Sandy B. on We Agnostics and the Need to Change Your Mind

Good morning, everybody. My name is Sandy Beach and I'm an alcoholic. Excuse me. It's a pleasure to be here this morning. I'm grateful to the committee for inviting me and to see my old buddy Jerry here and Dick and Peggy and Tom and Francie, everybody I'm real happy my sobriety date is December 7th coming up this Friday 1964 and thank you applause and I've had the same sponsor for 37 years which may be a record I don't know both of us have to stay alive for that to happen so I'm very grateful for that I turned 70 this year and I suddenly went you might be getting old and so it's cause for reflection you just can't help but do that because you don't want to look forward makes sense right I was telling Dick I was at a couple conventions in Texas and the sobriety countdown I was the last one standing and I said to Dick the next thing is you die so from now on when they get to 15 years I'm raising my hand and sitting down let somebody else be the last one standing and so when I was thinking back what do I see when I look back on the years since I came in and a couple of things just stand out real powerful and one of them Don was talking about last night was I have six children and at one time they were on one side of the planet and I was on the other and there wasn't much communication and as a result of this program and God this arrangement slowly changed and one by one they all came back into my life and you know we just got close again and we just Got the way it ought to be like it's fixed like it's repaired again and now there's 14 grandchildren and they're all over the place and I'm doing real good but I still need to carry a little list around so I don't screw up the birthdays and the names and all that but it's real exciting to be part of that and then the second thing that really says it all for me is about two years ago, two and a half My parents both died one shortly after the other. They were both 93, long lives, and my sister is in AA. She's got 26 years up in Connecticut and lived right next to where we grew up. So when my mother was in her final months, my sister would call me and say, come on up, this would be a good time to visit, and then I'd go up and then come back. And finally she called me and said she's in the hospice and it looks like it could be this weekend, so why don't you come up? And so I came up, and I went over to the hospice, and my mother was on whatever they put you on, morphine or whatever, to have no pain, and she was sound asleep. My father was there, my sister, and some nurses and everything. So I went Over and I just sort of touched her, and i went, mom, mom. And she opened her eyes and smiled like you wouldn't believe. She just took a look at me and just started, just the biggest smile and just said my name. And I just told her I loved her and we just held hands for a little while and then she kind of dozed back to sleep. And I turned to walk out in the hallway and the nurse came over and said, she hasn't smiled like that since she came in here. And I'll tell you, that made me feel about as good as anything I can feel, that my mother wanted to see me that much and felt that way about me because I had broken her heart so many times. And somehow, through the power of this program, everything just gets fixed again. And for me, that's what I'm grateful for. That's why I'm so thrilled to look back on what AA has done. And I may tell a few excerpts of my story, but I really feel like talking about our program. There's a chapter that's always been my favorite. I know that Bill was inspired when he wrote Chapter 5. But I'll tell you, that chapter is We Agnostics, if you're new. I would go to that thing and read it and reread it if you're having a hard time with spirituality because it's so beautifully laid out in there. And I do remember the first time I saw that chapter, I'm not saying I read it I'm talking about I saw it because in the beginning my sponsor of course like all sponsors he was mean and big and we were both in the Marine Corps but he was tough and I was shaking and an outpatient from a nut ward. I was not in good shape, and so he came over and got me, and that started my great sobriety career, and little did I know. And at some point, he gave me a big book and told me to read it, and I figured that better because he was going to ask me questions about it. That's what I assumed. And he didn't ask any questions, so I didn't read it. But I thought he might. And so I came up with a plan, and I took the book and I took the pages and rubbed them so that it looked like I got a felt tip and I underlined and wrote wow here, and you know, little arrows and stuff. And then I even got, I think I let a cigarette burn out on the edge of one page, you know. I got up there and got a coffee cup and made coffee stains like I had just left my cup there while I was reading the big book. And in perusing that, while doing that process, I saw this chapter, The Agnostic. And without reading it, I knew that that would be my chapter. You know what I mean? I was going to be the agnostic crowd. And I knewthat the rest of the book was for the other people that wanted to work the steps and God and all that, and then me and the other agnostics would do whatever this chapter said. I mean, doesn't that make sense? If you're not going to read it, but you know when you're smart and you don't have to read It, you can just go, I got it, I know what that baby is. And someday I'll get around and take a look at that and I'll reinforce being agnostic and I'll find the other agnostics and we'll form a subgroup here in AA. So that was going through my head and then of course later on I really became a student of that chapter and you can summarize it in three words. Change your mind. That's what it says to us agnosticks. Oh, you're an agnostic? Well, try to become a former agnóstic. That's how it works. That's why it says. why should you try and become a former agnostic because if you stay an agnóstic you're going to die oh really by the way they got something against agnostics no don't have anything against agnostics it's just you have a very bizarre illness and I want to hear it described everybody's trying to describe the disease of alcoholism well there's a definition that really describes it in the chapter We Agnostics. And this may be paraphrasing, but it says something like if when you drink, you have little control over the amount you take and if when you try to stop, you can't stay stopped sound like any of us? Then you may be an alcoholic. In that case How about this? Here's the definition. You may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience can conquer. How about that for a medical definition of a disease? You're suffering from a illness that only a spiritually experienced can conquer Well, I don't believe in spiritual experiences Next. I mean, that's it. And then later on, he talks about this book. And it says the main purpose of this book is to enable you to find a power greater than yourselves which will solve your problems. So it doesn't say anything about we have this wonderful program that's going to teach you how to solve your problems. It doesn't say anything about that. It says it's going to teach you how to find a power greater than yourself that will solve your problem. And so we suddenly in that chapter go from the intellectual material world over into the spiritual world with all the principles that just seem at odds sometimes with our traditional problem solving and our intellectual approach to everything and tell me what I need to know and I'll figure it out and I'm out of here and that was me and that's what so many of us are and so I was thinking about where did this come from where did Bill Wilson ever get the insight to write something like that where did he ever get the courage to just put down there this is the definition of alcoholism a disease that only a spiritual experience can conquer I mean, we can have the definition and understand craving and understand this and that, but this tells us what the answer is. And in understanding the answer, we really get to look at what the problem was all along. And so I think to understand this, how did it ever evolve? I think God just decided that the poor drunks on this planet had suffered long enough and he was going to unleash a chain of events that would lead to this magnificent worldwide fellowship that we all belong to that is home to a couple million people who shouldn't be sober and happy, who should be out insane and out of control. And so give me about ten minutes to just share all the old-timers know these stories off the back of their hand, but for those of you that are new you may not have heard some of these and I borrow this and I will always give him credit from Ray O'Keefe my good buddy he had this wonderful way of presenting the origins of AA and I just can't prove on it so I just stole it laughter and I send him honorariums laughter and he said that probably around 1910 in Manchester, Vermont God assembled a cast of characters that were going to save our lives. As teenagers these people met and mingled in this town and the first one just about six miles away came over from East Dorset was Bill Wilson to attend the Manchester Academy and over from Albany, New York where his father was a big shot in Albany. He was the mayor, Mayor Thatcher of Albany New York and there's still a big park or something in the center of Albony called Thatcher Park or whatever it is he was actually considered to be a vice presidential candidate we're talking about high power politics and everything and you had this son named Ebby, and that Thatcher's had a summer home in Manchester. And so Ebby's hanging around there, meets Bill, and then up from Rhode Island was a millionaire's son. This family had businesses that were nationwide and very wealthy, and they also had a Summer Home in Manchester, and this was the Hazard family and their son Roland was taking over the family business and was destined to be a superstar. And then the final person was a doctor from Brooklyn who also had a summer home in Manchester, Dr. Burnham and he had this lovely daughter named Lois who was to go on and found Al-Anon and so it's just so amazing that these people met and got to know each other and then the story started to unfold and the first one was Roland whose alcoholism caught up with him so bad that he would be locked up or put himself in, he wasn't locked up he'd put himself into treatment in sanitariums and come out and get drunk again and he knew he wouldn't be able to continue running this fast business empire, and he sought help from every possible direction. He tried everything that was available to us. And someone finally suggested that he ought to go to Switzerland and see Dr. Carl Jung, that this was the last chance. This was humankind's maximum source of help So he went to Switzerland and stayed there a year trying to have this transformation take place that Dr. Young was trying to cause within him. And Dr. Yang did everything, and you know, he's an incredible technician and wrote things that are revolutionized psychiatry, including the spiritual element of human beings. And at the end of the year, he said to Roland, I've done everything I can. I think you understand the situation I wish you Godspeed, good luck and Roland left and got as far as Paris and somebody asked him the wrong question they said would you like a drink and he said yeah I sure would and of course he got roaring drunk and now he's in total despair all this magnificent treatment everything is going to be taken from him and he'll probably end up institutionalized so he comes back to Switzerland to talk to Dr. Young and Dr. Young said something that probably helped this fellowship as much as anything had helped it, I mean it helped alcoholics as much als anything he said to Roland, he looked at him and he just said there's nothing I can do for you now that's going to pull the rug out from under somebody isn't it this is it there's no higher court to go to this is all the help there is and I think that this whenever I think of Dr. Young I think from the readings that we do in chapter 5 when we get to the ABCs at the end of it and the second one says probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism and I think of Dr. Young because that's it this is all the human power that's available just said there's nothing I can do you are in a state of hopelessness which if you want to get sober is wonderful because you're ready to surrender you are at the stage of being willing which we've already heard is one of the secrets to success. And so Dr. Young said, I have heard and read about certain cases like yours where people have gone and found a spiritual transformation. And if I was you, I would try wherever you can find something like that to go see if you could have that happen to you. And Roland was willing. He was totally willing because all other options had been ruled out. And so he sought that and at that time one of the most in things on the planet was the Oxford Movement. It was everywhere, countries all around the world and especially in the United States and England and so when he came back he just gravitated towards an Oxford group which was, if you're not familiar with that it was people who were kind of fed up with the church they thought the middle man was screwing everything up and that we could leave out all of the priests and the bishops and all of that stuff and just do it ourselves we could just get spiritual by ourselves in small little groups sound familiar? so they would meet in people's homes and they would follow spiritual principles and pray and help each other and share and so on down and he got in that organization and lo and behold, he got sober and enjoyed it immensely and transformed his life and went on to become a very successful businessman. And shortly after that, the second in our little cast of characters ran up against his dead end and that was Ebi Thatcher. And Ebi had this arrangement with his family. His family finally said, Ebby, here's the deal. You know the summer home in Manchester? It's yours. Provided you never come to Albany. And so he said, alright, it's a deal. So they sent him the money to live. Oh, you just do whatever you want, but you stay there and we'll stay here. So he did and of course he got in a lot of trouble and lots of great adventures you can read in our AA history books. One day driving around in a car on a Saturday morning, lost control, went into a farmhouse, went through the living room, came to stop in the kitchen and asked the housewife for a cup of coffee. You know what I mean? So this stuff wasn't going over well in Manchester. The judge was being pressured mightily to do something about Ebi as a nuisance. And one day, Ebi... Boy, did I relate to this. One day he felt like, you know, I just haven't done anything worthwhile. My self-esteem is low. And he looked at the summer home, a great big summer home he's living in, wooden structure, and he says, I'm going to paint this thing. Yeah, yeah, you remember doing that? So boy, how do you paint? Well, you go out and you get lots of paint, brushes, ladders, and booze. He had some booze to paint. so he got back and scraped an area off put the drop cloth down got the brush out, had a few drinks painted, he got maybe 20 square feet done and man he got that done it was so beautiful you just had to sit back and look at it kind of picture the whole house painted like this little area had a couple drinks to celebrate how this house was coming along and everything's looking good some birds went by and crapped all over his paint. So he got very upset about that and went inside and got some shotguns and came out to guard his paint against the birds. So he's sitting there with his bottle and the shotguns and any bird that came anywhere near the house, pop-a-boom, you know. The neighbors are hearing all this shooting. So he is back in front of the judge and a great deal of pressure to do something with Ebi and Ebi knew the Hazard family and he knew of their reputation so he said can I make a phone call and he called and Roland Hazard came over and after a period of negotiation Roland immediately spotted what the problem was and after a period in negotiation the judge agreed to release Ebi into the custody of Roland Hazard. And he knew he wouldn't get any criticism from the community, not the Hazards. So we all know, obviously, Roland took him right to the Oxford group. And they had their local one up there and shortly they went down to New York Calvary Church and worked in there helping in soup kitchens and projects around New York and bingo, Ebi gets over working these spiritual principles and it wasn't too long after he got this newfound sobriety that he started thinking about his old drinking buddy Bill Wilson you know maybe Bill could use I don't know how he is whether he's in good shape or bad shape so I ought to call him and he made that phone call and Bill was at the bottom of the bottom going through one institution after another we're getting right near the very end he can't work he's unemployable Lois is working in a department store bringing home the only money he's stealing it to drink, and had a bottle of gin hidden, waiting for her to go to work. And Ebby calls up, and Bill's so thrilled. Oh, my old drinking buddy's coming over. Yeah, Ebby, yeah, come on over. Oh man, this is going to be great. Hey, I'm not even going to share this bottle of gin with him. I'm so happy to see him. And Ebi came and made Bill very nervous when and he saw Ebi because Ebi looked so good. You know, like, what happened, Ebi? And Ebi said, I found religion. I found religion, Bill. And Bill's going, well, don't worry, Evi, we can get over that. Come here. Sit down, I got the bottle of gin. No, no, no. You don't understand, Bill, blah, blah. And they started all this stuff about God and the Oxford Movement, and it's wonderful. and Bill hardly wait for him to leave so he can get back to drinking but he planted the seed and he planted a seed about God and Bill was having a terrible time with religion and Christianity, he couldn't believe in the divinity of anything and he was just totally at odds with what he was brought up with very confused and everything and Ebi was saying, well Bill why don't you just choose your own concept of God and that defused the ability to argue against spirituality choose your own concept pretty hard to fight against that and we still have that that's just so wonderful it opens the door to everybody choose your on concept come on in oh ok it's hard to go well no that's not acceptable I don't like my concept you know see we become willing we become open and the door was opening, even back then. And no one knew they were preparing this great feast for you and I. And so Bill finally had his last hospitalization after going to a couple of Oxford meetings, even testifying once while drinking, and had that great moment when he just said, if there is a God, let him show himself. and he had one of these rare spiritual awakenings with the bright lights and the mountaintop and the wind and the obsession and the desire to drink was totally removed. And later on, he called it his hot flash. And then he went on to go to Akron and meet Dr. Bob and start this wonderful journey. And a number of years went by and Bill realized that he never closed the loop with Dr. Young, that that was still sort of hanging out there, that Dr. young had no idea what happened as a result of Roland Hazard. So that began that wonderful exchange of letters between Bill and Dr. Young. Bill wrote to you, dear Dr. Young, I don't know if you remember Roland HazARD. He came to see you as a results of his visit. The following events happened and now we have this wonderful fellowship in 50 countries and people are getting sober, blah, blah blah. And we want to thank you because you got it all started. You put him on the path that led to all of this so we're so grateful to you. And it got there not too long before Dr. Young passed away but long enough for him to respond and these exchange in letters appear in the grapevine every so often. I'm sure most of you may have seen them but basically Dr. Jung said oh no I didn't know what happened to Mr. Hazard. I am so glad to hear all this good news. Back when I was treating him, it was so early in psychotherapy that if I mentioned spirituality, my colleagues would have laughed me out of the profession. Psychiatrists couldn't talk about spirituality. But I was trying, through our techniques, to cause a spiritual personality transformation in Mr. Hazard. Now, of course, it's safe for me to talk about it and other psychiatrists, and now you see the psychiatric world and the medical world does talk about spirituality. And I'm so glad that this has happened because as I looked at his problem, and again we're getting back to the chapter 3 of Gnostic, as I look at his problems and I'm paraphrasing here, but what he was saying was that his basic problem was he missed what was missing in his life was contact with a higher power and it was causing him great pain and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous just look as we get to the end sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him and when that happens our alcohol problem is solved until that happens it's not solved and this was sort of the origins of this approach to sobriety and when I look at this in my own life now that I know this now I can go back and paint my story with a different brush and I can look at it and I think and I go my god I had Don was talking about it last night. I felt like I was on the wrong planet. You know what I mean? There's something missing in me. There's nothing wrong. I can feel it. I can heal it. So maybe us alcoholics just miss God more than other people. Only we don't know that that's the problem. We just know that there's something missing in our lives and I feel uncomfortable and I think I'm going to die. And I feel different. And since spirituality would be the last thing we think about, then we go, it must be money. I gotta get some damn money I mean we're all looking for money when I was reading those steps I was looking for that money step just a $2,000 loan and I'll have spiritual peace of mind because that's what it looked like and then maybe sex I'm not getting enough sex just get more women this will go away I won't have this whatever it is It makes me feel not at ease with myself and different. And I'm just uncomfortable all the time. And so my problem only occurred when I was sober. It's very important to understand that if you're new. Alcoholism, the part that bothers us, the partthat really makes life unacceptable, only happens when we're sober. all the time I'm sober I don't like it can't stand being sober so somebody says to me, why don't you don't drink I go, are you kidding do you know what happens when you don's drink you're sober all the times in the morning, at night you look forward you're just more sober as far as you can see I'm going to feel like this forever Yeah, isn't that great? No. I can't stand being sober. Bartender, come over here, I'm sober again. Help, help, help. So then I poured the alcohol in and now that I look back on it my drinking as opposed to my roommate who's not an alcoholic my drinking was a spiritual experience. It really was. It transformed the world that I lived in. three drinks and you all were wonderful you were no longer threatening you wanted to know me I could see it in your eyes before I drank you disliked me I could say I could not see it in your eye three drinks later you're all going hi, hi, God we'd give anything to know you and I went man, I love this world 20 minutes ago I hated the world now I love it I love all the people in it. I'm just overpowered by the beauty of God's creatures. I mean, it was just what a transformation. And then I'd have eight more drinks and now I'm mean. But that initial transformation was very spiritual and alcohol became a literal higher power. I had total faith in it It was the solution to everything, just like the program. We have one solution for all problems, God. Before I got to AA, I had one solution for all problem, vodka, vodka. I never remember saying to myself, uh-oh, a problem. Well, I won't be drinking over this. I'm going to just tackle this sober well I couldn't do that because I didn't know how to tackle anything sober, I was too afraid I was so confused, I didn' t know what to do I wasn' t in touch with myself I was blocked from the real me all my talent was sealed by fear I couldn' t get at it, I couldn'T get in to get my brain come on, come on brain, go, go sorry man, we're stuck frozen with fear or frozen with resentment or frozen with something it was locked and I knew that alcohol would free the creativity and would give me the courage to just oh yeah I can come up with answers so maybe I'll get a summons or a warrant or something in the mail as official you know from some judge oh god what do you do with this I don't know but I will shortly went out to the kitchen dot, dot, one dot, two dot, three okay, what do you do with a worm? Worm. Ooh, tear it up. Boo! Remember that? Don't even worry about this thing. I had the power I had the power to make a decision. I wasn't smarter. It wasn't it wasn't that I had the power to live my life and to be equal to you and to make decisions and to pronouncements and to talk. That's why you can't shut up drunks when they have a few drinks. Get on the phone. I want you all to hear me talking. I do know how to talk, blah, blah, bla, blah. Because when we're sober it's just... So alcohol was something that I had faith in it was something I was willing to go to any length for I would go to any length in order to be drinking would you sell your soul? Yes your family? Yes your health? Yes is there anything that you want to sell? Nothing I'm willing to go to any lengths, you can have all of me as long as I have access to booze that's the deal that I made with booze and I never knew it I thought I was just having a drink with the boys. But it became me. That was it. And so I went on, and I'm not going into my whole story. I just went on. I graduated from college. I went in the Marine Corps, became a fighter pilot, got married, six kids, and then crashed and burned in the nut ward and locked up for six months. And AA came in and got me my sponsor and gotme off to the meetings. And I began this process of staying incredibly uncomfortable while not drinking, because all I had was physical sobriety. That's why that first six months or year or whatever, because I wasn't into the steps. You don't have to stay uncomfortable that long, but I was just not drinking. and when you just not drink there you are you have all that pain all of that feeling of inadequacy and anxiety and no fixes so thank God for the meetings where I could go and laugh and do all these things but eventually I had to face up to the fact that I really hadn't changed that much and I heard a speaker say one time that sobriety is when there's nothing for alcohol to fix and when there's nothing for alcohol to fix it's real easy to stay sober because we don't need anything and it seemed beyond my wildest dreams that that could happen and they said well why would that be on your wildest dreams? You see I was thinking of doing it myself I was trying to imagine how I could get that comfortable how could I ever get that uncomfortable and they say you can't, you can not get that comfortable, you cannot do any of these things you have to find a God a power greater than yourself and the power will do all this and so I just started in on this path I had to take your word for it I studied those steps when I finally decided that spirituality is it, I'm going down this road I am going down This Road and of course it was my ego that was going down My ego was going, yeah pal, let's go get spiritual and we might involve God or we might not but we're going to get spiritual because I knew if you involved God too much he would get all the credit you know what I'm saying and my ego doesn't like that my ego can't stand God and of course ego is who I am I mean I was my character defects You know, that's like, who are you? And we just list all these things that control our lives. And I thought the only way to solve the problem of character defects bothering us, the instinctual drives of lust and greed and envy and sloth, yes, Jerry, thank you, was to control the situation, get more sex, get More Money, get a bigger job, get promoted then this would take care of those but I didn't understand that instinctual drives are infinite you can get a million dollars and suddenly inside it says you need two then I'll let you alone you get two actually it's four and you get a big yacht and some guy drives by with a bigger yacht so you know this ability to want demand just keeps multiplying and you try to keep up with it and that was the only way I saw you could possibly win and have peace of mind was to get that stuff and shut this stuff up and we look in our literature and it says well there's a flip side to that we could reduce the demand spiritually we could reduce them down so that they're right size supplying you with the required energy to operate as a human being but not dominating and controlling your life. And this will take a power to reduce them. And I'm going, okay, I think I can understand that. And then I thought about the fact that the only problem that human beings ever have, and it comes in many forms. It comes in financial, sexual, power, it all comes in all kinds of different forms, but there's just one problem. That is not getting your way. That's our problem. Things aren't going the way I think they ought to go. And again, the only way to fix that, control everything. And then I come into the program and they said, how about this one, baby? Don't have a way. Don't ever wait at all. Don't Have a Way. And you know the 12 in 12? I'll be the hole in the donut. Who will I be if I don't have a way? You see what I'm saying? I have my way that everything ought to be. No, don't add that. Well, what'll happen? Why don't you try and get in touch with God's way and use your intuition? Go to the higher level above intellectual. See, intellectual, you may be the smartest guy or gal in the world, but there's a level above that where we can live in much more happiness and have greater things come to pass in our lives. Back when you first got here, would you have ever dreamed somebody said, well, you can have anything you want. Give me your wish list. Write it down. Give me a wish list and would at the top of your list be go to an AA meeting? Way ahead of yacht? No. We would have wished for all the things that wouldn't have worked because we didn't even know about the things that really are important. And so this was a major transformation, was to go, you know, I've got to stop dreaming up what I want. I've Got to put that aside. I want to turn my life and my will over to something that's superior to my ability to figure out what will make me happy. If I want the best deal I can have in my life, I've GOT TO STOP planning it and trying to get it. I have to give up. And as a Marine, that sounded ridiculous. Okay, here's what you do. Surrender. Get the white flag out. I give up, I give u, I giv u. I'm a wimp, I gi v. It was so contrary to every bone in my body. And yet, it's the ticket to everything. It's the ticker to everything Every time I have a problem, I just have to let it go. You know, there was that, I can't remember the words, but that John Lennon song about watching the wheels go around. People asking questions, lost in confusion. I tell them there's no problem, only solutions. I get tired of watching the wheel go around, I finally had to let it go. How about that? There's no problems, only solution. There are no problems. I'm the only guy who makes up the problem. I decide that when God had the weather be bad, that I didn't like it. And my not liking it caused me the problem. Every problem I have is failure to accept and being willful. See, I work my spiritual program, and I go to meetings, and I goes to bed at night, and I say my prayers, and then during the night, willfulness sneaks in. While I'm asleep, it just comes over. and it gets inside and I wake up like I'm terrified, what's wrong I hate the world, I'm not going out I'm going to stay under the covers and I'm like where did this come from what the hell is this this is my old personality trying to get back in the act it's just coming on stage you know when nobody's looking it's time for the hook sorry pal I'm gonna say a prayer okay I'm outta here but sometimes I'll stay in bed you know, I think I'm the old guy and I'll be like, oh my god oh my God, oh finally I get up good morning God can you get that guy out of here is he going to be coming back all the time yeah But all you've got to do is pray. Call me in any time. Just call me in. Okay, God, I'll call you in. How many times do we go three days without calling anybody in? I'm going to handle this myself. I'm tired of getting God involved in everything. This problem requires my creative ability. I haven't been pissed off in years and I want to feel that and you know what happens after that let's see, I've got to make an amend to her so we fail big deal we catch it sooner we catch it sooner and we get down last five minutes to what I think the heart of the program I've always found the heart of the explanation in the chapter of the agnostic best description of what is going on what the deal is and then I like the tenth step in the twelve and twelve that spiritual axiom if something disturbs us no matter what the cause there's something wrong with us ooh with us Like always? Yeah, it's always something wrong with you. Well, you mean that nobody else screws up? No, no. It's always you. Well, what's wrong with me? You're disturbed. What's wrong? And if you're disturbed, you should not be allowed to move until you get undisturbed. So it's almost like, disturb, stop, time out. Honest analysis of what's wrong. You know, the four steps right there in the 12 and 12. Honest analogy. Self-restraint first. I'm sorry. Self- restraint. Don't make a move. Don't quit your job just because he didn't like your memo. Self- restraint is a gift. You pray for it. You have a 10-second cushion between you and the world. That's all you need. They say rotten things. Then we have an honest analysis, all right, we talked about it, we called our sponsor, and we came to the conclusion the boss was totally unreasonable, out of line, and off the wall. What do I do to get undisturbed? Forgive him. What? What? Okay, do you want to win or be undisturd? I gotta think about that do I want to win or be undisturbed and then Bill writes this sentence you'll find it all throughout the book we're especially stupid in this area why are you even having that debate do I wanna win do I punch him or have serenity and then if we decide the fault lies with us we make amends. Immediately, promptly admit it. Boss, it was a terrible memo. I'll redo it. And I come back to being undisturbed. You go through a day undisturbed and something magic happens. And run if you're new make next Thursday undisturd day. Don't try to do anything else except stay undisturned. Allow everyone to be wrong ahead of time. That's fine. I go in, I go to get my coffee They screw it up Hey, great coffee Thank you I get in traffic All the jerks are driving Hi jerk, hi jerk It's a free day Drive any way you want Fine, fine I'm just into being undisturbed today I'll get you tomorrow Today I'm undisturd No, no You burned the food They did that The bank screwed up the thing Good job bank Glad you got off my records what do I care if my records are all screwed up I'm undisturbed today I'm going through and we're involving God and we get through the day and we look and we go holy cow that's unbelievable it's really possible I work this program I can have days like that when you have a day like that where you involve God just try to do his will try to bring an undisturb person in all your affairs That's the practice and the principles. Bring an undisturbed, loving person in all your affairs. When you leave the dry cleaning place, have the person who waited on you happier than before you came in. That's about as good as you can get. You can't get higher than that. You can'T go beyond that. Have the person in the checkout line be glad they waited on you. That's all right, your cash register. Don't worry about it. Relax. Jeez, you'll get it fixed. Da-da-da. and just see the effect you can have on everybody that you meet during the day. And when we do that, instead of our old habit of bringing out the worst in people, which was our old specialty, and at the end of the day we said, I can't stand all these people. Little did we know that they were very nice until we came along. So we have a day of bringing up the best in people. and we come home at night and we just go, man, it was great out there today. Everywhere I went people were smiling. Everywhere I meant they were saying hi. I mean, God, what's going on? What's going? What's not going on God's going You're just out doing God's work. That was your job. It's our job every day. Just bring joy wherever we're going. Well, we have to do more than that. We have to also take care of ourselves. Oh no! Didn't we tell you that's not your job anymore? That's God's job. God will take care of you. You just do his work. Ooh, I don't know about that. I think I better keep a 50 grand in my pocket and then I'll let God take care of me. Are you going to turn it over or not? It's a great leap but it works. There was a little church that I go to right before meditation they have this little thing they sing I don' t know how to sing but it's just two or three sentences Every time they do it, I think about AA. It's something like, surely the presence of the Lord is in this place. I can feel his mighty power and his grace. I hear the brush of angel wings. I see glory on each face. Surely the presence of the lord is in his place. God bless us all. Thank you very much. Thank you.