Inventorying the Lies: When the Script Was Replaced by the Program – Sandy B.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Sandy Beach, and I'm an alcoholic.
It's a pleasure to be here. I love being at AA conferences, meetings, anniversaries,
anything to celebrate sobriety and Alcoholics Anonymous.
I came into AA on Pearl Harbor Day, 1964. So my anniversary date is December 7, 1964.
And I'm one of the lucky ones. I haven't been drunk since my first meeting.
And in my personal opinion, I owe it all to not drinking.
That is 100% why I haven't been drunk.
So if you knew you'd been having a problem, I would check your drinking.
Now, somewhere around three months in AA,
I got half-asleep.
And I was happy with not drinking.
And I swore that that would never happen. I couldn't conceive of it.
And to me, that's what sobriety is.
It's Saturday night, and I'm looking forward to not drinking.
I'm looking forward to be happy without any alcohol in my system.
And I didn't think I was the kind of person that could do that.
If anybody told me that, I would have said, you don't understand me.
When I don't have any alcohol in my system, I'm miserable.
I grew up.
I grew up in New England, in New Haven, Connecticut,
and spent a lot of years in the Marine Corps, traveled around,
but most of it was on the East Coast, and I ended up in Florida.
So I'm pretty much an East Coast alcoholic.
And as you all know, there's a big difference between East Coast and West Coast alcoholics.
We throw up three hours earlier than you do.
Other than that, I can't find any difference.
Yeah, I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut.
My parents were depression-oriented type people,
and so they were very nervous about money.
And my father had lost his first job when the stock market crashed.
But we still did well, definitely middle class.
And they saved money, sent me to a nice prep school there in New Haven,
and it funneled me right into Yale University.
I graduated from there and ended up in the Marine Corps.
So if you were to look at just the paperwork record, you'd say,
gee, this guy's going along great.
But like the rest of you, when you look on the inside,
you see a mess that is somehow managing to escape detection.
And he's progressing along in his little life.
But if you could get inside of my head,
you would find that I never felt like I even belonged on this planet.
I just looked around and felt this sense of being different,
being very uncomfortable.
When I was little, I had polio.
They had a big polio epidemic,
and I can remember being sent off into some home for crippled children,
and we were sort of locked up in there,
and nobody could get in there to visit us
because they were worried about it spreading.
And that was how I felt life was going to be,
that you're going to be sitting around,
and then they grab you, and you're going to be gone somewhere.
And the church, I went to the Catholic church,
and for years I used to blame alcoholism on them.
Then I got tired of that, so I blamed it on my parents.
And I found that this is very common.
We've got to blame it on somebody.
We're not going to take responsibility ourselves.
And so basically I was just a skinny, nervous teenager
wondering what was going on and pretending that I knew.
When I entered the university, I had not had a drink.
I was trying to be a good athlete and a good student,
but it was very unusual to be in college and not to be drinking.
And so people around me would go,
you know, everybody's drinking, you ought to be starting.
Oh, I'm going to wait, I'm going to wait.
And the first night that I drank,
I talk about this in almost every talk
because it just clarifies how rapidly I went
from being a non-alcoholic to an alcoholic.
It took about 15 minutes.
And it was one of these events that I detested.
I'm still not too fond of them,
but it was basically the dean had put these names on a list,
and it basically was you 30 guys,
who went to this room tonight, a little social hour,
and just meet each other, just get to know each other.
And that was like going into combat for me
because when I walked in, I could see from the eyes,
just those other 29 eyes just turned to me,
and it was clear in their eyes that they did not want to know me.
It was just as clear as a bell, and I always had to overcome that.
So that night I was determined to go,
and meet these people, but the closer I got to each group,
they had broken up into six and five and three,
and as close as, when I would approach them,
they would all turn and just glare,
like we got enough friends, we don't want to know you.
So I'd go over here, I'd go over here, I'd go over there,
never did meet anybody, just couldn't stick my hand out.
There was a bar in there, and I went up to the bartender,
and I said, well, maybe tonight I'll have a drink.
I just feel so much pressure.
My roommate said, it makes you feel good,
so I'm going to see if I can feel good.
So I ordered some whiskey and soda, something like that,
and I remember tasting it, and I thought it tasted awful,
but I drank it anyway, waited about five minutes,
and I don't recall feeling great, so I ordered another one.
I sat around talking to the bartender, drinking this drink,
waiting to feel great, and nothing happened,
so I ordered a third one.
I got about halfway through the third one,
and I decided that the stuff didn't work.
So I put the glass down and decided to leave,
but as I started leaving, I looked back into the room,
and those 30 mean guys were gone,
and they had been replaced by 30 of the friendliest people
I've ever seen in my life.
Just by looking at their eyes,
I could tell they all wanted me as their best friend.
They were begging me to come over to their group.
Please join our group, please join our group,
and I'm looking at this,
and I never felt so wanted in my life.
It was just wonderful, and then I felt a little different.
I had sort of a taller stature, and I was sort of just,
yeah, you know, and I had the feeling
they'd be lucky to know me, you know what I mean?
That they were in for a big surprise.
I was on my way over to talk to them.
So what happened was I was transformed into a new world.
That's what alcohol did.
It took the old world that was so intimidating and threatening,
and it became a wonderful world.
As I was going over to talk to these guys,
I remember saying to myself,
you should have started drinking in second grade.
Just think how it would have been through all those years,
and family get-togethers, and everything.
I mean, this stuff is amazing.
And I went around, and I intuitively knew
how to handle situations that used to baffle me.
I just, I had no regrets about anything.
I was totally spontaneous, creative,
and it was almost like I was now operating at 100%.
Because those fears and anxieties would just shut me down
so that I couldn't function with whatever capacity I had.
And now suddenly, I was totally me,
and I could be funny, I could be creative,
I could just do all these things.
There was no restraints anymore.
And I loved it.
And later that night, I was vomiting all over the place,
and the bed is spinning,
and never felt so sick in the morning.
I had the worst headache I've ever had.
I just was retching and dying.
And I remember saying to myself,
this is a small price to pay
for what you had last night.
It wasn't even close.
It wasn't even close.
I knew that I had found the secret for my life.
And, uh,
boy, that's a long way to go in just one hour of drinking.
All the way to, this is the secret.
This is the power that will get me through any situation
for the rest of my life.
All of that happened just in the first night of drinking.
And I'm an alcoholic.
And of course, that became the center focus of my life
until I got to AA.
And the rest of life was sort of just something
that was going on in the background.
And to me, that's alcoholism.
It becomes the central focus.
It is the answer to everything.
And it's the power that would take and move me
into a comfortable place.
So from that day on, each day was divided into two parts.
There was the part where you couldn't drink
and go to school, or later on, you have to go to work.
And then there was the part when the day began,
around five o'clock, when you could drink.
And so the first part,
it had nothing to do with life.
I mean, that was just what you had to do
to get it out of the way, to get drinking money.
So you could go into the place at five o'clock
and go into the magic world.
And that's where I just wanted to live all the time.
My grades started suffering, gave up athletics.
I'm smoking about three packs a day,
and I'm just looking forward to drinking.
I can somehow, I managed to graduate with very low grades.
It was probably as marginal as you can get.
The Korean War had ended, but the draft was still on.
And so everybody had to serve in the military.
I hadn't planned, I didn't have any plans for myself.
I'm still wondering what I want to be when I grow up.
It's still a mystery to me.
But here was this situation.
We had to go down and pick one of the branches.
Some guys were drinking beer, and they said,
why don't we join the Marine Corps?
I said, OK, Marines, that sounds great.
And I actually, I had to go down and pick one of the branches.
Some guys were drinking beer, and they said, why don't we join the Marine Corps?
I said, OK, Marines, that sounds great.
Some guys were drinking beer, and they said, why don't we join the Marine Corps?
Showed up with golf clubs.
.
If you're planning on joining the Marine Corps, I would not do that.
Do not show up with golf clubs.
.
And I can remember, you know, I've been there about an hour,
and I just remember saying to myself, man, these guys are intense.
.
This is, this is, they're just too intense.
You know, when you, I kept, you know, backing up,
back off guys. Well, you know what it was like. It just was amazing. And I got further
and further into it and eventually got to be commissioned and then we were trained for
six months to be a platoon leader. And that was very intense. And that's all I remember
about all this. Man, this is just amazing. And I saw a training movie about pilots and
the pilots were at the bar in this training movie. And they were talking with their hands
and they were doing all this and there were some blondes in the background and they were
lurking around. So I asked this major, I said, what's this pilot stuff over there? And he
said, oh, you don't want that. He said, you got to sign up for three more years if you
want that pilot. I said, I'll sign up for three years. I don't have anything else going
on. I just want to get out of this intensity level that's going on around here. So I sign
up for flight school.
I graduated from basic school and I had met this wonderful woman on one of my visits back
up to New Haven to see some of my old buddies. And we fell in love, got married, and went
off to flight school. I got air sick on the plane on the way down to flight school. And
I got air sick in the SNJ about the first six flights and it looked like I was not going
to be making any career.
And I was going to be back in the United States for the next five years and up until I got
out of flying. But it turned out I ended up being...that was something that I took too
naturally once I got over that motion sickness. And I became very good. And I ended up flying
for the Marine Corps for 14 years. And I was a fighter pilot, got promoted, made it through
all these various schools. This wonderful woman and I, pretty soon we have one kid and
two and three and four and five and six . And I'm looking around, there's no
one. No, I'm not.
I'm not. I'm going to be a pilot for the next five years.
Well, I'm going to be a pilot for the next five years.
Well, I'm going to be a pilot for the next five years. And I'm going to be a pilot for the next five years.
no room at the table to sit down, you know, and it's like, man, it's getting crowded around
here, and we're being transferred every year somewhere, the Marine Corps moves you around
a lot, and those kids were in a different school all the time, but it was, in spite
of all the drinking, there was still a lot of fun in the family, and we just kept on
going, but my alcoholism was about to take over and cause a stop to all of the progress
that had been somehow made, and there came a day when I was up at Cherry Point, North
Carolina, and we were flying the F-8, and I was in the photo squadron, and I started
to experience, for the first time, withdrawal symptoms while flying, and it was very,
very frightening, and we were going like, you know, 12 hours without drinking before
you fly, and that was the big mistake that I was making, because that set me up for the
withdrawals that were coming in, and I would start losing peripheral vision, then I would
start sweating, then my heart would start racing, and I definitely had this craving,
you know, to drink, but you couldn't be drinking while flying.
So I started to distrust the pilot of the plane that I was in, which was me, and there
was part of me that didn't want to go up with me, because I knew, you know, what was
really happening was I'm going, I think you hit this switch, I'm not sure, I think you
do this, and you've got to, you know, you're supposed to be sharp, things happen fast.
So I would be aware of all the little almost mistakes that were going on, but none of them
ended up ever causing an accident or anything like that, so no one else knew this.
They just said, hey, good job, good job, oh, those are good photos, yeah, good job.
And I remember one time I, the F-8, you had to lower the wing after you took off.
It had a wing that went up and down, which was strange.
And I took it off.
I took it off.
I accidentally hit the engine master switch during takeoff and shut the engine off and
turned it back on and it lit again.
And I talked to a maintenance guy later, hypothetically, if a guy ever turned the switch off, you know
how you ask those questions, you know, you don't want to ever say that it really happened.
And he allowed that it was like a one in a million shot, the plane would restart under
a situation like that.
So that was the kind of stuff that I was aware of.
That was going on and I kept it up for probably another six months.
And there was just, it was just coming to an end where I just couldn't handle this.
I used to, when I would fly, I would leave all my problems on the ground, you know, all
this stuff, the money and the lies and all the stuff that was going on.
And I would be totally in the now.
And now I was taking everything up and I was just a mess flying around.
And so I did something that only on an emergency would I do.
I went to a doctor.
I went to a doctor.
And I told him a few of these little stories that I wasn't feeling good and all that.
And so they said, well, we're going to have to examine you very closely.
And so I was sent down to Pensacola for two weeks to see what could have caused this.
What is going on with this man?
And at that point in time, there was no disease of alcoholism in the Navy.
So you couldn't be an alcoholic.
I mean, it was, it was, that was before, you know, the services got there.
It's got their alcohol program.
And so they examined me and they found high blood pressure.
My hands trembled.
I was confused.
I was covered with clammy sweat.
My eyes were bloodshot.
My voice shook and I reeked of alcohol at all times.
That was, that was what they had to go on.
And and I remember the dentist, the dentist.
I never went to a dentist because they're right in your mouth.
They can smell everything.
And also they want you to pick up a little cup full of water and rinse your mouth out.
And I knew I couldn't get that cup from there to here, it would be all over the place.
I just never went to the dentist.
Anyway, this guy, the smell of the alcohol was just, it was like, you know, 11 in the
morning.
He said, man, you just reek of alcohol.
I said, well, I drank all night.
And he said, okay, well, that explains it.
I said, well, I drank all night.
And he said, okay.
And he said, well, that explains it.
It was almost like, if you hadn't been drinking and you reeked of alcohol, then we'd call
in somebody that might have it.
So you can see there was nothing there.
And so the psychiatrist, there was one of these big deals at the end of the thing, you
sit in front of a board and they said, well, the psychiatrist says that his testing of
you indicates a childhood sickness.
I said, what?
That means that his blood pressure hasn't gone up.
So my doctor says I have a simple fear of flying that has just shown up after 12 years.
Now I knew that wasn't true but I didn't have the courage to fight anything.
I just went and that was the end of me.
That was my total identity.
Now I'm not a fighter pilot anymore.
I'm just a mess.
And I came back, waited three months for the Marine Corps to reassign me.
I was a career officer.
And they have to give you a new specialty.
And three months later I got my order back.
to become an air traffic controller so that was what that was what they thought
was appropriate for a guy that got the shape I was in and the amazing thing is
I made it through that school which is a very hard school anybody's done air
traffic control work it's really hard and somehow I got through that and then
my last year drinking I was over in Japan as the officer in charge of a
little air traffic control unit when we went on deployment we were the guys to
set up the runway and brought in the planes the senior enlisted man took one
look at me welcome aboard captain there's your coffee and there's your
chair but don't go near the radar he knew that they did not want me
personally controlling anything and that year my last year drinking now I drank
any time
so I drank around the clock I got malnutrition lost about 50 pounds stopped
hanging around with the guys and even go to happy hour I was just I was in a
survival mode I went to work and went back to Quonset hut and I tried to eat
soup and even that wouldn't stay down but drink green alcohol and vodka and
juice that was what I was just surviving on made it through the year and came
back to Quantico Virginia to a career school and that's where I had a grand mal
center off to the hospital what caused the ground mal seizure again we start
this whole charade what could have happened to this guy must be studying
too hard in school there's all these things for about 6 days and then I went
into DTE and people were coming in the room the CIA was moving the walls they
thought I was a spy and they were you know everything was happening so I
freaked out and was screaming and doing science swear by god these drunkards did not like my zero alcohol while I went very much comfortable normal tothey had no country where I want my breath利
looked very good because things didn't take time off life instead i was in this place miscarried i was, politly not normal people associate would often traveling to these days when you all drink children there's no gas we know what i like men LIKE them
and stuff, and they put me in a straitjacket, and I was locked up in the nut ward for six
months. So that was how they took care of that problem. And probably about three months
in there, AA talked to the psychiatrist and said, really, you've got alcoholics, we ought
to bring one meeting in a week. And that's how I got to a meeting. A corpsman said, all
drunks fall in, bright face, I'm in a meeting. I thought it was great, but I didn't think
it was for me. You know what I mean? I said, wow, these guys are great. It's exciting.
If anybody, my friend, if I run into an alcoholic, I'm going to send him right over here to AA.
So it really wasn't taking. And very briefly, at the end of, I think, five months, I was
allowed to be an outpatient. They were going to send me back to duty. So I finally,
was home at night, but I was in the nut ward all day long, Monday through Friday. So I'm
driving back and forth, and it was this Sunday, the Redskins were playing. I had a rule that
you have to drink beer during the Redskin game. That's just a rule that I had. And I
didn't want to sit there with the set off. You know, so. So I decided to have this beer,
even though.
They told me, if you ever have one more drink, your career is over. I said, well, what they
meant, if you get drunk and all that. So I drank the beer, watched the game, nothing
happened. Went to bed, never slept better. Back up to the nut ward, I felt wonderful.
And I'm going, what about this first drink as you're drunk? You know, this is wonderful.
And I remember feeling like, wow, I'm an ex-alcoholic. That was the, I figured there was some way
to graduate beyond or whatever it was. And I had this freedom.
Freedom from alcohol. Total freedom. I couldn't eat or sleep. I was so excited about this
new freedom. And I just, it was all I thought about. Man, I had a beer, nothing happened.
I had a beer, nothing happened. And it just kept me going all week. And I didn't eat or
sleep over this new freedom from alcohol. So on the way home this next weekend, I decided
if I can drink beer, I can drink vodka. So I bought a quart. I thought it would be like
a year's supply.
I believed that this would be on this new thing. And that was gone during the game.
I'm bringing the vodka now back into the nut ward on Monday morning. I know they're going
to catch me. And the following weekend, I joined AA on the outside. You know what I
mean? I called Northern Virginia Intergroup. And the one guy that they got a hold of was
the one guy from Quantico who was a Marine.
And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine.
And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine.
And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine. Another Marine captain,
infantry guy, big, mean. And he came to my house and knocked on the door, and the door
was shaking. And I opened the door, and then no light came through the door frame and he
was—orte. He just came in and took over my life. This is the 12 Step Call. I talk,
you listen. Stand down, over there.
Talk to my family, he didn't ask me anything. He asked the kids and my wife, what about
him? And they all said same stuff. What about you? What about Norm? What about Gatcho? What
all made up a story that I was a terrible father and a terrible husband, told dastardly
lies about me to him. He said, well, that settles that. Okay, we're going to a meeting.
Get in the car. And off we went. And I haven't had a drink since. It's just this guy. And
he's still my sponsor. You know, I mean, that's pretty amazing to have the same sponsor for
36 and a half years. It's a wonderful thing. I'm very happy about that.
And he started me down this wonderful path of Alcoholics Anonymous. And a lot of things
have happened in that path. Sometimes I don't talk much about relationships, but I felt
like talking a little bit about it tonight. This woman that I had married when I was young,
we just fell in love. It was one of these love stories. And after 20 years of marriage,
she said, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
Probably about seven years of sobriety. The finances were so bad. And the stress with
those six kids. I got thrown out of the Marine Corps. And I was trying to sell stuff. And
I just couldn't get it going. And the stress was so bad that we ended up getting divorced.
And she remarried. And I tried to find other wives that would take her place. And I would
marry somebody for five years. And that wouldn't work out. And marry somebody else. And that
wouldn't work out.
And I remember after about, and then it took quite a few years for my children to get back
where we are now. Because they felt it was all my fault that this split had occurred.
And they didn't want to talk to me. But then as the years went by, it all just started
coming back. And they got closer and closer. And now I just feel like it couldn't be better.
And I guess we've been...
Apart about ten years. And I was talking to one of my daughters. And I said, you know,
I still love your mother. And she said, well, she still loves you. And I went, oh, boy.
And it's been about, I guess she's been married about 25 years. And I send messages
through my kids that I still feel that way. And she sends it back. And I know that it's
just going to be...
It's the way it is. And some of my children go, Dad, just take good care of yourself.
And you can outlive him.
So I'm very trim. And I work out. And I take a lot of vitamins. And I haven't given up.
And to the extent that it gets into Stef. And don't take him any more seriously than
I do you, played all the time. And you have to put him on the horse. Just like when I told
our, our baby, "...like me and Stef, right?" And then I have to be like me and Stef again.
And if you drop somebody off, I'm nice. And dad's angry. Okay, then. Then my mom Kitchen,
How about 11?
God.
But it all has to do with God.
That's the whole purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I was thinking about,
there's a sentence in the chapter of the agnostic,
a couple of sentences,
and I'm going to paraphrase it.
Well, I don't have to.
There's a book right here.
I'll read it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
This time I'll get the exact quote.
If, when you honestly want to,
you find you cannot quit entirely,
or if, when drinking,
you have little control over the amount you take,
you're probably alcoholic.
And then comes the sentence.
If that be the case,
then you may be suffering from an illness
that only a spiritual experience will conquer.
Now, think about that definition of an illness.
You have an illness
that only a spiritual experience will conquer.
Now, if you think about that,
that's a rather unusual illness.
You know what I mean?
There's no therapy that's going to do this.
There's no pill that's going to do anything.
Only a spiritual experience.
Well, what kind of an illness could that be?
Did you ever think about that?
Well, what is this illness?
I thought it had to do with drinking.
No, this has to do with a spiritual experience.
And the more I think,
the more I think about that,
I think about the early history of Alcoholics Anonymous
when Roland Hazard was sent to Dr. Young.
And as you know the story,
he was the son of a very wealthy man,
and his father wanted to take over the business,
but he was a raving alcoholic,
and he had tried everything in the young and squished him.
And Roland went over there and spent a year,
and Dr. Young,
tried to cause this personality transformation
through his psychiatry.
And he did the best that he could at the end of that time.
He said to Roland,
you understand your situation?
Yes, I understand my situation.
Well, good luck.
You're in the best shape I can get you in.
And Roland made it as far as Paris on his way back.
Somebody asked him the wrong question.
They said, would you like a drink?
And he said,
sounds good to me.
And of course,
he just, boom,
the disease took over and he was in terrible shape.
So he went back to Dr. Young.
He said, I'm sorry, but look what happened to me.
And then we have the world's greatest psychiatrist.
You know, and I'm trying to tell this story
so that we might feel the hand of God
working all the way through this.
Because here we have the world's greatest psychiatrist
who has enough humility to say to Roland,
there's nothing I can do for you.
And I feel that's that,
out of chapter five,
you know, there's no human power
could have relieved our alcoholism.
This was no human power.
You can't go beyond that.
This is it.
You've now searched the world
for any human help that's available
and that human help in its highest form
has just said,
there's nothing I can do for you.
And that sets up that absolute hopelessness
that is so necessary for a personal transformation.
And he went on to say,
now there have been a few cases
that I'm familiar with and I've read about
where people have found a spiritual transformation.
So if I was you,
I would go try to have something like that happen.
And of course, we all know
that he found the Oxford Movement.
And it came to pass
that he passed this word on to Ebi
when Ebi was in jail
and Roland went and got him out.
And then Ebi went and passed this on to Bill Wilson.
And then Bill Wilson passed,
and Dr. Bob passed it on to all of you and I.
And then a lot of years went by
and Bill realized that he never closed the loop
with Dr. Young.
And I think it was in the 60s.
So he wrote him a letter and he said,
you may not remember Mr. Hazard,
but he came to see you
in the early 30s
and you gave him this advice
and as a result of that advice,
there's now this organization
called Alcoholics Anonymous
and we just wanted you to know
what a founding role you played
in starting this organization.
And it was lucky that Bill wrote it then
because it wasn't much longer
after Dr. Young responded
and then he passed away.
And his basic response
was something along the lines of,
no, I didn't know what happened to Mr. Hazard,
but it's very exciting to learn
what has happened.
As you know,
I was trying to cause
a spiritual transformation
but the field of psychiatry
at that time,
you weren't even allowed
to talk about God.
You'd be laughed out of your profession.
Now it's a little more open
and we're more free to talk about that,
but that's exactly what I was trying to do
was to have this spiritual transformation.
And he went on to infer
that the nature of the problem
that alcoholics have
is an inordinate longing for God.
Now think about that
in terms of our lives
and think about how easy it is
to misdiagnose that.
We don't know that it's
an inordinate longing for God.
It feels like we're just screwed up.
That there's something missing.
You know, I should be happy,
but I'm not.
I'm not comfortable.
There's something wrong with me.
You know, other people
look more adjusted
and so on down.
And so we,
we get diagnosis
and we just go,
well, I can tell what it is.
I don't have enough money.
I don't have a yacht.
I don't have the right woman.
I don't have enough sex.
I don't have enough power.
I've got to be the president
of the company.
And all these roads
are followed to one degree or another
and guess what?
It's still there.
It's still there.
That empty feeling inside
that has not yet been addressed.
And the only thing
that worked on that was alcohol.
Alcohol was almost an equal
to a spiritual experience.
It was coming from the inside out.
It was a power greater than ourselves
and it transformed the world
that we lived in
into a wonderful place.
Everything looked different
as a result of alcohol.
As a result of the power of alcohol.
It literally enabled us to see
as Chuck said,
with a new pair of glasses.
That's what alcohol...
When I looked at it this way,
after three drinks,
I would sit there going,
I don't know what I was so upset about
when I came in the bar.
Everything's fine right now.
Nothing had changed.
Just some power had caused me
to see everything differently.
And I think the same thing happens
as we work the steps.
And to me the steps are just a series of actions
that I didn't believe in
but I took anyway
because you talked me into it.
And I remember studying those steps.
I finally became convinced
that they held the answers.
And I went back
and looked at them real serious.
And I remember getting through the steps
and I remember I didn't ask my sponsor
but I remember saying to myself,
I still don't see the money step.
I still don't...
I just don't see that in here.
And that is the crux of the problem.
That I have these six kids
and the bills
and I can't pay them all.
I mean it's causing all this pressure.
And the steps are the answer.
There's got to be a financial step in here.
They must be disguising it somehow
as something.
And then there wasn't a relationship step.
And there wasn't a power step.
There wasn't...
None of it made any sense.
And the reason I'm bringing this out
is if you knew,
they'll never make any sense by reading them.
They'll only make sense
if you do them.
Because then
the transformation starts taking place.
When I think about
what is transformed inside of me,
I think about my character defect
and I always assumed
I was my character defect.
If you were to ask me who I am,
I would just rattle off
all my character defects
and that would be who I am.
I'm a guy who can't stop doing this.
I'm a guy who does this.
And if somebody says that,
I do this.
I mean, that's who I am.
And so when they came in here with,
let's see if we can get rid of your character defect,
I said, well, I'll be no one.
You know, I'll be the hole in the doughnut.
Who the hell will I be with no character defects?
What will I be?
Did you ever wonder about that?
If you had no character defect,
what would you be?
What would you stand around doing?
I got no defects, but I...
I must just stand here all the time then.
I don't know.
What do you do with no defects?
You ever have that feeling?
Like, you know,
man, that could be weird,
as I got thinking, you know.
So as a result,
I never really wanted them all gone.
You really like that part.
So what is it that is left
if the character defects are gone?
You know what it is?
It's the real us.
This is the real person
that's been inside all along.
This is the spiritual entity
that has been totally overlooked
by all of the thinking that we assembled
in our growing up period.
And I got ideas from the church.
I got ideas from the neighbors.
I got ideas from bathroom walls.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Oh, wow, that's going to be...
That's a...
That's a tough one to think about.
Wow.
I have a lot of truth
that is racing around inside of me.
And there was an old guy in Washington
who used to say,
it isn't the things you don't know
that will kill you.
It's knowing things for sure
that just ain't so.
And that's what we have.
We have all kinds of things
about the world and ourselves
that just ain't so.
That just aren't true.
But that's what was in my mind
and that's what constituted my reality.
And so there had to come a time
when I started seeing beyond that.
And to me,
that's what the steps had to do with it.
And I was talking about this
the other night up in Las Vegas,
that the beginning of it
for many of us comes
when we're maybe three months over
and we're sitting at a meeting
and we see somebody
in their first week come in.
And we look over
and this guy looks just like we did.
I mean, he's looking around.
His eyes can't focus.
You know, they're looking this way, that way.
And he really doesn't want to be here.
And he's sweating and nervous.
And they take him over to the coffee thing.
He tries to get some coffee.
He spills all over.
So he doesn't have coffee.
And he goes and sits down.
And we're sitting there going,
man, this is like a rerun of me
three months ago.
And part of us makes a connection
with this person.
We just sort of feel
what they're feeling.
And at the end of the meeting
we almost go up and say hello to him.
Almost.
But we're too new.
We're too new.
We're not up to that yet.
But we think about him during the week.
And we just are going,
I hope that guy comes back
to that group next week.
I hope that guy comes back next week.
And we come back next week
and he's not there.
And about ten minutes into the meeting
the door opens
and there he is.
He's still sober.
He looks better.
He's not shaking as bad.
He goes over the coffee pot.
He gets a half a cup this time.
And there he is.
Gets it to the seat.
And you can see
he's really pleased with himself
getting that coffee
all the way to the seat.
And he's sitting there.
And part of us on the inside goes,
Yay!
And the question is,
what is that?
Who is yelling yay?
Who is this self-centered person
who never thinks about anybody
but themselves
that's yelling yay
for this guy we haven't met yet?
The answer to that question
and the answer to that is
that's the real you.
That's the part
that the program
is going to reach in
and pull out.
That's what the steps are designed to remove
all of the phony part of us.
All the stuff that isn't real.
All the old ideas
that's stripped away
until the real spiritual being
is allowed to come out.
And to me the amazing thing
that I had wronged
there's so many things
that I had wronged
about life.
And one of them was
that I needed things
in order to fix
what was wrong with me.
That was what I,
I just was always looking out there
for something else
to fix what was in here.
And I didn't need anything
except to give.
I had it all backwards.
I had the energy flow
going the wrong way.
I said I'm going to need this.
And none of that was true.
What I needed to do
was to open up the channel
as the prayer of Saint Francis suggests
by working the 12 steps
so that the true love
and spiritual centeredness
of myself and of all of us
can flow out to other people.
And once that started happening
I started realizing
I would go home at night
totally happy and satisfied
with everything just the way it was.
To me that was an absolute miracle
to find out that's what it was all about.
There was another thing
that I wanted to read tonight.
I came up against it
earlier in the month
and it has to do with forgiveness
and I wanted to wrap up
by talking a little bit
about forgiveness.
It's in May 3rd
in the little 24 hour book.
I must overcome myself
before I can truly forgive other people
for injuries done to me.
The self in me
cannot forgive injury.
The very thought of wrongs
means that my self is in the foreground.
Since the self cannot forgive
I must overcome my selfishness.
I must cease trying to forgive
those who have fretted and wronged me.
It's a mistake for me
to even think about these injuries.
I must aim at overcoming myself
in my daily life
and then I will find
there's nothing in me
that remembers the injury
because the only thing injured
my selfishness is gone.
And I don't know if that's happened to you
where you decide to forgive someone
and you go,
you know, I'm going to forgive that person.
But there's a whole part of you
that isn't buying it.
You know what I mean?
You're going,
okay, he's off the hook.
But then when you rethink the injury
you know, there's like,
well, down in here
I haven't forgiven him
but I've said that, you know,
and so it's almost like
until I'm willing to
forget about that,
I'm going to work on this program
of getting closer to my higher power
to get rid...
Still an alcoholic and...
Thank you.
Give me about five minutes more
and I will be finished.
I wanted to finish this thing
about forgiveness
and that is...
I remember when I was growing up
and I was studying the Bible
and I'm reading about Jesus
and all the things that are happening
and the only part I liked
was when he turned the water into wine.
I thought that was wonderful.
And then there was some other stuff
I thought was cool and all that
and then all of a sudden
we're at this part
where they're nailing him to a cross
and I'm going,
this is almost a little too intense.
This is for me.
I don't know if I like this part.
And he says,
Father, forgive them.
They know not what they do.
And I remember going,
hey Jesus,
are you on drugs?
Do you see what's happening to you?
They're nailing you to a cross.
And I'm just going,
how could he be forgiving that?
But as I grew up
and I started having explaining
to me,
that was sort of the bar.
That forgiveness should be extended
all the way up to
and including being nailed to a cross.
Now the funny thing is
all during my life
I kept having things happening to me
that were more serious
than getting nailed to a cross.
The reason they were more serious
because they were happening to me.
Not to you
or not to Jesus
or not to anybody else.
They were happening to me.
And so I listed things
that were just unforgivable.
And that stuff
that is carried around,
you can carry stuff for years.
Carry stuff for years.
And this program has enabled me
and a lot of the speakers
we've already had
have talked about this,
of stuff that was just carried
that was like nails
that we had placed in ourselves.
About events
that couldn't be forgiven.
And I realize now
that the faster I can get rid of anything,
I love that part where it says
the only thing that can get injured
is my selfishness.
That's the only thing.
So anytime I feel
that I've been wronged,
my self has gotten in the way.
My ego is the only thing
that can get hurt.
I remember the first time
I heard when they said
self-centeredness
at the root of our problem.
I remember saying,
well I'll fix that.
I'll take care of that
and I'll just stop being self-centered.
Me, I'll stop being self-centered.
You ever try to figure out
what the opposite of self-centered is?
What is it, un-self-centered?
Doesn't make sense.
Turns out,
God-centered
is the only answer
to self-centeredness.
And it's the real centered.
And every time
when I get disturbed,
as the tenth step talks about,
my primary goal
is to get undisturbed.
That's the point of sobriety,
is to stay as undisturbed
and to get undisturbed
as soon as possible
so that the person
that I bring into my daily life
is undisturbed.
When I bring that person
into my daily life,
I treat you all different
than when I'm disturbed.
I am in harmony with you.
My spiritual part can love you.
I can just walk in
and have a smile.
My eyes show
that I'm not hurting
from some self-centered imagined wound.
And when I treat the world that way,
it treats me back that way.
And we literally transition
the world
by changing the inside of ourselves.
As self-centered practicing alcoholics,
we brought out the worst
in everybody that we met.
And think about that.
You're seeing people
always at their worst.
And we come home and go,
this world is rotten.
I mean, everybody today
was a complete
and little did I know
that I was bringing that out in people.
My parents were having
a 50th wedding anniversary.
My sister had the list.
There was one person
I just didn't want her to invite
because she was just so obnoxious.
And I remember telling her,
and she had 20 years
in the program at the time.
I said,
do we have to invite him?
He gives us this and that and that.
And she said,
he only does that
when you're around.
What?
Yeah,
he only does that
when you're around.
And so I went
and treated him
as my sister said.
And she said,
you know what?
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
You know what?
As my sister said he was,
just went up,
Uncle John,
how are you?
Good to see you.
Good to see you.
And he was great.
He was absolutely great.
I was totally wrong
what he was.
So I guess what I'm saying
if you're new,
if you have the opportunity
in here
under the guidance
of your sponsor
and the wonderful literature
that we have
to transform the world
that you live in
so that there will be
no reason to drink it,
that's what sobriety is.
There's nothing
for alcohol to fix.
And when you drink,
and when there's nothing
for alcohol to fix,
it's real easy
to stay sober.
Thank you very much.
Well, delicious.
Thanks, buddy.
Thank you.