Sandy B. on Powerlessness, the Agnostic, and the Highest Pay Grade in AA

Hi everybody, my name is Sandy Beach and I'm an alcoholic. How y'all doing? Get my watch here. Most important part of a talk is stop on time. Anyway, I was asked to say a few words about spirituality. And if you'd asked me to do this 37 years ago, I would have been a nervous wreck because I wouldn't have been able to think of anything to say about it other than trying to guess how it was spelled. And so I know there's some new people here. How many people have less than a year that are here? Wonderful, I'm thrilled, I am delighted. So I was trying to think of how to start, so I came up with a way of starting. And it goes like this. Back when we were drinking the most during the alcoholic years, the thing I hated the most was when somebody said, come on in, I want to talk to you. And there was always some authority figure, you know, your wife or your husband or your mother or your father or boss or, you know, where you were down here and they were up here. And you went in there and they looked at you and then they started with the sentence that I just hate. You know what your problem is? That's what they said. You know what your problem is You're worthless That's what your problem is. You're worthless. You're nothing. You're a piece of nothing. You've taken up space on the planet that could be used by a human being. I'm sick of your face. You're worthless. Now, I hope that helps you. You know? So the next person they call in is Mary, you know, and they just same thing happens to her. Mary, sit down. You know what your problem is, Mary? you don't care. You don't care about anything. You just don't dare. You walk around, you don' t see anything. You have no feelings for any other people. You just don't car. You never did care and you never will. And I hope that helps. And the last person, John comes in, and I haven' t heard this so many times. You know what your problem is? You're selfish. All you think about is yourself. You never think about anybody else. You walk around in your own little world, and all you think about is yourself. And I hope that helps you. And so then you come into AA, and you never hear that again. You know what I mean? Because we just talk about this as what we did, and if you want what we have. But I thought I'd break the mold this morning. And if you're new, you know what your problem is? I think it's time somebody leveled with you NAA and I've been giving a lot of thought about it and I know exactly what your problem is and I'm going to tell you right to your face right now your problem is lack of power that's your problem so relax there's nothing wrong with you absolutely nothing wrong with you. You've just been overpowered by everything. And the only way out of it is to open up and let a power in, and that process is called spirituality. So just start with that, that that's your problem. Lack of power. You've been trying to go out there and manage the world by yourself. and all of us tried that and it crushed us. It just left us out there so frustrated that we thought we were awful people. We thought we were worthless. We thought we had no backbone. We thought we had nothing and we had no values. We thought a lot of terrible things about ourselves and there wasn't any of them true. When they talk about old ideas that veiled us nothing, those are the old ideas. You sit around thinking those old ideas I'm nothing, I'm rotten, I'm terrible, I don't fit in, I'm different, da-da-da and it just goes on and on, and it avails us nothing. We just make no progress whatsoever. And so the spirituality, I mean, you know, if we were in a church religion, then they'd be talking about some book that was written thousands of years ago, and then they would explain who God was, Buddha, and let me explain the power of Buddha and let Me explain all about this. And when I get through, you're going to go, that's right, I believe in Buddha, I believe In that. And then you would be attracted to that and so on down. But AA doesn't have a higher power. It doesn't Have... If there's 75 people in this room, there's 25 higher powers in here. And just for convenience, we use the word God to say higher power I think the first six years in AA, I never said God because I didn't want you to think that I was talking about some God that I didnít want anybody to think I was talking about. So I was very careful to say ìhigher powerî for six years. I just went around, ìWell, my higher power, my higher Power, my Higher Power, my Higher power.î Then I got on an efficiency kick and it was just quicker to say, ëGod.í And so I just shifted over because you could say more when youíre talking. Well, God did this and God did that. But it was the same thing. It was what I had come to believe. So my sponsor, I think the first spirituality lesson that we had, he just called me in one day. I'd been around, I don't know, about six months and he said, let me ask you a few questions. He said, do you pray a lot? And I said, no, no. I've never been into prayer. I'm not into prayer, no I don' t. I just don't pray a lof. Okay. Well, do yo read a lot of spiritual books? No, no I've neve been into spiritual books. I'm not very interested in spiritual books so I no I don't do that oh okay well well do you meditate a lot do you meditate no I've never been into meditation not not into that at all what do you engage in a lot of spiritual conversations with other no I don' t think I've ever talked about spirituality I'm just not into that at all and he said so how's it going so that was sort of my introduction to spirituality was to see that what I was doing was producing the results that I was getting and they were awful when he said how's it going it really hit deep because I said to myself it's awful it's going awful well then why are you continuing to hold on to your plan for living if it's going awful and the only answer I could ever come up with was because I thought it up and I'd look bad changing my mind so I guess I'm stuck with a lousy plan and a lot of us will stay with that we will stick with this thing, like letting go of this thing we put together is going to be some monumental thing. And what was it put together? It was put together by a six-year-old. You know, when I was six, I got these ideas. And then when I Was eight, I Got these ideas and they were mine. I just, it wasn't what anybody, they told me something, but then I superimposed on top of that scary things and other things. And then, I don't know, around 12, I started reading the great philosophies that you find in the bathrooms. And I saw those, and that was terrifying. Oh my God, I can't believe that. Is that true? What is this? And I never shared with anybody. I never asked anybody, because if you ask, that would mean that you didn't know. And it was important to know, to just walk around. Yeah, I know, I don't need help. I'm cool. I know everything already. so that was sort of where I was coming from and my sponsor Bill I've had the same sponsor for almost 38 years and the only way you can do that now is you both have to stay alive that's the one way to do it and he was kind of a direct person and very often would just say you're just wrong or it's very stupid to continue to hold on to that idea And I began to realize that maybe it was, that maybe there was something in here that would benefit me. And my favorite chapter for spirituality is the chapter of the agnostic. I just find that must have been inspired from somewhere because it's just perfect for those of us that are struggling with the idea of spirituality. and it comes right after the first step because it really is the big book's second step and we go through this powerlessness and it just ties in when you think about powerlessness to what I just said in the very beginning. You know what your problem is? Lack of power and that's what our big book tells us. That is the core problem that we have and so it's symbolized in our first step when it talks about being powerless over alcohol and a life unmanageable, which is like saying, and I'm powerless over everything else that I've been trying to manage. It doesn't say you're going to end up managing things. It says you're gonna end up with a power that will enable you to see that things are not unmanangeable. You know, see the difference. It's not that you get to manage everything perfectly. It's just that you see that everything is fine and that takes away the feeling that everything is unmanageable because there's a lot of things we were trying to manage that don't need to be managed by us. I remember Chuck, one time I heard Chuck and I almost fell over, you know what I mean? He was talking to somebody and I happened to be eavesdropping and he said to the guy, it's not your job to take care of yourself and I remember just going, what? So that's God's job. Your job is to do God's work And it was like, God, I remember hearing that. So there was a lot of things I was trying to manage that wasn't any of my business to be managing. You see what I'm saying? I was just so committed to controlling so many things because I assumed that if I could control them properly, it would fix what was wrong inside of me. It was my intellectual vision of the world saw that there were all kinds of demands inside of me for sex and security and society and money and all that. And the only way to do anything about this disquiet and this turmoil that was going on inside of me was to go get all the things that would fix them. That was the way I saw it. I think anybody who's just using their intellect can't help but see it that way, because we can't see it in any other way until we have spiritual vision. And then we see the whole thing in a different light, and we don't need to be worried about getting all these things fixed because they already are fixed. They've already been fixed from the inside out. And that's what sobriety is. It is a state, a spiritual condition, a condition in which there's nothing for alcohol to fix. And when there's Nothing for Alcohol to Fix, it's real easy to not drink. You know what I mean? You're not sitting around looking for a fix. Well, I've got this situation, I got this situation. And so it's a struggle to not drink. It's a real struggle. And it's hard to conceptualize a feeling that there's nothing for alcohol to fix, so you're just going to have to trust everybody that can assure you that that will happen to you if you are willing to surrender 100%. And that's why we spend so much time on that. Surrender, surrender, surrender. If you don't do that 100%, it haunts you for the rest of your time in AA. And I forget where it is in the big book of the 12 and 12. People have been sober for years. Bill's talking about this not surrendering 100%. Been sober for years or walking around wondering why they're not getting what other people are getting in the program. I did my inventory. I'm trying this praying. I seem to be doing everything. And then when they really get honest and go back, they had one reservation somewhere about their powerlessness. You know what I mean? And they somehow said to themselves, you know, I'm 98% powerless over alcohol. I'm almost as bad as the people in AA. I am real close to being that bad. So I do admit that I have a terrible alcohol problem. I have a terrible alcohol problem. But we never went all the way to saying, I'm 100% powerless over alcohol. Because what is symbolized by powerlessness is the need for power. That's why it's the doorway into spirituality, is surrendering, is this, oh my God, it's awful. And I'll say this for those of you that are new, this powerlessness is not just the fact that when you drink, everything gets all screwed up. I mean, that's part of it, but that is not the part of the disease of alcoholism that kills us. That's just part of it. The part of the disease that kills us is that when there's no alcohol in our system, none, and we've had the disease of alcoholism explained to us so that we know deep in our heart that we cannot safely drink. We know in our bone marrow that if we drink, all hell is going to break loose. We know that. We've been taught that by treatment centers. We've read about it and we go, my God, I'm an alcoholic. If I take another drink, I'm going to lose my wife, I'm gonna lose my job and we may be standing in our old neighborhood bar and sandwich shop having a hamburger and we're telling the bartender this. Frank, I finally realized in my gut that I'm an alcoholic. If I ever have another drink I'll die and my wife will definitely can I have a beer? My wife will definitely leave me if I thanks. We're having to drink knowing all this. So the powerlessness happens when there's no alcohol in your system. That means this problem is much worse than you thought it was. And if you can have that feeling, like that, oh my God, this is much better and much worse than I thought it would be, that's wonderful. That's the one you want to have because now you really need God. Whereas before, you almost needed him. You almost needed conscious contact with God. You almost needed to really work the steps and be honest, have a sponsor, and to be sponsoring people and to being doing all the things that the committed AAs, the ones who have been lucky enough to surrender all the way. You almost need to do all that, and then you almost get sober. You're just this close. You're this close, you're almost sober, which is like almost having a parachute. I almost took one of those parachutes and the plane just crashed and everybody's floating down everybody else is pulling their ripcord and you're going I almost took one of those damn parachutes and you are not any better shaped than the guy who never heard the word parachute who is falling next to you So that's why this surrender is so awesome. And right after that surrender, when we get into this chapter of the agnostic, there's this wonderful definition of alcoholism in the very first paragraph or second paragraph right in there. When Bill goes on... Boy, I'm dry. when Bill goes on to talk about this is his definition of being an alcoholic he says if when you sincerely try you have little control over the amount you drink and if when you try to stop you can't stay stopped then you may be an alcoholic so there it is, when you drink you get all screwed up And when you try to stop, you can't stay stopped. This is alcoholism. And then comes the interesting sentence. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness that only a spiritual experience can conquer. Now I don't know how many illnesses are listed in the American Medical Association under the heading of illnesses that only a spiritual experiment can conquer There probably aren't too many in there don't see a doctor on this one there's no medicine there's not anything that can help in this situation you have an illness that only is spiritual experience and my sponsor is showing me he was helping me get spiritual you see how it works don't you they close off all the other options and the only one left is spirituality so he's going well, what do you think about that? You have a disease that only has spiritual experience. And I said, I don't believe in spiritual experience He says, Well, then you're screwed. That was it. He said, You've had it. There's no out for you. We don't, you know, you almost went, Next? I don'T believe in spiritual experiences. So what's my options? Got one option. Change your mind. that's what it said change your mind this is your chance to become a former agnostic right now you know what I mean we've become former a lot of other things so here's your chance to become a former agnóstic well I was an agnostic for 50 years and then I became a former agnestic and so now I'm what I call open-minded and you know that's somewhere I think in the 12 and 12 at the end of the first step we become as open-minded as only the dying can become and so this is the beauty of spirituality and you know Bill got this William James who was the father of American psychology and he wrote the variety of religious experiences that Bill read and he mentions him in the big book and William James studied spiritual experiences. He went around the world and just talked to people who had had spiritual awakenings or whatever you want to call them where it was a profound personality change and what he found, everyone who had one of these things had it while in a desperate situation. In other words, some tragedy came into their lives and just dropped them to their knees where they were desperate and open, and in came the spiritual experience. Which kind of implies that it would be hard to have a spiritual experience on a roll. On a roll, I mean, you know? You just made nine passes in a row, and you go, God, I just felt the need for God. Keep the money, I'm out of here. I'm gone. So this desperation is absolutely essential. And so we want to help everybody who is new feel this desperation. Surrender more. Get more honest about how awful it is. Keep going into the depth of your soul how awful it is until you cry out for help from so far down inside yourself that you can never stop that channel from wanting this help to come in and you've now entered a spiritual life only it doesn't feel like it it feels despondent and all that and that's why we have this second step that we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can come in to this desperate vessel that has just opened himself or herself to this experience so you see how vital it is to dig down deep into the hopelessness of your own life as it is being led by just you. That's where the hopelessness is, that if it's just you, it's really going to be hopeless forever. This can't manage, we can't get out of this by ourselves. We've got to have our hand reaching out at all times. And so then Bill comes up with that great comedy routine in that second step, and I'll precede it with a story that I heard somewhere where the young guy had been picked up about 20 times for public drunkenness, and so the judge is being pressured by society to do something. So he has to come down real hard, and there's a lot of people in the courtroom to see what justice is done. And so he says to him, well, Jimmy, he said, it's gotten to the point where we got to make some hard choices. And he said here's your choice. You're either going to go to one AA meeting or you're going to spend a year in jail. And the people in the courtroom were astounded that the young man stood there thinking, and nobody could imagine what is he thinking about, going to one AAA meeting or a year in jail, and in order to understand we'd have to get inside the youngman's head, and He was a bar drinker, and he drank always in bars. And he had all his drinking buddies and big, heavy drinkers like himself. And once in a while, his buddies would end up going to jail. And once for a long time, once in the great while, one of his buddies would endup going to AA. And the difference was the guys that went to jail came back. someday they came back but the people that went to aa he never saw again they just went off the planet somewhere and so he thought it was just too extreme and so that was where he was well we're laughing at young jimmy but then we'll go back to the chapter diagnostic and guess what says here we are and basically if you look at the second paragraph in there it's almost like a quiz show, you know, these quiz shows where you have two doors. You'll go through door one or door two. You know, door one, try this adventure. Door two, figure out this. And you're going, oh, okay, I'll try this one. So here's the two doors that Bill puts in the chapter agnostic. And I think I'm quoting it. It says, to be doomed an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face. Now, what kind of a sentence is that? We just brought you through powerlessness and we put two doors in front of you. Now, young man, young woman, you've got to choose one of these. Alcoholic death, live on a spiritual basis, and guess what? Oh, man. Whoa. Whoa. Sometimes we go home, we call out, hey doc, I've got a friend of mine who wants to know how bad is an alcoholic death? That bad? So why? Because according to our old ideas, living on a spiritual basis is going to be awful. I mean, it's going to being awful. We don't know anything about it, but that never stopped us from reaching conclusions before, and so we just know that for this person to live on a spiritual basis would be boring. It would be just awful. It'll be like not drinking. I mean, our imagination just fills us with the misery of living on a special basis. But again, there's no door three. That's the beauty of it. There's no tour three. Isn't there some other choice between alcohol and death? No, no. This is where you are. And so this is the beauty of AA. AA does not try to convince anybody of the existence of God. What AA does is convince you of the need for God. And there it is. It's right there. Do you understand how desperately you need God? And when you do, you're home. There's just a few more formalities to go through. This was the big doorway, was to just go, I really need God what is this what are these steps what is all this and suddenly we have a whole new interest in stuff that was just academic up to that point now you just are ready to be led you no longer have to figure out the course you no longer have to map out your future or anything you just have to stay in touch so that you can be led and generally in the beginning You're led by your sponsor and your home group. And they just help us sort out the priorities and sort out that sobriety, meaning working the steps, not drinking and working the step, is the top priority. And even though your mind is telling you, my mind told me money was the top priority. I mean, I just looked at my life and anybody here, if you saw my situation when I came in with six kids and my Marine Corps career is ending and I'm out and I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean, all these things were just piled up and it was clear that money was the answer to every problem that I had and my sponsor's going, no, personal inventory is and I am just trying to see the connection. Okay, what? Do you get paid for every defect that you put down? I couldn't make the connection about getting money with taking a personal investment. In other words, I just saw that it had to eventually lead to money or I wasn't going to get out of these problems. And that's because I could only see the world with my intellectual eyes, my intellectual glasses. And as Chuck says, we need a new pair of glasses. And the new pair reminds me of going to the 3D movies. Did you ever go in there without the glasses? And people beside you are going, oh wow, oh Wow! And you're going what the hell are they doing? What the heck is that all about? And you say, well, you have to wear these in order to see what's going on. Oh, I do? Oh, all right. And then you start ducking. You just go, oh my God, it's a whole different view. I didn't realize this is what is going on, this is the real three-dimensional world. Now we've brought in the spiritual dimension. And so there's, hmm, I wonder how many of these I can drink during the course of this. So anyway, at this wonderful second step where we go through this process of changing our mind, that's really what this step is. It's just saying if you're an agnostic, become a former agnestic. be willing to just be open to the idea that a power can come in and transform you just like it transformed everybody else. And that this is the most important thing that human beings can do. It's more important than having money. It's less important than having any of these things. Because unless this happens, money will just be something you're afraid of losing. You've got a whole bunch in the bank and now somebody's going to take it away from you. It does not bring financial security. Spirituality brings financial security I never realized that my fear over not having enough money could just be removed without money Did you ever think about that? Well, I can get rid of your fear about money without giving you any money I said, I don't think so Yeah, there's a power that can do that Oh no, that's stretching my imagination a lot So really, did you ever go into a bar with half of your month's rent in your pocket and you don't know where you're going to get the other half? So you thought you'd have one drink to calm down and relax a little bit, and then you had two, and then você tinha três. And then you suddenly said, who cares about the rent? Bartenders set them up. I'm just going to buy everybody a drink and we'll just eat, drink, and be merry and who knows what tomorrow will bring. So alcohol always had the power to take away my fear of financial insecurity. I'd be in there with my paycheck, it would be gone. I was totally sufficient from the power of alcohol. I was having a chemical spiritual experience. I was experiencing what the steps can do chemically and everything stayed the same. All the bill collectors were out there and people were all upset with me and I was immune to all that. I just was very happy. I had peace of mind. I was just enjoying the moment that I was in. It was just wonderful except it was brought on chemically and there was a terrible price to pay the next day whereas the spiritual experience can't be brought on like that and that's one of the things that gives it value. See, sometimes we are anxious that something isn't going to happen in a hurry. And so what we tell you is in order for it to have real value so that you really appreciate it, it has to take time. It can't be an easy fix. Easy fixes are cheap. They're just not worth the paper they're printed on. This, you will be able to look back at your struggle and your willingness to take these steps and to go down this path and that is what will give it great value in your heart and it'll be precious and it took so much to achieve this that you'll never want to give it up no matter what circumstance comes into your life your husband leaves you, they fire you you have a sickness and they have to cut off your leg you still will want to hold on to this gift that you worked so hard to get and you won't let anything get between you and that gift. And that is why I believe that there is a lot of pain in spiritual growth because all growth has to do with getting rid of the ego because we're trying, as we get into the third step, made a decision to turn our will over to the care of God as we understood him. We are trying to no longer get our way. And I don't know about you, but when I think about all the problems that I've had in my life, I can reduce them all to one. They just come out in different forms. And the one problem that human beings have is not getting their way. That's the problem. This happened and I don't want it to happen that way. And so it's called not getting my way. And so what's wrong? Well, I got sick and this is the wrong week. I didn't want to be sick this week. I had to be doing that. And so we're very upset with something the way it turned out. So not getting our way is a painful thing. And then we get to the third step, and we said, well, we want to always not get our way. That's what we're really saying there. They go, well, what is that? Just don't have a way. And then, you know, in the 12 and 12, well, I'll be the hole in the donut. What would I be with no way? I mean, what isthat? I mean that happens automatically. I get up in the morning, and I go, well,I'm afraid, andI've got to get this, andI'v got togetthat, and I'm just out there just going like that and he said that's what we want to stop well how could you possibly stop that well we have to become un-self-centered because that's what a self-centered person then we have this thing self-centeredness is the root of our problem and I remember the first time I heard that my spouse said you know what your problem is you're self- centered and I said you know you're right I was into honesty you're like you're not you're wrong you're correct Bill my problem is self-centeredness and I'm going to do something about it. Now just listen to that sentence my problem is self centeredness and I am going to do something about it or aren't I at the center of fixing my self-centeredness so how can I do anything about my self- centeredness because I'll still be at the center and so then he said that well you'll still be at the center so what are you going to do now and I said well then I'm just going to become un-self centered what is that I don't know I just thought I'd say it I don' t want to look bad I got to come up with something what is this a quiz what is the opposite of self-centered you know if it's not unself-centered what is the opposite of self- centered and it turns out it is God-centered the only way to get out of being self-centered there has to be another center there has to be another center I think I went along with that oh I see and by the way, Sandy God is the real center you have been looking at the world with you as the center and everything looks screwed up everything is just not in harmony it was like the early astronomers when they thought the earth was the center of the solar system why was it the center of the polar system? because that's where they lived obviously the center of everything starts with me and so there's the sun and there's all these planets and all that and we are at the center because we are the most important thing in the solar system but the measurements didn't work out they were just things weren't right and they kept trying to force these ideas into even killing people that would suggest that the sun was the center of the solar systems but finally they had to abandon all of their old ideas and accept the fact that the son was the centre and then everything fit. Then the mathematicians, everybody said, whoa, this is so great. This is where the real center is. All of these measures. Now, whoa. And it was just wonderful to admit you're wrong and to accept the new truth that come in. And there it was. So what my sponsor was explaining was that everything looks screwed up because I'm looking at it from the wrong center and it'll always look screwed up. And so when I'm willing to accept that I'm not the center and that God is the center, then I become something in connection to God. And I don't know what it is, but it was explained later on that I become an instrument of his will and that that is my goal. And I was astounded. We were both in the Marine Corps at the time and we were both captains. And so he was explaining to me, he said, you know, Sandy, the highest pay grade in AA is servant. That's as high as you can get. You start out egocentric big shot. You know what I mean? That's way down here. And then you work your way up to coffee maker and then you worked your way up to program chairman and then your work your way up do grapevine rep. and then you finally get up here servant and you can't go beyond that that's as far as you can ever hope to get and I remember hearing that going I'm going to pretend that that's okay servant get a little business card Richard Sandy Beach servant but that's the goal to get there And why would that be comfortable? Because we're in charge of nothing then. There is nothing that has to go our way. We're just waiting for instructions every day. You know, kind of like a dog. It's just so happy to see the master and just all I want to do is make him happy. What do you want me to do? Chase a bone? What do I want me do? All I want it to do, is to make you happy. You know how happy the dog is? It's the idea of doing something good for its master. It's just awesome. And so, you know, it's like my ego is just going, so what do you want to be, a dog? That's it? You're going to settle for being a dog, that's it, just hang around and act happy and that's it? And so then these choices started coming in. Well, what do want out of life? Do you want it to be a big shot or do you want it be happy? Two doors. And we're standing there again. Big shot or big shot? Well, can't you be a happy big shot No, you can't be a happy big shout. I have to keep choosing like that? What the heck is that? God! Because we're always two-dimensional and we've got to accept that. I'm going to talk about that tonight but we have to accept that it's always going to have two ways of seeing things because we can't escape our intellectual self. We can be spiritual, but we're stuck in this human body and we're always going to have these two views as we look at things. So basically, if we're willing to say that I really want to become God-centered and we can want it all we want and we kan be 100% willing to turn our life over and become God centered but that doesn't accomplish anything and the reason it doesn't accomplish anything is there are all these blockages between us and the flow of spirituality now I like the prayer of Saint Francis make me a channel of thy peace I just want to feel the peace of God flowing through me that's what spirituality is is to have this channel open so that I can feel a contact with this power that changes my view of the world. And the program simply says every human being has a blocked channel and it's blocked and if you study our 12 and 12 and the fourth step that's my favorite explanation so it helps get rid of guilt and those of us that were brought up Catholic it takes years to get rid off it it was just like it was tattooed in there and every time I think I'm rid of it It has come sneaking back in. But it was very helpful to look in that 12 and 12 and see what these character defects were because I had taken credit for all of them being inside of me and blamed myself for every one of these things. I blamed myself por having a sex drive. You know what I mean? I blamed my self for being greedy. I blamed meself. And then Bill writes in there, well, you know where all these come from? They come from instinctual drives that were born inside of every human being As you come zooming into this world, you have a full package of instinctual drives. And they're there to make sure that you perform as a human being, that you go out with the innate urges to reproduce and to form a society and to achieve some form of security. So these burning energies are there in everyone. Or we just lie over on the side and not eat and die. You see what I'm saying? So hunger comes. Oh, well, I've got to get something to eat. So we have all these drives that are coming in. And unless we go through a process of coming to grips with these drives, one thing you can't say about AA is that it's filled with grown-ups. This is really not what arrives in AA. We avoided growing up. We drank instead, and we just avoided all of those things. So you arrive here a 42-year-old, 16-year old, if you know what I'm saying. And so the instinctual drives become the purpose of life. Without any additional help or information, they become us. I am my drives, and I wake up every day with my package. and maybe your problem is your sex drive is getting you in trouble all the time or your greed drive is getting, or fear is preventing you from doing anything. You can't even go on a job interview. Everybody has these things that are totally out of control and they're screwing up our lives royally and we sit in the middle of this turmoil and we go, the only way I can see from in here is to get more sex, to shut this thing up or to get money, to shut it down or to shut his thing up or to give a big shot job so I can shut this thing up. That's the only way, and there's no way to see it any different. So these instinctual drives just dominate us. And thank God for alcohol. You know, Clancy talks about that. If it wasn't for alcohol, a lot of us would have committed suicide sooner because it gave me a break from that torture. I'd just go into the bar and I'd go crazy. Ah! And somehow that alcohol just quieted all that stuff and I was able to just sit there and drink and talk like a regular person and, you know, just that until I got drunk. But there was that period when all this turmoil has been quieted. And my sponsor said, now I'm going to jump ahead a little bit but I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen. We are going to work these steps and not too far in the distant future we're gonna open up a channel just enough for a power to come in and reduce those demands so they're not fucking you. So in the spiritual sense, the demands are reduced. That's the difference. They're not met. They just are pushed down. It's just like your drinking problem. When the obsession is gone, you just go... I remember going through... The first time I went through a week without thinking about drinking and then all of a sudden it dawned on me and I went, I didn't think about drinking last week. And at first I was panicked. I said, well write that down. Think about drinking. Because that's what you do all the time. How can I forget to think about drinking? How could I forget? Did you ever try to not think about drinking on your own? Okay, I'm not going to think about drinking. Okay, I'm going to tie myself. See how long I go. I'm not even thinking about drinking, but why? Oh, the harder you try to not think about drinking, the more you're thinking about drinking. It says, well, don't do that. You have to give up. There's no way you can not think about drinking. Just surrender. Here we go again. Surrender. It always is the beginning of everything. I surrender. I start working these I forget to think about drinking for a week. If that's happened to you, that's a miracle. That is spirituality. That is the beginning of this whole relief from our instinctual drives. That's how we want to get relieved from, instinctual drive and our old ideas that came from the instinctual driver. So that's why the inventory is so important. And you want to do it, see the channel's blocked and the wider you get it open, the happier you're going to be. So why not be thorough? Wait a minute, I thought of another blockage. Don't think about them as something you did wrong Don't think about it as bad, good, evil, whatever. They're blockages. Big hunks of something is blocking you. Let's find out all of them so that we can get them out of the way. And we have to talk to somebody else about them in order to see the truth. We think this is a big blockage, but then after we talk to our sponsor about them during a fifth step, we go, oh no, this other one's much bigger. I never would have thought that way. And we learn that we cannot see the true truth about ourselves alone. that it's essential that we always bounce things off of somebody else. And I heard this recently that the definition of an old-timer, now this is for those of you that are new, you go, I wonder what an old timer's life is like. They probably wake up with no problems. They don't have these things that go, oh God, oh my God, they just scared me to death. They probably just sort of have this peace of mind. No. The difference is old timers pick up the phone quick. See what I'm saying? Oh my God I'm all disturbed. Hey, I'm all disturbed. Oh, it's okay, thanks. Boom. See? We don't live with that long. We don'T go, well, I'll wait till next week and then call my sponsor. I'm going to get rid of this on my own. I'm gonna do this. No, we just don't do that. As soon as it comes, hey Joe, I'm just having a little edgy thing about, you think it's all right? Okay, thanks." I just asked for help and got it removed. I know it's going to come back, but I'm not going to do it. I'm still going to keep a bone near me. So I'm NOT going to let it stay with me long. I'm going to just get rid, get rid and that's what 10 step talks about spot check inventory and just keep getting rid of it's like if you're walking across a rug and you're building up static electricity on your feet you don't want to do that for about an hour and then touch the doorknob because that's a big joke you want to go one step touch one step push and you never let it build up that much and that is what we can do with disturbances is to get rid of them quicker so anyway we get what I'm going to do is just go about 15 more minutes and then stop so I'm gonna do this thing all in one big shot rather than take a break so I apologize but that seemed to be the best way to work the time thing out and then have a break before we go to the 11 o'clock then comes we really think we're making progress and we get into these middle steps which are a couple of my favorites and I'm a big advocate of two books I like the big book and the twelve and twelve I mean this is me now I've talked to other people and they'll say no the big work is the ultimate word I just see that they work together that there are places in the big look that are inadequate compared to the twelve and twelve and there's places in the bigger that are so far superior like step two step 2 in the 12 and 12 but the chapter of the agnostic holy cow well 6 and 7 are clearly need some help from the 12 and 12 because they just give us a glimpse of what is there you know well you feel like you want to hear if you're entirely ready I'm ready okay say this prayer okay now I got it going on making amends and doing all that and then we go over in the twelve and twelve Bill's going oh six steps that's the one that separates the men from the boys women from the girls This is it. This is the epic step in the AA program. Oh, really? I didn't see that in the big book. It was just a couple sentences there. So what is so epic about this? Epic is that it says we're entirely ready to have God remove all our defects of character. Now when you read that, what does that imply? Perfection. That's what six steps says. I'm shooting for perfection. And then they go, no, not, it's progress, not perfection. No, no, no. The sixth step is talking about a goal of perfection. We are never going to rest with our current spiritual condition. And I'll tell you why we never want to rest with our currently spiritual condition, because spirituality is like mountain climbing or going up where the view is better. And we start out in the gutter and the view was awful. And then we do some work, some heavy work. We go on a lot of means. We take a couple inventories, and we're up at 1,000 feet. And we're looking out over the vista, and we're going, this is magnificent. And then sometimes we say, this is as good as it gets. And we stay at 1.000 feet Well, you take anybody and leave them at 1!000 feet for a year, and they are used to this view, and they start looking around going, big deal, 1. 000 feet You know? What's so special about 1. 1000 feet? It can't stay special forever. And so there comes a time when we've got to climb to 2,000 feet. And then when we get there, it's wonderful. And we're looking at it and it's just absolutely wonderful. But after a while, 2, 000, so then we've Got to go to 3, 000. And so we hear people talk about it. You know, AA was so wonderful for about five years. And then, I don't know, just something happened to the meetings. The people weren't as exciting as they were when I was newer. There wasn't as much energy in the meetings. Something happened to those meetings. Nothing happened. You stopped growing. So that's the sixth step is going, you can't ever do that. Don't you ever stop growing. We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. And so the 12 and 12 is just hysterical writing about this. It's just like, wait a minute. I just came here to stop drinking. I didn't come here to be a saint. I remember, you know, when I first came in, my sponsor was going, okay, no drinking, you're going to have to not, okay, okay, I'm willing to do that. And then he's going, I would suggest that you don't drink and don't embezzle. What is this, a two-step program? Is this a two step, you don' t know what I mean? You know, okay. Okay, so I won't embescle and I won' t drink. You know? And then it's, well, I would think that if you want to have a good marriage, you've got to stop having affairs. Okay, no, drinking, no embezzling, no affairs. Jesus. You know. And then next week there was another one. And there was the character defect of the week. Every time I came around, he'd go, oh yeah, yeah, you got this. And he said, well, I'll let you in on a secret. It's a two-step program. Don't drink and change everything there is about you. That's basically what's going to happen. There is always something else that is blocking the channel from widening. And that's what's involved in this sixth step is trying to achieve the readiness to walk towards perfection. And Bill writes in there, we have a tendency to settle for as much perfection as who get us by. Is that a great sentence? Instead of settle for as Much Perfection. Like you're a businessman, it's a cutthroat world out there. You got a deal, you got a wheel and deal, you got to do that. And then they go, we'd like you to become totally honest. And you go, totally honest? Like I have to tell the truth all the time? Yeah, yeah, you be totally honest and you think it over and you go I don't want to be totally honest what I want is to have a reputation for being honest that's what I really want so I'm going to be honest enough so that people trust me but I'm still reserving the right in an emergency situation to finagle a little bit see because if I had that totally removed I wouldn't have the ability to wiggle waggle once in a while so I'd like to be 90% honest I mean you see what I'm saying this is the power of our mind to resist perfection in any anywhere. And so the sixth step, you just resist all the way. It's like the federal budget. Wouldn't you like the deficit totally gone? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, we're going to raise your taxes. We're going to cut your benefits. Wait a minute, wait a minute. It says in the specifics. Yeah, I want to be a spiritual giant, but I don't want to give up lust. You know what I mean? What would it be to have no lust? That's too extreme. We are entirely ready to have God remove all, all, so all the rest of our sobriety we'll really be doing six and seven. We're going to be just looking for more things that we finally are willing to get rid of. And then we've got to go through the process of humbly asking, which is quite a bit different than regular asking. So we're going pass out the papers now and we'd like you to write about three pages on the difference between regular asking and humbly askings. And of course, if you're new, you're going, what? What is the difference? And when I was new, I remember going, Okay, regular asking would be, God, please get rid of all my character defects. And humbly asking would be, you have to get a humble look on your face. Hey, God? That was my best shot. Humbly asking. How do you humbly ask? And then you read in this 12 and 12 and it talks about pain, pain, pain, pain, pain. What's that got to do with humility? Well, it says humility is a total absence of pride. Humility is the total awareness of the allness of God and nothingness of self. Humility is changing my entire perspective Humility is like joining the Marine Corps and you can walk up to somebody and say, would you like to become a Marine? Yes, I would. Well, would you stand up and ask to be a Marine?" And you stand up and you go, "...I would like to be a Marine." Okay, you just asked to be a Marine. Now we're going to help you humbly ask. So I take you down to Parris Island and we put you up on a big tall tower so you can watch the ten weeks of recruit camp, boot camp every day, all 24 hours watching everything that happens to those guys. now you know what's involved in asking to become a marine now you can humbly ask knowing the full implication of what's evolved you still raise your hand and say i want this removed i know it's going to be hard i know that i'm going to have to fight it but my hands up Now, I'm asking humbly. We're almost at the end in terms of spirituality. The past is a huge block. Just look at this whole talk today about opening a channel and settling with the past and making amends and understanding how our behavior can bring disharmony into the world and how our behavior as self-centered people throws other people off balance and causes them to react in bad ways so that we end up with the feeling that the world is filled with hostile people and we saw no role for ourselves in that. And so there's a great learning experience here and there's great rewards in actually going out, attempting for the first time in our lives to be a spiritual entity. Well, I am simply here, Mr. X boss, because it's the right thing for me to be here. That's why I'm here. There's no other motive. I have no other motiv in coming here to tell you what a lousy employee I was and how much I wish I had done a better job other than this is what spiritual people do. They make it right. They just come and do these things. And then we move into another step that I'm going to talk about tonight more, which is living a day at a time that having cleared up as much as we can the wreckage of this past, we now focus on how can I serve God on a daily basis and that is the best thing that could ever happen to me is those two realizations, how I can serve God and that that will make me the happiest person I can be. So you can almost draw a paradox and say the most selfish thing you can do is to become unselfish. It sounds like a strange sentence, but that is where it's all at is to get into that mindset. In step 11, when we get to meditation and prayer, let me just make a few words about those two things for those of you that are new because they had entirely different meanings for me many years ago. Prayer and meditation was stuff for priests and spiritual gurus and all that had nothing to do with me i had to i wasn't that kind of a person and i realized that what is in prayer and meditation is power that's what's in there is power when you take a prayer like the prayer of saint francis see i don't wake up in the morning thinking st francis prayer i don t wake up oh let make me channel that piece i wake up and going i'm scared i want to pull the covers over my head and i don' t want to go out today because something bad's going to happen to me that's how i wake up and so i just have to get out of bed and then that starts going away but my mind is racing at this self-centered low-level thinking and it makes you feel lousy if you leave it stay there all day you just have a terrible day because your mind is just going awful rotten whatever your little drum beating is so you pick up something like the prayer of saint francis and just go lord make me channel thy peace you go, now this is better thinking. You know what I mean? Sometimes it's like putting classical music on. You just go, wow, that's really beautiful. Well, these are beautiful thoughts. They're high-level thoughts. They're way up here, close to what Bill calls the fourth dimension of existence. When you're thinking at this level, it's very peaceful. But we need help to think there. We don't have to get a bunch of these things. I'm tired of thinking down here of the stuff I think of. I'm going to use my cheat sheet. Lord, make me a channel. Hey, this is better. I like this. It's just powerful. It's very powerful to get these prayers to take us to a different level and allow us to see the world in a different way. And that's what prayer is for, is to open us and move us to a different life. A different level. And in that sense, we can get into what meditation very basically, and this is important to remember, in both the Big Book and the Twelve and Twelve, meditation is an individual adventure. Our libraries are filled with books on meditation. Not conference-approved books, books on mediation. It's up to you. Go out and seek. Whatever comes into your hand may hold the key where you somehow have found a way to clear away the mind talk that goes on in your head all the time because behind that is something awesome. but we can't hear it. The signal from God is very quiet. It's almost a whisper, and it whispers to us that everything is fine. Don't worry about anything you see here. Everything is fine, but it's a very soft signal that comes in, and all we have to do is quiet the racket in order to see it. And the last thing I'll say before I sit down is the opportunity in our wonderful service step to keep this channel open by sharing it with other people and practicing these principles everywhere. We should be just as comfortable out there as we are in AA. We should able to see those people, earth people, as spiritual entities just like ourselves. We should love them with the same comfort that we do here in AA There's no reason. We've just limited ourselves by not practicing these principles everywhere. The principles just apply to every situation. And if you're a human being, you're going to wake up like I do about three times a week with a situation where my mind just says, the steps don't apply here. Handle this baby alone. And then I go out with my anger or greed or whatever and I just attack it. And when I get to the meeting that night, Everybody goes, what's wrong? All right. Took care of something without the steps today. Yeah, we can see that. You want to talk about it? Yeah, well... So we're just human. So we are going to run into these dead ends and don't beat ourselves up as long as we come back in here share it and when we are wrong promptly admit it we can have a wonderful sobriety. I've run out of the amount of time that I wanted to spend and I hope that something I said to those of you that are new may be helpful. I really do, because your problem is lack of power. Thank you all very much.