He Thought Sobriety Was a Three-Part Program – Sandy B. 🤣

Thanks, John. Good morning, everybody. My name is Sandy Beach and I'm an alcoholic. How are you all doing? Boy, this has been a good weekend. I like the names Pocket of Enthusiasm. I think Clancy came up with that. Around the country there are little pockets of enthusiasm where AA is very exciting. Like it should be everywhere. But when you're in the middle of one, you really are fortunate. because it's very contagious. It just, it's hard to stay sad when everybody else is having a good time and you just, well, maybe I will smile. All right. I didn't have anything to smile about, but I'll smile anyway. Then you realize you have a lot to smile about, and that's what AEA is all about. Let's see. I want to thank all the veterans. I know there's a lot of us in here, and I want to thank you all for that. And I want to wish happy birthday to the Marine Corps yesterday. Yeah, all right. Anyway, I came into AA on Pearl Harbor Day, 1964. And on that day, another Marine came to my house. I had called the Northern Virginia Intergroup in Clarendon, part of Arlington. And I vaguely remember I'd been drinking that morning. And I knew I was in trouble because I had to go back to the military nut board the next day. and I had a hunch they were going to start noticing the smell on my breath. I was an outpatient and that I was shaking a little bit and they were gonna figure out that I'd gone back to drinking even though they told me if I drank again, I'd lose my career. And so I think I called AA so that I could tell them I joined AA and it got me drunk. I was going to use AA as the reason. I had no idea what it was. And they told me there was this one other Marine within AA, that's all, down at Quantico. So a few hours later, I got some more drinks to stay down and I didn't need help. So I called them back and said, cancel my request for help. And they said, two ladies on his way. And I remember saying to myself, well, I'll get rid of this guy. And obviously I didn't. He came to my house, and that was the last drink I ever had. And he became my sponsor. Back then, the guy or gal that came to your house was your sponsor. That's how you got it. You didn't have to pick anybody. I think it must be hard to pick a sponsor. You know what I mean? It would be like picking parents. Let's see, I think that would be a good mother. It must be intimidating. I don't know. I've never done it. And I've often thought that we ought to change the system and what we have in the group is a jar with sponsors' names in it. and then we get a new person, and then the senior man or woman to reach in the jar and pull it out. Ralph is your sponsor. And it would look like it came from God, and that would end all of it. Did I get the right kind? Because there wasn't any doubt this was the guy. And I had the same sponsor for 42 years, two months and two weeks. He passed away this year and his name was Bill Terwilliger. There's a bunch of people that knew him real well here. And what a guy. And as he was dying, I got to go visit him and we went back to the Manassas group where he took me to my first meeting and it was like bookends on this great story where we started there and ended there and I got a photograph. And what we did, we really just talked about what a great journey it was. There wasn't anything sad about it. It was just a great trip, like a roll that you're on. And I still am with them. I don't see it as ending or anything. Everything just continues forever and ever. However, I've always enjoyed the best description of us, which is that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. That captures everything. We're spiritual beings Having a Human Experience. Before we got here, we were spiritual beings not having a Human experience. And when we finish here, will be spiritual beings Not Having a human Experience. We just will have added that to the experience we've already had over all these eons. And so I know that there is a continuity to all life, and it feels wonderful to be part of it and to realize that there ist no destination. There's just a journey. It never stops. And so we don't be looking forward. The problem with thinking there's a destination is you get out of the now and you start going, boy, when I get there. You remember that? Boy, when i get promoted, when l get, and as we did that, we ruined today. We kept saying there's something better than today. Well, how are you going to enjoy today if you constantly tell yourself there's something better than today what the program teaches us to do is how to see today better and get all excited about it and that's been the greatest gift um that i've gotten which is to see how exciting and meetings do that we're all wrapped up in what's going on in our day then we go into the meeting and we start listening to people going around and we suddenly are totally present at the meeting and we realize how great everything is. Well, it already was great. We just forgot. We got wrapped up in something else other than appreciating the very moment that we're in. I just had a couple of things that stuck in my mind before I get going. Every year, holidays come sooner on television. You know what I mean? They're already putting the Christmas stuff up and Thanksgiving isn't here yet. And as a result of that, the holiday stuff is coming to meetings sooner. How do you stay sober during the holidays? That used to be after Thanksgiving. You know what I'm talking about? Now I'm at the club this week. Two days it was the topic. Well, the holidays are coming. Ooh! Oh, what am I going to do? And we start scaring each other about the holidays. And they glamorize it. Well, that's the time when the trees and the lights and everything and everybody's glamorized. Oh, happy, happy. Happy, happy! So I said, well, maybe there's a way of taking some of the glamour out. So here's a thought for the holidays If you really look closely in your own vomit, I mean real close, you'll find every holiday color. So maybe that little happy thought will... help you get through the holidays. And then the other thing, my friend June G. sent me, she had been describing this, she had a letter, a copy of a letter from Bill Wilson to Sybil C., Sybil Corwin, who was one of the first women to get sober in AA out in Los Angeles. And she also sent me a copy of one of Sybil's talks, which I hadn't heard. And there's an excerpt from it that I want to share because this is the most dramatic proof of the statement that nothing ensures immunity from drinking like working with another alcoholic. And we all know little stories about that. But this is the best. There's nothing that comes close to proving that point than this story that was on her CD. Now, she's hopelessly drinking and there's no hope for any alcoholic. And she vaguely remembers reading in 1939 or early 40, the Liberty Magazine article that came out, Fulton Ousler. It was the first little bit of publicity. and she remembered reading it and saw that there was some organization that could help, but then she lost the magazine. And as she drank for the next year or so, she said, I wonder what that address is. I wonderwhatthatis. And then the Jack Alexander article came out in the Saturday Evening Post, and she went, there it is. There's the address. And so she wrote, drinking, to New York. I said, I read this thing in there. It can help alcoholics. So I'm writing you. And after a while, they responded to all those letters. Ruth Houck, who was Bill's secretary, responded to all those letter. So they wrote her back and they said, just recently a little group has been formed in Los Angeles and it meets on this time, I think it was a Friday night go there and they gave her the address she reports that she had another drink to calm down and went to this meeting and that they were quite surprised to see a woman they didn't know that women became alcoholics. Back then just the men were the, well I don't know what was going on, the housewives were hiding or protecting them. I don't know, but they were quite surprised. But anyway, she came in and they said, you're just in time. And they said for what? So well, we got this stack of letters from New York and we've divided them up. These are letters to New York. New York just forwarded them to this group. And we've provided the letters up. Now, is there anybody from the Laguna area? Here's the letters from Laguna. So somebody that was there. All right, you go call on these alcoholics in Laguna and tell them about AA. Now, Is there anybody here from the San Fernando Valley? Yeah. Okay, you take these letters and pretty soon they handed out all the letters except for a stack that was bigger than all the others. And they turned to her and they said, These are all from women. and we need you to go call on all these women, and then come back next Friday. And she said, I don't think I'll be sober next Friday, I can't go call in those women. What am I going to tell them? What do I know? And they looked at her and they said, You take the letter, you go to the address, go around dinner time, knock on the door. When the lady comes to the door, show her the letter. Say, did you write this? And if she says yes, then you say, come to this place next Friday. They're really doing good. That's it. She says, well, I still don't know if I can stay sober until next... You have to. These people are depending on you. And she never had another drink. So, she had to postpone her drink until she went and saw those people. Isn't that a great story? I mean, I just think of that and I just go, oh my God, that's just remarkable. So, I thought you'd like that. I just want to talk about my story very briefly. I'd rather talk about AA like Clancy was doing last night, just various aspects of the program. And so I'll simply say that I grew up in the 30s in New Haven, Connecticut. I had a very nice family. I just didn't realize it. I just felt alienated from everything. So, I just thought I came from a different planet. And it wasn't until I got to AA and was given, as Chuck says, a new pair of glasses that I looked back and realized that I really had nice people around me all the time. And I tell people, if you listen to the talks I gave 30 years ago and compare them to today, Today I had a much better childhood than I used to have. You didn't know you could change your childhood, did you? You can change your view of it and you'll find it was quite more than you thought. That everybody was doing the best they could. And that when we don't demand they understand us and we try to understand them, we see everything differently. Thank God for the program. Anyway, to make a long story short I was a pretty good student Good little athlete I went to a little prep school Fed right into Yale I got to Yale I hadn't had anything to drink I wanted to continue on this Good athlete Good high grades Didn't know what I wanted Figured that would come later I'm still waiting And while I was there I just felt overpowered by all these important people that suddenly were there that I didn't realize. And I felt so inferior that I could barely talk to my classmates. I just felt that inadequate. And so one night, I decided after trying to meet some of them and I could tell when people are better than you are, they don't want to know you. They just look at you and go, I hope you don't come near me. Oh God, I don't know him. and I could feel that energy from these people. And so, I went up and ordered a drink and had two and I think it's halfway through the third one and I decided that alcohol didn't really make you feel better at all and I was turning to leave and I looked back at this group of hostile people and they all wanted to know me. Something new was in their eyes. It was love and hi! Oh man, be my friend! Really? Yes, please come over, come over And I started over to meet all these people That wanted to know me And on my way over I started feeling they were right They'd be lucky to know Me And I had something to say about everything And my shyness was gone My creativity could come out And I said, jeez I should have started drinking in grammar school This is the secret to all the problems I've had ever since I was a little boy have now been removed. And I lived in a very happy world. Thank you, alcohol. And I said, if I got that from three drinks, what would 23 drinks do? And I found out that 23 drinks makes you dead, deathly ill, vomiting, headaches, just aches and pains that hatchet in the forehead and just... And I woke up the next morning and just didn't know if I was going to survive. And the thought occurred to me, well, you're going to drink again tonight? And I said, I sure am. Whatever this vomiting is, it's a small price to pay for what I got last night, which was a transformation into the world that I like. So, I've only been drinking one day and I've already decided you pay any price to stay there. That's an alcoholic. Alcohol did so much for me that I saw it was worth anything to get. I didn't know I was making that decision, but I did. And the high grades went away and the athletics went away and the fights come and go into jail. Barely graduated and the Korean War was going on and everybody had to join the military and a bunch of guys said, let's join the Marine Corps. And I said, okay, oh boy, that's fun. And I went down and went, whoa, what a rude awakening that was. Once they remolded you, I loved it because I was part of something. There's no way you can stay the big shot. You are part of Something, which is what we are in AA. So the only two organizations I've ever really been part of is the Marine Corps and AA. And I loved It, and I decided to make it a career. I became a fighter pilot and got married. We had six kids, and it looked like I was doing pretty good. People liked me. I was funny. I was Doing This, but my drinking was slowly taking everything out of me. I used to get in the plane and take off, and all my problems would stay on the ground. We used to say, boy, when the wheels are up, I'm in the now. And it was just really fun. but eventually the problem started staying with me I started still being anxious frightened unsure myself and I'm going through alcoholic withdrawal in later stages and I don't even want to get in the plane because it's too terrifying all the body sensations that I'm having But I kept it up as long as I could. And finally, on a cross-country one time, I declared an oxygen emergency and made all the other planes land. And it turns out there was nothing wrong with the oxygen. So the next day, I just told the flight leader, I said, I can't do this anymore. I'm through. And I was out in Los Angeles earlier this year getting ready to talk at Brentwood. I was just talking to Bob about Brentwood, and a lady that was coming to that meeting to get her 30-year medallion said, my husband wants to talk to you. He's outside. I said, why doesn't he come in? He's not an alcoholic. He's going to go have coffee, but he brought me up here, and he goes to meetings sometimes, but thinks he knows you. I said really? So I went out, and he looked at me, and he said, you were flying an F-3D 2Q in 1962 on a cross country, and you were in the flight of four, and you declared an oxygen emergency. The planes landed, they checked the oxygen, and there was nothing wrong, and you never flew again. And I went, how do you know that? He said, I was in the plane with you. And on that flight, we flew the F-8 photo plane. This has been the Cuban thing. But we also had radar planes that were real easy to fly. It had two seats. And normally it was a radar observer on the right seat. But on this trip, it was cross country. He explained it all to me because I had no, I was just flying. Well, you don't need to know much for that. And he was explaining that we flew out of Cherry Point because a hurricane was coming and that's the best duty there is. You fly the plane somewhere safe, drink until the hurricane goes away and then you fly back. So the radar guys didn't go. Two pilots went in every plane and he was the other pilot and he Was a new guy and I don't remember him at all. But he retired from American Airlines. He was a second senior pilot there. Anyway, came the next day up to Oxnard. He brought all the photographs from that squadron and he told me all about it. Filled in everything that I couldn't remember, especially one part and I like to mention this. When I came back and I couldnít fly anymore, I had to go to the doctors. This was a very special squadron. It had no lieutenants. There was only 15 pilots. There was a lieutenant colonel, two majors, and all the rest were captains. Very exclusive. Now I'm a failure in that elite group, and I could feel their contempt of my unworthiness. and it took two or three months before I got orders to go do something else. And every day I'd come in, I did the legal work in order to have something to do and I could just feel them as they walked by. There's that piece of crap in there. Look at it. Oh, man, man. All I could feel was shame. You know what he said to me? He said, did you know how popular you were in that squadron? Do you have any idea how hard the colonel tried to keep you flying? And oh my God, it broke everybody's heart. And I went, wow. So what did I have to do? I had to go back and change my past. Did you know you could do that? I had TO GO BACK TO MY VERSION OF WHAT HAPPENED AND GO, ERASE, ERASE, ERase, ERAISE, ERACE. And put in, they really liked me. They tried to help me. It was entirely different than what I said it was. I guess I was wrong. Now, the reason I bring that up is that's the secret of the whole program is to find everything possible that you're wrong about and get rid of it. We have an entire program devoted to helping us find what we're wrong about. And at first, it's hard to be wrong. First time I ever said the words, I didn't say them. I told my sponsor, you know something? You're right. And he said, no, you're wrong. And I said, well, it is the same thing. He said, Well, say it. Do you remember that? It was like I had a bone in my throat. I can't hear you. Oh, wrong. That was the hardest thing in the world, to be wrong. And now, my God, my hero Chuck Chamberlain uncovered, discovered, discovered. What else am I wrong about? Oh, throw it away. It's like finding thorns in your side. Oh, bye. The most exciting thing inthe world is to find something else I'm wrong. What elseamirongabout? Oh, what a stupid opinion that was. If you get rid of all your old ideas, there's nothing left but God. That's how you get there. That's what we inventory. What else? Character defect. Okay. Amends. Okay, go back. I'm fixing that. I'm fixin' that. I'm fixedin' dat. You see what we're doin'? We're getting rid of stuff. We're gotten rid of blockages between us and our real selves. What a great program. Anyway, I did get orders. I became an air traffic controller. I know that sounds... That's what I did in the last year of my drinking overseas. but I never talked to an airplane the senior enlisted men saw the shape I was in and they just said captain you just try to ride your bike over to the tent area every day and we'll take care of everything else and I almost couldn't do that it got so bad now I didn't have any airplane to fly so I drank around the clock I got malnutrition I lost 50 pounds I drank vodka and soup. That was my food. Solid food wouldn't stay down. I was very, very sick. I had alcohol poisoning. And some of the guys in my squadron, I met later on after I had about 20 years sobriety in Washington. And it's kind of a reunion of that crazy group that was over there. And they were so excited that AA had saved my life because they liked me. Everybody likes us. It's just when we're drunk, we can't be liked. We're not there. And they said something that really is amazing. They said, you know, we knew you were dying, but there wasn't anything we could do. Now the Marine Corps goes back and gets their dead, even if it costs more dead. And to have senior captains and majors say, we knew your dying, there wasn' t anything we could do is to tell you the power of the disease of alcoholism. There was no program, there was nothing, so the only thing you could do was to let them die. I mean, isn't that amazing that they would make that statement? Nothing we could use to stop the disease. Nothing we would do. So, that's how lucky I was. I ended up having a ground-mouth seizure back here in Quantico. So I went up to the hospital while they tried to figure out what caused it. If you can imagine, today it would be like that. It would be so simple. And after about six days, I went in the DTs, the delirium treatments, and saw all kinds of scary things. The CIA was trying to break me mentally so they could lock me up forever as a crazy person. And they were tricking and moving walls and doing all kinds OF things. And I guess it freaked me out because I went nuts and they put me in a straitjacket and they locked me up for six months. And so that was my... But out of that came AA. The bottom that everybody hits is absolutely essential. It's amazing. In order for spirituality to work, there has to be two bookends. I call that our steps have these two bookend's, one at the beginning and one at the end. And the one at the end, I don't know about you, but did you ever get a book and you read the ending first to decide if you're going to read it? some weird readers do that and if I was going to do that with AA I'd sneak ahead skip, skip, slip, skip and I'd get to 12th step which it says having had a spiritual awakening as the only result of these steps so I would go that's the ending that's what I'm talking about that's just the point here's the whole program and then the point of the whole thing is a spiritual awakening. So that's this end. Now what's back here? This is the most important part because spiritual awakening is a very attractive thing. I mean, churches have been talking about it and there's spiritual books all over the place. Everybody on the planet has heard of spirituality. Who does it? Hardly anybody. who goes through the pain of crushing your own ego in order to become a servant of a higher power? Who does that voluntarily? Oh, a few saints. A few here and there. But very few. So even though you make it available, who's going to get it? Hey, look at this. Wouldn't you like a spiritual awakening? Yeah, later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Later. You see, I've got six kids to feed. I need money. Then I could get a spiritual awakening after I have money in the bank. It would be a better time to approach people. How do you get it to the top of the list? That's the other bookend. And that's step one. And that surrender, that's a bottom. And it's really not complicated. Spirituality is very simple and it's very practical. And I really think I could, if AA disappeared off the planet, I would come up with an alternative. And this would be my spiritual program. Are you ready? I would call it the Tony Soprano Spiritual Program. And it would be so simple. Three guys come to your front door, you knock, they open it, they break your arm in three places. And they go, Tony says, unless you have a spiritual awakening, within one year, we break all the bones and all your entire body. Bye. Now, you think that person might become a seeker? Think he's down in the library? Spiritual awakening, spiritual awakening, spiritual awakening. Oh, shit. I think he'd work real hard. And that's what step one is. It's Tony knocking. It's called the bottom. It's the bottom of the world. It's a bottom. It's call the true nature of this disease that we have. We have a spiritual illness that only a spiritual awakening can conquer. That's what we have. That's not what we thought we had when we got here. We thought we just drank a little too much. And then we find out how the disease continues, what it's like if you keep going, what a wet brain is like, what all of these things that are further down than you are are like, and you get the glimpse, and as you get honest about yourself, you realize your drinking has steadily been getting more painful to do. It's just they're tightening the vice. Your own disease is squeezing harder. You have no self-respect left and the pain you're in, emotional and physical, you can't look people in the eyes and you know if you keep drinking, you're going to go lower. I couldn't lower my standards fast enough. I think Bob said that one time. Okay, I'm all right if I never do this. Oh God, I just did that. So you drink in lower bars. Just keep going down because it's painful, painful, painfully. And finally they go, is it painful enough to hold up a white handkerchief and unconditionally surrender, you no longer have anything to say about your life? Oh no, it's not that painful. See you later then. Come on back. Alcohol's waiting out there. Go on out. Talk to him. See if he can help you raise the white flag. So we go back out. Bam! Bam! You going to hold the handkerchief up? Not yet. Boom! Boom! We don't have to put pressure on anybody in here. We don'T have to go, you don't do this, you're in trouble. We just say, hey, the guy's out there. Go talk to him. And eventually what happens? All right. All right, what do you want me to do? That's it. You're in. You just turn the corner. what do you want me to do and that's the doorway in so you see the two things this is pushes us there here's the tricky part after we get there we take credit for it yeah I got to tell you I decided to take a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself I just thought it would help me and my family and everyone else. And I leave out the part where my sponsor has a military pistol at my back and write the thing down. All right, all right. So when you hear us taking credit, you realize that Tony is helping us at every step of the way. So why are we lucky? We're lucky because we have this constant pressure to not fail. The price is too big, and we have these heroes who volunteer to go out and report back on whether alcohol still does its dirty job so that we all don't have to go out. And I'm very selfish in that area. And if they come in here saying we need one volunteer to go out, I'm raising your hand, not mine. And the funny thing is, that has to be part of the program. You know, somebody has to die of alcoholism in order for me to believe that it's fatal. It's necessary. Every piece, every slip, every success is necessary for the whole package. It can't be perfect where everybody comes and everybody's happy because then it wouldn't be real. We're not perfect people. We are very imperfect. And so in spite of these imperfections, we succeed as a group. And that's just the way it is. If you weren't sad sometimes, you couldn't appreciate being happy. So don't worry about being sad. You can be joyful while you're sad. He just can't be happy. The joy that we have as we establish this connection with our own higher power is underlying. It's there all the time. And so in that sense, we know that this whatever sadness or whatever is happening is just part of the whole joyful process. And we begin to fear pain less and enjoy the rewards of it more. And Bill writes about that in the seventh step in the 12 and 12. And so, how do I describe what I think happened to me? Chuck said it best with a new pair of glasses. He's my hero, Chuck Chamberlain, and he was a long-time sober guy on the West Coast. And anybody who's been around a long time got to meet him. And he just had a great influence on spiritual thinking within AA. In other words, when we talk about God as I understand him, we're not asked too often to say, well, what is it that you understand? And if we were asked, it would be hard to put into words. And the harder you try and describe God, the more you run into dead ends. How could you describe something that you can't see? How can you talk about this thing called God when no one knows really what it is? And this has been around forever. So how do we talk about it? We talk about It through stories. Stories have always been the way of explaining the unexplainable. We do it in AA all the time. we get a new person to come up and tell their story. And everybody sees God. That ending only happened because of God. There's no way she gets out of that on her own power. No way. She finishes her story, and we all saw God. She told a story about God. Didn't even know she was telling a story. She didn't know she wasn't telling the story about God. She was just telling her story. But we all sought. And so these are the ways that it can be communicated. And Chuck really had, that's where he said, a new pair of glasses. What a story. What a visual way. And you suddenly realize that spirituality doesn't change things into something that will make us happy. They give us the power to see that everything already is. the way it should be to be happy. We're just not seeing it correctly. We already have everything we need to be happy, you just have to take a second look. You need the power to see through our own selfishness and see how wonderful everything is. And so he helped me with stories and I don't know over the last ten years that's been I just love it. I love the idea of stories, to express what I can't express in regular words. And I think they've always helped people. They help me when I think about a story to try and explain something that I canít explain to myself. You follow what Iím saying? Because thatís the realm that weíre trying to operate in. And so this is the story I told myself. You know, there are all these terms that weíve had forever. so here's my story about heaven and hell we always hear about that you like the idea of heaven and Hell oh Hell, I don't want to go to Hell so I'll tell you what I think it is this is just me don't go home and go we found out officially what Hell is it's just my story about it ok ok Heaven is the world and the universe exactly as God created it and as He has it evolving. That's heaven. It's what's there. Hell is the word that you and I created in addition to the universe that God created. And we all live in our own little world. Do you remember that? You know her? She lives in her own little world. Really? Where exactly is her world? I don't know. I never left my world, so I'm not familiar with her world. So what do the scientists say about God's world and God's universe? And they study it and they study it. I love in, I guess it's a big book. Bill's talking about men of science. This is in 1938 he probably wrote these words. Men of science are forcing nature to disclose her secrets as if they were this close in 1939. There was just one more little missing piece and bingo! we forced it all out of nature well here we are and they're this close we got it but every time we open up another mystery what's that? what is this? what is the what is neutrino? what is why these These particles behave differently when we look at them than when we don't. What is that? I know. We're co-creating the universe. Well, we've got to study this a little further. Then we're over here and somebody digs a hole in the ground. They go, uh-oh, what's the matter? just found the bones of a thousand-pound duck. Oh, a thousand pound duck? That doesn't fit in. It went, how did he get up here? I don't know, but there it is. Don't worry, don't worry. We'll have it all figured out tomorrow. It's just a minor thing. The duck mated with an elephant and there was a funny thing that happened. So, now I'm not making fun of science. I love science. I study everything about the universe. I just adore it. But I also see that it's a very difficult thing to ever explain. Einstein thought that the universe was made out of thought. Thought. How can it be made outof thought? Does it make so much sense? Everything is mathematical. It's sort of a divine thought. You think thought could create an entire universe? I don't know. Let's look at something and see. Now, you live in your own little world. What's it made out of? Oh, I just thought it up. Oh, really? Really? would you say it's made entirely out of thought yeah yeah these are just crap that i thought up over the years so you arrived here in god's perfect universe and world which we call heaven And as your intellect evolved, starting around age eight, you started working on improving it. You know, I could actually do a better job than this. I see a lot of problems here. This is unfair over here. Those people, boy, they're all bad. I see, I see. I see I see and we put together a place that we live in. and we're the only one there. We're the only one in this thought world that every human being puts together. Now, one of the problems with living in that world, you're the only one there. And the core problem that humanity has had since the beginning of time is cosmic loneliness. No matter how you cut it, it's just you. But it's only just you in that little world. So the trick is, how do you get out of this? Well, you realize that when you think a thought, creating our own ideas about everything, there's millions and millions of thoughts just like there are spiders' webs when they just start with one strand and then another and another and another and pretty soon you have almost like a cocoon. It's solid. This thing has got so many ideas on it that we're like a little bird inside an egg. It's pretty lonely in there. But you know you're not supposed to be there. There's something inside of us that tells us this isn't it. Maybe I can punch a hole through there like a bird does with its beak. And that's what the steps do. That's what they're doing. They're punching a hole through our own ego to let some light in so that we can actually go back to the world we were in before we built our own. And that's heaven and hell. You see what I'm saying? Hell is a choice. And so as I'm making a breakthrough, the first hole that we punch in our little world is, okay, I am an alcoholic. See that? It just smashed right through there because that was a big part of what kept us in there. And some light comes in. And we go, oh, there is something else. But as time goes on and we get a mean sponsor and he's forcing us to relinquish more and more of our... Hey, this is mine. This is mine, this isn't mine. I'm in charge of everything in here. It sucks, but I made it. I know I'm a jail, but I got here. It wasn't a case of mistaken identity. I did it. I did it. I got here. And so as our sponsor is causing us to punch and punch, we start having second thoughts about it. I think I'm out enough. I got glimpses of heaven, and maybe that's enough, a glimpse. Because I'm comfortable. I'm not suffering like I used to be. We tend to settle for as much perfection as will get us by right out of step six in the 12 and 12. Yeah, it is nice. I can see some light. Yeah, I like this. What about the rest of it? Well, you know... Progress, not perfection. That's what it is. Progress, not perfection There's a funny story about that, Bill. You know, in Cleveland they still do the four absolutes. It's left over from the old school out there. I was there a couple weeks ago The inner group prints them. It says Cleveland inner group AA on the back. Who's going to argue with a Cleveland inner group? They've been around longer than anybody. And the four absolutes. And so a couple of old timers, they get up there. Well, I haven't sobered 50 years. I owe it all to God, to AA and the four absolutes in other words, it's boom, boom. Now, Bill didn't want that. He felt that you say absolutes to a newcomer and they're going to go, oh, that's just way too powerful. So we have progress, not perfection. However, you know what he said? He said, I hid the absolutes in step six and seven in the 12 and 12. And suddenly we find in step 6, we have to open our eyes towards perfection. Oh, that's a different message, isn't it? So it's progress, not perfection. Later on, if we've been around a while and we won't run away, progress towards perfection. How could you ever achieve perfection? You don't. You allow perfect help to come in. The perfect help does the job. You're only standing in the way of perfection. That's the imperfection. I won't allow perfection. Why wouldn't I allow perfection in? Because I won't get any credit for it. I want to see if I can achieve it on my own. I'm tired. God, God, God, God, God, that's all I hear. What about me? So we get the egg partway opened and then we stop. You know, it's just amazing. My recollection goes all the way back when, whoops, I'm running out of time. That's okay. I'll stop. I'll just drop the egg and that will be the end of the story. So, finally my sponsor convinces me that I have to stop drinking. I have give up drinking altogether. And I go, okay. And then it did feel better. You know what I mean? Wow. So, I've been around about a month. We both worked in Quantico in the Marine Corps. And he knew out of the petty cash I was taking, just a little because we're broke at home. Just, I'm going to pay it back. Don't worry. So he knows it and he calls me on it. And he says, you know, that's government money. That's embezzling. You go to prison. You can't stay sober and embezzle. So I said this to myself. I said, so, it's a two-part program. Ha! No drinking, no embezzling. They didn't say that. They just said drinking. Now I know there's two parts to staying sober. No drinking. No embeZZling. Another month goes by. You know, if you want to keep your marriage and stay sober, you've got to stop messing around with other women. Oh, it is a three-part programme. No drinking... Well, every month there was another part. Another part, another part, another part of the day. Another part. So sobriety consists simply of not drinking and changing everything else about you. Now, if I dismantle this entire egg, what will be left of me? Remember that in 12 and 12? I'll be the hole in the donut. What will I be? None of my world will be left. I'll be a non-entity. That's what Bill writes in the 12 and 12. I'll be a non- entity. No, you'll be a totally spiritual being. In other words, all that's getting destroyed as our world, our egg shell, whatever you want to call it, is our ego. and we slowly see our world dissolved, removed, simply removed. And we're right there in God's world, and it's beautiful. So don't give up. You're going to open your eyes one day, and you're goingto be glad you did the work. Thank you all very much. Thank you.