Are you ready? He said, I've got to think it over. I've Got to Think It Over. I've GOT TO THINK IT OVER. I don't want to rush into something like that. And he says, well, I'll tell you what. Here's my card. If you ever get desperate enough, give me a call. So he went back out and got in the car with his friend. He said how'd it go? He said that guy is weird. I mean, you're not going to believe. You know what he told me? He said we would be walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe. That I would be on a path. He said it's way too wild. It's impossible that nothing like that could happen. I mean that's just out of the question. And so he went home and he went on with his life. And for the rest of his life he stayed anxious. He stayed afraid. He endured the pain of living on his own and staying with his old ideas. He just endured it. And finally, at age 60, he was ready to die. And his wife was by his side. And she saw him drift off. And then when he came back, she said, where were you? He says, I was just thinking about that time I sat with that guy about 30 years ago. He said, I wonder if my life would have been any different had I taken that drink. And then he died. And so we go, now what's the point of that story? Well, we come in here and we're told about this thing. We're told this great story. we're told about this incredible solution. And our ego says, no way. No way am I going to be walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe. When I was a little kid, I saw a cross and it told me, no way could this remarkable an event come to pass in my life. those are extravagant promises. I mean, what are we talking about here of that magnitude of an awakening and a contact and a transformation? And we go back and there's the entire program is captured in one sentence in the chapter to the agnostic and it's talking about our big book and it said the main object of this book is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself and then comes the most important part of the sentence, which will solve your problems. So there it is. There is the solution. Find a power great enough which will help you find a way to solve your problem. Now how does it solve your troubles? when we're near this power there are no problems that's how it solves them the solution is not a traditional one that we're accustomed to seeing what the man told the other man about the alcohol the spirit, is exactly true these things happen in the words look at the verbs in the promises can you imagine going to a psychiatrist And he says, oh yes, I'm depressed. I'm anxious. I'm restless. I'm irritable. I'm discontent. All I do is think about myself. Well, don't worry. I'm going to talk to you a little while and self-seeking will slip away. I know you're all worried about money and all that stuff. Don't worry, it's going to leave you. It'll just leave you There's no plan to get any money. There's nothing. Don't Worry. It's just going to Leave You. These are spiritual verbs. These are verbs that are only used when there's a higher power involved. This isn't a normal solution. Somebody told me I could have fear of economic insecurity leave me with no money arriving. That doesn't seem possible, does it? That is beyond the realm. so when it says finding a power greater than ourselves which will solve our problems this is what is happening we actually are placed in a position of neutrality the problem doesn't exist for us it simply doesn't exist as long as we maintain our spiritual condition so the entire solution is the spiritual condition it is the solution itself it's the answer to everything before we came to AA we had one solution to everything do you ever remember drinking I mean having a problem and go oh here's a problem I won't be drinking over I'll be handling this one sober no the first thing we did when a problem came was I don't know what to do. I don' t know what to do, but I will shortly. Oh yeah, boom, boom. We intuitively knew how to say until something that was baffling us ten minutes ago. And so the solution is in the power. And this applies when you're brand new and it applies when we've been around for a long time. What does Bill say to those of us that have been around a long time and we're encountering a problem? God, go in the meeting. The meetings don't seem as exciting. Something's going wrong in my life. He only has one answer. You know what the answer is? More spiritual growth. Oh yeah, oh yeah, no. You grew up to here. Now you've got to grow more. It's only one answer and so that's what the solution as I would interpret it is. Power. Power. And so the story, the guy was right. He was going to give him a solution. The problem was it was the wrong higher power. But it was an exact analogy to our program. Exact. You just get the power and the problems are resolved. It's not our job to resolve the problems. It's our job to do God's work and the problem are all resolved. So that's my shot on it. I'll transfer over to you. And now Norm Cosby will, your analogies and word pictures are just extraordinary. They just are extraordinary. Isn't that wonderful? Why do we have so much trouble? I mean, if there is that solution, why are we sitting out in this room with divorce problems and health issues and depression and checking accounts, $500 overdrawn, $35,000 in credit card bills, kids at home that we aren't quite sure what to do with. Why do we have those problems if we have the solution? And I think that that's one of the great questions. I think a lot of us disempower ourselves. I can tell you only from my own experience. It is my experience from my own actions and living of my life and my experience in watching people that I've had the privilege to sponsor. I think most of us come into Alcoholics Anonymous, and we have a surrender experience of whatever depth we have. Some of them are profound. Some of dem are not quite so profound in the deep and lighter. Some of em are not quiet so profound, and they never deepen. We have a surrender experience, and many of us for the first couple of years of our sobriety go through an enormous growth process. I don't think anybody can walk in here initially and hold what Sandy just said. It's too big. I mean, it is, you know, they might hear it in their heart, but, you Know, which is where we would hear that anyway, it's not our heads, but I mean it's so big that you almost don't get it. I think most of us come in here and we have a plan. You know, my sponsor used to jokingly say What I wanted was $10,000 and a new wife. But most of us come in, and we have a list of problems that if we resolve those issues, that would be really terrific if I really got a career going, if I straightened out things at home. There's a list that if We could do those, life would really be okay. And interestingly enough, most of Us make very significant progress with those things over the first few years of our sobriety. What you find out is the same thing that most of us find out that are older, is that circumstantial resolution does not bring us the peace and happiness that we thought it would. The midlife crisis, what is the midlife crises? You know, when you get to be, I'm 60, almost 61, you know, it's being 61 and realizing you're not going to climb the mountains that you thought you were going to claim. You're not gonna be the president of this or, you know. And the other thing is that the mountains you have climbed didn't make it for you. And so you do end up with the question, what is it all about? If I'm not going to be able to become what I thought I had to become to be okay and what I've done isn't enough, what the hell is okay? What is it about, Alfie? And I think that most of us in our early middle sobriety run into a crisis. I think that we go through the enormous growth change and burst of energy in our very early sobriety, that activity and the fellowship and the grace that goes along with that. Many of us have a honeymoon period after the surrender where we just have this learning period where we're just like little sponges and we suck up. We ask a question, we get an answer, we got an answer. But all of a sudden you're two years sober, you ask a questions, you get an answers. You're not sure the person's right. Your ego starts to reassert itself and all of a sudden you're running the, you know. And I think what most of us do, most of Us are sitting in this audience that we could pass the test. We've got the booby prize. All of Us have the answer. But we don't have the solution. We've Got the information. But we Don't Have the Principle Alive. We Don't Know It in a Way That Makes a Difference. We Know It. But We Don'T Know It in a way that makes a difference. And there you have to, I think, know it with your heart. You have to engage at a level that is deeper. Your intellect isn't enough. It's like bringing a knife to a gunfight. It is not enough. The choices that I think we continuously run up in life is you've got a choice. You know, Chamberlain used to say you can have a God-centered life and suffer the consequences or a self-centered lifestyle and suffer for the consequences. You're either going to have your ego and intellect running the show or you're going to be God-centered. Those are the choices. Now when they're God- centered, the intellect involved is just a junior partner. But when the ego is running the show, your mind is in charge of everything. Isn't that a thought? Now for those of you who have tried to meditate in this room, if you ever have tried To Quiet Your Mind, you're going to find out something. Number one, you don't generate your thoughts. They just are like trains going through Grand Central Station. They arrive without any volition, without any choice. Once in a while, one has Velcro on it and you engage it, but that's true. And you aren't even a thinker, which most of us identify as a thinkker. Most of us identity as a set of circumstances. We don't have the distinction between our life and our life's circumstances. Most of what is weighing us down in the room is not our life. It's not who we are. It's the circumstances of our life, that's not how we are! The circumstances are not what's eating us up. The fact that we're separated from ourselves, from our true self, not the false self, from our truth self. And that's what the program gets us connected with. When it gets us disconnected with the spirit of the universe, it brings us home. The process of recovery is a process of returning home. It isn't becoming someone else. It's becoming who you always have been and have not known. It is that, oh yeah, yeah. It is that those moments that all of us have experienced in the meetings and in conversations with other people, those little glimpses that, yeah, I can do that. I mean, it is so hard, but most of us, the encouragement in the world today is to use your mind and to use you head and to be self-centered and that the answer is out there. And most of Us are this detached head going about life and we bring the movie with us. We're not experiencing life. We're bringing us wherever we go and we've got the film running all the time. And that's, I mean, it's just a mind stream. I mean you know when a new person comes over to your house and you ask them how they are and they babble out what they are concerned about. I mean it is just like they put their mind on loudspeaker. It is justlike vomiting out this complex painful angst that is going through their head and that's their reality those thoughts, that pattern is their reality you go talk to Sandy I think with 40 years of sobriety and he's letting those trains go through the station it isn't like he doesn't have insecurities, it isn'T like I don't have insecurities it isn'T like I do not get thoughts of financial insecurity or sexual insecurity or marital issues or children issues I get those, but they are not my life. When I can do something about it and they're present, I engage them. When they don't, I let the train go through the station. I let The Train Go Through the Station. Well, most of us have the back door closed. We just accumulate them, and that is our reality. You can't have a God-centered life with that head. If that is your reality, you cannot have the experience to me of the solution. You can memorize the words. That's the menu. People will starve to death who memorize the menu Some people are trying to eat the menu You laugh, but I'm telling you that that's what a lot of us in alcohol, we're desperate I mean, you don't think you'd try to eatthe menu? I mean you don' t think you would try to memorize the word? but the words point the words point to God they point to the power they point to the changes that we have to make and it's almost as if when you go to have the experience the words drop away and what is left is the experience and where are you going to get that message you're not going to get it in the world and where do you spend if you are what you fill yourself full of what are you filling yourself full of I'm not trying to make you shave your head and sell books at the airport but if you don't have a significant interaction in Alcoholics Anonymous with the book and meetings and the steps and your sponsor if you do not have a significant anchoring what areyou filling yourself full of well I assume it's work and television and you know whatever other hobbies we have gambling sex obesity, you know, whatever else we happen to be running at the moment. But I mean all of us have this kind of a specialty that we, you know, got locked out in the garage. But if you're wondering why, if we really have the solution and it's that easy, most of us can't hear the music. And most of use can't listen to the music because we memorize the words, and we have the concepts, but we're not having the experience. And I'm telling you, he's not kidding, and I'm not kidding when I say there is a solution. There is a way around and through whatever pain, whatever difficulty, whatever circumstances you're dealing with, they mostly are an illusion. And that when you get in touch with your core Yourself, when you come home, it's the silliest thing in the world. You're not missing anything. There's nothing missing. You're nicht underequipped. I mean, you didn't miss two or three lines when they sent you down here to live your life like you don't have the right intellect or the right pieces. There are six trillion cells in your body right now doing millions of examinations to send calcium here and grow this there. And you are such a wonder, you would have absolutely no idea what a wonder you are, what a success mechanism you are. You're not missing anything in the business of being able to live your life. You're just detoured. We're stuck in a place and we're trying to get our minds to resolve the issue to get us out. The answer is surrender. And, you know, how do you surrender? I mean, that's a hell of a question. Every time someone comes over to your house, the answer is a surrender. I think sometimes the older guys who can sit someone down and have a conversation and help create a clearing, when you said you'd go over to Sandy's and you talked to them about a problem and you almost always leave without the problem, I think what happens is they create a clearing, and they just go, oh, yeah, because nothing has happened to the circumstances. I mean, you go out to the car, not a thing has happened in the circumstances, you just get reminded, oh yeah, I'm God's kid. I'm a prince for Christ's sake, you know. I own the kingdom and I'm worried about my checkbook. Oh, I forgot. You know, but it is, I mean, it is extraordinary. So I'll give it back to Sandy. Thank you. I was thinking about how a prayer might go you might sit down in the morning and you may go get on your knees and go, God, I got a job interview at 1030. I haven't had a job in six months and I really need this job and it's something I'd really enjoy doing. Could you please help me get rid of my fears so that I can be creative and really create a good impression and do the best that I can when I go on the interview. I just ask you to please do that for me and I'll check in with you at the end of the day and let you know how it went. Now, that would be a prayer. But if we added what we might call meditation, which is listening to the prayer, we might finish the prayer and then sit there in silence we may hear something like this yeah I heard your prayer why don't you take me with you on the interview why do you want to leave me here and go out there by yourself you see how we're limiting ourselves we got a little we got to plan And then we go, here's the plan, God. Help me and I'll be back. But I want to do it myself because I don't want to give you the credit all the time. You know, you go to meetings and you go, God, God, G-d, Gd, g-g-g, G, g, g. What about me? Where am I in the equation? And this is kind of a struggle that we all have in this coexistence. We'll talk about this. I don't want to get into that, the riddle of our existence. But we do have a coexistence that we have as living in the material world and the spiritual world at the same time. And we have to accept this, that this conflict exists, and we'll talk About that later. But I think the, one of the things that I find, I was talking to somebody right before we came back up here. Well, there's a couple of things. There were situations that I never knew I had choices in. When I was a teenager, if I was standing with six other teenage boys and another kid came up and he pointed right at me and he said, you're ugly, your mother's ugly and you're stupid and so is she. And then my buddy said, are you going to let him get away with that? I didn't know that I could say, yeah. Yeah. I am going to just let him be stupid and stand there. Yeah, I am going to let him get away with that. He's a real jerk. Yeah. I didn't know that I had the freedom to not do what the crowd was telling me. I didn'T know I had a choice of seeing things differently. I didn' t know that l could put being undisturbed at the top of the list and that that was where you are the winner, that it's not competition. It is remaining in this undisturbed place. Now, as far as maintaining this, somehow I ended up, you know, Bob and I didn't plan to end up being speakers anywhere. We just came to meetings, and it somehow just happened. We just ended up that somebody said, well, would you come over and talk at our group? And somebody over there was from, in my case, was from Baltimore. And the next thing I'm over there and I'm going, and they go, oh, yeah, some guy from Pennsylvania said, oh, I heard this young jerk over there in Baltimore and maybe we ought to get him up at our little deal. And we'd go around and that was what was happening to me. And in 1975, I'd been running around to these little things for about five years and I was in Indiana with Wino Joe. And the Al-Anon speaker was Elsa Chamberlain. And she took a liking to me. She just, I don't know what it was, she just said, oh God, that's so nice or whatever. And she went back to Chuck. Now I knew Chuck Chamberlaine. I mean everybody knew the word. You said Chuck Chamberlin and it was like, oh yeah, yeah, yes. Because I had missed out on meeting Bill Wilson. Every year Hal Marley would say let's go up to New York and you can meet Phil Wilson. I don't have enough money. I don'T have enough MONEY TO GO TO WASHINGTON TO NEW YORK. And he said, well, he'S gONNA DIE SOMEDAY AND YOU'RE GONNA WISH YOU HAD MET HIM. So I didn't, and of course it's my biggest regret. But Chuck Chamberlain then kind of jumped into the, you know, the A.A. guru. So anyway, Elsa Chamberlaine went back and I didn'T know this, but she went back and said to him, I want you to ask Sandy Beach to talk at the Palm Springs Roundup which is where Drop the Rock came from and Chuck said who? oh it's this guy I heard back there he's from Washington well give me a tape well he doesn't have any tapes well I'm not inviting him out to the Palm Spring Roundup without that she said well you'll be sleeping alone And so I'm sitting at home in Virginia, right outside of Washington. The phone rings and I answer it. And he says, is this Sandy Bates? Yes, this is Chuck Chamberlain. And I went, yes, yes. Yes, yes! And all he said was, my wife told me I have to invite you to the Palm Springs Roundup. So anyway, I went out there. And so all these things happen and I sponsor all kinds of people and I'm doing all that. And I said, how did I get into this? And what the heck is all this? And I was telling Bob, I finally realized what I've been asked to do. And if I were to encapsulate what my job is, it's the best job in the world. I've been assigned the job of going to all kinds of places and seeing all kinds of people to tell them the good news. That's my job, is to be the bearer of good news, and as I tell it, I believe it. This is why sponsorship is so important, because my mind is telling me all kinds of things about there's better things than AA, that this book is so simple. You can improve on this. You could be doing that. But I can't say that to the new guy. And I can say that at a convention. I have to stay with the message.