Big Book – There Is a Solution Workshop – Part 4 of 14 – 2004 – Sandy B.

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 But 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 worried 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 with him. You oughta 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 them about him. He says, Oh man. He says 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 would 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, I know 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'll be 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 the free gift, and 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 said, 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 you. 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 he said can I get you a glass are you ready he said I've got to think it over I've gotta 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 it. 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. 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 I was just thinking about that time I sat with that guy about 30 years ago 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 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 than yourself, which we'll solve your problem. Now, how does it solve your programs? 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 that are used 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 the position of neutrality. The problem doesn't exist for us. It simply doesn't exists 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 and 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 to when you're brand new and it applies to when we've been around for a long time. What does Bill say to those of us who have been around a long time and we're encountering a problem. Go in the meeting. The meetings don't see 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, 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 of doing 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, yeah, 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, 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 would we have those problems if we had 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 them are not quite so profound in the deep and light, or some of they're not quite as 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 мы 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, 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, Elsie? And I think that most of us in our early middle sobriety run into a crisis. I think 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, you know, and we ask the question, we get an answer, we get answered. But all of a sudden, you're two years sober, you ask a question, you get an answered. You're not sure the person's right. You know, you're home. I mean, you don't know your ego starts to reassert itself and all of the sudden you're running the... And I think what most of us do, But 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 w e don'T know it n a way th at makes a differe nce. 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's involved, it's 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 the thinker, which most of us identify as a thinker. Most of us identity as a set of circumstances. We don't have the distinction between our life and our life 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 conversation 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 insecuries It isn'' t like I don't 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. 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 eat the menu? I mean you don' t think you would try to memorize the word? It isn't 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 don't have a sufficient anchoring, what are you filling yourself for? Well, I assume it's work and television and whatever other hobbies we have, gambling, sex, obesity, whatever else we happen to be running at the moment. But all of us have It was 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 Us can't Hear the Music because we've memorized 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 am 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 self when you come home it's the silliest thing in the world you're not missing anything there's nothing missing you're under equipped 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. 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 to 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 go over to Sandy's and you talk 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 mean, I own the kingdom and I'm worried about my checkbook. Oh, I forgot. You know, but it is, I mean it's, it is extraordinary. So I'll give it back to Sandy. 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 10.30. 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, god, god. God, good God. God, Good God. What about me? Where am I in the equation? and this is kind of a struggle that we all have in in this coexistence watch out we'll talk about this i don't want to get into that the riddle of our existence um but we do have a coexistence that we have as a 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 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 yes. yeah, I am going to let him just be stupid and stand there. Yeah, I'm going to 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 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, that's some guy from Pennsylvania. He said, oh well, 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, yeah. 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 Bill Wilson and I don' have enough money. I don't have the money to go to Washington to New York. And he said, well, he's going to die someday and you're going to 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 AA 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 from Washington. Well, give me a tape. Well, he doesn't have any tapes or anything like that. Well, I'm not inviting him out to the Palm Springs Roundup without that. And she said, well, you'd 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 yes and all he said was my wife told me I have to invite you to the Tom and Jerry's 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 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. And as I'm saying the message, the power of it is just lighting me up like a light bulb. I'm just sitting there going, and when I get through, I go, jeez, this thing is amazing. This thing is amazing. And I have it for that day. And then my mind comes in, not as amazing as you could make it, not as me. You ought to start your own program. You oughta... But I can't say that to anybody. So I'm forced back to the message. back. It's so simple. It is just there and it's simply an opening of the channel so that this thing, I have to open the channel, let this come out and it is in this flow of energy out from us that we can experience it. See, this energy is already inside of us. The spirit is already there but unless it flows out, you can't feel it. It's blocked. It self-centeredness Screw those people. I've got to take care of myself. And so now it's, you don't even know this power exists. It is in the release that you can feel it. And so that's why it's so exciting to sponsor somebody because you've got go, oh, what are we talking about tonight? You know, some of you will call me up and go, well, tonight, I forget. I've Got 20 people or whatever. They're doing one step a week and, you know, somebody's coming over and I just go, now, what do we have tonight? You know, they have to keep track. And I go, step eight. And I goes, oh, good. He's coming over to talk about step eight and he sits down and I'm all ready to go on and on and on. And so where have I been? I've been back in this damn thing. I've gone back in there and get this stuff and it's there and it is true and it real. How do you prove it is truth? Results. That's it. No other proof. There is no other proof results. And look up at the AA. It's there. It's not a theory. It's real. You get to see it. It'snot on a blackboard. Now, did you see step one? See step two? And now you can see, obviously, as a result of these, you have a spiritual awakening, right? You can see it, you can't see it you have to do it. And then you see the results and when I see God, I'm taking up all the time. One more story. This is what it feels like, sponsoring people and carrying the message. There's this minister who's walking along. He's been a minister for many years. And he sees this young boy kind of crying. He's really sad. And he goes up to him and he says, What's the matter, son? He said, I got my final algebra exam tomorrow. And I try as hard as I can. I can't grasp algebra. Even with the book open at home, I can'T do the homework and get it right. I'm at a total loss. And there's no way I can pass this test. My parents are going to be disappointed. And I'm just so sad about everything. And the minister looked at him and he said, son, I'm going to tell you something. I'm gonna tell you about the power of God. I'm gunna tell you this, that if you get enough faith and you pray hard enough, you will pass that test. And the little boy said, what? He said, you trust me, son. If you get another chance, you're gonna pass that test, and they said, well, I don't know enough faith, and you pray hard enough, you will pass that test. And they separated, and probably about a week later the minister happened to run into him again, and he said, hey, how did you do? And the little boy said, I passed. And the minister said, you passed? He said, yeah. I cut all the faith that I could muster, and I prayed with all my heart, and And I passed the test. And he ran off whistling and happy. And the minister said, holy shit. And sometimes I watch what happens to new people. And that's when I feel like Sam. How the hell did that schizophrenic depressed maniac Look at him up there. He's making sense. He's blah, blah, and I forget the power of this program. Anyway, that's it. Yeah, and I think everything in the world says to us that we have to be the source of our own power and what we are are channels. We're like sprinklers. You know, we don't look with very special designs, but we don'T look very pretty unless water is going through. And most of us have our holes clogged. And that's one of the things that doing the work of the program unclogs the holes so that we can display the design. And your head does not see. All of us has this experience in meetings. I mean, it is, I guess we've got ten minutes. There's two things. One's a personal story. My son, Peter, I just talked to him yesterday, and he's in England, scared stiff. Peter was a guy who was just kind of a catastrophe, 60 miles an hour, head first, no helmet, spring loaded. He's now got 13 or 14 years of sobriety, and just got accepted to Oxford Business School. 33 years, 32 years old and he feels like he's way over his head and he is there was a time in our lives when Linda and I just to maintain our sanity used to have to hold hands and pray every night for Peter I mean he looked like he was killing himself Peter went to six colleges he never got the concept of attending until he went to the fourth college. He got registry, but not attending. And so now some of the changes he's made, he made late, but because he stayed sober and he matured late, so many of these young people today, they're 30 years old, but they're like 20 years old. They aren't 30 years older maturation-wise. And it is so unlinear that he is where he is, having the opportunity to do what he's doing. It is like impossible. If you could have walked in Linda's and our bedroom while we were in tears, praying for Peter, I said, stop worrying for God's sake. He's going to be at Oxford in 14 years. I would have thought without a second Creighton's mansion of law I would've thought it was the prison at Oxford, Mississippi it would not have occurred to me it would never have occurred to me and one of the other stories I want to tell you is about Creightons Creightont lived in Minnesota for quite some time and now he lives in Tennessee I think Mississippi and Creighton developed a health disease due to Agent Orange. He's developing a kidney issue and he's needed a transplant and Creightон was on an airplane. I may not tell this exactly but Creightons on an aeroplane and the stewardess comes down and said, would you like a drink? Creightin shows her his AA medallion and said I don't think I'll be drinking today after being home on Wednesday. You know that kind of a response. And the gentleman sitting next to Creighton, Ryan, is a couple of seats away and he sees Creightons show the medallion and Ryan pulls the medaillon out of his pocket and says to the stewardess, he doesn't think he's going to have a drink either. And those two started talking. Three or four days from now, Ryan is going to give Creightdon his kidney. Creighton was particularly difficult to match because of some of the markers and some of health experiences that he's had in Vietnam. He was far more difficult to match than a normal person, and Ryan matched them almost identically. My son Bill, who was 17 years of sobriety, moved to Europe for four years, and he was sober about five years at that time. And I supported him for three or four months. I told him that I wouldn't do it afterwards, and we worked at the World's Fair. He needed a job, and went and applied at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, and nothing happened. Didn't give him a job. So he goes to an AA meeting in Madrid. And the man who interviewed him is at the AA meeting. Bill is now not in a three-piece suit. He's in a T-shirt and Bermuda shorts. And they go through the meeting. At the end of the meeting, the guy who interviewed them came over and said, I'm really impressed with you. Why don't you come over and interview? And Bill is wondering whether he should tell the man that he already has interviewed two days before. And Bill said, I have interviewed with you, sir. There are so many things happening in life that you can't see with your mind, that you don't know anything about. That you have so much power available to you in the living of your own life And you don't get it. You're walking around with $1,000 bills crushed up in your pocket and they're turning off your lights because you haven't paid your utility bill. You don't getting it. I mean, there really is a solution. There really is power. And that we're intended to be pipes, not the well. That when the power comes through us, we get to be the instrument. We get to play our music. and that each of us is an instrument, intact, fully constructed, nothing missing. And then what we've done is we've obscured that. We have added, you know, it's like we're a metallic instrument and we dragged it through the junkyard of life and we showed up in AA and it's a big metal ball with a bunch of metal that we have accidentally attracted and we've dragged it through the junkiard of life. And through doing the steps, we start to pry off pieces of junk. And little by little, we get to start to get closer to the source of who we be. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. Are we done with the hour yet? 1230. 1230, I give you Sandy. I have to go to the bathroom. Well, I don't know the stuff I have on my mind now. I'm saving for the afternoon. So I think I'll just tell you a couple stories maybe. I'm going up next week to, not next let's see, next month November 17th to Washington D.C. and I had a compatriot Hal Marley who passed away a few years ago who got sober the same year I did and he and myself and Ed Chandler down in Texas now where the class of 64 up in the Washington area. And we had dinner after we got to know each other for a while. We started having dinner once a month, especially in the years when we had 20 years to 30 years, somewhere in there. We had dinner almost every month. And Hal ended up, he was a retired Air Force fighter pilot and was an air attache to Poland in the Cold War and had very interesting careers, went with OEO for a while, but ended up at the State Department as the director of the alcohol programs at the state department. He would be calling ambassadors back to go to treatment, you know, that kind of a thing. And so he loved to operate up at the super high level. I used to kid him and say his only resentment was there's no class above first class so that he could be up there. And he was very close to Bob Pearson, who was the manager of the General Service Office at the time. And with his worldwide communication system at State Department, he was plugged in to every AA event on the planet. I mean, if I had a question, you know, do I know anybody in Peoria? And he would go, yes, Andy. Remember this Jack used to live here and now he's in Peolia and he'd have his phone number. It was like the Internet in one guy, you Know, as far as AA was concerned. And he preached gratitude. I mean there's people all over the country that have attitude of gratitude pins and he just was Mr. Gratitude, Dr. Grатitude. February 27th in the reflection. Yeah, that was in the thing the day he died. But the story I want to tell you is about Hal, that he was so plugged in that nothing happened in AA without him knowing it. I mean, when they're getting ready to plan the International, he knew where they were having it first so he could come around and, oh, the International's going to be in Toronto. It's goingto be, you know, whatever it was. And just had to be the first. And then we'd be at the dinner, Ed and I, once a month, and each guy would treat and go to their favorite restaurant and then we'd talk about AA and it was always about what's going on and this and that. Well, I was at an AA group one night and I took a chance at a raffle and I won a 12 and 12. And I got home and I was just thumbing through. You know, I keep them and then I can give them away to people and so I was thumbing through this thing and I went, God, look at this. What a weird thing. This thing had been screwed up by the printer and the pages some of the pages were out of sequence they were back and forth and I knew something told me keep it keep I didn't know what I was going to do with it but I knew this thing was going come in handy and then it dawned on me about six months later and I said I got to go find that 12 and 12. I want to see if in there there's a place where you know on the pages, like a half a page where the step ends. And then you turn the page and another step starts. And it's out of sequence. So here was step eight followed by step 11. So I bring the book to the dinner. And I put it on the table. And Hal, which is what's that? I'll tell you after dinner. It's a big deal, Hal. This is the first volume. of the new 12 and 12. And, of course, he's looking at me like, what? I mean, he is very suspicious. So we have dinner, and we get through the meal, and I say, you know, Hal, I've been doing this step class. I don't know how I got into that, but I did a Saturday morning step class for 19 years. You know, you do it week after week, And he was well aware of that. And I said, Hal, I've been doing this thing for 12 years. And I set up about a year ago. I started through them and it occurred to me they're in the wrong order. It was like I was being blasphemous. You know what I mean? What? And I knew, so I suppressed it. I said that's ridiculous. But it kept coming back, Hal. every time I went through it was clearer and clearer and clearer that are in the wrong order so I called Bob Pearson well I could see the look on his face you call Bob Pearson without checking with me first you know and I told him, I said Bob I'm having this crazy thing it's happening to me and he dismissed it but the more I talked about it he said well I hear a few points over the phone could you type it up your rationale for all of this. So I sent him in about eight typewritten pages, Hal, and it's showing how the sequence should be changed. And he's still looking at me, you know, like, what, what? And you know something? They formed a committee. They ran it by the trustees like they could run it by without Hal knowing. and this is the new 12 and 12. And as you can plainly see, here's step eight followed by step 11. And Ed and I swear that for a millionth of a second there was fear in his eyes. And he grabbed the book away from me. So that's just an anecdote about now, Mark. We're at the end of the time. Okay. We're there. Thank you.