Sandy B. on the Disease Concept, Agnosticism, and the Four Zeros

Thank you.\nThe old knees are getting sore, so if I can sit, it really helps.\nHi, everybody.\nMy name is Sandy B., and I'm an alcoholic.\nHow are you all doing?\nThis has been a wonderful week, and you all have treated Sue and I with such grace and\nwarmth that I don't think we'll ever forget it.\nIt's just been absolutely delightful.\nI've enjoyed all the speakers and the workshops.\nIt's really been quality, really quality, and you can tell that everybody who has participated\nin this program has been doing a great job.\nEverybody who's participating has experienced the point of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is\nto be reborn with a personality change that causes an entire new way of looking at everything.\nAnd in that sense, we are so lucky.\nAnd I think about Alcoholics Anonymous and where it is now, I guess 140 countries and\n3 1⁄2 million miracles have taken place, maybe 150,000 AA groups all over the world.\nAnd as I think about AA and I think about my life, I'm going to just tell you, you know,\nthis is really amazing, but I'm going to try and talk about both at the same time by telling\nyou this, that when I was one, a guy named Roland Harris, who was a professor at the\nUniversity of New York, was on his way to Switzerland to see Carl Young, who sent him\nto the Oxford group, so that when I was two, he went and got Ebi Thatcher and brought him\nto Alcoholics Anonymous.\nAnd when I was three, Ebi went and got Bill Wilson and brought him into the Oxford group.\nAnd when I was four, Bill went out to see Dr. Bob.\nAnd when I was five, they had started Alcoholics Anonymous.\nAnd when I was eight, they had written the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous.\nSo I'm sitting there in second grade, I'm totally unaware of all of these events that\nare going to have the biggest impact.\nAnd I've been talking about alcoholism in my life more than anything else.\nAnd when I was 18, I had my first drink at Yale University.\nAnd on that very year, there was a botanist named Jelnik who did the first comprehensive\nstudy on alcoholism, sponsored by Yale University.\nAnd I've often wondered if I'm in there anyway.\nI'm in the middle of a university.\nAnd I'm in the middle of a university.\nthere anywhere. As he observed the downside, you remember the Jelnik curve and he probably\nsaw people like me and saw them on their way down. And a couple years later, AA held its\nfirst international convention and they adopted the traditions. And I was just on the verge\nof being expelled from the university. And so what I'm trying to say is that all of this\nhas taken place in my lifetime. I mean, this is an amazing phenomenon to have something\nlike this. And when I was born, there was no hope for alcoholics. They just went into\ninsane asylums or died or were put in.\nPrisons or whatever, but there was absolutely no place for the suffering alcoholic to go.\nAnd I think the other thing that I forgot to mention when I was 10, this is a landmark,\nwas when Rockefeller held that black tie dinner in New York and legitimized Alcoholics Anonymous,\ntook away the stigma.\nAnd essentially stuck himself way out. A lot of people ridiculed him, but he\nessentially said in all the papers covered it, that this is a legitimate organization\nand you should be grateful if you have one in your community because it is going to do\nwonderful things. And his secretary, Willard Richardson, wrote about that, that when he\njust observed this in the first four years...\nhe saw that this was one of the most precious things\nand he'd been involved in all kinds of charitable works\nand looking for wonderful things to support\nand he saw this\nhe saw Alcoholics Anonymous\nand what it was all about\nand I was just thinking about\nhow wonderful AA is\nand I was thinking if they\ncould find a spiritual filter\nfor Google Earth\nso that you could put that on\nand then just zoom anywhere you want\nand spiritual energy would show up\nand I think they would find if they were studying it\nthat there was these pockets all over\nthat were kind of hard to explain\nbecause this spiritual blossoming\nwould take place just for an hour\nlaughter\nlaughter\nlaughter\nand then it would just fade away\nbut it would be back the following week\nat exactly the same time\nthey would see this big burst\nand in that pocket of spiritual energy\nwould be all kinds of different\nsparkles\nand different bursts of energy\nand it reminded me of the wildflowers\nof Crested Butte\nwhen we took that tour\nand everywhere you go\nyou look\nthere was this incredible beauty\nand I think that would show up\non that Google Earth\nthat they could go around\nand I think it would be amazing\nthat they would just look\nin all these countries\nand they would see this\namazing burst of spiritual energy\nand wonder what is that\nyou know\nand they'd go\nfind out a little bit about\na program called Alcoholics Anonymous\nthat's how I feel about AA\nit is\nit is clearly God given\nI just thought you know\nwhen we talk about our higher power\nwe can only surmise\nthere's no way of understanding\nmost of the time\nwhen we talk about God\nit's through stories\nand that's why I was talking about the egg\nyesterday\nand it's throughout history\nthat's been the only way\nto talk about a higher power\nis through a story\nor a parable\nor something\nand certainly the AA history\nis just filled with these\nthe humans wanting to go\nin one direction\nand the spiritual force\nno\nwe're not going to have\npaid missionaries\nwe're not going to have\na chain of drunk tanks\nas a matter of fact\nwe're not going to have\nany money at all\nI'm going to keep you guys\nbroke for years\nI mean look at Bill\ngetting AA started\nand getting evicted\nfrom the townhouse in Brooklyn\nand then the AA people\nloaning him a car\nyou'd say\nin the summer camp\nyou could stay over here\nand all the time\nhe's dreaming\nof the big donation\nfrom Rockefeller\nand it didn't turn out that way\nbut the energy\nthat we all put in\nto advancing this wonderful\nsociety\nor fellowship\npays off\nand it comes out\nin so many unique ways\nwho would have dreamed up\nthis conference\nI mean I'm sure\nthe first year\nyou had a certain amount\nof the\nthings you have now\nand then every year\nyou added something\nand people came up\nwith ideas\nand then you end up\nwith almost a masterpiece\nI've been to 600\nof these conferences\nand this has to be\nup in the top 10\njust the way\nit's organized\nand that just\nand I'm sure\nthat all the people\non the committee\nwill agree\nthat God had a lot\nto do with that\nand I'm sure\nin the middle\nof your arguing\nand this and that\nthen it turned out\na different way\nand when it did\nyou went\nwow that's better\nthan mine\nso anyway\nI just\nwanted to tell you\nhow amazing\nit was\nto be here\nfor both of us\nand I'll tell you\na little bit\nabout my story\nand then I like\nto talk about\nthe fellowship\nbecause it's so much\nfun to do that\nso very briefly\nI grew up in\nobviously\nin the early 30s\nin New Haven, Connecticut\njust before I forget\nI've got six children\ntwo girls are in AA\nmy boys all\nI had seats reserved\nfor them\nand they went to college\nthey got into drugs\nalcohol\ntrouble\nI just went\nman\nright\nthey're kicking\nafter their father\nand then each one\nof them\nin his own way\nsaid well\nenough of this\nand I think\nI'll just straighten\nout and become\na good citizen\nand part of me\nwas happy\nbut part of me\nwas very very\nlet down\nbut my daughters\ntwo of them\nmade up for\nthe three boys\nin spades\nand upholding\nthe family tradition\nand they're\nmembers of AA\nI also have\n15 grandchildren\nand they're all\nover the United States\nand I'm not\nI'm not\nI'm not\nI'm not\nI'm not\nI'm not\nI'm not\nI'm not\nI'm not\nI'm not\nI'm not\nI'm not\nI'm not\nI'm not\nand I\nwhenever I travel\nI try to visit them\nand they're very\nexcited about\nAlcoholics Anonymous\nthey come to a\nconference if I\nhappen to be in\nthat town\nso anyway\nI grew up there\nand\nmy parents\nwere product\nof the depression\nand so they had\nto work very hard\nthey supported\nmy sister and I\ndid a wonderful\njob\nI never felt\nlike I belonged\nI don't know\nwhere that came\nfrom\nmy mother was\nCatholic\nI went to the\nCatholic church\nmy sister sat\nnext to me\nin the Catholic church\nand to this day\nshe loves it\nand considers it\nthe most friendly\nplace she ever went\nshe just thought\nthe nuns were cute\nthe Latin was cute\npurgatory was cute\nyou know\neverything was cute\nand she was\ngot nothing\nbut comfort\nand peace\nfrom the entire\npresentation\nI on the other\nhand\nmade up a\ndifferent story\nand I\ndon't know\nwhat they were\ntelling to me\nand it scared\nme to death\nI was terrified\nto be in there\nand\nthey just knew\nthey were getting me\nI never wanted\nto die\nbecause the punishment\nwas going to be\nso severe\nand so\nnot much comfort\nand I was about\neight years old\nand sometimes\nyou have these\nspiritual insights\nand I was sitting\nin the front pew\nstaring at the\ncrucifix\nwhich was about\ntwenty feet tall\nhanging from the ceiling\nyou could not\nmiss it\nand\num\nit was as if\nit spoke to me\nand it said\nlittle boy\ndo you see this\nway else\nwell this is what\nGod did to his only son\nthat he loved\nand\num\nguess what\nhe's gonna do\nto you\nso\nI think\nI fainted\nand fell out\nof the pew\nand they\ncarried me\nout of the church\nand\nso I found it\nobviously\nvery\ncompelling\nI was afflicted\ninside of myself\nbut at an early age\nI learned one thing\ndon't talk to people\nabout anything\nso I spent the rest\nof my life\nexplaining everything\nto me\non my own\nand so that's\nwhere all of my\nold ideas\ncame from\nthat became\nso frightening\nand disorienting\nand all of that\nwas just\nI made them all up\nand I stuck to them\nonce you\nlock in an idea\nyou're not gonna\nchange it\nor you'll look weak\neven if it's obvious\nyou're wrong\nit was something\nabout\nI know I'm in jail\nbut I got here\nyou see what I'm saying\nI did this\nand\nbut I did well in school\nand I\nended up in a little\nprep school\nand I was a good athlete\nI had very high grades\nand it was a pipeline\nright into Yale\nI got down there\nand all these people\ncame from around\nthe United States\nand they were all rich\nand smart\nand they all knew\nwhat was going on\nand I knew\nthat sometime\nduring that freshman year\nthe dean was gonna\ncall out\nthere's about a thousand\nfreshmen\nand he was gonna announce\non the old campus\ngentlemen\nwe have an imposter\nin our midst\nand there he is\nand they were gonna\nfinally expose me\nfor what I was\nand get me out of there\nwell it didn't happen\nand I was very\nnervous at all times\nI just couldn't\nfit in anywhere\nbut I hadn't had\na drink yet\nand my roommates\nare telling me\ngeez you're\n18 years old\nyou ought to be\nhaving drinks\nthis is what college\nis for\nto make you feel good\nand I've talked about this\nin every time\nI give a talk\nthat I went to a\nsocial event\nand I was supposed\nto meet these other\n28 guys\nand I couldn't\nI'd walk up to a group\nand with their eyes\nI don't know if you're\naware of this\nbut people can communicate\nthings to you\nwith their eyes\nand as I approached\neach group\nthey looked at me\nand made it very clear\nthey did not want\nto know me\nand would appreciate it\nif I would go\nsomewhere else\nbut that group\ndidn't want to know me\nand I never met anyone\nand I was about to leave\nwhich is what you do\nwhen you can't handle\nthe situation\nlook at the pressure\nI was under\nand there was a bar there\nand so I decided\nto have a drink\neven though\nI was going to try\nand stay away\nfrom that stuff\nand I had two and a half\nand I was on that\nthird one\nand I was\nhad the feeling\nit wasn't working\nso I put it down\nI was getting ready\nto leave\nand I looked back\nat the guys\nand everyone in the room\nwas looking at me\nand their eyes\nwere saying\nI'd give anything\nto be your friend\nI couldn't believe\nwhat had happened\nthe world that I lived in\nwas so wonderful\nI mean these people\nwere wonderful\nI just was\nI was so excited\nI started running over\nto the first group\nand on my way over\nI had the feeling\nthey were right\nthey would be lucky\nto know me\nGod\nbless it\nand I just intuitively\nknew how to handle\neverything\nsocial events\nyou know\nconversation\nand as the evening\nwent on\nI realized that\nalcohol had removed\nall these barriers\nto me\nand my creativity\nI could now\nbe me\nI'd never been me\nbefore\nI was always hiding\nsomewhere\nand I thought to myself\nyou should have started\ndrinking in grammar school\nthis is amazing\nso alcohol didn't change me\nbut it changed the world\nthat I lived in\nand all of a sudden\nI loved this world\nI loved the world\noh I just talked about it\nbut it went away\nwhen I got up in the morning\nand I was back\nin the old world\nthe scary world\nso I could hardly wait\nfor the day to get over\nso that I could go down\nand enter\nthe technicolor world\nand very soon\nthe priority became drinking\nand my grades started\nto get bad\nI didn't seem to care\ntoo much\nabout studying anymore\nI gave up\non making the track team\nand I started getting in fights\nI went to jail\na few times\nand it was obvious\nthat a lot of trouble\nwas coming\nbut as far as\nI was concerned\nall of that trouble\nwas a small part\nof the reason\nthat I was able\nto get out\nof school\nand go back\nto school\nand go back\nto school\nand go back\nto school\nand go back\nto my parents\nand go back\nand go back\nto school\nand go back\nto study\nand go back\nto work\neasy\nnothing\ncute\neasy\neasy\noften\ndifficult\nproblem\nto go back\nand look\nNegative\nTo\nGive\nyourself\nthe first\nlesson\nto\nmy own reality into something marvelous and it all took place inside of me\nwithout anything out there changing at all which is what spirituality is we get\nabsolutely happy with the situation and the situation never changed we just are\nsuddenly comfortable in our own skin and comfortable because we're near a higher\npower it is the power that does the work in any event the Korean War was going on\nand they were drafting everybody so a group of us had some beers and went down\nand joined the Marine Corps\nand I did not know what was in store for me I took my golf clubs it was it and I\ndid not understand what they're talking about when they told me where to put\nthem\nand so there was the bootcamping for times\nweeks and then but you know it's as ridiculous and severe as it was part of me also liked it\nbecause I was being disciplined there was something good happening to me that I would never do on my\nown and I got out of there and it took six months to become a platoon leader and during the course\nof that training I saw a movie about pilots training movie and that caught my eye I'd never\nbeen in a plane but these guys look cool they had the scarves they're talking with their hands at the\nbar then they showed some of the planes and the carriers and I just went god boy that's great so\nI asked this major I'm going to sign up for that and he said no you gotta you'd have to sign up for\nthree more years no no I'll do it so I signed up I passed the test I had met this woman from\nConnecticut who was to become the mother of our six children and we hit it off got married and\nI'm off to Pensacola to become\nyou\nnaval aviator number 4,000 or whatever now I got airsick on the civilian plane going down to Atlanta\nand then I got airsick going to Pensacola and then I got airsick in the old SNJ and things were not\nlooking good for this hot shot aviator but it turned out it was motion sickness and it did go\naway and then I became great at it I would be number two or number three and it was a wonderful\n18 months\ngoing through all that training and formation and gunnery and the carrier and everything and\nfinally down in Corpus Christi Texas I got my wings and went off to the fleet marine force\nspent a short five months in El Toro in California and lived on Balboa Island and man life was great\nnow I got my orders to a fighter squadron in Japan and\nthe war is over and so the main job was to fly high-performance planes and drink and I just loved\nit I love the squadron I love the idea of being part of a unit we all drank together with the\ncolonel there and then we had our table and you flew hard and you just did whatever was asked of\nyou but then when it was over however long the day was then you went and you party just as hard\nas you worked and it was all done as a unit and we all we got to the point where we got to the\nfront so I get drunk we're doing this we're doing that and I just felt like I was the same as\neverybody else that this was just marvelous and about eight months into it we were getting ready\nto go aboard the carrier and we were practicing field carrier landings and I was out in the end of\nthe runway with one of my heroes the maintenance officer a big red-headed Irishman named Major\nNewport and I just listened to everything he said you know he was great and he started talking about\nYou know, Sandy, in about two years I'll be eligible to be a lieutenant colonel\nand I can get my own squadron.\nAnd he started talking about how happy he'd be to have his own fighter squadron\nand how he'd get nothing but the best pilots.\nAnd then he said, I'd want you.\nWell, I mean, you know, you're a young lieutenant and this guy, I want you.\nI just felt like a million dollars.\nAnd then he said, but I wouldn't let you drink.\nAnd I was shocked.\nI just, why would he say that?\nI mean, he gets drunk right with me.\nWhat is this?\nAnd it wasn't until I got to AA and I learned about alcoholism\nthat I learned that even in a crowd of really big drinkers,\nmy drinking scared them.\nYou know what I mean?\nThere was an intensity.\nThere was something that you can spot that isn't casual.\nYou know what I mean?\nOr situational.\nSee, these guys, when we went back to the States,\nthey went back to what's normal drinking back in the States.\nI just kept right on.\nAnd so, you know, we got transferred around.\nI was a forward air controller, flight instructor,\nand a photo pilot during the Cuban Missile Crisis.\nAnd during that time, we had six children.\nAnd I got promoted to first lieutenant.\nI got promoted to captain.\nSo on the outside, you could say, look at this guy.\nHe's doing pretty good.\nHe's got the big family.\nHe's got...\nFlying these planes, blah, blah, blah.\nMust be, you know, nice to be that guy.\nWell, you would have made a bad trade\nif you had decided you wanted to trade places with me.\nBecause it was about to end.\nAll of the finality of alcoholism was taking place inside of me.\nAnd everything was starting to close in.\nAnd I was starting to get very apprehensive about flying with me.\nBecause I was having withdrawal symptoms.\nBecause I didn't drink for 12 hours.\nI would lose vision.\nMy heart was racing.\nI would get up there and just feel like I'm going to pass out.\nAnd it was just awful.\nAnd I kept that up for about a year.\nAnd didn't crash anything or have any accidents.\nBut there were close calls that I knew about.\nI took a Crusader off of Cherry Point one day.\nAnd you had to put the wing down real fast.\nAnd I hit the engine.\nAnd master switch.\nShut the engine off about 10 feet off the ground.\nWent, oh my God.\nAnd turned it back on.\nAnd there was this boom.\nAnd it relit.\nAnd later I talked to the maintenance officer.\nYou know how you want to find out something so you ask hypothetically?\nI remember going, hey Walt, hypothetically,\nif you shut off the engine master and turned it right back on,\nwhat are the odds of it relighting?\nAnd he said, it won't.\nYou know, so I just went, oh, you know, like, zero.\nSo anyway, I was frightening myself to death.\nI was very sick.\nAnd I finally went to the doctor.\nWe had no alcohol programs in the Navy at that time.\nAnd so everything was left up to the psychiatrist.\nAnd the doctor agreed I had a terrible problem.\nThey sent me down to Pensacola for two weeks to be studied\nby the doctors.\nAnd they studied me.\nThere was every kind of a doctor.\nAnd they, I remember they had an old AED Sky Raider.\nAnd they put a chair in like the ones you're sitting on,\nbolted it in.\nAnd then had all these wires.\nAnd they went into me.\nAnd I'm in the chair.\nAnd they're doing the planes, doing all that.\nAnd they got a doctor sitting there watching all the stuff.\nLike they're going to diagnose alcoholism in an AED.\nAnyway, at the end of the time, they couldn't find anything wrong.\nSo they left that up to the psychiatrist.\nAnd he wrote a long report on how I was experiencing a childhood fear of flying\nthat showed up after 12 years of flying.\nIt just appeared from nowhere.\nAnd I was told I would never fly again.\nWell, that just about killed me because that's who I was.\nAnd it took about three months.\nI was a career officer.\nAnd I got a new specialty.\nAnd I became a pilot.\nI became an air traffic controller.\nAnd that was my job until I ended up in AA.\nI made it through the school.\nI'm shaken even worse.\nI went overseas for a whole year.\nI checked into the unit.\nAnd the senior enlisted men, who are the backbone of every military,\nthe C-7 came up.\nWelcome, Captain.\nGood to have you here, et cetera, et cetera.\nAnd he said, Sir, here's your tent.\nHere's your coffee.\nSir, we really appreciate it if you personally would never go near the radar or talk to an airplane.\nAnd I knew what he meant, that I could barely get to work.\nAnd so that's all I did.\nNow I could drink around the clock.\nAnd during that year, I lost 50 pounds.\nI had malnutrition.\nI couldn't eat solid food, so I drank soup.\nAnd I'd have vodka and soup.\nAnd it was just, it was terrible.\nI stopped hanging out with my buddies.\nWouldn't even go to happy hour with the guys.\nI was just lost inside of myself.\nI was just trying to survive.\nAnd I survived all the way through that tour and back to Quantico, Virginia,\nwhich is how I ended up in Washington, D.C.,\ngoing to a career school.\nAnd in the school, I had a grand mal seizure.\nI just about bit my tongue in half.\nAnd they took me up.\nI went to Bethesda Naval Hospital.\nI had malnutrition, was really sick, alcohol poisoning, all of those things.\nAnd I got up there, and they said they don't have a clue what the problem is.\nSo I'm in a regular hospital room, and they're studying what could have caused the seizure.\nAnd it took about five days without alcohol for my system to absolutely freak out\nwith the DTs, the delirium treatments.\nAnd I was...\nI saw these horrible things.\nThe CIA was trying to break me mentally with memory tests, and they were moving the walls\nof the room and changing everything, trying to drive me crazy.\nAnd I guess in the middle of one of those, I went screaming down the hallway,\nand they captured me and put me in a straitjacket and locked me\nup in the mental ward for six months.\nSo that was the treatment that was available in 1964.\nAnd...\nNothing was helping me in there.\nThe psychiatrist would talk about the childhood, and the rest of the people who were in the\nmental ward were very upset with the three alcoholics because they didn't think we had\na legitimate mental illness.\nAnd they would...\nI remember them sort of going, why are you guys even here?\nYou could tell they were looking down on us.\nAnd I remember thinking where I had arrived.\nYou know, Yale.\nYou know, class of 53, all the way to low man in the nut ward.\nAnd that was the...\nIt was not very reassuring as far as my own life was concerned.\nBut AA talked their way in and brought a meeting in.\nAnd it was a speaker meeting, and I didn't connect fully, but I thought it was exciting.\nAnd if I ran into an alcoholic, I would certainly send him to these guys because they were great.\nAnd not long after that, I got a call from one of these guys.\nAnd not long after that, I was an outpatient while they were going to give me new orders\nso I could go home at night and weekends.\nAnd when I did, after about three weekends, I just decided to have a beer, and then the\nbeer led to this and that.\nAnd now I've got a quart of vodka in the parking lot at the nut ward, and I know they're looking\nat me.\nI know they're going to nail me because they told me if I had another drink, I'd lose my\ncareer.\nAnd so I decided to call them.\nAnd they said, what's your name?\nAnd I said, well, I'm going to call AA on my own.\nAnd on Pearl Harbor Day of 1964, I made the phone call.\nIt got forwarded to somebody at their home, and they got the only other Marine down in\nQuantico who was in AA, another captain, and he came to my house, and he's my sponsor to\nthis day.\nI've had the same sponsor for almost 42 years.\nAnd he knocked on the door.\nI went there.\nIt seemed like he filled the door frame.\nHe was a big infantry guy.\nHis specialty was explosive ordnance disposal.\nAnd he used to say it was the perfect job for an alcoholic because nobody's looking\nover your shoulder while you're working.\nAnd so he came in, and I was, you know, I had got some alcohol to stay down between\nthe time I called.\nAnd he got there, and I didn't really want AA anymore.\nBut he wasn't having any of that, and it was get in the car, we're going to the Manassas\ngroup.\nAnd that was my first meeting.\nAnd it was a group anniversary.\nThey had a massive food spread, turkey and ham and baked beans and all this stuff, which\nI couldn't even go near.\nYou know, now I'm sober five hours.\n.\n.\nAnd it's a group anniversary, and it was followed by a square dance with fiddles.\nThey had their country fiddler champions out there, members of AA.\nAnd they're playing the fiddles, and this thing's going on until around 11 at night.\n.\nAnd now I'm sober nine hours, which is.\nAnd I was trying to make a break for it.\n.\n.\nI kept going out on the porch of this old wooden building.\n.\n. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\nand it was December 7th so it was cold it was rainy and there was no street lights it was in\na remote part and I was trying to run away but I didn't know where to run and this hand came on my\nshoulder and it turned out it was an Al-Anon lady who named Betsy Lynch God bless her and she and\nher husband were at the meeting and she saw how troubled I was and she just put her hand on my\nshoulder and I turned around it was like there was an angel there and she said it's going to be\nall right and I felt it in my heart I just went back in that woman she just said it's going to be\nall right and there was something about her eyes and I just went back in and sat down now I didn't\nI felt terrible but I I believed her that it was going to be all right and I haven't had a drink\nsince and it's just wonderful\nnow life doesn't go the way you want it to I went to a meeting every night for two years I really did\nwell at this new job that I had which was a pretty good one it was with a team of senior officers that\nwent around the country and the world putting on a presentation about the future of the Marine Corps\nit was like an eight-hour show traveled overseas it was a pretty good job and the colonel and the\ngeneral were giving me good high fitness reports\nand it came time for my sponsor and I to be eligible to be promoted to major now you only get two shots at it and then you're out\nand neither one of us made it the first year\nso now the second year I'm trying even harder I'm just working hard because\nyour career is over if you don't make it and the following year he made it and I didn't\nand I don't know why\nbut I thought that that was unfair\nI thought that that was unfair\nI thought that that was unfair\nI thought that that was unfair\nI thought that that was unfair\nI don't know you know you some of us are just weak but I thought having gone to a meeting every night for two years did everything that I was asked that prayed to this new loving God spoke at meetings made coffee did everything they asked and what did I get my family of eight is now thrown out in the streets that's what this new loving God did and so I had a high class resentment\nAnd I learned early on that if you want to keep a resentment don't tell anybody about it just sit home and cook it up\nAnd I learned early on that if you want to keep a resentment don't tell anybody about it just sit home and cook it up\nAnd I learned early on that if you want to keep a resentment don't tell anybody about it just sit home and cook it up\nAnd I learned early on that if you want to keep a resentment don't tell anybody about it just sit home and cook it up\nAnd I learned early on that if you want to keep a resentment don't tell anybody about it just sit home and cook it up\nAnd kept reviewing it in your head ooooh faaur is a mingler through that one more time\nAnd kept reviewing it in your head ooooh faaur is a mingler through that one more time\nAnd kept reviewing it in your head ooooh faaur is a mingler through that one more time\ngiven this dastardly event.\nI read a little story in the Washington Post,\nand it's one paragraph.\nMarine Corps instruction team from Quantico, Virginia,\nkilled in plane crash going to Denver\nto put on one of those shows.\nAnd if I had had my way,\nand it turned out the way it should have,\nI would have been on the plane.\nAnd so I remember going,\nwow, wow, that changes it.\nI remember just kind of saying that.\nAnd then I remembered that God was watching me read that.\nAnd, of course, I felt like, where can I hide?\nAnd you can't hide from God, you know.\nSo I'm ducking around.\nWell, if you just told me that was going to happen,\nI wouldn't have been so upset.\nAnyway, I went on from there to several jobs.\nI was trying selling, and I was broke.\nI hate to tell some of you new people this,\nbut we were broke probably up until I had 15 years in the program.\nSo if you want to talk to me about money problems,\nyou better have at least 16 years.\nUp until then, I won't have any sympathy for you.\nBut, you know, it was fun.\nIt was right on the edge, you know what I mean.\nThe car battery died, so you've got to wait three days for payday\nso that you can go get a new battery.\nAnd that type of stuff.\nAnd the electricity off for one day, back on.\nAnd you're sponsoring new people, telling them,\nif you want what I have.\nI'm amazed any of them stuck around, you know what I mean.\nAnd eventually I got, you know, through a Marine Corps,\na connection, oddly enough.\nI got an interview with a small government agency\nthat regulated credit unions in this country.\nAnd it was headed at the time by a retired Marine general,\nand this general counsel was a Marine colonel, retired,\nand they were looking for a congressional liaison,\nsomebody to be an expert on credit unions and an expert on Congress.\nNeither of which I am, but I got the interview.\nSo I'm talking to this guy and telling him,\noh, yeah, you know, Marine officers, we can do anything.\nI could learn this job in a month, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.\nAnd at the end of the interview, he said,\nby the way, why did you leave the Marine Corps?\nAnd I went, oh, man.\nAnd I said, I got thrown out for drinking.\nI drank so much, I ruined everything, and I just was thrown out.\nAnd I've been in AA for ten years,\nand it's the most wonderful thing.\nIt just transforms you, and I know I can do this job.\nAnd he said, okay, we'll let you know.\nAnd about two months later, the personnel officer calls me up and said,\nyou want the job?\nAnd I got it, and it involved writing and speeches and testimony.\nIt turned out I was great at it.\nAnd I had a 23-year career with those people,\nten with the government agency and ten with the trade association.\nAnd it was just wonderful.\nBut after I'd been there about two years,\nI became very close friends with that general counsel,\nthe retired Marine colonel.\nAnd I was down at his house one time, and he said,\ndid you ever wonder why I hired you?\nYou didn't know anything about Congress or credit unions,\nexcept you had a loan.\nAnd I said, yes, sir, to tell you the truth, I really did.\nHe said, I just wondered what it would be like\nto work with someone that honest.\nNow, isn't that amazing?\nAnd so I just, if you're on a job interview,\nI'm not telling you what to do, but I'll tell you what happened to me.\nI just said, I was thrown out for drinking.\nAnd I think he just went, jeez.\nHe's obviously not making that story up.\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nSo anyway, off I go on, you know, so that,\nand then I retired about 10 years ago, went down to Tampa, Florida.\nAnd it's just wonderful to sponsor lots of guys and go to conferences and meetings.\nAnd it's really a great life, and I'm most grateful for it.\nWhat happens to us to make it so great?\nNow, let's not, you know, mince any words.\nThe only thing that makes it great is God.\nThere's no, there's no non-God way of doing this thing.\nI mean, there just isn't.\nAnd of course, when we're new, we just don't like to hear that.\nSo I'll try to share with you how my sponsor led this former Catholic,\nif not an atheist, certainly an agnostic.\nI did not want to hear any of this stuff.\nYou know what I mean?\nI'll go to the meetings, I'll make the coffee, but don't start talking all that other stuff.\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nLaughter\nAnd so he's leading me along, and I think eventually I did say the Lord's Prayer\nafter about two years.\nAll right, I'll say it, you know, just to make everybody else feel comfortable.\nBut I was having a very hard time understanding the AA God\nand how, what it was all about, because nobody seemed to know.\nYou know what I mean?\nThere wasn't anybody explaining it.\nIt seemed like,\nyou might have one, and somebody over there had a different one, and this guy had one.\nAnd it was very confusing about how you got spiritual in Alcoholics Anonymous.\nAnd so he had two things that he did to me.\nSo if you're new, I'll just do these and see if they help you tonight.\nI think I had about two and a half years, and he said,\nthis is what I want to do.\nI want to sit down.\nIt's only going to take about ten minutes.\nAnd would you be willing to be brutally honest with me?\nAnd I said, sure, Bill.\nHe said, I just want to take a spiritual inventory of you\nand what's going on inside of you.\nI said, okay, fine.\nOkay, how often do you pray?\nI said, Bill, praying is stupid.\nI think it's the most ludicrous thing in the world.\nI don't pray.\nI don't pray at all.\nI have no intention of praying.\nPut me down.\nI'm going to come for a zero praying.\nHe said, okay, zero praying.\nFine.\nWe're not going to criticize you.\nThat's it.\nJust zero.\nThat's it.\nOkay.\nHow about spiritual readings?\nThey have these various books that help people understand spirituality.\nThey have New Age books.\nThey have all kinds of wonderful authors.\nThey have all kinds of good books.\nThey have all kinds of wonderful books.\nThey have all kinds of wonderful books.\nAnd I said, well, I would like to have thought about that.\nHow about that?\nBill, I don't even go near that section in the bookstore.\nI don't want anything to do with that.\nI like murders, mysteries, sports, history.\nSpiritual reading, out.\nOut.\nOkay.\nWe'll put down zero.\nHow about meditation?\nDo you ever sit back and just contemplate the universe and all of them?\nI said, no, Bill.\nI don't do that.\nThat's just like a Ouija board.\nI mean, this is ridiculous.\nI've never done that.\nI don't know.\nI said, no, Bill, I don't do that.\nThat's just like a Ouija board.\nuniverse and all of them. I said, no, Phil, I don't do that. That's just like a Ouija board. I mean,\nthis is ridiculous. No, I don't do that. Or, well, how often do you go to church? I don't go to\nchurch. I went when I was a little kid. It's the most stupid thing in the world. I don't even,\nI don't visit cathedrals when I go to England. So it's 400 years old. Who cares? I'm not going in\nthere. No, I don't want anything to do with churches. So he said, so we can zero, zero,\nzero, zero. Yeah. Okay. One more question. How's it going?\nWhat does it feel like to be inside of you? I said, it's awful in here. It's awful in here.\nOkay.\nSo we're doing a little spiritual experiment. We've now run a little lab test on zero praying,\nzero meditation, zero church and zero spiritual reading. And what are we writing down? Are the\nresults of that? What we're suggesting is you try something else and see what kind of results you\nget. And then he said, let me help you with that decision. Okay. And then I thought, here comes the\npitch.\nSo when 한국국토� ostraya говорит!\nAnd I think that this idea is not real, that this\nisn't real.\nOkay.\nSo the last thing about the chapter I'm going to Record now is this,\nThe's проверing any more things in the book on alcoholism.\nAnd I do to have all kinds of stories and all of that. He never talked about God yet talk about it\nall He said, Um, the way I'm going to explain spirituality to you is to explain the disease of alcoholism to you. And I'm going to go to the chapter that you will probably enjoy the most because it's called The Chapter to the agnostic to the agnostic moralizing and spiritualism.\nI said, yeah, I haven't read it, but that's my chapter.\nI know that.\nAnd I assumed, you know how you know without reading what's in there?\nAnd I knew that that's the chapter where the agnostics go,\nand they don't do the program.\nThey do whatever is in that chapter.\nAnd I didn't know that what the chapter said was,\nchange your mind, become a former agnostic.\nBut anyway, he said, now, we're all going to agree on the terms of the disease,\nand it's outlined right here,\nand I just want to make sure you agree with this assessment.\nAnd this is right out of the first paragraph.\nIf when you drink, you have little control over the amount you drink,\nthat's you.\nI said, yep, okay, yep, that's me.\nAnd if when you stop, you can't stay stopped,\nyep, that's me,\nthen you're an alcoholic.\nOh, okay.\nAnd then he reads the next sentence.\nIf that be the case, you're suffering from an illness\nthat only a spiritual experience can conquer.\nWould you like me to repeat that?\nYou have an illness that only a spiritual experience can conquer.\nAnd I went, Bill, I don't believe in spiritual experiences.\nHe said, well, you're screwed.\nHe said, well, you're screwed.\nThere's no other answer.\nAnd I'm going, what am I going to do?\nI'm going to do something that is probably the most difficult thing an alcoholic ever does.\nYou're going to change your mind.\nI remember just going, I don't think so.\nI don't think we're going to be doing that.\nSo he went on to read the next paragraph,\nwhich is a very comedy line.\nIt reminds me of Jack Benny.\nAnd it's,\nIt simply says,\nHere's where you are, Sandy.\nHere's where you are if you're new.\nTo be doomed an alcoholic death\nor to live on a spiritual basis\nare not easy alternatives to face.\nSo I said, yeah, you're right.\nI remember just going, let's see.\nSo if you're new,\nI just developed this little comedy routine.\nThe way we'll take care of this is\nyou will imagine,\nimagine that it's a quiz program.\nAnd you're up on stage and I'm the emcee.\nAnd I'm going, Larry, come on up.\nCome on up.\nSee these two doors back here, Larry?\nYeah.\nWhat's the first one say?\nDie an alcoholic death.\nI don't know.\nLarry, that's door number one.\nWhat's this other one say?\nLive on a spiritual basis.\nOkay, Larry, that's door number two.\nThat's door number two.\nLarry, circumstances have placed you\nso that you have to choose\none of those doors.\nSo which one are you going to choose, Larry?\nAnd Larry, if you're like all the rest of us,\nyou go like this.\nWhoa.\nWhoa.\nOh.\nOh.\nTwo crappy choices.\nOh.\nOh.\nDo I get a phone call?\nYes, you get a phone call.\nHello.\nDr. Seymour.\nYeah, it's Larry.\nYeah, hi.\nHow you doing?\nListen, I got a hypothetical question.\nHow bad is an alcoholic death?\nOh.\nOh.\nOh.\nOh.\nOh.\nOh.\nOkay.\nDoor number two.\nAnd then we say,\ncongratulations, Larry,\nyou just became spiritual.\nAnd you did.\nYou did.\nYou decided that circumstances\nhave forced you into making a choice\nthat you never would have made\nand that you don't believe in.\nThere's no way you can believe\nin the steps ahead of time.\nI mean, I remember when my sponsor told me\nthat everything you need\nwas in these steps.\nAnd I had all these problems, you know,\nwhen you're new and all these family\nand all the pressure and this and that.\nEverything is there.\nNow I'm serious.\nSo I'm, you know, I'm okay.\nI'm in.\nI'm in.\nI'm going home.\nI'm going to finally read these stuff.\nAnd I'm reading and reading and reading.\nAnd, you know, and you're foggy.\nAnd it's hard to get it clear anyway.\nAnd I'm back and I'm back.\nAnd finally I said, Bill, Bill,\nwhich one is the money step?\nBecause that was it.\nI mean, the thing I needed was money.\nAnd he said,\nno, there's no money step.\nI said, well, what is there?\nHe said, you're going to have to take them\nto find out.\nThey only become visible\nafter you do them.\nAnd so we all end up taking actions\nthat we do not believe in\nbecause there's nothing else to do.\nYou can procrastinate.\nYou can try your own way.\nYou can do whatever you want.\nBut eventually it becomes so uncomfortable\non the inside,\nthat we take these actions\nand then our job\nis to simply report back\nin the experiment\nwhere the four zeros gave these results.\nNow, what are these 12 steps?\nWhat kind of results are you getting?\nAnd as you all know,\nyou just suddenly find\nyou're a little more comfortable.\nYou find your family is straightening out,\nmuch to your surprise.\nYou're finding all kinds of things\nthat are going on.\nAnd eventually we have\na magic moment.\nWhich is at the end of the promises\nwhere it says we suddenly realize\nthat God is doing for us\nwhat we could not do for ourselves.\nAnd that, of course,\nis a spiritual awakening.\nThat's what an awakening is,\nan awareness,\na personal awareness.\nNot the awareness that you saw\nsomebody else transform,\nbut that you can now say\nthat you have experienced\nthe closeness of your own creator\nin a very special way\nand it's a very special way\nand it is your experience.\nAnd it's that experience\nthat is the counter to the four zeros.\nWhat results from the four zeros\nand what are the results from the steps?\nAnd there it is.\nIt happens in your own spiritual lab,\ninside your own head and your soul\nand you suddenly realize\nit's not a theory, it's real.\nAnd it happens.\nAnd now we're on our way\nand we move along the spiritual path\nand we're on our way to God.\nAnd Chuck Chamberlain\nhas that wonderful book,\nThe New Pair of Glasses.\nAnd he's long passed away,\nbut his retreat that he did\nwas typed up\nand that's what that book is about.\nAnd that's what he said spirituality is.\nIt is like being given\na new pair of glasses.\nAnd when you put them on,\nthe world is unbelievably different\nand you're different.\nThe whole energy,\nis reversed,\nlike in the prayer of Saint Francis.\nInstead of needing,\nwe want to give.\nAnd that was the problem all along.\nWe didn't need anything.\nWe needed to allow all of our love out\nand it's better to understand\nand just reverse the energy flow.\nAnd this happens.\nBut here's the problem.\nAnd I'm gonna close with this\nbecause we're running out of time.\nSomewhere around, maybe two years,\nsomewhere's in there.\nSomething significant.\nIt could happen sooner,\nit could happen later,\nbut this happens.\nAnd it would be almost like\non your second anniversary,\nyou come up and in addition to the medallion,\nyou get these glasses.\nAnd we go, Mary, from now on,\nput these on and tell us\nwhat the world looks like.\nSo you take off the old glasses,\nwhich we call the life sucks glasses.\nAnd we put these on.\nAnd it's unbelievable\nhow wonderful it is.\nAnd here comes the hard part.\nAnd we say, Mary, we have a suggestion.\nWe suggest you throw away those old glasses.\nJust get rid of them.\nGuess who's wearing them again, about a month later?\nPut off the new pair of glasses\nand picked up those old ones\nand put them back on.\nAnd everything looks best.\nbad again. And this seems to be the dilemma of spirituality, is that we are struggling\nagainst our ego and our heart on which pair of glasses to put on. And if we didn't have\nthe fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, all of us would have put on the old glasses and\nwandered off into the desert, never to be heard from again. When Carl Jung wrote back\nto Bill Wilson, when Bill wrote him to thank him for helping to start AA, then Dr. Jung\nwrote him back and said, oh, I'm so glad to hear about Alcoholics Anonymous. I always\nthought that the alcoholics were thirsting after God and that the only answer for them\nwas God. So I'm so glad this all worked out. Then in the next paragraph,\nis the fascinating observation by this man who studied human beings and was very spiritual\nhimself. And he studied human beings for a long, long time. And this is what he said.\nHe said, every human being has to contend with the power of evil. We would call it character\ndefects. And evil always wins. That's not a very encouraging sentence, is it? And then\nhe said, with one experience.\nThere's no exception. A person who has had a spiritual awakening and is in a society\nthat enables that person to maintain that spiritual awakening. So I submit to you that\nyou and I have been given much more than we realize. We've been given the keys to the\nkingdom and the society to help us. And we've been given the keys to the kingdom and the\nsociety to help us maintain it. This, on the one hand, we have to do the work ourselves.\nBut on the other hand, it's a we program. So we must always feel that we're part of\nsomething rather than trying to be something. And that's the great joy of AA is to just\nbe one more drunk, putting the meeting together, putting the conference together, and reaping\nthe rewards that very few people see. Thank you all very much.\nAny questions for our panel?\nThank you.\n