Sandy B. on Alcoholism, Social Anxiety, and the Magic World

Good evening, everybody. My name is Sandy Beach, and I'm an alcoholic.\nIt's a pleasure to be here. I love being at AA conferences, meetings, anniversaries,\nanything to celebrate sobriety and Alcoholics Anonymous.\nI came into AA on Pearl Harbor Day, 1964. So my anniversary date is December 7, 1964.\nAnd I'm one of the lucky ones. I haven't been drunk since my first meeting.\nAnd in my personal opinion, I owe it all to not drinking.\nThat is 100% why I haven't been drunk.\nSo if you knew you'd been having a problem, I would check your drinking.\nNow, somewhere around three months in AA,\nI got half-asleep.\nAnd I was happy with not drinking.\nAnd I swore that that would never happen. I couldn't conceive of it.\nAnd to me, that's what sobriety is.\nIt's Saturday night, and I'm looking forward to not drinking.\nI'm looking forward to be happy without any alcohol in my system.\nAnd I didn't think I was the kind of person that could do that.\nIf anybody told me that, I would have said, you don't understand me.\nWhen I don't have any alcohol in my system, I'm miserable.\nI grew up.\nI grew up in New England, in New Haven, Connecticut,\nand spent a lot of years in the Marine Corps, traveled around,\nbut most of it was on the East Coast, and I ended up in Florida.\nSo I'm pretty much an East Coast alcoholic.\nAnd as you all know, there's a big difference between East Coast and West Coast alcoholics.\nWe throw up three hours earlier than you do.\nOther than that, I can't find any difference.\nYeah, I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut.\nMy parents were depression-oriented type people,\nand so they were very nervous about money.\nAnd my father had lost his first job when the stock market crashed.\nBut we still did well, definitely middle class.\nAnd they saved money, sent me to a nice prep school there in New Haven,\nand it funneled me right into Yale University.\nI graduated from there and ended up in the Marine Corps.\nSo if you were to look at just the paperwork record, you'd say,\ngee, this guy's going along great.\nBut like the rest of you, when you look on the inside,\nyou see a mess that is somehow managing to escape detection.\nAnd he's progressing along in his little life.\nBut if you could get inside of my head,\nyou would find that I never felt like I even belonged on this planet.\nI just looked around and felt this sense of being different,\nbeing very uncomfortable.\nWhen I was little, I had polio.\nThey had a big polio epidemic,\nand I can remember being sent off into some home for crippled children,\nand we were sort of locked up in there,\nand nobody could get in there to visit us\nbecause they were worried about it spreading.\nAnd that was how I felt life was going to be,\nthat you're going to be sitting around,\nand then they grab you, and you're going to be gone somewhere.\nAnd the church, I went to the Catholic church,\nand for years I used to blame alcoholism on them.\nThen I got tired of that, so I blamed it on my parents.\nAnd I found that this is very common.\nWe've got to blame it on somebody.\nWe're not going to take responsibility ourselves.\nAnd so basically I was just a skinny, nervous teenager\nwondering what was going on and pretending that I knew.\nWhen I entered the university, I had not had a drink.\nI was trying to be a good athlete and a good student,\nbut it was very unusual to be in college and not to be drinking.\nAnd so people around me would go,\nyou know, everybody's drinking, you ought to be starting.\nOh, I'm going to wait, I'm going to wait.\nAnd the first night that I drank,\nI talk about this in almost every talk\nbecause it just clarifies how rapidly I went\nfrom being a non-alcoholic to an alcoholic.\nIt took about 15 minutes.\nAnd it was one of these events that I detested.\nI'm still not too fond of them,\nbut it was basically the dean had put these names on a list,\nand it basically was you 30 guys,\nwho went to this room tonight, a little social hour,\nand just meet each other, just get to know each other.\nAnd that was like going into combat for me\nbecause when I walked in, I could see from the eyes,\njust those other 29 eyes just turned to me,\nand it was clear in their eyes that they did not want to know me.\nIt was just as clear as a bell, and I always had to overcome that.\nSo that night I was determined to go,\nand meet these people, but the closer I got to each group,\nthey had broken up into six and five and three,\nand as close as, when I would approach them,\nthey would all turn and just glare,\nlike we got enough friends, we don't want to know you.\nSo I'd go over here, I'd go over here, I'd go over there,\nnever did meet anybody, just couldn't stick my hand out.\nThere was a bar in there, and I went up to the bartender,\nand I said, well, maybe tonight I'll have a drink.\nI just feel so much pressure.\nMy roommate said, it makes you feel good,\nso I'm going to see if I can feel good.\nSo I ordered some whiskey and soda, something like that,\nand I remember tasting it, and I thought it tasted awful,\nbut I drank it anyway, waited about five minutes,\nand I don't recall feeling great, so I ordered another one.\nI sat around talking to the bartender, drinking this drink,\nwaiting to feel great, and nothing happened,\nso I ordered a third one.\nI got about halfway through the third one,\nand I decided that the stuff didn't work.\nSo I put the glass down and decided to leave,\nbut as I started leaving, I looked back into the room,\nand those 30 mean guys were gone,\nand they had been replaced by 30 of the friendliest people\nI've ever seen in my life.\nJust by looking at their eyes,\nI could tell they all wanted me as their best friend.\nThey were begging me to come over to their group.\nPlease join our group, please join our group,\nand I'm looking at this,\nand I never felt so wanted in my life.\nIt was just wonderful, and then I felt a little different.\nI had sort of a taller stature, and I was sort of just,\nyeah, you know, and I had the feeling\nthey'd be lucky to know me, you know what I mean?\nThat they were in for a big surprise.\nI was on my way over to talk to them.\nSo what happened was I was transformed into a new world.\nThat's what alcohol did.\nIt took the old world that was so intimidating and threatening,\nand it became a wonderful world.\nAs I was going over to talk to these guys,\nI remember saying to myself,\nyou should have started drinking in second grade.\nJust think how it would have been through all those years,\nand family get-togethers, and everything.\nI mean, this stuff is amazing.\nAnd I went around, and I intuitively knew\nhow to handle situations that used to baffle me.\nI just, I had no regrets about anything.\nI was totally spontaneous, creative,\nand it was almost like I was now operating at 100%.\nBecause those fears and anxieties would just shut me down\nso that I couldn't function with whatever capacity I had.\nAnd now suddenly, I was totally me,\nand I could be funny, I could be creative,\nI could just do all these things.\nThere was no restraints anymore.\nAnd I loved it.\nAnd later that night, I was vomiting all over the place,\nand the bed is spinning,\nand never felt so sick in the morning.\nI had the worst headache I've ever had.\nI just was retching and dying.\nAnd I remember saying to myself,\nthis is a small price to pay\nfor what you had last night.\nIt wasn't even close.\nIt wasn't even close.\nI knew that I had found the secret for my life.\nAnd, uh,\nboy, that's a long way to go in just one hour of drinking.\nAll the way to, this is the secret.\nThis is the power that will get me through any situation\nfor the rest of my life.\nAll of that happened just in the first night of drinking.\nAnd I'm an alcoholic.\nAnd of course, that became the center focus of my life\nuntil I got to AA.\nAnd the rest of life was sort of just something\nthat was going on in the background.\nAnd to me, that's alcoholism.\nIt becomes the central focus.\nIt is the answer to everything.\nAnd it's the power that would take and move me\ninto a comfortable place.\nSo from that day on, each day was divided into two parts.\nThere was the part where you couldn't drink\nand go to school, or later on, you have to go to work.\nAnd then there was the part when the day began,\naround five o'clock, when you could drink.\nAnd so the first part,\nit had nothing to do with life.\nI mean, that was just what you had to do\nto get it out of the way, to get drinking money.\nSo you could go into the place at five o'clock\nand go into the magic world.\nAnd that's where I just wanted to live all the time.\nMy grades started suffering, gave up athletics.\nI'm smoking about three packs a day,\nand I'm just looking forward to drinking.\nI can somehow, I managed to graduate with very low grades.\nIt was probably as marginal as you can get.\nThe Korean War had ended, but the draft was still on.\nAnd so everybody had to serve in the military.\nI hadn't planned, I didn't have any plans for myself.\nI'm still wondering what I want to be when I grow up.\nIt's still a mystery to me.\nBut here was this situation.\nWe had to go down and pick one of the branches.\nSome guys were drinking beer, and they said,\nwhy don't we join the Marine Corps?\nI said, OK, Marines, that sounds great.\nAnd I actually, I had to go down and pick one of the branches.\nSome guys were drinking beer, and they said, why don't we join the Marine Corps?\nI said, OK, Marines, that sounds great.\nSome guys were drinking beer, and they said, why don't we join the Marine Corps?\nShowed up with golf clubs.\n.\nIf you're planning on joining the Marine Corps, I would not do that.\nDo not show up with golf clubs.\n.\nAnd I can remember, you know, I've been there about an hour,\nand I just remember saying to myself, man, these guys are intense.\n.\nThis is, this is, they're just too intense.\nYou know, when you, I kept, you know, backing up,\nback off guys. Well, you know what it was like. It just was amazing. And I got further\nand further into it and eventually got to be commissioned and then we were trained for\nsix months to be a platoon leader. And that was very intense. And that's all I remember\nabout all this. Man, this is just amazing. And I saw a training movie about pilots and\nthe pilots were at the bar in this training movie. And they were talking with their hands\nand they were doing all this and there were some blondes in the background and they were\nlurking around. So I asked this major, I said, what's this pilot stuff over there? And he\nsaid, oh, you don't want that. He said, you got to sign up for three more years if you\nwant that pilot. I said, I'll sign up for three years. I don't have anything else going\non. I just want to get out of this intensity level that's going on around here. So I sign\nup for flight school.\nI graduated from basic school and I had met this wonderful woman on one of my visits back\nup to New Haven to see some of my old buddies. And we fell in love, got married, and went\noff to flight school. I got air sick on the plane on the way down to flight school. And\nI got air sick in the SNJ about the first six flights and it looked like I was not going\nto be making any career.\nAnd I was going to be back in the United States for the next five years and up until I got\nout of flying. But it turned out I ended up being...that was something that I took too\nnaturally once I got over that motion sickness. And I became very good. And I ended up flying\nfor the Marine Corps for 14 years. And I was a fighter pilot, got promoted, made it through\nall these various schools. This wonderful woman and I, pretty soon we have one kid and\ntwo and three and four and five and six . And I'm looking around, there's no\none. No, I'm not.\nI'm not. I'm going to be a pilot for the next five years.\nWell, I'm going to be a pilot for the next five years.\nWell, 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.\nno room at the table to sit down, you know, and it's like, man, it's getting crowded around\nhere, and we're being transferred every year somewhere, the Marine Corps moves you around\na lot, and those kids were in a different school all the time, but it was, in spite\nof all the drinking, there was still a lot of fun in the family, and we just kept on\ngoing, but my alcoholism was about to take over and cause a stop to all of the progress\nthat had been somehow made, and there came a day when I was up at Cherry Point, North\nCarolina, and we were flying the F-8, and I was in the photo squadron, and I started\nto experience, for the first time, withdrawal symptoms while flying, and it was very,\nvery frightening, and we were going like, you know, 12 hours without drinking before\nyou fly, and that was the big mistake that I was making, because that set me up for the\nwithdrawals that were coming in, and I would start losing peripheral vision, then I would\nstart sweating, then my heart would start racing, and I definitely had this craving,\nyou know, to drink, but you couldn't be drinking while flying.\nSo I started to distrust the pilot of the plane that I was in, which was me, and there\nwas part of me that didn't want to go up with me, because I knew, you know, what was\nreally happening was I'm going, I think you hit this switch, I'm not sure, I think you\ndo this, and you've got to, you know, you're supposed to be sharp, things happen fast.\nSo I would be aware of all the little almost mistakes that were going on, but none of them\nended up ever causing an accident or anything like that, so no one else knew this.\nThey just said, hey, good job, good job, oh, those are good photos, yeah, good job.\nAnd I remember one time I, the F-8, you had to lower the wing after you took off.\nIt had a wing that went up and down, which was strange.\nAnd I took it off.\nI took it off.\nI accidentally hit the engine master switch during takeoff and shut the engine off and\nturned it back on and it lit again.\nAnd I talked to a maintenance guy later, hypothetically, if a guy ever turned the switch off, you know\nhow you ask those questions, you know, you don't want to ever say that it really happened.\nAnd he allowed that it was like a one in a million shot, the plane would restart under\na situation like that.\nSo that was the kind of stuff that I was aware of.\nThat was going on and I kept it up for probably another six months.\nAnd there was just, it was just coming to an end where I just couldn't handle this.\nI used to, when I would fly, I would leave all my problems on the ground, you know, all\nthis stuff, the money and the lies and all the stuff that was going on.\nAnd I would be totally in the now.\nAnd now I was taking everything up and I was just a mess flying around.\nAnd so I did something that only on an emergency would I do.\nI went to a doctor.\nI went to a doctor.\nAnd I told him a few of these little stories that I wasn't feeling good and all that.\nAnd so they said, well, we're going to have to examine you very closely.\nAnd so I was sent down to Pensacola for two weeks to see what could have caused this.\nWhat is going on with this man?\nAnd at that point in time, there was no disease of alcoholism in the Navy.\nSo you couldn't be an alcoholic.\nI mean, it was, it was, that was before, you know, the services got there.\nIt's got their alcohol program.\nAnd so they examined me and they found high blood pressure.\nMy hands trembled.\nI was confused.\nI was covered with clammy sweat.\nMy eyes were bloodshot.\nMy voice shook and I reeked of alcohol at all times.\nThat was, that was what they had to go on.\nAnd and I remember the dentist, the dentist.\nI never went to a dentist because they're right in your mouth.\nThey can smell everything.\nAnd also they want you to pick up a little cup full of water and rinse your mouth out.\nAnd I knew I couldn't get that cup from there to here, it would be all over the place.\nI just never went to the dentist.\nAnyway, this guy, the smell of the alcohol was just, it was like, you know, 11 in the\nmorning.\nHe said, man, you just reek of alcohol.\nI said, well, I drank all night.\nAnd he said, okay, well, that explains it.\nI said, well, I drank all night.\nAnd he said, okay.\nAnd he said, well, that explains it.\nIt was almost like, if you hadn't been drinking and you reeked of alcohol, then we'd call\nin somebody that might have it.\nSo you can see there was nothing there.\nAnd so the psychiatrist, there was one of these big deals at the end of the thing, you\nsit in front of a board and they said, well, the psychiatrist says that his testing of\nyou indicates a childhood sickness.\nI said, what?\nThat means that his blood pressure hasn't gone up.\nSo my doctor says I have a simple fear of flying that has just shown up after 12 years.\nNow I knew that wasn't true but I didn't have the courage to fight anything.\nI just went and that was the end of me.\nThat was my total identity.\nNow I'm not a fighter pilot anymore.\nI'm just a mess.\nAnd I came back, waited three months for the Marine Corps to reassign me.\nI was a career officer.\nAnd they have to give you a new specialty.\nAnd three months later I got my order back.\nto become an air traffic controller so that was what that was what they thought\nwas appropriate for a guy that got the shape I was in and the amazing thing is\nI made it through that school which is a very hard school anybody's done air\ntraffic control work it's really hard and somehow I got through that and then\nmy last year drinking I was over in Japan as the officer in charge of a\nlittle air traffic control unit when we went on deployment we were the guys to\nset up the runway and brought in the planes the senior enlisted man took one\nlook at me welcome aboard captain there's your coffee and there's your\nchair but don't go near the radar he knew that they did not want me\npersonally controlling anything and that year my last year drinking now I drank\nany time\nso I drank around the clock I got malnutrition lost about 50 pounds stopped\nhanging around with the guys and even go to happy hour I was just I was in a\nsurvival mode I went to work and went back to Quonset hut and I tried to eat\nsoup and even that wouldn't stay down but drink green alcohol and vodka and\njuice that was what I was just surviving on made it through the year and came\nback to Quantico Virginia to a career school and that's where I had a grand mal\ncenter off to the hospital what caused the ground mal seizure again we start\nthis whole charade what could have happened to this guy must be studying\ntoo hard in school there's all these things for about 6 days and then I went\ninto DTE and people were coming in the room the CIA was moving the walls they\nthought I was a spy and they were you know everything was happening so I\nfreaked 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\nlooked 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\nand stuff, and they put me in a straitjacket, and I was locked up in the nut ward for six\nmonths. So that was how they took care of that problem. And probably about three months\nin there, AA talked to the psychiatrist and said, really, you've got alcoholics, we ought\nto bring one meeting in a week. And that's how I got to a meeting. A corpsman said, all\ndrunks fall in, bright face, I'm in a meeting. I thought it was great, but I didn't think\nit was for me. You know what I mean? I said, wow, these guys are great. It's exciting.\nIf anybody, my friend, if I run into an alcoholic, I'm going to send him right over here to AA.\nSo it really wasn't taking. And very briefly, at the end of, I think, five months, I was\nallowed to be an outpatient. They were going to send me back to duty. So I finally,\nwas home at night, but I was in the nut ward all day long, Monday through Friday. So I'm\ndriving back and forth, and it was this Sunday, the Redskins were playing. I had a rule that\nyou have to drink beer during the Redskin game. That's just a rule that I had. And I\ndidn't want to sit there with the set off. You know, so. So I decided to have this beer,\neven though.\nThey told me, if you ever have one more drink, your career is over. I said, well, what they\nmeant, if you get drunk and all that. So I drank the beer, watched the game, nothing\nhappened. Went to bed, never slept better. Back up to the nut ward, I felt wonderful.\nAnd I'm going, what about this first drink as you're drunk? You know, this is wonderful.\nAnd I remember feeling like, wow, I'm an ex-alcoholic. That was the, I figured there was some way\nto graduate beyond or whatever it was. And I had this freedom.\nFreedom from alcohol. Total freedom. I couldn't eat or sleep. I was so excited about this\nnew freedom. And I just, it was all I thought about. Man, I had a beer, nothing happened.\nI had a beer, nothing happened. And it just kept me going all week. And I didn't eat or\nsleep over this new freedom from alcohol. So on the way home this next weekend, I decided\nif I can drink beer, I can drink vodka. So I bought a quart. I thought it would be like\na year's supply.\nI believed that this would be on this new thing. And that was gone during the game.\nI'm bringing the vodka now back into the nut ward on Monday morning. I know they're going\nto catch me. And the following weekend, I joined AA on the outside. You know what I\nmean? I called Northern Virginia Intergroup. And the one guy that they got a hold of was\nthe one guy from Quantico who was a Marine.\nAnd he was a Marine. And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine.\nAnd he was a Marine. And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine.\nAnd he was a Marine. And he was a Marine. And he was a Marine. Another Marine captain,\ninfantry guy, big, mean. And he came to my house and knocked on the door, and the door\nwas shaking. And I opened the door, and then no light came through the door frame and he\nwas—orte. He just came in and took over my life. This is the 12 Step Call. I talk,\nyou listen. Stand down, over there.\nTalk to my family, he didn't ask me anything. He asked the kids and my wife, what about\nhim? And they all said same stuff. What about you? What about Norm? What about Gatcho? What\nall made up a story that I was a terrible father and a terrible husband, told dastardly\nlies about me to him. He said, well, that settles that. Okay, we're going to a meeting.\nGet in the car. And off we went. And I haven't had a drink since. It's just this guy. And\nhe's still my sponsor. You know, I mean, that's pretty amazing to have the same sponsor for\n36 and a half years. It's a wonderful thing. I'm very happy about that.\nAnd he started me down this wonderful path of Alcoholics Anonymous. And a lot of things\nhave happened in that path. Sometimes I don't talk much about relationships, but I felt\nlike talking a little bit about it tonight. This woman that I had married when I was young,\nwe just fell in love. It was one of these love stories. And after 20 years of marriage,\nshe said, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.\nI 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.\nProbably about seven years of sobriety. The finances were so bad. And the stress with\nthose six kids. I got thrown out of the Marine Corps. And I was trying to sell stuff. And\nI just couldn't get it going. And the stress was so bad that we ended up getting divorced.\nAnd she remarried. And I tried to find other wives that would take her place. And I would\nmarry somebody for five years. And that wouldn't work out. And marry somebody else. And that\nwouldn't work out.\nAnd I remember after about, and then it took quite a few years for my children to get back\nwhere we are now. Because they felt it was all my fault that this split had occurred.\nAnd they didn't want to talk to me. But then as the years went by, it all just started\ncoming back. And they got closer and closer. And now I just feel like it couldn't be better.\nAnd I guess we've been...\nApart about ten years. And I was talking to one of my daughters. And I said, you know,\nI still love your mother. And she said, well, she still loves you. And I went, oh, boy.\nAnd it's been about, I guess she's been married about 25 years. And I send messages\nthrough my kids that I still feel that way. And she sends it back. And I know that it's\njust going to be...\nIt's the way it is. And some of my children go, Dad, just take good care of yourself.\nAnd you can outlive him.\nSo I'm very trim. And I work out. And I take a lot of vitamins. And I haven't given up.\nAnd to the extent that it gets into Stef. And don't take him any more seriously than\nI do you, played all the time. And you have to put him on the horse. Just like when I told\nour, our baby, "...like me and Stef, right?" And then I have to be like me and Stef again.\nAnd if you drop somebody off, I'm nice. And dad's angry. Okay, then. Then my mom Kitchen,\nHow about 11?\nGod.\nBut it all has to do with God.\nThat's the whole purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous.\nAnd I was thinking about,\nthere's a sentence in the chapter of the agnostic,\na couple of sentences,\nand I'm going to paraphrase it.\nWell, I don't have to.\nThere's a book right here.\nI'll read it.\nThank you.\nThank you.\nThis time I'll get the exact quote.\nIf, when you honestly want to,\nyou find you cannot quit entirely,\nor if, when drinking,\nyou have little control over the amount you take,\nyou're probably alcoholic.\nAnd then comes the sentence.\nIf that be the case,\nthen you may be suffering from an illness\nthat only a spiritual experience will conquer.\nNow, think about that definition of an illness.\nYou have an illness\nthat only a spiritual experience will conquer.\nNow, if you think about that,\nthat's a rather unusual illness.\nYou know what I mean?\nThere's no therapy that's going to do this.\nThere's no pill that's going to do anything.\nOnly a spiritual experience.\nWell, what kind of an illness could that be?\nDid you ever think about that?\nWell, what is this illness?\nI thought it had to do with drinking.\nNo, this has to do with a spiritual experience.\nAnd the more I think,\nthe more I think about that,\nI think about the early history of Alcoholics Anonymous\nwhen Roland Hazard was sent to Dr. Young.\nAnd as you know the story,\nhe was the son of a very wealthy man,\nand his father wanted to take over the business,\nbut he was a raving alcoholic,\nand he had tried everything in the young and squished him.\nAnd Roland went over there and spent a year,\nand Dr. Young,\ntried to cause this personality transformation\nthrough his psychiatry.\nAnd he did the best that he could at the end of that time.\nHe said to Roland,\nyou understand your situation?\nYes, I understand my situation.\nWell, good luck.\nYou're in the best shape I can get you in.\nAnd Roland made it as far as Paris on his way back.\nSomebody asked him the wrong question.\nThey said, would you like a drink?\nAnd he said,\nsounds good to me.\nAnd of course,\nhe just, boom,\nthe disease took over and he was in terrible shape.\nSo he went back to Dr. Young.\nHe said, I'm sorry, but look what happened to me.\nAnd then we have the world's greatest psychiatrist.\nYou know, and I'm trying to tell this story\nso that we might feel the hand of God\nworking all the way through this.\nBecause here we have the world's greatest psychiatrist\nwho has enough humility to say to Roland,\nthere's nothing I can do for you.\nAnd I feel that's that,\nout of chapter five,\nyou know, there's no human power\ncould have relieved our alcoholism.\nThis was no human power.\nYou can't go beyond that.\nThis is it.\nYou've now searched the world\nfor any human help that's available\nand that human help in its highest form\nhas just said,\nthere's nothing I can do for you.\nAnd that sets up that absolute hopelessness\nthat is so necessary for a personal transformation.\nAnd he went on to say,\nnow there have been a few cases\nthat I'm familiar with and I've read about\nwhere people have found a spiritual transformation.\nSo if I was you,\nI would go try to have something like that happen.\nAnd of course, we all know\nthat he found the Oxford Movement.\nAnd it came to pass\nthat he passed this word on to Ebi\nwhen Ebi was in jail\nand Roland went and got him out.\nAnd then Ebi went and passed this on to Bill Wilson.\nAnd then Bill Wilson passed,\nand Dr. Bob passed it on to all of you and I.\nAnd then a lot of years went by\nand Bill realized that he never closed the loop\nwith Dr. Young.\nAnd I think it was in the 60s.\nSo he wrote him a letter and he said,\nyou may not remember Mr. Hazard,\nbut he came to see you\nin the early 30s\nand you gave him this advice\nand as a result of that advice,\nthere's now this organization\ncalled Alcoholics Anonymous\nand we just wanted you to know\nwhat a founding role you played\nin starting this organization.\nAnd it was lucky that Bill wrote it then\nbecause it wasn't much longer\nafter Dr. Young responded\nand then he passed away.\nAnd his basic response\nwas something along the lines of,\nno, I didn't know what happened to Mr. Hazard,\nbut it's very exciting to learn\nwhat has happened.\nAs you know,\nI was trying to cause\na spiritual transformation\nbut the field of psychiatry\nat that time,\nyou weren't even allowed\nto talk about God.\nYou'd be laughed out of your profession.\nNow it's a little more open\nand we're more free to talk about that,\nbut that's exactly what I was trying to do\nwas to have this spiritual transformation.\nAnd he went on to infer\nthat the nature of the problem\nthat alcoholics have\nis an inordinate longing for God.\nNow think about that\nin terms of our lives\nand think about how easy it is\nto misdiagnose that.\nWe don't know that it's\nan inordinate longing for God.\nIt feels like we're just screwed up.\nThat there's something missing.\nYou know, I should be happy,\nbut I'm not.\nI'm not comfortable.\nThere's something wrong with me.\nYou know, other people\nlook more adjusted\nand so on down.\nAnd so we,\nwe get diagnosis\nand we just go,\nwell, I can tell what it is.\nI don't have enough money.\nI don't have a yacht.\nI don't have the right woman.\nI don't have enough sex.\nI don't have enough power.\nI've got to be the president\nof the company.\nAnd all these roads\nare followed to one degree or another\nand guess what?\nIt's still there.\nIt's still there.\nThat empty feeling inside\nthat has not yet been addressed.\nAnd the only thing\nthat worked on that was alcohol.\nAlcohol was almost an equal\nto a spiritual experience.\nIt was coming from the inside out.\nIt was a power greater than ourselves\nand it transformed the world\nthat we lived in\ninto a wonderful place.\nEverything looked different\nas a result of alcohol.\nAs a result of the power of alcohol.\nIt literally enabled us to see\nas Chuck said,\nwith a new pair of glasses.\nThat's what alcohol...\nWhen I looked at it this way,\nafter three drinks,\nI would sit there going,\nI don't know what I was so upset about\nwhen I came in the bar.\nEverything's fine right now.\nNothing had changed.\nJust some power had caused me\nto see everything differently.\nAnd I think the same thing happens\nas we work the steps.\nAnd to me the steps are just a series of actions\nthat I didn't believe in\nbut I took anyway\nbecause you talked me into it.\nAnd I remember studying those steps.\nI finally became convinced\nthat they held the answers.\nAnd I went back\nand looked at them real serious.\nAnd I remember getting through the steps\nand I remember I didn't ask my sponsor\nbut I remember saying to myself,\nI still don't see the money step.\nI still don't...\nI just don't see that in here.\nAnd that is the crux of the problem.\nThat I have these six kids\nand the bills\nand I can't pay them all.\nI mean it's causing all this pressure.\nAnd the steps are the answer.\nThere's got to be a financial step in here.\nThey must be disguising it somehow\nas something.\nAnd then there wasn't a relationship step.\nAnd there wasn't a power step.\nThere wasn't...\nNone of it made any sense.\nAnd the reason I'm bringing this out\nis if you knew,\nthey'll never make any sense by reading them.\nThey'll only make sense\nif you do them.\nBecause then\nthe transformation starts taking place.\nWhen I think about\nwhat is transformed inside of me,\nI think about my character defect\nand I always assumed\nI was my character defect.\nIf you were to ask me who I am,\nI would just rattle off\nall my character defects\nand that would be who I am.\nI'm a guy who can't stop doing this.\nI'm a guy who does this.\nAnd if somebody says that,\nI do this.\nI mean, that's who I am.\nAnd so when they came in here with,\nlet's see if we can get rid of your character defect,\nI said, well, I'll be no one.\nYou know, I'll be the hole in the doughnut.\nWho the hell will I be with no character defects?\nWhat will I be?\nDid you ever wonder about that?\nIf you had no character defect,\nwhat would you be?\nWhat would you stand around doing?\nI got no defects, but I...\nI must just stand here all the time then.\nI don't know.\nWhat do you do with no defects?\nYou ever have that feeling?\nLike, you know,\nman, that could be weird,\nas I got thinking, you know.\nSo as a result,\nI never really wanted them all gone.\nYou really like that part.\nSo what is it that is left\nif the character defects are gone?\nYou know what it is?\nIt's the real us.\nThis is the real person\nthat's been inside all along.\nThis is the spiritual entity\nthat has been totally overlooked\nby all of the thinking that we assembled\nin our growing up period.\nAnd I got ideas from the church.\nI got ideas from the neighbors.\nI got ideas from bathroom walls.\nOh, I didn't know that.\nOh, wow, that's going to be...\nThat's a...\nThat's a tough one to think about.\nWow.\nI have a lot of truth\nthat is racing around inside of me.\nAnd there was an old guy in Washington\nwho used to say,\nit isn't the things you don't know\nthat will kill you.\nIt's knowing things for sure\nthat just ain't so.\nAnd that's what we have.\nWe have all kinds of things\nabout the world and ourselves\nthat just ain't so.\nThat just aren't true.\nBut that's what was in my mind\nand that's what constituted my reality.\nAnd so there had to come a time\nwhen I started seeing beyond that.\nAnd to me,\nthat's what the steps had to do with it.\nAnd I was talking about this\nthe other night up in Las Vegas,\nthat the beginning of it\nfor many of us comes\nwhen we're maybe three months over\nand we're sitting at a meeting\nand we see somebody\nin their first week come in.\nAnd we look over\nand this guy looks just like we did.\nI mean, he's looking around.\nHis eyes can't focus.\nYou know, they're looking this way, that way.\nAnd he really doesn't want to be here.\nAnd he's sweating and nervous.\nAnd they take him over to the coffee thing.\nHe tries to get some coffee.\nHe spills all over.\nSo he doesn't have coffee.\nAnd he goes and sits down.\nAnd we're sitting there going,\nman, this is like a rerun of me\nthree months ago.\nAnd part of us makes a connection\nwith this person.\nWe just sort of feel\nwhat they're feeling.\nAnd at the end of the meeting\nwe almost go up and say hello to him.\nAlmost.\nBut we're too new.\nWe're too new.\nWe're not up to that yet.\nBut we think about him during the week.\nAnd we just are going,\nI hope that guy comes back\nto that group next week.\nI hope that guy comes back next week.\nAnd we come back next week\nand he's not there.\nAnd about ten minutes into the meeting\nthe door opens\nand there he is.\nHe's still sober.\nHe looks better.\nHe's not shaking as bad.\nHe goes over the coffee pot.\nHe gets a half a cup this time.\nAnd there he is.\nGets it to the seat.\nAnd you can see\nhe's really pleased with himself\ngetting that coffee\nall the way to the seat.\nAnd he's sitting there.\nAnd part of us on the inside goes,\nYay!\nAnd the question is,\nwhat is that?\nWho is yelling yay?\nWho is this self-centered person\nwho never thinks about anybody\nbut themselves\nthat's yelling yay\nfor this guy we haven't met yet?\nThe answer to that question\nand the answer to that is\nthat's the real you.\nThat's the part\nthat the program\nis going to reach in\nand pull out.\nThat's what the steps are designed to remove\nall of the phony part of us.\nAll the stuff that isn't real.\nAll the old ideas\nthat's stripped away\nuntil the real spiritual being\nis allowed to come out.\nAnd to me the amazing thing\nthat I had wronged\nthere's so many things\nthat I had wronged\nabout life.\nAnd one of them was\nthat I needed things\nin order to fix\nwhat was wrong with me.\nThat was what I,\nI just was always looking out there\nfor something else\nto fix what was in here.\nAnd I didn't need anything\nexcept to give.\nI had it all backwards.\nI had the energy flow\ngoing the wrong way.\nI said I'm going to need this.\nAnd none of that was true.\nWhat I needed to do\nwas to open up the channel\nas the prayer of Saint Francis suggests\nby working the 12 steps\nso that the true love\nand spiritual centeredness\nof myself and of all of us\ncan flow out to other people.\nAnd once that started happening\nI started realizing\nI would go home at night\ntotally happy and satisfied\nwith everything just the way it was.\nTo me that was an absolute miracle\nto find out that's what it was all about.\nThere was another thing\nthat I wanted to read tonight.\nI came up against it\nearlier in the month\nand it has to do with forgiveness\nand I wanted to wrap up\nby talking a little bit\nabout forgiveness.\nIt's in May 3rd\nin the little 24 hour book.\nI must overcome myself\nbefore I can truly forgive other people\nfor injuries done to me.\nThe self in me\ncannot forgive injury.\nThe very thought of wrongs\nmeans that my self is in the foreground.\nSince the self cannot forgive\nI must overcome my selfishness.\nI must cease trying to forgive\nthose who have fretted and wronged me.\nIt's a mistake for me\nto even think about these injuries.\nI must aim at overcoming myself\nin my daily life\nand then I will find\nthere's nothing in me\nthat remembers the injury\nbecause the only thing injured\nmy selfishness is gone.\nAnd I don't know if that's happened to you\nwhere you decide to forgive someone\nand you go,\nyou know, I'm going to forgive that person.\nBut there's a whole part of you\nthat isn't buying it.\nYou know what I mean?\nYou're going,\nokay, he's off the hook.\nBut then when you rethink the injury\nyou know, there's like,\nwell, down in here\nI haven't forgiven him\nbut I've said that, you know,\nand so it's almost like\nuntil I'm willing to\nforget about that,\nI'm going to work on this program\nof getting closer to my higher power\nto get rid...\nStill an alcoholic and...\nThank you.\nGive me about five minutes more\nand I will be finished.\nI wanted to finish this thing\nabout forgiveness\nand that is...\nI remember when I was growing up\nand I was studying the Bible\nand I'm reading about Jesus\nand all the things that are happening\nand the only part I liked\nwas when he turned the water into wine.\nI thought that was wonderful.\nAnd then there was some other stuff\nI thought was cool and all that\nand then all of a sudden\nwe're at this part\nwhere they're nailing him to a cross\nand I'm going,\nthis is almost a little too intense.\nThis is for me.\nI don't know if I like this part.\nAnd he says,\nFather, forgive them.\nThey know not what they do.\nAnd I remember going,\nhey Jesus,\nare you on drugs?\nDo you see what's happening to you?\nThey're nailing you to a cross.\nAnd I'm just going,\nhow could he be forgiving that?\nBut as I grew up\nand I started having explaining\nto me,\nthat was sort of the bar.\nThat forgiveness should be extended\nall the way up to\nand including being nailed to a cross.\nNow the funny thing is\nall during my life\nI kept having things happening to me\nthat were more serious\nthan getting nailed to a cross.\nThe reason they were more serious\nbecause they were happening to me.\nNot to you\nor not to Jesus\nor not to anybody else.\nThey were happening to me.\nAnd so I listed things\nthat were just unforgivable.\nAnd that stuff\nthat is carried around,\nyou can carry stuff for years.\nCarry stuff for years.\nAnd this program has enabled me\nand a lot of the speakers\nwe've already had\nhave talked about this,\nof stuff that was just carried\nthat was like nails\nthat we had placed in ourselves.\nAbout events\nthat couldn't be forgiven.\nAnd I realize now\nthat the faster I can get rid of anything,\nI love that part where it says\nthe only thing that can get injured\nis my selfishness.\nThat's the only thing.\nSo anytime I feel\nthat I've been wronged,\nmy self has gotten in the way.\nMy ego is the only thing\nthat can get hurt.\nI remember the first time\nI heard when they said\nself-centeredness\nat the root of our problem.\nI remember saying,\nwell I'll fix that.\nI'll take care of that\nand I'll just stop being self-centered.\nMe, I'll stop being self-centered.\nYou ever try to figure out\nwhat the opposite of self-centered is?\nWhat is it, un-self-centered?\nDoesn't make sense.\nTurns out,\nGod-centered\nis the only answer\nto self-centeredness.\nAnd it's the real centered.\nAnd every time\nwhen I get disturbed,\nas the tenth step talks about,\nmy primary goal\nis to get undisturbed.\nThat's the point of sobriety,\nis to stay as undisturbed\nand to get undisturbed\nas soon as possible\nso that the person\nthat I bring into my daily life\nis undisturbed.\nWhen I bring that person\ninto my daily life,\nI treat you all different\nthan when I'm disturbed.\nI am in harmony with you.\nMy spiritual part can love you.\nI can just walk in\nand have a smile.\nMy eyes show\nthat I'm not hurting\nfrom some self-centered imagined wound.\nAnd when I treat the world that way,\nit treats me back that way.\nAnd we literally transition\nthe world\nby changing the inside of ourselves.\nAs self-centered practicing alcoholics,\nwe brought out the worst\nin everybody that we met.\nAnd think about that.\nYou're seeing people\nalways at their worst.\nAnd we come home and go,\nthis world is rotten.\nI mean, everybody today\nwas a complete\nand little did I know\nthat I was bringing that out in people.\nMy parents were having\na 50th wedding anniversary.\nMy sister had the list.\nThere was one person\nI just didn't want her to invite\nbecause she was just so obnoxious.\nAnd I remember telling her,\nand she had 20 years\nin the program at the time.\nI said,\ndo we have to invite him?\nHe gives us this and that and that.\nAnd she said,\nhe only does that\nwhen you're around.\nWhat?\nYeah,\nhe only does that\nwhen you're around.\nAnd so I went\nand treated him\nas my sister said.\nAnd she said,\nyou know what?\nYou know what?\nYou know what?\nYou know what?\nYou know what?\nYou know what?\nYou know what?\nYou know what?\nAs my sister said he was,\njust went up,\nUncle John,\nhow are you?\nGood to see you.\nGood to see you.\nAnd he was great.\nHe was absolutely great.\nI was totally wrong\nwhat he was.\nSo I guess what I'm saying\nif you're new,\nif you have the opportunity\nin here\nunder the guidance\nof your sponsor\nand the wonderful literature\nthat we have\nto transform the world\nthat you live in\nso that there will be\nno reason to drink it,\nthat's what sobriety is.\nThere's nothing\nfor alcohol to fix.\nAnd when you drink,\nand when there's nothing\nfor alcohol to fix,\nit's real easy\nto stay sober.\nThank you very much.\nWell, delicious.\nThanks, buddy.\nThank you.