Ego and Being Right – History Surrender Workshop – Part 1 of 2

Being right is the booby price. It really is. I mean, as we say amongst ourselves, you can either be in a relationship or you can be right. And the people who in spirituality or religion or alcoholism anonymous or science or anything else that are right and in the process make others wrong to me just aren't as effective. It isn't a matter of good guys and bad guys, it's a matter, I mean, everybody who is actively, significantly doing 12-step work is trying to help people. They're really using the expression of, and I think it's, I don't know what it is, I think some of us are more attracted to things that are black and white, attracted to things that tend to feel like they make us wrong and someone else right. I think the ego loves being in the in-group, you know, the ego loves believing that we have something that no one else has and in the Midwest we always get a little of that because the people on the east and west coast kind of feel like they kind of own it and invented it and have something that noone else has and I keep wondering what we have and it's there's less certainty in it and there's less comfort in it if you really believe as Sandy talked about and I believe that being open to God directing that there is more than one way to do 12 step work That there is, you know, that the book is interpretive. You know, I mean, the Bible, I mean, that's the great argument that most of the fundamental churches have. It's either direct, you know, it either says exactly, it's literal, and then there's an equal number of people that say, no, no. It's not literal. It's poetic. I mean it is God we think is inspired, but it's not literally. And, you know, that argument goes on. And we are an evolving fellowship, and we will see the impact of this. And we're now at a time when our founders are dead, and most of the old-timers, most ofthe people that were my heroes and certainly the two that you mentioned were amongst them. I mean, there's only a handful of people that are of that generation that are the 50-year-old sober men and women that are around, and they're not going to be around for long. My sponsor has 55 years of sobriety. He's 90 years old. He was visiting his 95-year-old sister at Christmas, who is 57 years sober. And he fell down the basement stairs and broke his arm. And he was in a nursing home for two months. And he's the worst patient in the world. And he is now home. And he just was at the meeting last Monday night. And, you know, it's just great. and all of us who are involved in doing this work have a great love for our fellowship we feel like our fellowship and this message and the heritage that's being presented to us has saved our lives and saved our children's lives and saved their parents' lives you know as David talked about last night my wife and I see I said both of us, I was going to say I have three sons we, we, I have a pronoun problem we have three boys that are in the program when you've been given that kind of recovery the gratitude is endless so we're all trying to do a good job but I think that spirituality in general does not have the black and white certainty and it speaks lovingly and generally more softly and it isn't like you can't be strong and it doesn't like There aren't times where you have to take difficult actions. But it's, so enough, I guess, sit on that. Where are we time-wise then? We're at the quarter to 11, and we're going to be down at 1130. So what do you want to do? Do you want me to take a five-minute break and come back and do questions? Ten. A ten-minute Break. If you have a question, just raise your hand and the microphone will come out there. Okay. And that way everybody can hear. And if the questions are hard, Bob answers them. If they're easy, I answer. Hi, my name is Kelly. I had a question about you were talking about the original steps I've read up on that a little bit and they based it on what was it you said that they incorporated that 12 no there were like six steps in the Oxford group which had to do with inventory and admitting surrender, finding God, doing restitution and working with others. And getting guidance. So those are generally the six forerunner of the steps. It's what the early members of Alcoholics Anonymous used. They also used the four absolutes. But they very much used the six forerunners of the stops in the operation and what they were when you went over a lot of the meetings like the meetings at T. Henry and Clarice Williams House, you had to take a step three or make a decision before you could join the group, the squad, the alcoholic squad or the action group. My understanding and I just recently re-read some of that is that those were the six steps and that's what Bill expanded and changed a little bit and that's what gave us the outline I mean not the outline, it's what give us our 12 steps. Did that answer it? Okay. I'm Doug from Spencer Isles. Sandy, I heard you in one of your CDs talk about the importance of contact with God, keeping in connection with God. Can you just talk more about that and Bob also? Well, one of the things I would comment on that is, probably the thing that's helped me the most with that is outside literature. In other words, you decide you want to find how to meditate better, how to establish contact, how to seek guidance and granted the prayer of St. Francis is a powerful beginning in the 12 and 12. As a matter of fact, I ran across a meditation book that's entirely on the prayer of St.-Francis where you just focus on each line in the prayer of St. Francis and see what that means to you and try to understand the power that's contained in that prayer and one of the things I ran across that I found very good for beginners it seems that the ego will allow us to take four breaths before it wants to know what's going on. And interrupt, you know how when you try to meditate and you're sitting quiet, hey, what about this? You ought to be working on the budget and you little... And I've done it many, many times so that during the day, if you can't do anything else, you're at work or any place you are, you can stop and just take four breaths and focus on them, just in and out and you'll be left alone you have this moment of peace I don't know how long that is it's probably 25 seconds or something like that but if you do it often enough during the day it could add up to the equivalent of 30 minutes of meditation and since meditation creates space it creates a bigger environment for us to be in so that we're not cramped by all the problems of the world that amount of space gets added and you have a sense of comfort from a very simple thing like that but the main thing that's helped me is outside literature and classes you know just looking there's a neighborhood thing and you just go and because we get just a cursory there isn't much in the big book at all And then the 12 and 12, the prayer of St. Francis, and, of course, that is very powerful. So that's my experience. Bob, what about you, sir? Thanks, Sandy. I have had kind of a dicey year. I'm in the real estate business, and I have a number of circumstances that aren't what I'd like them to be. It's an invitation for obsession. But my mind, you know, if my mind were to drift, it would go towards what's not the way I want it to be and what might I be able to do about it. What I mostly do in Alcoholics Anonymous is try to maintain my spiritual condition. How do I maintain my spirit? My spiritual condition, I go to five meetings a week. I go church a couple of times a week, I go to my sponsor's house I work with guys and I do different things so right now I've simplified my life I've kind of got my head down and I'm going to and I use something daily mostly meetings to kind of remind me about who I am and what it's about because at meetings there's lots of people with difficulties I'm not the only person with a difficulty in my house you know, I'm the one with the problem and it's more prominent and I know you're not supposed to be self-centered but I'm fascinating I want a copy of this tape But I'll tell you something. I mean, as you get older, I mean if you came to Sandy or I and you were really upset about something, the mere fact you were upset about something is that you're not as God-centered and that's what I do with myself. So when I'm upset, I'm looking for something to read, for someone to talk to, for something to do that moves me towards being reconnected. And that's why it's a very simple relatively thing to do. just axiomatically I think if you went to old timers who are really trying to practice their program is we would use the idea of if you're upset something's wrong calm down get you know kind of focused so that's what I do I mean I also meditate and I pray but I'm just talking on a daily basis great uh oh this is going to be tough he didn't seem that bright to me are you worried about as you were talking about the history where would you rate Father Dowling and Shoemaker in the early days well Shoemaker of course provided the location for the Oxford group to meet in New York at his church and I think had a great influence on many of the early AAs. I don't know if Bill was that close with him as he was with Father Dowling, and I'll tell you, I was going to come up with a question. This is a real obscure trivia question, and it involves him. And the question is, we have a sentence in our big book that says you can't transmit something you don't have. Now there was an example of this in AA history between two people, neither one of them was in AA but a very similar sentence was said and Shoemaker was on the receiving end of it and on the giving end was Frank Buckman the head of the Oxford group and they were in Africa and Shoemaker was having no success trying to help the people that he was with. And he was asking Buckman about it. And he said, well, if you don't have anything they want to listen to, they're not going to listen. So there's something wrong inside of you. And boy, he took a big offense to that. but later on he said that's what caused his whole awakening, where he suddenly wanted to get guided by God. It was because he said you can't transmit something. He was trying to transmit something that he didn't really have. And then when Father Dowling showed up in the clubhouse in New York, he had heard about AA and he wanted to find more about it, and he and Bill just hit it off. Bill thought it was some drunk from out of town. he was tired, he was upstairs sleeping up in the clubhouse and the two of them really hit it off so much so that Bill in his later years actually considered converting to Catholicism and he studied it Fulton Sheehan was one of his answers but he never could accept completely that Christ was God also, was man and was God down here. He just couldn't make that leap. But the big thing that he felt, he said if he converted, it would probably just screw AA up big time. You know what I mean? Well, I guess if the leader converted, then we all should, and if we don't convert, we're not as good AAs. So I think he did a blessing there. Anything I left out? Not leaving out, I think Shoemaker was a very important man to Bill. I think it was hard when they made the break. I think It was hard in the relationship for both men, but Bill asked him at the 1955 conference to speak. He was one of the founding supportive people, so obviously Dowling, in the early 40s, Dowling was clearly Bill's spiritual advisor, and Bill started going to Tebow twice a week he would go to Dr. Tebow as a psychiatrist and people were upset by that they didn't think he should do that they thought it was a bad example but I think it's wonderful for a couple of reasons number one that he could get support and help and act like you know he's telling us we should act And I think most of us would say that the tone of the 12 and 12, you know, is different specifically in its treatment of the fourth step in 6 and 7. And I Think most of Us Can See the Hand of a Jesuit, and some of it if you have some familiarity with that. And other people think Powers, who was kind of a close man with Bill who did some of the editing of Bill's writings, thought Tom Powers had his finger in it a little more heavily than people would have wanted. I just, as they say, I marvel. I think most people kind of think that God wrote the big book and Bill wrote the 12 and 12 in his office. You know, I mean, they have a different, you know, the more constructionists, you don't kind of feel the big book is more real than the 12-12. But I have a real affection for the 12 and 12, as I know Sandy does. And listening to a man who started to write those essays when he was 10 years sober and having a different you know and seeing things differently and his emphasis is different and some of the importance I think it's healthy and wonderful for us to have both those uh things available to us I think darling was a very head of bill was a lonely man bill and bob were never allowed to be members of the fellowship ever I I mean, he couldn't sit in a meeting. He had one group that he could go to that approximated that. So think of the loneliness of the man when he said when they passed it over in 50, they said now maybe we can join? They said that to each other. But they couldn't. Yeah, I guess my question is something that Bob alluded to earlier about you see people being in North Forks thinking their group is the only group the right way or if there's a right way or a wrong way. And for me it was, I hear a lot after I came into AA that the old timers back then would more or less demand you get in the car and we're going here and we are going there. And it seemed to have worked and you can't do today, they don't want to listen. And then I hear a lot of the phrase, is the message being watered down today? And where did that come from? I think that's got some valid points in there, that the God aspect is less. and we live in a different society than came into AA in the 40s in the 30s and 40s probably everybody in the country went to church and the vast majority of them went to Christian churches and so to talk about God was just so common but in society today the word God is not received as kindly as it was back then I was helping a gal having a terrible time getting sober because she just couldn't deal with the God thing and she had just graduated about five years earlier from Harvard and she said that her peers would just take her apart if she ever said anything about God that it was just so out of fashion so out of peer pressure she just had to eliminate even thinking about that and then she came in here and here we are saying no you're going to have to get comfortable with oh well what if my class finds out you follow what I'm saying so it's a whole different environment so it is up to us that understand that without God there is no AA to make sure that we never compromise on talking about the importance of God, that there is no program without God. And it's not an easy conversation to have in our society today. No. It is. But we'll kill a lot of alcoholics if we try to find a way. Yeah, and it's the only... And I don't think AA is being watered down. As a matter of fact, I think these people that are talking about back-to-basics, you know, that we're back to doing the things that we always used to do. I mean, the impression I get, I came in in 67, you know what I mean? We're using the big book five times as much as we used it in the early days. I mean it just was not used as effectively taking people through the book in a more formal way. I think there's more of that happening. I think sponsorship is every bit as strong. But one of the main differences, I was at Little Deal last weekend and one ofthe doctors, Burns B., was presenting. he said one of the differences today is when I came in there were 30 old timers over 5 years for every new guy today there's 30 new people for every old timer so I mean the group I came into the meeting I went into there were like 25 or 30 people they were all quite a bit older they all had a fair amount of sobriety and I was a new person in the group for 4 months there weren't new people coming in every day you got a heck of a lot of attention in that process and that business about getting the car that's a personality thing there are people today who have the personality that can tell someone to get in the car and someone gets in the care the rest of us if we were to copy that it doesn't sound right I mean it isn't me so if it's you it still works you know well there's growing pains are just part any society belonged to and we're in a big one now it's bigger and bigger and bigger and so you're going to get things I use the example of political correctness and suddenly that's finding its way into AA but if we apply that too far we're gonna have people dying because we're not telling them you know we're going to have to hurt their feelings if we're going to tell them the truth you can't couch it and oh I'm sorry that offends you, we won't do it in our group well when I was new there's a lot of things that offended me about AA I didn't know that if you said offend that you've got a special treatment because not drinking offended me I'm very glad they didn't go oh we can't offend him so let's not talk about not drinking and let's not do this. And so we've got to be very careful to not this is just my own personal opinion but in some groups they got rid of the Lord's Prayer because someone didn't like it. It's a big deal all over the country. Now that's the worst reason for getting rid of it. You got a new person that doesn't like it, so we change it. So what are we teaching that person? Self-centeredness works. If you demand that AA adjust to you, it will. Well, the program says we're going to show you how to adjust to the world and then you'll be happy because the world isn't going to adjust to you all the time. And so there's a, what a terrible lesson to show to a new person that if you don't like something, we'll change it. That's wonderful. Do you follow what I'm saying? Wonderful. That could get them drunk. Now on the other hand, if the group had another reason, maybe they suddenly looked around and said, hey, 80% of the people in our group are Jewish. Why don't we learn a Jewish prayer and say it? That would be a good reason for changing. Do you understand what I am saying? because they all wanted to do something I didn't even do. It wasn't because somebody didn't like it. That's just so terrible. I don't like this. There's too much talk about the steps. It offends me. We'll talk more about the step. I mean, it's just... That's the lesson. The whole spiritual program is to show how to adjust. You get the power to adjust to whatever's happening and then events have no effect on your peace of mind and that's a very powerful thing to have and so that's just my two cents worth on that. Kurt Nelson, Oncology. You talked a little bit about, you made a statement, one of the statements I heard in the earlier session was and what I'd like to hear is a little bit about Evie and the relationship between Bill and Bob and Evie. You know, with the showing of the TV program that was just on, you see that they were really close and that they had an extended relationship and I've heard stories about what has happened with Evie Please tell us a little bit about that. Okay, you want to do it, Bob? I've been talking too much. No, you haven't. That's one of the most wonderful things. You are one of my heroes, and being with you is a joy. I'll say a few things. I'd like Sandy to correct me because I'm not a... Yeah, they were boyhood friends. I'm Not Even... There's Manchester, but he went up and he said, Ebby's family summered in one of the cottages up there where Bill lived, and they were friends and then drank. He was one of Bill's early drinking companions, and so they were close kind of all the way through, and Ebby his brother. Bill referred to Ebby. Ebby never had a hell of a lot of sobriety. A year and a half or two years when he died, he had a couple of periods where he had it a couple years. I remember one group from Texas drove up in an automobile to Dallas, I mean, to New York and, you know, cornered Bill. And they were at a meeting. They said, let's go to Newark. Got in an old damn car. And, you Know, I mean that's Texas, I think. It is. I mean That's more likely could happen in a lot of bars. But, I Mean, that is. And when they were done with that, they looked over and they said to Bill, Bill, is there anything we can do for you? And he said, yeah, well, you take another crack at Ebby. and so they went and found him and he was in really bad shape and they took him back to Texas for I don't know six, eight years yeah he had a lot of sobriety near the end and he went down there with Circe Whalen and a group and they they really focused a lot of attention it was probably the best period of time that he had in his life Bill referred to Ebby as his sponsor his entire life and Ebby and I'm going to say this sounds kind of sad. But if you heard Ebi, I've only heard one thing one talk of Ebi's in the conversations. It's like he didn't get it. It's not like he did it. It's just like he didn't understand the miracle. He would say things like I've been mostly sober. I've had much more sobriety than not. He didn't seem to understand the wonder of which he was a seminal part of and that's what I would say about that one of the big things is that his spiritual transformation was big when he joined the Oxford group and had an awakening it was so big that that's why it convinced Bill to try it wasn't anything that he said it's the way he looked because Bill knew he was a mess and this guy sitting across the table from him Bill kept staring at him to make sure it wasn't a double or something because his entire energy was different he was a different person but he didn't maintain that so you can have a very powerful spiritual awakening and if you don't maintain it it can go south It devolves. You know what I mean? But he played a very important role, there's no doubt about it, and Dr. Bob knew him and respected the role that he played, and they worked so hard to try and keep him sober. Bill would introduce him at conferences, you know, the Long Beach International convention. My sponsor, Ebby, I mean he just wanted, I think he wanted history to look kindly on Ebby and it's you know what I mean? You're bringing up the question that he played such an important role and he probably was a good example for how not to do it. You know that you look and you just go boy you can be right in there. You can be Bill's best friend and still if you don't maintain your contact, you're going to go down. So there was, I'm glad you brought his name up. It's a huge piece of our history. Robby here, alcoholic. I'd be remiss in saying that I didn't consider that he would come in today to the conference, so I'll throw that out first, but second thing is we have something coming up very soon and it's the International. It's gonna be in San Antonio in July and if you don't know about it, it's a really big deal. The last one was in Toronto and it was unbelievable and I can only imagine how big San Antonio is going to be. Could you maybe speak on the upcoming international and how those have played role in AA's history? And a three-part question, I'm sorry. International growth in the future in places like India and China that I think you're going to explore. Here's the expert. Oh yeah, that's because you don't want to answer the question. The fastest growth in Alcoholics Anonymous is in other parts of the world. I've been to meetings in Beijing and Hong Kong, I have been in meetings in Mumbai and in India. India has a good grounding in Alcoholics Anonymous. China is growing and doesn't yet have the you know the traction. It's funny when AA is growing around the world one of the big problems they have, especially in Eastern Europe, is the people who are we were so blessed, like the United States. When the United States had people like Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson we had these bright, educated men who were the second sons of families that came over here because they weren't going to inherit their thing and they were over here seeking their... And when we started this country we had some wonderful people to step up to design our democracy. When we designed Alcoholics Anonymous, I mean, Richardson and Rockefeller and Leonard Strong and the different people that we had, they were wonderful non-alcoholic. So you go to these Eastern European countries, they're more low-bottom drugs. They don't have, you know, many, many of the early hundred people we had were kind of the black sheep of good families, you know, that were educated and principled and had a sense of that. And so when you go to a place and you're trying to establish a general service office and most of the guys or gals are low bottom and don't have much sense of organization and then not being able to attract the right kind of class B class A trustees, you have a little trouble doing that. I don't think internationals have played a hell of a role since 1955 in Alcoholics Anonymous. I think they're a celebration and I don't think they've been very seminal I mean in 1950 we passed the traditions and in 1955 we came of age and we formalized the general service structure of AlcoholicsAnonymous with that exception I can't think of anything earth shattering that we've done international and I think the one in San Antone will be very interesting and quite wonderful I should keep my mouth shut please I in 1980 I was asked to speak at the one in New Orleans and I spoke in the Superdome and it was a big deal and I really, oh boy this is really wonderful I was there. And that was Marty Mann's last talk. And it's, you know, wow, it's mind-blowing and all these people holding hands, saying the Lord's Prayer. It's probably the most powerful thing in the world until somebody came along and decided we won't say the Lord'S Prayer anymore. I'm afraid of that. So if you're going to go, say the lord's prayer no matter what they tell you to say. When you think about it, 70,000 people. Now I don't know how to do the percentage real fast on AA's 4 million, but it's a very tiny percentage that can afford to go and that do go. And so it's fun. It's a chance to sort of get some publicity, the local town, the newspapers. But as far as substance happening, it happens in your group. All of AA action occurs up to the intergroup level. And then there's things happen above that that sometimes have value, but... We do get pamphlets changed and things like that. I'm just saying. Well, you can be a jerk too. See, Bob is the delegate and he's going to run the New York office. We don't see eye-to-eye on things of Bob's group. AA is the groups. And the message is carry one alcoholic to another. And so 99% of everything is the group and the inner group. No question. And then this becomes, there are some issues that require heavy-duty thinking by the staff and the trustees and the delegates. My final thing, just to express my views. and conventions where they introduce former delegates. I think they should also introduce former coffee makers. Thank you. He got more applause. But I think you need it. So the subject of this afternoon's workshop, and we're going to do a workshop for about 45 minutes, Let's come back, let's talk for 15 minutes, and then have questions and answers. I haven't sober since December of 67. So as my friends who know me since high school and grade school would come up and say, why are you still going to Alcoholics Anonymous? Are you having a drink in 42 years? Why do you have to keep going to meetings? And I'd say, well, I have a gift for being a jerk. And when I attend meetings on a regular basis, I'm not quite as big a jerk. But it's where I maintain my spiritual condition. I don't know why I have such a dense mind. I don'T know why it's so busy. I don' t know why It's so negative. And I don''t ask for those things, but it's been very busy and very negative since I've been a young guy. And I think we all have different internal conversations. I'm one of seven kids. My brothers and sisters don't seem to have quite as dense. We have a few, we have one member and maybe a potential member in that group, but they just don't have as heavy a mind as I do. And I look at my bride. My wife is kind of a naturally healthy person and I'm just more intense. You know, I'm climbing mountains to try to have the spiritual experience she has just living her daily life. you know, I've got to read the right books and do the right exercises and stuff like this. And so the subject was going to be, it was kind of ongoing surrender. And the thing that opens us up to, you know we've been talking about things spiritual, and the choice is, as Chuck Chamberlain used to say, you can either have a God-centered life and suffer the consequences or you can have a self-centered lifestyle and suffer the consequences. that's a pretty big choice. Life is very different when you're God-centered and very different when you are self-centered. If you're talking to someone who's having a fight with their wife, a serious fight about whether they think they want to stay married, that conversation is a very different conversation when there's no God in the conversation at all. And it's always interesting, I think, when we're members of Alcoholics Anonymous and our book talks about it over and over again, is for us to pray for what God's will is for us. It's always one of the things I think of to Mark about, are you really in the game when it gets really serious? Do you even want to know what God wants for you? And a lot of us go kind of nuts. At the time that we're going nuts, we don't want to be in the world. We don't know what he wants for us. That's not a question that we are up for answering. I'm going through kind of a tough time business-wise and my biggest fear, my big fear is that God wants me to be poor and happy. And it is, you know, we say we don't have conditions. I want God's will for me but. But I mean isn't that funny? We have a fear that if I really open myself up to what God would have me do. I still have this part of me that thinks I'm going to go be a missionary in China and so I'm resistant to completely opening myself up for what that is. And I think that's nonsense. I really think it's nonsense and I think we rob ourselves, I think I rob myself of peace in that process. I think I rob my self of being held in the hands of God as opposed to trying to figure it out myself. The stress that I feel trying to go through the circumstances that I'm in right now is when I use my little eye intellect to figure out a plan that's going to get me through the woods. And most of the problems that I get presented with in my life when they're right in front of me and they're really fairly significant, what we do when we have those situations is we do a dump. We boot up our computer and we dump everything we know about the circumstances and situation we're in on the screen. I'm 66 years old almost all the solutions to the circumstances that I've had in my life come from off screen they don't come from the resolution that I so I'm sitting here with just my share of just only what I see I'm old enough now that I should figure out first of all there's a lot I don't see And there's a lot of stuff I see that isn't. And then I've got to figure out something that, as they say, most of the solution with your children, with your spouse, with your situation, something happens that you never even considered and it comes in. And so I'm just... I think there's... I have a tendency in All Colleagues Anonymous to rely on what I know. and that's I think short changing myself because I got an answer you can give me multiple choice tests I can tell you what to do and I don't think the advice would be all that bad but I think that's busy work I think the piece that I'm really looking for is what Sandy talked about is to be okay with what's around me, be in front of life on life's terms, to be able to be in friend of that. And somehow, if not have the confidence, I don't know if confidence is the right word or trust is the write word. But I think that's what we have. My dear friend Frank showed up unexpectedly to surprise me with a joyful event that was. And I think when you get together with old friends and I feel the same way with Sandy and other people in this room and you talk, we all have a sense for each other that it's going to be okay. We sometimes don't have it for ourselves and that's one of the things that good friends who I've walked this walk with in the program give me. Just being by them encourages me to have a sense that it is going to Be okay. 66 years old, have you ever had anything that hasn't turned out? No, but this one might not. And so that isn't exactly in the subject of surrender, but it is I think I and we rely entirely too much on what we know, even what we knew about the steps, even what мы know about the program, and not enough on I think it was easier for us to say in 1950 or 1960 or 1970 that I don't know what's going to happen. I don' t know. We'll see. Today, I think there's a much stronger tendency that we've got to somehow figure that out. Can you make any sense of that? Yes, of course. I'm done talking. Thank you. Before I get started on that, I'm going to share something that happened to me recently. And I want to do it not to just cover this topic but to teach you a lesson because three people taught me a lesson and I want pass it on. About 30 years ago I was up in Washington D.C. and on the local television an Afro-American lady was being interviewed by the TV guy and her son had just been murdered by another teenager. And her son was just an innocent bystander so the TV I wanted to get her while she was all upset so he'd have a good show. And he said how do you feel about the boy that did it? And she said, I've already forgiven him. And I couldn't believe my ears. I just looked at her and she was as calm was a cucumber and just repeated it that I've already forgiven him and the TV guy didn't know where to go with that he was stuck and he just bumumbled something and went off and then about I don't know 15 years ago there was a lady in AA who had the same thing happen and the first thing she said was I've already forgiven him. And the third one was the Amish, and that was on TV. And these murders took place and they went over, the family of the murdered child went over to the family where the son did the killing to see if they could comfort him. This raised my sights way up, and I used to talk about these three things to my friends. I said do you remember this? Do you remember that? because it just stuck with me, like I can't believe that. But it became part of me. And I don't know why I'm crying now, but many of you know last month my younger daughter was murdered in her home up in Connecticut. it. And so I suddenly had the same situation that my teachers had happened to them. And I'm here just to tell you what happened. My other daughter, who found the body, called me up and she said, are you sitting down, Dad? And I said, yeah. She said, well, Barbie was murdered this morning. And I saw these people. And before she finished telling me about it, I had completely accepted it and had forgiven whoever did it. And when I say completely accepted I said as of this second in time my relationship with my daughter Barbie is on a new level. The new relationship will consist solely of memories and stories so that I'll take all my pleasure in telling you all about her and she was in AA and she had five years and I spoke at a conference that she was the chairman of so I have from that second forward a whole new relationship and I don't care who did it it's none of my business that's up to the law authorities I don't have a stake in that at all. It's not part of it. Because of those teachers, I am not dealing with anger. I'm not dealing with resentment and I'm Not Dealing With Hatred. I'm dealing with sorrow which is the only thing God asks us to deal with in situations like that. Sorrow. Sorrow is easy compared to anger resentment and hatred and the anger, resentment and hatred come from the ego it shouldn't have happened why did it happen to me I don't know, I got to get even and all of that and the amount of suffering that those three cause are gigantic compared to sorrow because God helps us with sorrow and he won't help us with hatred he said you want to get rid of hatred, forgive give. You want to get rid of resentment? Accept! Just embrace it, this happened. So he gives us the tools to get out of those and then he'll help us with sorrow. And I'm so grateful for those teachers that I just saw. So I'm just telling you that's what happened to me And it's a very powerful thing. It's unbelievable because when you do it in the second that it happens, you don't give the ego a toehold to develop resentment or hatred or anger. Because once they get in the door, they are going to be there. Because once that happened, I started hearing from around the country and one guy called and told me, he said, I stayed angry for 12 years. that is a terrible sentence to inflict on yourself I stayed angry for 12 years it's just crazy and so the tools are here to handle situations of a very high magnitude if we're willing to do that in other words, in order to be willing to do this, you have to let the universe off the hook you have to say to the universe, okay, it's okay that that happened you can't go, that shouldn't have happened I can't believe it or whatever and it had no effect on my relationship with a loving God it didn't change it at all it made me more grateful that I had this loving God to help us through everything he has nothing to do with what happens or doesn't happen or any of those things and so from now on I'll just show you a picture of her and I at the convention and I'll tell you about all the good work They had a memorial ceremony, 50 family members, 300 AAs, and the place was celebrating. And everybody was alive with the life that this young woman did. So I just wanted to get that in because there's such a big lesson in there. You have to remember that if you do it in the second that it's happening, you eliminate having to deal with resentment and anger those are the killers and so it says acceptance is the key to everything forgiveness, how many times does Bill write about forgiveness in the prayer of St. Francis if we ever forgave everything that ever happened to us in our life we would have a very light burden that we're carrying around because we remember stuff and we're not going to let it go off the hook I remember my sponsor tricked me one day years ago a guy had done something and he said can you ever imagine like years from now letting it go and forgiving oh yeah, well then why not do it now so if you're holding on to something why not let it go now then you're the one that gets out of jail anyway let me pass it back to Bob I just wanted to get that off a month or so ago when you said those words to me over the telephone when we were talking the first thing that came to mind is spiritual life is not a theory it is real and it's really powerful in addition to being powerful that makes my problems look like chicken crap I don't know if he intended that because I was doing really well focusing on my problem I'm having trouble remembering what it was But isn't that true? Therein lies the dilemma of life. I've got a little business issue that I have painted on my eyeball and at times it's all I can see. And then regularly in meetings we are presented with something that breaks through all of it. You just see it in little pieces. You see it in the hallway of the hotel, or you see it, you know, one of the women at the meeting sharing something that's very powerful. And we get to see the power of God. We get to See the Grace. We get To see how the program works. The ability to be with life, in life, as it is, with all the texture that it is. and to be okay to be where our feet are and to have a to be in the now to be present all the great spiritual writers want to be present, they don't want to been in the past they want to being in the future most of us have a tendency to be fleeing from the past because it isn't the way we need it to be. Towards an imaginary future which will give us resolution to an imaginary person which will give us a resolution relationship and we're wasting the moment that we can attend to. That's one of our slogans about one day at a time and if you could break that down to a moment at a time, or now is the time. There's just never a problem now. And when Sandy was talking, I bet if I would have been able to measure everybody in the room, none of us would have had a problem. You know, two hours from now, many of us will be back focused on our little universe doing that. And that is the sort of thing I really love. When I was talking before, and I don't know how well I did it, but I said how unusual it is. I think the grace in AA is that we are forced to have a real relationship with the God of our understanding, not a hypothetical one, not one based on theology, not one made based on belief. But because in AA, we only will listen to conversations that are real conversations, that you're really involved in. when we're talking about sharing your experience, strength and hope we don't want a second hand story we don' t want you telling us about what your brother thinks or did or what your sister thinks or didn we want you to communicate what you're doing and not just from the neck up how we listen will be probably determined by how you are and the sharing and as long as it's real as long as it has integrity we'll listen to it pretty well judgment free and if we don't agree with it we just let it go through and if you don't and if we do agree with it may wash over us like a warm bath and we get to do that hundreds of times a year we get to walk into our meetings with brothers and sisters in AA and talk about life and how we're living it and how it's working and how its not working and to talk about it in the context of spiritual principles which have been given on the program and to be in a room of people who while we're not maybe close socially everybody in that room wants your life to be good that is not a small deal I mean, I don't know where else you can go in the world to truly be able to sit which I think churches I think we all usually hold goodwill for each other but I do think it's amazing to sit in a room with people who have all had a spiritual experience and if they were to try to describe it wouldn't be able too and the closer they got their experience would be very different and very scattered and yet everybody in the room, young and old, black and white rich and poor would have had if you would have just walked up and said if they could say it in a private place they've had their spiritual experience there's no doubt about that go to a bus and ask that question I mean it is the privilege that we have the environment that we have been offered for the support of our maintaining our spiritual condition is extraordinary. To be able to hear what Sandy just shared is extraordinary and it helps me. Thanks, buddy. I'm going to pick on a sentence in the big book that I think it's kind of fun to think about. We read it a lot, and I don't know if we take it as seriously as we should. And the sentence is, our problems, we think, are of our own making. And it appears somewhere else, and I can't recall exactly, but it ends up saying, our problem's of our own making, so if you have a problem, do you believe you made it? Is that how you officially recorded it in your head? Or, if you've got one that someone else made. But it doesn't say that. It doesn't our problems are sometimes of our own making and sometimes made by other people. And so suppose we believe that. Suppose we really believe that and said all the problems I have I made, I created. How do you create a problem? There's some building material to make a problem, and it's called thinking. All problems are built out of thought. And then if you get good enough thoughts, your emotions get involved because they react to the thought. I just had the most horrible thing ever happen in the world to me. Now you're going to get emotional reaction to that. And then you find out, well what was it? They were out of bubble gum. I had to settle for a candy bar. Oh my God, that is awful. You know who an alcoholic caused when he had the flat tire? Suicide prevention. Yes. that's exactly what I'm talking about that we create our own misery when they say misery is optional that's what they mean they mean you have to create it And it's created, oddly enough, if you really look at it, it's creative with adjectives. In other words, life happens and then we put adjectives on them. Rotten, awful, disgusting, but it didn't come out that way. It rained this afternoon. The farmers all happy. I was going to play golf and that miserable rotten rain came down. Now I'm reacting to my thoughts about miserable rotten and how it ruined my afternoon, and now I'm furious. And if I do it well enough, I can go get a drink. Because anyone would drink with a problem that big. How big? The one I made. When I make a problem, it is really big, and it can't be fixed. There's no sense talking to a sponsor because he'll just try to talk me out of it. This problem is big and big! How did it get up there? To that level, I cooked it. Put it in the oven. Put some resentment and anger and all that. So when we say our problems are of our own making, you really have to believe them. How did I trick myself into getting so upset? How did i trick myself into getting so upset. Use those things and then trick yourself into feeling better. I've done that a lot. I just start thinking all these other things, and then I just go, hey, there's a meeting tonight, or I'm coming here. I'm going to see Bob. That's going to be a lot of fun. Okay, yeah, I do feel better. Yeah, but you just tricked yourself into feeling better. Well, I tricked myself into feeling bad in the first place. That's what I did. I tricked my self into feeling mad because the ego likes trouble. Its whole life depends on problems. That's where it gets its identity. That's what gets its separation from God. Otherwise, we'd be just a happy little child of God, which is all we actually are. And we want to be more than that. I'm a happy, little child God and then we start adding all these other things on top of it, which why anonymity and humility are so powerful. They bring us down to where events simply happen. they're not good, they're not bad. Those are the labels that we have to put on them. So when I sponsor people and they have a problem, I say come on over and they think we're going to talk about the problem and we're not. I'm going to convince them they don't have a problem. And we're going to sit there looking at it differently until they finally go well yeah if you look at it that way. And I said That's the way you want to look at it. So, the problems are we're seeing it wrong. We have the wrong glasses on. That's why Chuck got that wonderful book New Pair of Glasses. When you put those on, you don't have a problem. And I don't think that could happen. I think that's impossible, that there's some power in here you put these glasses on and problems go away. Well, we are the last class of people who ever oughta think that way because what happened on the third drink when you went into a bar to your problems? Gone. And you just looked around and said, now this is more like it. This is more like it, I like this world. So we already know about a power that can cause us to see that there aren't any problems. And so that's why I like that sentence, our problems of our own making. Okay, Mr. B? Well, if you look at it that way, I... I think mine's different, but I don't think it's entirely of my own making. Yeah, there of our own making It's funny when you talk, I have nothing to say Well, you get a new topic Oh, I like the one we were on Just that you resolved it. Uh-oh. It isn't here anymore. We're going to take a 10-minute break. Then we'll come back and we'll do our 20 minutes, and then we'll do questions and question and answers. Thank you.