Finding and Connecting to Your Higher Power – Sandy B.

Well, good morning everybody. My name is Sandy Beach and I'm an alcoholic. It's really been a wonderful weekend and I love being at events like this because we're here to celebrate the power of the spiritual program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the only way to celebrate it is to see it. And that's when we look around and we go, it's not a theory. It's real. It's right here. And I just love being in the middle of that and just let it come in. And when it does, it changes how I look at things. Now, I don't see the world as so cruel or unfair. I just see it as the way it is. just a place for God's kids to hang out, as Chuck Chamberlain would say, and see if they can learn a little more and grow a little closer to him, which is the only point of being alive anyway. I got sober on December 7th, 1964, up in Washington, D.C. Thank you. I was in the Marine Corps and was a fighter pilot and I had a few mishaps and ended up in a nut ward and was there for six months when I was let out it was suggested I call AA because if I ever drank again I would lose my career and so I had started drinking again and I knew I was going to get caught and so on December 7th Pearl Harbor Day I call the intergroup and they get the one other Marine who was in AA down at Quantico and he came to my house and I probably had about six drinks before he got there but But he talked to me and my family and mostly my family, six kids and my wife. And they all hated me and said I was terrible. And I wished that he would just take me out of there somewhere. And I explained to him that they were exaggerating, that I really was a pretty good guy. And they had no reason. There was just a lot of unfair things that happened. Anyway, he got me in the car and I went to my first meeting. and it was a group anniversary in Manassas and oddly enough I'm going up there next weekend for their 55th anniversary and I'll be back at my first meeting in Virginia you know what I mean and it's not the same building that building deserved to be torn down it was such a rat hole and the group was having its anniversary and it is out in the country And this is back in the 60s. And, I mean, God, they just celebrated and celebrated. They ended up with square dancing and fiddles and country fiddlers and food everywhere. And food made me sick. I didn't like hearing about sobriety. It was just awful. And I'd been there about three hours. And now I've been sober maybe six, which is you're not feeling too good. And I was trying to escape. and I remember standing on the front porch of this old wooden odd fellow's hall with a stinky non-flush toilet and a space heater hanging from the ceiling and it was just like, oh. But there was nowhere to run to. You know what I mean? There were no lights. There was no bar down the road that I could see. There was just darkness. And I was standing out there and I said, well, maybe I'll just run into the darkness because I couldn't stand being inside of my skin and I thought running over there would help. I don't know if you've ever done that, but then you get over there and you go, that didn't help. I'll run over there. And an Al-Anon lady named Betsy Lynch must have seen something in my eyes And she came out, and she put her hand on my shoulder, and I turned around, and I thought I was in the presence of an angel. I mean, that's what it felt like. And she said, It's going to be all right. Come on back in. And I believed her. And I turned round and came in, andI never fought this program again. That was the end of the struggle. So I was given a wonderful gift that night that took away a lot of the stuff that some of us struggle and struggle and then we surrender. And I just did. And so it has really been a wonderful... It will be 42 years soon and I've got the same sponsor. He's got lung cancer, so say a lot prayers for Bill T. in Virginia because we're going to try and make 50 years together. and he's a tough old guy, so it could happen. Anyway, it's Sunday morning and we talk about the spiritual side of the program and there isn't any other side. That's it. It is just a spiritual program and it's all about God. The problem is nobody's ever seen god i never even met anybody who saw god you know bill wilson saw a light and so how do you talk about god you Know what i mean it's not an easy subject well i'm going to spend the next 40 minutes talking about god and i can hear you all well good luck so I mean how is it done how has it been done ever since the beginning of time and I'll tell you how it's been done with stories that's how it's done there's no other way because we're talking about something that created us that is incomprehensible so there's nowhere you can go well let me describe but when we tell stories, the right stories we know that we just felt this thing that we're looking for which is really the definition of the higher power anyway it's that that we know is missing in our lives and we feel it when we get connected and we go, that was nice tell that story again and when Sean was talking near the end of his story I connected with you as if I was part of you. I honestly felt, I said, I'm part of him and he's part of me. And it was because his story. It didn't touch my brain, which his comedy did. Oh, that was funny, that Was funny, That Was funny. But near the end, his story, his reality touched my heart and I felt my heart connect with his. And I realized that I really loved him a lot. You know what I'm talking about? It was just like, wow, that guy is amazing. And then I said, we all have the same father. That's why we say that prayer. And so we're all part of each other. Now how would we know this? You know What I mean? I'm staying with the program, telling you what I think the program says to us. How does the big book start? Bill's story. Right? It doesn't start with, here's the steps or anything like that. Read this story. And then there's 40 stories in the back. What happens when you read the stories? All of a sudden, there's your story. And then you go, oh, I get it. I get what all of these steps and all of this explanation and all of that is. And so speaker meetings were very big when I got sober in Washington, D.C. There were probably seven speaker meetings for every discussion meeting. There were two speakers at each meeting. So in order to just fill the quota of speakers in the area, everyone had to talk probably ten times a year. Everyone. Or we didn't have enough speakers to go around. And so telling your story was a very powerful thing. And listening to somebody's story, it was a complete package. And it almost told more about the program than a step lecture because you saw the product in action. And when you had three months, you could go to a discussion meeting. but you weren't allowed to talk the basic message was the secret to spirituality is listening it is listening it is quieting my agenda and my story that I am telling myself in order to maybe get in touch with what's really going on and what the real truth is and who I really am And so I really relate to the storytelling part of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's why the CDs, and I listen to Bill Wilson. He's my favorite speaker to listen to. And I get tapes and CDs, and I just love it. And as I got sober longer and longer, the more important AA's history was. What is history? It's a story. And then when you start looking at the story of AA, it's like the Christmas story or something. You go, oh my God, this is a very spiritual story. All the way, and you just see that there was somebody in charge of this thing other than self-centered human beings who never would have come up with this. Bill wanted to have it all run by money. I mean, that was him. He came from Wall Street. I don't know how he and Dr. Bob met, and they said, we got it. We got this message. We've got to get it out to all the millions of alcoholics. And Bill said, well, we'll just use the Wall Street approach. We'll get paid missionaries, get a chain of drunk tanks and hospitals and a book and we need millions. He told them to go raise it and he couldn't raise a nickel. Nobody would give him any money because it wasn't meant to turn out that way. That isn't what the story was. The story was love and service and it succeeded beyond his wildest dreams by not following his plan. Now isn't that wild? Just think how great your life would be if it didn't follow your plan. Just think about that. Nothing ever turned out your way. Sounds bad, doesn't it? Well, I'll tell you, it wasn't my plan to be in AA. But once I was forced in here, I had to change my mind. I heard a speaker a long time ago and he made me laugh. It was just, but it sets it up perfectly for what I'm trying to talk about. And he got up to start his story. Hi, my name's Ralph. My story is divided into two parts. What happened during the years that I drank and what I thought happened during those years. What happened in the years during the year that I drink. I could say the same thing about my childhood. My childhood is divided into two parts, what happened when I was a child and what I thought happened when i was a child. What are you talking about? I'm talking about my story that I told myself about my childhood. My sister and I both were sent to the same Catholic church. She's got 30 years in AA. I've got 42 almost. We sat in the same pew. She saw the cutest, friendliest nuns that she's ever seen and she still loves going there because it's so friendly, comforting, and wonderful. I saw the nuns as an extension of Hitler's Auschwitz. That's what I saw. And then they started telling me about what this church, what the good news was. I didn't hear any good news anywhere. It was all bad. I'm in trouble. I'm going to die. I'm gonna suffer. I'm In trouble. I'm Gonna Die. I'm Going to Suffer. And when I was about eight or nine, I had my first total all on my own spiritual insight. I'd looked at the crucifix. I'd been looking at it for years. It was there. It was big, wooden, 20 feet across, hanging from the ceiling. And all of a sudden it spoke to me and said, little boy, do you see this? Yeah. Well, this is what God did to his only son that he loved. Guess what he's going to do to you? so that was my story now here's the funny part if you were to listen to the talks I gave when I had about 10 years sobriety and then compare them to the talk that I give today today I had a much better childhood than I used to how could that be how could you have later on have a better childhood I got closer to my higher power and as the promises say he removed all kinds of injuries and all kinds of pain and with the removal of that pain I was no longer able to say my childhood caused me all this pain because there wasn't any, so I had to go back and say it must have been a pretty good one. That is freedom from old ideas. Freedom from our own story. And there's no way to get free from it totally like this except spiritually. It's a gift. It is a gift so when we come into the program Have you noticed that we're really, Bill talks about it all over the place, that knowledge doesn't help. And everything before we got here, okay, what's the deal? I want to learn the deal. I wantto learn thedeal. Okay, the deal is you have to unlearn what you already know. And we're going to rip it out of you one story at a time. One resentment at a time. One unfairness. So it's a process of unlearning. Chuck Chamberlain calls it uncover, discover, discard. Oh, here's something else I'm wrong about. It's freedom. It is the most exciting thing. Oh my God, that's a better way of looking at it than I do. I love when somebody goes, here's another way of look at it. Here's another story of looking at that. What they're doing is they're telling me another story. Here's a bitter story about how to understand you and the universe and God and all those things. And I go, thank you. I don't go, well, I liked my story and now people like your story better. I like their story better, you follow what I'm saying? To find, to have the freedom from your own judgment about how your life should go. You know what I mean? Just to not even have a way that your life could go, that's what Bill is talking about. All the pain that human beings suffer is from not getting their way. It comes in many fashions, but it boils down to it just isn't going my way. You know what I mean? I've been through a couple divorces. That is not... I don't want this. Well, you may not want it, but this is what's happening. And it's painful enough to experience the loss, but we can triple that pain by fighting it and by saying, This is unacceptable. I can't accept this. Well, why not? It is. So I accept what I used to consider unacceptable. It was a very hard process for me to go through. I don't think I started getting a handle on this for a number of years in AA. I think the early learning process is humiliation. You know what I mean? You just screw up, and your sponsor says, look at that, you screwed it all up. There was something inherent in us that didn't want to be wrong. God, I didn't like the idea of being wrong. I thought maybe you'd collapse if you were wrong. Hey, you're wrong. all the air goes out of the balloon, and you're no one anymore. So you had to defend. You had to have convictions. It's not inappropriate that that also means going to jail. But I thought a man stuck by his beliefs and stuck by his convictions, that's called a closed mind. but it sounded very noble and it was very ego-centered. Oh, yeah! And so when we come here with our story about God we all have different stories as a matter of fact if AA has a million and a half people there's probably a million different stories about God in sober alcoholics if we could stop them all. What's your God? It's the universe. Well, mine went back to the Catholic Church so mine's a Catholic. Well, I'm a Lutheran God. Well, I'm just sort of a spiritual don't-know-what. Whatever it is, so there's all these differences. So when I arrived here, I had the punishing. You may have arrived here with, there is no God. Your God was, there IS no God! And we all bring in all of these different ideas. It's our reaction to what we saw when we were little and we just kept building up and this is how it is for me. There's no such thing. I've never seen any evidence of God. I've ever seen any of these things. And so my sponsor helped me with this. He says, well, we're going to conduct a spiritual experiment. You're like a scientific guy. Spirituality can be approached scientifically. As a matter of fact, that's what AA does. Really? I didn't know that. Yeah, let me show you how it works. Okay. Now, you've been around how long? I said, oh, I've been here for about a year. well have you ever been totally honest with me about your spirituality I said not really Bill let's do it right now would you be willing to be 100% honest I said sure how much do you pray you mean like really yes really how much did you really really pray I don't believe in it Bill so I don' t do it at all I know that's going to upset you but I don''t I don ''t like it I don.''t believe in it I think it's a bunch of crap when they're doing the Lord's prayer I go it's the joke it's jokes I don?'t do it I don'T do it at all okay zero for prayer fine Don't relax. That's no problem. Now, how about meditation? Have you ever contemplated getting quiet, allowing the spirit of the universe to listen to your breathe? Come on, Bill. What would I do that for? I've got a lot of problems. I'm working on the problems. I like sports. I mean, I've Got Crap going on. I get, well, if we sit there, I mean everybody will go by. So zero meditation. Yeah, zero meditation, yeah. Maybe someday, but no, zero, zero. Okay, do you ever go and sit in a church? It's filled with spiritual energy. These buildings, they just have something special. Many, many people have found total... I said, no, Bill, I don't. I was there when I was a little kid. It's a very bad place to go. It's full of people. It's always filled with bad energy. Even when I went to France and they had those famous cathedrals, I said screw that. I'm going to go to the museum. I just didn't. No, none of that. Okay, fine. Fine, zero. How about spiritual books like New Age? People have thought about these things. They can give you different ideas about stuff. I said, no, I don't even go near that section in the bookstore. I go over there and get sports books, flying. I like flying. I like that. No, I did none. So he said, okay, so you have zero all the way. I got one more question. How's it going? What does it feel like to be inside of you? Oh, it's awful in here. I can't stand it. I'm always afraid. I'm in pain. I'm a... Well, this is what I'm trying to explain. The laboratory where we perform the scientific spiritual experience is inside of us. It's inside of me and inside of all of you. And that's what the no spirituality experiment produces. Those are the results you get. Now, would you be willing to try a different experiment and see what kind of results you gets inside? Because we tried it and we got wonderful results. Tirely different results than we had before. It's kind of fun to be inside of me now. And you know what I did? I stood there debating it. And Bill writes about this in the 12 and 12, and he says we're like a scientist who refuses to perform a certain experiment lest it prove his pet theory wrong. What if I prayed and got happy? I'd look like an asshole. All these years, I've been saying that's a bunch of crap. I can't look bad, so I'm going to stay screwed up. I mean, we laugh at this, but ladies and gentlemen, that's the human dilemma. I don't want to be wrong, even if it's great for me. Look in the chapter of the agnostic in the big book, right at the very, very beginning. It explains that when you drink, you can't control it, and when you stop, you cannot stay stopped, then you are an alcoholic. And if that is the case, you are suffering from a disease that only a spiritual experience can conquer. What? You're suffering from a disease that only a spiritual experience can conquer. Nothing else has ever helped. Well, I don't believe in spiritual experience. Oh, well then you're screwed. Sorry. We don't have a non-spiritual way. Well, what do I do? How about changing your mind? What? What? What? What? It's not complicated. Spirituality all occurs inside of us. It has nothing to do with looking around to find anything. We are in charge of the results. That's what our job is, to measure the results, and so we go, would you try AA for six months and then compare it to how you used to feel? Yeah, okay, and then you feel better, and you go, wow, maybe this works. It doesn't work in some sort of a theoretical thing, so later on in the chapter it says, to be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not easy alternatives to face. That's the funniest line you could have. Come on up. You're a newcomer. Come on over. We've got two doors back here. This one says die an alcoholic debt. This one said live on a spiritual base. Okay, Alice, which one? Oh, man. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, do I get a phone call? Yes, you get a call. Yes, okay. Yeah, Dr. Abrams. Yeah, this is Nancy. I have a friend of mine that would like to know how bad is an alcoholic. Oh God. Okay, I'll take the door, spiritual basis. That's it. That's how complicated it is. There's nowhere else to go. So now we come through that door and we are handed a new experiment to perform. We don't believe in it yet because we haven't performed it. We haven't done the 12 steps. So you can't believe in them. But you have an open mind as a scientist. You're now a spiritual scientist. And I am going to perform the experiment that these people are claiming is the law of the land. It ain't the law until it works. And so we start through it, often quite skeptically. I remember my sponsor telling me everything you need is in the 12 steps and I finally said, okay, alright I believe you that's all I heard everything you needs is contained so I went home and I really studied them for real up until then I underlined crap and showed it move the pages and look like coffee stains But now I said, all right, he may have a plan. I'm going to go. I'm gonna study, study, and I came back to him and I said okay, Bill, just help me out. Just give me a clue. Which one is the money step? Because that was my problem. I've been thrown out of the Marine Corps. My career was over. I couldn't really get a good job. I had six kids and eventually that financial pressure, we were broke for so long and that ended that marriage of 20 years. The financial stress was so awful but that's a separate story and he said there isn't a money step and I said well then why would I want to do them? He said what is your problem with money? I said it's driving me crazy to not have enough to get by every month. We just barely make it. If the car battery dies, I've got to wait four days to payday to get the freaking battery replaced before they had credit cards. And he said, now, what is the problem again? I said, it's driving me crazy because I almost run out of money every payday. What if we could have God remove the driving me crazy part. Bill, I don't think that really qualifies as a solution. Yes, your financial problems can be solved without any money. Well, technically I could see that, Bill, but... You mean I would have peace of mind and no money. Yep. Bill, I don't think that's possible. Well, did you ever walk into the bar with not enough rent money due the next day? And you were panicking? Yeah. What happened after three drinks? Oh, I bought everybody a round. I said, the rent money is due tomorrow. It's not due today. and I sat there and I didn't worry about the rent money all night really so a power can lift us above our alleged problems and I say alleged because the next thing that we find out as Bill takes us along is and he says it I think in three places our problems we think are of our own making well no they aren't they're caused by them they're caused by these events my boss was rude to me and it made me feel terrible I got angry, I felt slighted I felt this, I've felt that and I said what if your boss said that and you didn't have those feelings well that's not really a solution the only solution is to get him to stop that. Well, that may be the solution in the material world but people won't obey that. They just keep doing it. What we have here is the power to allow that to happen to forgive them and love them. And you can do that with any situation that ever faces you giving you total freedom from the events of the world. Well, I like it in the abstract, but I like the idea of ripping the world apart and changing it and getting involved in everything and doing all these things. Well, how does it make you feel? Shitty. I'm angry all the time. Well, we're back to the ultimate answer, which is to turn my way over to the will of my higher power. And that's what I think all the steps are for, is to reach in there and find every single idea that is separating me from my higher power and handing it over. My sponsor said, the secret is to don't have a way. Then nothing can not go your way. And what do we say in the 12 and 12? What? Turn everything over. Not have a way. I'll be the hole in the donut. Does anybody remember that third step in the 12th? I'll Be a non-entity. Who the hell will I be? I won't have any prejudices. I won' t have any anger. I won''t have any ways that everything has to be. Who will I Be? I'll BE nothing. What I'll B is spiritual child of God. I will have and this is the goal is to just find more things to turn over so that everything is fine just the way it is that's a big order for an ego who's been used to running the whole show it just reduces me to nothing and God to everything what a ridiculous idea Me, nothing, God, everything. Well, I'll tell you what I thought when I read in the big book. God is either everything or he's nothing. You remember this? It's in, I think it's one of the early chapters. You remember where that is? God is neither everything nor he's not. There is a solution, I believe. God either is or he isn't. So I asked my sponsor, what does that mean? God is everything or He's nothing? Well,I'll tellyou what it means. it means God is everybody in this room everybody in the room is God I'm God, God is me everything about me is God God is everything about me, God has the whole world there's nothing that isn't God and I went wow now let me tell you what I concluded out of that I thought about it and I said to myself I know this sounds funny but Well, I think I exist in addition to everything. Now, how could you exist in edition to everything? Now we all feel that, right? Yeah, I understand everything and then there's me. Well, the only way we could exist in addition to everything is to make up a story that we exist in additiontoeverything. And it gets lonely out there after a while. It gets real lonely because it was like back when the astronomers thought that the Earth was the center of the solar system and nothing made sense. You ever find in your life that it doesn't make sense? Just going along, you go, what is this? It doesn't, I don't, it doesn' t make any sense. I've been around here for 35 years and I don' t see where I'm going or what it is. And then they changed and they said, no, the sun is the center and the earth is going around the sun and blah, blah, bla. Mankind isn't the center of this. That light is. And when they did that, everybody was comfortable. Okay, now it all fits. Now I'm in harmony with reality. And the same thing happens here. I have spent my entire life with me as the center. And with me at the center, nothing makes sense. I'm uncomfortable all the time. I'm in pain all the time because I'm not really the center. Did you ever try and force the wrong part into something? It really doesn't go here, and you're repairing. God damn it, it'll fit in there one way or the other. It's the wrong. And so we come in here, and they go, no, the real center is God. Oh, well, conduct an experiment and live in your mind, make a decision. That's how you do an experiment that he's the center. Make a decision to do a new spiritual experiment. I'm going to turn my will and life over to the care of God as if he were the center and see what kind of results you get. That's all it's asking. Do you get better results with your creator as the center or with you as the centre? I hate to admit it but it is better with him at the center but I don't get to do anything I don' t get to decide stuff and make judgments and do all that what am I supposed to do help people oh yeah I mean I do some of that I mean that's fine I do that No, you're supposed to do that. That's why you're here. That's what you're doing. That's right, we're all here. What is it that you're seeking? Happiness. And how are you seeking it? Oh, I think crap up and then I go get it. That's my plan. And sometimes I'm real close. When I first got my boat... Well, I was there. Boats only last about a week. And then they just don't do it anymore. And so we're all driven by a desire to be happy. And when you look at William James that Bill mentions in our book, wrote The Varieties of Religious Experience, Bill really liked him and that's why he mentioned it in the book. and James concluded that the most valuable things that churches have ever contributed to mankind were enlightened individuals. Other than that, they really haven't done much. Like Bill Wilson, like Gandhi, like Martin Luther and then you see the spiritual story and you just go, whoa. And that becomes the light that the rest of us can follow. So there's tremendous value in this churches or whatever spiritual path is being followed because of the beacons that pop up from time to time. And I'm sure in your area there are beacoms that have been here a long time that have provided stability to the AA and the Austin and Minneapolis area and that you are grateful that the transformation took place in them so that you don't have to take it on a theory. You can see what's available for you. Now, James and most other spiritual writers offer this as the proof of the existence of God. it is the fact that inside of human beings there is a perpetual unrest that cannot be fixed by anything else. It comes in the form of there's something missing. That was what I felt. I don't know what's wrong, but I don' t belong here. There's something missi ng. And then we look and there's two schools attracting us. The material school. oh, you got that unrest? Cadillac. Here's a Cadillack owner. Bob, do you have that unrest anymore? No, it's gone, Joe. Buy a CadILLAC. The unrest will be gone. Okay, so that's the material word. Come to Las Vegas. What happens here stays here. That'll fix that unrest. but it doesn't the closest thing that we ever experienced was drinking that was the closest things to a spiritual experience that you can have but it isn't the right one it's still when we get sober it's missing again it's missing and so that's what he said he said we have this unrest that something's missing. And C.S. Lewis says, there's something inside of us that keeps telling us how we ought to behave and we can't get rid of it. You ever have that? Well, I really ought to, but I go over here. And then the second thing is we can' t live up to it. Those are the dynamics. In other words, inside of human beings is this thing going on and we in seeking happiness or to shut this thing up are coming up with a plan. What's your plan? Ph.D. When I get my Ph. D., that damn thing will shut up. I mean, how many... I get married. How many alcoholics say, yeah, I know my problem is I'm not married. When I have a kid. Women alcoholics will tell us, as soon as I have an adult or a child, all of this will be fixed. And it appears that way. But then it starts coming back. The ultimate source, as Bill said, of all serenity is God himself. It is a personal contact with your own creator. And you're the one who conducts the experiment. You're the ones judging the results. It has nothing to do with everybody else. We just simply are way showers. Where is God? I don't know him or anything like that. I just know it that way, you know, eighth step. Go make a list that way. Go make an amend. And lo and behold, our program suggests the transformation takes place, and sometimes we don't even see it, even though we read it all the time. We read the promises as if they were nothing. and as a matter of fact and then we go are these extravagant problems no we think not because people are answering back you know why they're not extravagent because God's doing them can you imagine trying to have that done by human power okay let's have fear of people economic insecurity leave us you've been worried about money and people all your life watch this Oh, still there? Well, I don't know. I don' t know. You follow what I'm saying? Look at those verbs in the promises and you'll see those are spiritual verbs. Those aren't being caused by any knowledge or human power. We will intuitively know how to handle situations. We have been raised to the intuitive level which means we are able to sense from our heart or from somewhere else the right thing to do. And when we do that, we're not in conflict with anything. And finally, we suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves, which is an awakening, which is, oh my God, this works for me. Up until then, we were willing to agree that it worked for him. and her. But at this moment, when we become aware that God is acting through us in changing our perception of the world into one of great glory and happiness, we now have had our first glimpse of the truth about our own nature. And now we can eagerly seek to improve that. And so in the 10th step, right bingo in the big book. We have now entered the world of the spirit. In other words, we just got a taste of it and now we're going to try and get more and live through this power. And when we start out, we are a little bit dependent on AA. When you're around 40 years, you're totally. You try to turn over as much as you can. Retain no individuality whatsoever. Give up every bit of self-sufficiency. And the problem is our ego fights it tooth and nail all the way. I am constantly in turmoil with myself over when do I get to play? You know what I mean? The coach never puts me in. He just wants me to bring the bat out to somebody else or wants me be the water boy and I want to be the star. And that's not our job. That's God's job. the highest pay grade in Alcoholics Anonymous is servant and we come in a big shot and if we work real hard we can go all the way up to servant that's winning that is where happiness lies in spite of what all of our old ideas told us so the process as I see it from where I'm sitting today it's a process of unlearning of letting go. You got a resentment? Let it go. But I want to be... Let it go. And being undisturbed is the whole point of every day. Not to accomplish anything, to be guided, to be useful. Chuck Chamberlain, when he wrote that book, The New Pair of Glasses, and he took AA into his business and just said, if I lose money on the job, I'll do it. I just want to make the guy happy. Well, that isn't going to work in business. He became richer than he ever was. More people wanted to deal with him. They wouldn't even let him do that. No, you can't lose money. But that took faith. That doesn't make sense on paper. You can't look at that and go, oh, oh. None of this makes sense until we do it. So if you knew, this probably sounds like the most ridiculous story you ever heard. And I'm sorry if it did. But I want to give you some good news. The story that's going to unfold for you is beyond your wildest dreams because it's beyond what you can make up. It is beyond anything you can dream. And that's what's in store for you if you will let go and be guided. There's only one real question to ask. What should I do next? You know what I mean? Like a dog comes in, hey, what do you want me to do now? Shake the stick? You know, that's what we want to be like. Okay, what do you want me to do now? You're always happy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You ever watch a dog? I mean, you've had him forever. Now he's dying. He's in agony and his master comes in. How are you doing, buddy? Where are the tails going like that? Right? Oh, man, I'm so happy. I'm happy even as I am becoming nothing. Thank you all very much. Thank you.