Sandy B. How AA Started and Grew

...to the Oxford group and gets over.
So the team came up with the following plan.
The next time he was at bat,
they had the pitcher deliberately hit him,
really hurting him.
And the team doctor came out
and said he had to go to the hospital.
And they took him to the hospital, and he got sober, and right around that time,
AA made the transition. You see, we're right in that Oxford AA, and then it became AA, so by the
time he really got going, he was not in Oxford. He was in AA, and his playing started escalating.
He started hitting better, fielding better. He was just, you know, and so the reporters, after about
six months are going, Raleigh, you know, they'd interview him. How come you're just taken off?
You're like a rocket. And he said, oh, I joined AA. I got sober. And that's why I'm doing these
wonderful things. And then New York went nuts with the anonymity break. But they got more
letters wanting to know about AA off of the Raleigh Helmsley stories that were carried
around the country than they did the Liberty Magazine article. And so it just shows you
sometimes that the exception to the rule can
bring some kind of results in. Anyway, those
were the little stories that had occurred to me. Then I want to get back
to those of you that maybe knew.
Let me talk about 10 or 15 minutes, and then somebody suggested that we
just have questions, things that have been bothering you or
just things you want, and I'll be happy to do that.
there's a sentence in the
in other words what's the deal
you come in here
you know you're an alcoholic
you know you have to stop drinking
but obviously that's not what's making everybody here so happy
because you know that if you didn't drink
that would be the worst thing in the world
I mean when I heard that
I just said don't drink
I saw that
I saw the problem with that
the second they mentioned it
and I was pretty foggy
but I heard them go
you know I remember they said
okay no drinking
I remember going
like no drinking at all
is that like
you know what happens
if you don't drink
you are sober all the time
you know what that means
that's like all day
all night
all week
all month
there's no break
ever that is not a happy prospect i don't care what anybody says the idea of being sober is not
a very happy thought to any practicing alcoholic sober sober that's when things are bad that's why
i drink sobriety is the painful part of life and drinking is the happy part of what don't people
understand. So obviously there has to be something that happens. And what happens are the 12 steps.
But the description of this process is contained in one sentence in the chapter of the agnostic
that I think is one of the greatest sentences in our book in terms of understanding what the deal
lives. And it says that the main object of this book, and everybody knows the first half, but
sometimes we forget the second half. The main object of this book is to enable you to find a
power greater than yourself, which will solve your problems. Now that's the phrase that I would like
to think about this morning. Okay, we're going to find a power greater than ourself. But then what
it says, which will solve your problems. What do you think that means? What do you think
that means? That we go to this power and then somehow we are given great insight into solving
our own problems? It doesn't say that, does it? It says, find a power greater than yourself
which will solve your problems. It's almost like the finding of the power is the solution.
and it is in other words when you are near this power there are no problems
that's what it means by definition now you say well that sounds pretty preposterous to me well
let me think back a few years ago were you ever racked with problems as you walked into the bar
just you had so many worries
and so many
God I can't believe
this is my
and you had
three and a half drinks
this is how long it took for me
three and a half drinks
I couldn't remember
what the problems were
I was totally into the now
I was totally into my buddies
Joe how you doing
hey hey
what about all your problems
oh the hell with them
hey wait wait
what happened to them
What happened to them?
They got absorbed in the solution.
The solution was so powerful that it negated all the problems.
It actually lifted me above the problems.
I was sitting in a place where those problems were irrelevant.
At that moment in time, they really weren't problems.
I was in the now.
I was with my friends.
I had a view on life that was just wonderful.
let the party begin. I did not want to go back to being sober. So we already know what it feels like
to have a power that lifts us out of the problems. This is what sobriety does. It lifts us
literally as we work this thing. What's what it's saying? Maybe you, you as an individual, not as a
group, as an individual to find a power greater than yourself. And that finding is the solution.
they're just, you just can't have problems there. And that's very exciting to me. That is very
exciting news that these problems are, see, the only thing that can have a problem is your ego.
That's the only thing that can have a problem. It's that somebody said something and I don't
like it. What did it hurt? Well, it made me look bad. Oh, look bad. What is that? What is looking
bad. I mean, is that a problem? I mean, that could be a problem we could let go of quite easily,
but our ego doesn't want us to because we have this identity as a person separate from our
higher power. We are, and then we name what we are. We have all these things that is us,
and we come into AA, and what it does, it takes away that identity, and we suddenly find out that
we're a child of God and we're a servant. And if we just do the next right thing, we will be happier
than if we set a plan over here and achieved it. And, you know, that's the problem. We have to live
in two worlds. We live in the material world where they tell us, have a plan, have goals, achieve them,
and you'll be happy. The only problem is the last part doesn't happen. It was all BS.
Yes, have a goal, work hard, you can achieve it, but the happiness part ain't there.
So what do they tell you?
Oh, forgot to tell you, you also have to buy these sneakers
and drive this car instead of that car, and then you will get there.
And so it is, we're conditioned to visualize what will make us happy and go get it.
and then it keeps not being there you get there and it is it doesn't achieve that and the program
is suggesting turn your will and your life over the care of God the biggest problem that people
have is things not going their way I mean I can't think of another problem that anybody has ever had
It comes in many ways, but basically it is not getting my way.
And if you use your intellect, you'll say, well, then I'm going to have to work harder to cause things to turn out my way.
It's obviously the only way to solve this freaking problem.
And that's what's causing me not to be happy.
And there's people in my way, so I have to control them.
And I've got to get past them, and I may have to lie, I may have to cheat,
but just temporarily until I get there
and then I can have spiritual principles then
but until you get there
you obviously can't get there with spiritual principles
so you have to compromise
just this whole thing
and that's what we hear
20 hours a day
and we only get one hour of AA
where we're going no, no, no, don't fall for all that
turn your will over to a higher power, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, because we're only getting one
hour over here. So we got to start listening more over here where it said turn your will and your
life over because if you do that, you won't have a way. You follow what I'm saying? You won't have
a way. If you don't have a way, then nothing cannot go your way because there's nothing for
to be in conflict with.
Everything becomes acceptable.
Remember Dr. Paul?
Acceptance is the key to everything.
As we go through life,
see, events are happening.
They're just going by
and we're accepting you,
accepting you, accepting you.
Oh, not acceptable.
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
Now we got a problem, right?
Why did we grab that one?
Why did we grab that one?
We have rules.
We have our own little zone of
acceptability. And when I first got sober, I had
a zero zone. You know, when your ego's like that. So you're working,
you're working, you're working, you get a zone about like this. And now
things can happen that are in this zone, and you just let them go, let them go. But if it's just
out of the zone, wrong, sorry, that, go back. It could be one of my
kids, it could be my wife, it could be anybody. Oh, sorry, sorry. I tolerate
everything in this thing, but right there. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. So what do you
think sobriety is? It's extending the zone. And every time I would go to my sponsor, it
would always be me. Have you noticed that when you go to your sponsor? You know what
happened? Just go on and on. And there's a big difference. You can tell when you're making
progress. If when you describe your day, you say, do you know what happened today? And then you list
various events. That's a healthy one. The unhealthy one is the same conversation. Do you know what
happened to me today? Big difference. See, events just happen. They don't happen to you.
They just happen. But when you see them all as happening to you, I remember one time reading
back when I was drinking
everything bothered me
I just couldn't stand
that there was any change anywhere
because I couldn't keep up
with what was already there
and somebody discovered
a new moon around Uranus
and I went
a new moon around Uranus
Jesus Christ
how many
shit
why don't they
why don't they stop looking
God
and I
I was just
God
and I knew that astronomer had me in mind
when he was looking
I'm going to get Sandy
that's pretty far
you know there's nothing is acceptable
so we're bringing it in
bringing it in
and every time I go to my sponsor
I would go
I forgive that too
yeah
why
so you can be happy
oh
well okay yeah yeah
you know so then I started seeing that
But then, no matter how much I expanded, there was always something I'd go, isn't there some limit to forgiveness?
I mean, what is this? What is this? What is the limit?
You know, so I'm trying to make up some hypothetical thing, you know.
Some guy has an atomic bomb and he brings it into a, you know, certainly we're not going to forgive that.
I'm trying to get him to say that there's some point where I can be righteously indignant.
and he said, I don't know what the limit is.
He said, I remember a guy one time, they were nailing him to a cross,
and they were going to kill him, and he said to forgive them for that.
So if you have something that is worse than being nailed to a cross and dying,
bring it in, and we'll discuss it.
So now we see how stupid it is to demand our right to be upset.
Think about it.
There are certain things that I demand to be upset over.
Oh, really? Would you like to give a little talk on that?
we'd like to hear your rationale
alright
the reason I demand my right to be upset
that is stupid isn't it
I mean you know
it's just amazing
what we have set for ourselves
and so here is this plan
to not have a way
turn our will and our life over
to ask what's the next thing I should do
to sort of have a mental picture
of making no progress whatsoever.
I just got my hand in God's hand.
I'm going, what do we do next?
That's as far as you can get.
And if I could get my ego to accept that,
I would be a very happy person.
And I'm sure if you could get your ego to accept that,
you would be very happy. But we run into something that I think Bill calls the riddle of our
existence. And I'll close with this and then we can start with the questions. Does anybody remember
this? It's an obscure sentence in the sixth step in the 12 and 12 and it's called, this is the
riddle of our existence. And what it is, it's describing the sixth step, we're entirely ready
to have God remove all our defects of character?
And what it's saying is
that if you get entirely ready
to get rid of something,
these character defects,
these blockages between you and the higher power,
and humbly ask,
gone.
It doesn't happen in God's time.
It happens when you are entirely ready.
So that puts it all on you.
If you still got it,
it isn't because your higher power
isn't ready to take it, it's because you don't want to get rid of it. It's just an illusion that
you want to get rid of it. And that's what the sixth step is talking about. It's saying, yes,
can we give you an example that you did get entirely ready and it's gone? Yeah, we'll be
glad to give you an example. You're drinking. You got entirely ready, willing to have this drinking
removed. You're humbly asked and it's gone. I haven't thought about drinking in 39 and a half
years have not crossed my mind to take a drink. Suicide, yes. Murder, yes. But drinking, no.
So I had absolute proof that if you become entirely willing and humbly asked, it's gone.
So how come I still have all my other character defects? Ah, the riddle of our existence. And so
Bill surmises that it has to do with the fact that the other character defects aren't fatal.
See, alcoholism was killing us.
Greed and lust and envy and gossip and all the others are impinging our growth,
and they are causing friction, and they are causing this.
But they're not killing us like alcoholism was,
and so they don't have the lethal motivation that drinking did.
And the second reason is that no matter how we cut it,
we still enjoy some of our character defects.
so in the sixth step it talks about we would like to get rid of most of our character defects
which is hardly entirely willing to have God remove them all and so there's a sentence in
there that says no matter how far we have progressed there will be desires that oppose
the grace of God so the riddle of our existence is we're going to have to settle for this we're
going to have to say, this is the way it was set up. It was set up that this conflict, this tension
is going to exist between our spiritual selves and our physical material selves. And we're going to
have to be comfortable that that tension is there and still work towards becoming more spiritual
than material. And the reason I wanted to just cover this one point was so that when you screw up
And you go, how could I have 20 years of sobriety and explode at my kid?
How could I do that?
You won't beat yourself up for five seconds.
And then you'll go, it's because of this tension, the way this thing is set up.
This is the deal.
And so I can make my amend, and I can move on.
all human beings are caught in this tension between trying to become more spiritual and having
the instinctual drives pulling over here and nobody's ever got them all shifted to the other
side so as we're going along and we screw up it's okay to go darn it and then just move on
but don't spend all week going i can't believe i did that i can't believe i did that i can't
believe I did that, because that's serving no purpose. Yeah, we understand. Okay, you made a mistake, now
you're moving on, and it's, you know how often we will sit in that stuff when we, when we make a
mistake, and, and we just beat ourselves up forever, so hopefully that'll let you get yourself off the
hook in a little quicker time, because there's no reason that we should stay disturbed that long.
I work for a boss, this is my closing line, I work for a guy in Washington,
not in the program. I'll tell you why it's so wonderful to have the program.
He came to work one morning and he said, I can't believe her.
Oh boy, we know now, right? I can't believe her. I said, who? My ex-wife.
What about her? I'm gone over the weekend. She comes
into the house. She takes a whole bunch of the valuable silver.
This is stuff that's worth a fortune. I can't believe she did it. I said, how did she get in the house?
Well, she still has a key.
I said, she still has a key? Really?
How long have you been divorced?
25 years.
Now, how long have any of us been carrying a problem?
If you think about it, if it's more than a day, why?
Why? Why are we still carrying it? Why?
why haven't we called our sponsor and our friends
and go I'm carrying this thing
and we're either going to have to make an amend or forgive
gone
it's up to us
we say this too shall pass
but it ain't going to pass
if you got a death grip on it
end of presentation
now let's go
you want to stand up and stretch
and then sit down
thank you
And we went to some meetings together and had a nice time.
Okay, well, you're making, is there anything you'd like to hear about?
Huh?
Yeah, lively bunch.
Well, everybody's got their act together.
There are no resentments.
There are no...
Yes?
Sandy, can you tell how...
You were starting to tell me last night
about talking to Palm Springs
and how the Drop the Rock came about.
Oh, Drop the Rock.
Well, how I got to Palm Springs was...
It was 1975,
and I had
I think the first place I ever talked out of Washington D.C.
was Baltimore in 1971
or something like that and then you know so somebody from
Pennsylvania is in Baltimore
so they go well would you like to come to Pennsylvania and then somebody
from New Jersey was in Pennsylvania so then you get
to New Jersey and then somebody from
Indiana was in New Jersey
and when I'm in Indiana
the Al-Anon speaker
was Elsa Chamberlain. Is this what you were
talking about? Was Elsa
Chamberlain. And
she thought I was just wonderful. So she
went back to California
went to Chuck Chamberlain
and said you have to invite
Sandy Beach to the Palm Springs Roundup
next year.
And he said who's that?
And she said oh I heard him in Indiana.
Oh you've got to invite him out there.
He said, well, has he got a tape?
No, no, he doesn't have any tapes.
Well, I'm not inviting him out if he doesn't have a tape.
Well, you'll be sleeping alone.
Now, I don't know any of this is taking place.
So I'm sitting in Washington, D.C. and the phone rings, you know,
and I've got like 10 years sobriety or something like that.
And his voice goes, Sandy, yes, this is Chuck Chamberlain.
You know, that would be like Bill Wilson calling.
And I'm going, yes, sir.
And he said, my wife said that I have to invite you to Palm Springs Desert Roundup.
And that's how I got out there.
And then this drop the rock thing was just a sentence, throwaway line that I don't know where it came from.
Like today, some of these things just appeared.
And so I just went, okay, drop the rock or whatever it was.
And the people went nuts.
It was like amazing.
I never saw anything like it.
And they just came up.
And then they had bumper stickers, drop the rock.
And they put them on their cars.
And Hawaii immediately said, drop the rock to Hawaii.
and then this and that
and I'm going what the hell is all this
and so that was the end of it
it was just
I used to talk twice
I mean the sentence is not a talk
so I get to Cincinnati about four years
later
and the guy in charge
of the thing
the chairman and we're sitting at the
Saturday night banquet at the head table
and he turns to me and he said I got a surprise
for you and I said what
he said at the end of your talk
I'm going to tell everybody to turn over their placemat
and there's a Drop the Rock bumper sticker under there
and I said but I'm not going to tell Drop the Rock
he said you have to
and I almost couldn't remember it
it was almost like what is that
and if you ever listen to that Cincinnati thing
it sounds like the dumbest talk you ever heard
just coming out with that
but anyway I don't know where that came from
but that's how we got to Palm Springs.
Have you all heard the Bob Bazan story?
Yeah, this is a great story.
It's not about Bob, it's about a story he told me.
But it's my favorite story about conventions.
He and I were in Naples about six years ago
and we were swapping stories about screw-ups at conventions.
And there can be some great screw-ups at conventions.
And so we were telling one story back and forth,
and he said, here's the best, here's the best.
And I forget where he was speaking.
I think it was in the Midwest somewhere.
And he told me, he said, Sandy, I'm just like you.
They send me all the stuff about the convention,
but all I take with me is the guy's phone number that's picking me up.
And he had Joe's phone number, whoever Joe was.
So he gets off the plane, and it was back when you could go to the gate, you know what I mean, before 9-11.
And so he gets off the thing, and he's looking for Joe.
You know, like Bob and I were looking for each other.
You eventually find each other.
There's two guys looking for each other.
And so he's looking around, he's looking around,
and there's no one left except the guy holding a sign, Captain Bob.
And the guy comes over and said, are you Captain Bob?
And he said, no, I'm not Captain Bob.
And so that guy goes away.
So he goes to the phone and he calls up Joe.
And Joe's wife answers the phone.
And he said, this is Bob Bazans.
I'm at the airport.
Joe was supposed to meet me.
Well, Joe went out there two hours ago.
Are you sure he's not there?
No, I'm right here by the thing.
she said, I'll come out and get you. Never mind. Tell me the name of the hotel. I'll get a cab.
So he gets his baggage. He gets the cab. He goes to the hotel. He gets in the lobby, and the committee
is standing in the lobby, and they all have that funny look on their face,
and they said, you're not going to believe it. So they sat him down, and they said, here's Joe.
Joe went out to the airport, and he got there early, and the first guy off the plane, or the
second guy was a very distinguished 80-year-old man in a three-piece suit and something told
Joe that that was Bob Bazan's. Now this gentleman was actually Captain Bob
and the guy with the sign hadn't showed up yet. And Captain Bob was coming to a family reunion
organized by his nephew, William.
So Joe went up to him and said,
are you Bob?
And he said, yeah.
And he said, are you a friend of Bill's?
And he said, yes.
So that closed the deal, right?
I mean, that was the end of the deal.
Well, come on, I'm here.
Now, by some miracle,
they never said AA or convention.
You know what I'm saying?
They just had other conversations.
And Captain Bob is going, you know, to himself, I thought I was staying in somebody's house.
And here's this guy.
Now we've got a whole committee for you.
And we have a room in the hotel.
So he thought it had been upscaled quite a bit.
A whole committee for this thing.
And so he's just, boy, I think it's wonderful.
so they're talking about the weather or whatever, they get to the place
and the committee's there and nobody on the committee knew Bob's aunt
so Joe introduces Bob to all these people
and before they check in
they go, we're just about to have lunch
would you like to join us? He says, yes, I'd love to
and they sat at lunch
and I want you to imagine how it would feel
if you were a committee member and your Saturday night speaker ordered a scotch and soda
so that's the best
I told Bob
that's the best I've ever heard
bar none
anybody else
oh what is drop the rock you know it's just a two minute um analogy and i can hardly remember it
was like um all of our old ideas are like a big heavy rock that we're carrying and we've ended
up in the sea of alcoholism
and this thing is
we're going under because
it's holding on to this thing and the AA
lifeboat
or passenger ship is coming
by and they've thrown
us a life preserver and
they're telling us to come on aboard
and we'll take care of you
but I can't grab the life preserver
because I'm holding on to the rock and they're yelling
at me to drop it and I'm yelling back
but it's my rock
laughter
And they're yelling at me to drop the rock.
And I'm going, but it's my rock.
And they just keep yelling until I finally drop it.
And somehow, that takes, what, 30 seconds?
That damn thing just went on and on.
I meet people around the country, and they go, oh, yeah, drop the rock.
And I said, I have given other talks, you know.
spiritual life is not a theory
I don't know how with that
drop the rock
that's the one man
so it shows that people like
three word talks
you know you can just capture it all
and walk away
well we'll have more tonight
So if nobody has anybody, okay.
Oh, one.
Can you tell us, obviously you've met Chuck Chamberlain,
and I'm not sure if you've met Bill Wilson or Dr. Bob.
Can you tell us a little bit about those people?
No, Dr. Bob died in 1950, so I didn't have a chance to meet him.
But Bill, every year my friend Hal Marley would say to me,
you're going to go up to the New York Bill Wilson dinner,
and I'd say, I don't have enough money.
so if you want to talk about a regret I have
for seven years he tried to talk me into going up
and I remember the last year he said
you know he's not going to live forever
and there's going to come a day that you regret
that you never shook Bill Wilson's hand
and of course guess who regrets it
because I had seven years to meet him
and never went up to New York
and I would give anything
because he is my favorite person to read
and my favorite person to listen to on tapes.
And I just think, you know, I just love his mind.
I love to listen to him describe the origins of AA.
And whenever I'm talking about the history,
a lot of it is because I've listened to his tapes so much
that I'm just passing on what I heard him say.
And it's just, I wish I had.
But now Chuck, how many people knew Chuck?
Anybody else know Chuck in here?
he was a character
and I did get to go to his house
sitting in his chair
did you get to do that
sit in his chair
and look out over the
Pacific Ocean
he lived up in Laguna Beach
and
I don't know
there was just an aura about him
that was just remarkable
but he would drive you crazy
when he was talking
he tapped his ring
on the microphone all the time
you go Chuck people are always coming up telling me that I jingle my change in my pocket when I'm
talking but banging your ring on there but he and Elsa were a great combination for AA and
Al-Anon talks and he lived in Laguna Beach California and he was kind of the you know
spiritual teacher out out there and I thought he was just remarkable and of course that book the
new pair of glasses is just amazing in its simplicity, and it just makes that point that
the whole point of being alive is to close this gap between us and our higher power, to actually
have that contact, and that all the rest of this stuff is just window dressing, you know, having a
car or job or all that kind of stuff, that's just window dressing, and I remember reading a book one
time. It's a very interesting book. And the guy said that in his
opinion, what the planet Earth was, was a soul school.
That we're all here just to have that part
of us lifted up to touch
and to establish this contact. And look who the
role models are, are the drunks.
And when you look around, you know, this AA spreading over the entire planet.
and you know it's almost like well now let's see if you were going to be doing a big cosmic joke
who would you have the teachers be
how about the drunks we'll get them out of the gutter and we'll bring them up
and people are going how the hell are they getting sober
and then you go and you know and you go and you tell
doctors or anybody well it's a higher power oh yeah higher power
yeah don't worry keep up the illusion one of these days we're going to find
a real cue for alcoholism
and you guys won't have to mess around with that higher power
stuff and it's almost like the
whole magnificence of
the message gets dismissed
you know just like oh it's too bad you need
such a thing as that
someday we'll fix
it so you won't have to mess around with that higher power
thing you'll be able to drink
socially and be miserable with the rest of the people
and
science will have saved you
from peace of mind.
I mean, isn't it ironic?
And that's the fun of being in the two worlds,
you know, the spiritual and the material world.
And we've got to remember that, you know,
the rules over here aren't the rules over here,
and that we can't mix them up.
And sometimes they do, you know what I mean?
It's almost like you're over here in the spiritual world
trying to pray for revenge.
What's wrong with that picture, you know what I mean?
God, could you help me get them?
I would run that one by your sponsor, I really would.
Oh, boy.
Well, I'm getting tired, so what do you think?
We'll just call it quits for now.
There we go.
All right, all right, all right.
See you tonight.
Thanks, Sandy.
Thank you very much.
I'd like to thank Sandy, and that's all we got right now.
We'll see everybody back here about 7 o'clock tonight.
Okay.
Thank you.