Sandy B. Spiritual Life Is Not A Theory

Good morning everybody, my name is Sandy Beach and I'm an alcoholic.
i asked lee to set it up this way because i can stand for 45 minutes but i couldn't stand all
morning i can tell you that so if you want to change seats and come over here or whatever
be my guest um let's see my sobriety date is december 7th 1964 and my home group is the
saturday night fever group in tampa florida and it's a great group just like your group is
let me tell you what
I have semi in mind
because I never have anything really in mind
when I start these things
but thinking about it last night
what I'm going to do is just give two talks
just like you're attending an AA talk
this is not a workshop or anything like that
there's going to be a lot of thoughts that I have
about spirituality and AA
and of course these are my own personal opinion
if I say anything that
is something that your sponsor would disagree with
then listen to your sponsor
I mean this is just my experience
with spirituality and Alcoholics Anonymous
and our 12 steps
and so what I plan on doing is do two sessions
and we'll take about an hour and 15 minutes
something like that and then it won't run into the afternoon
and we'll be through by lunch
and we'll take a 15 minute break in between
and get our juices churning again
it's awful hard to sit that long
so that's what I have in mind
and the starting point that I was going to take was
I don't know why, oh no I know what I want to do before I start that
I didn't get to finish my story with Larry last night
everybody has a Franklin Williams story
and I wanted to share mine
the first time I met Franklin
that Larry was talking about Franklin from Olive Branch
Mississippi last night what a great guy
so anyway I was invited to talk
this was probably 25 years ago I was talking in
Hot Springs Arkansas at some round up there
and Franklin was
introducing me. So we got to meet each other and he seemed very nice at the time. And they had a
meeting that was called the leaders speak. So each person that was introducing the speakers for the
weekend were on this panel and there was five of them and they each talked for 10 minutes. So they
each gave a 10 minute talk. So I attended that and I think Franklin was the third speaker and he gave
a nice little 10 minute pitch about his life and AA and then he sat down and then the other two
speakers finished and no sooner had they and I was sitting out here about three rows back and no
sooner had they finished that he jumped up and he started talking to me and he started yelling
Sandy I'm so sorry don't leave I want to apologize to you I'm so sorry I'm so sorry and of course
everybody is listening to this and wondering what is going on
and he comes down and he said
I don't know how that happened
I just feel awful
he said I was up there talking and I could see that everything I was saying
was going right over your head
and I just want to
and I just want to apologize
and that was
the beginning of a great friendship
I just thought that was brilliant
anyway
this is what I was thinking about last night
I was thinking about
the fact that we talk about alcoholism
being a three-fold disease
mental, physical, and spiritual
and sometimes when you say that
you almost get the same mental picture
of that as you do
when you talk about
unity, service, and
recovery. And you sort
of see a three-legged stool
that holds AA together.
You know what I'm talking about? They're all
equal. Unity, service,
and recovery.
But if you apply that same analogy
to
alcoholism and
the program of Alcoholics Anonymous
and you think you've got a three-legged stool
of mental
physical, and spiritual, I believe that we have
totally the wrong picture. Because I think
that all we have is a one-legged stool. And it's
spiritual. And
mental and physical, that's
nice, but that won't keep us sober.
When we look at, in the tenth
step, I was going to read a few things that sort of lead into this.
Let me just start with
we agnostics, because this describes
the illness and what I think the whole point of the steps is.
So if you're new, and let me say this to the new person, if you're new,
this is why I'm doing this,
these talks
is that I hope that if there's someone new here
that as a result of these talks
one of you decides to take the action
to get closer to your God
that would be my dream
that if that were to happen
because that's the most important thing that any of us can do
and I really think that's what the whole AA program is
And so when we try to look at this disease that we call mental, physical, and spiritual,
let's look at some of the stuff out of our big book.
And one of my favorite chapters is the chapter of the agnostic,
because I think we're all agnostics when we get in here.
And this is how it describes the disease in there.
Okay? It's a bizarre disease. It really is.
It said, if when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely,
or if when drinking
you have little control
over the amount you take
you're probably an alcoholic.
Now what does that mean?
If that be the case
you may be suffering from an illness
which only a spiritual experience
will conquer.
What kind of an illness can that be?
The only thing
that can do anything about this illness
is a spiritual experience.
That's it.
That's the only thing.
Then later on he goes
if a mere code of morals
or a better philosophy of life were sufficient
to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered
long ago. But we found that such
codes and philosophies did not save us no matter how much we
tried. We could not wish to be moral. We could not wish
we could wish to be philosophically
comforted. In fact, we could will these things with all our
might, but the needed power wasn't there.
Our human resources, as marshaled by the will,
were not sufficient. They failed utterly.
Lack of power, that was our dilemma.
We had to find a power by which we could live.
And it had to be a power greater than ourselves, obviously.
But where and how were we to find this power?
Well, that's exactly what this book is about.
Its main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself,
which will solve your problem.
That's it.
In other words, what is the point of the whole program?
What is this book for?
It's to enable me to find a power greater than myself that can solve my problem.
And then, of course, we read this at every meeting.
Our description of the alcohol, the chapter of the agnostic,
and our personal adventures before and after make clear what?
Three pertinent ideas.
That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.
that probably no human power
could have relieved our alcoholism
that God could and would
provided he was sought.
So there it is.
We have a disease
that only a spiritual experience
can conquer.
What a disease.
Medical people must be going crazy.
I don't think we'd ever see that
in a medical journal.
Alcoholism, a disease
only conquered by a spiritual experience.
I mean, there's just everything being discovered about alcoholism.
And it's knowledge, knowledge, knowledge.
But it doesn't say anything in here about lack of knowledge.
That was our dilemma.
You know what I'm saying?
It says lack of power.
That was our dilemma.
God could and would if he were sought.
And then the last thing I wanted to read was in our tenth step.
and we've ceased fighting anything or anyone,
even alcohol,
for by this time sanity will have returned.
We seldom will be interested in liquor.
If tempted, we recoil from it as a hot flame.
We react sanely and normally,
and we will find that this has happened automatically.
This has happened automatically.
We didn't figure it out.
We didn't learn anything.
It just happened automatically.
We will see our new attitude towards liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part.
It just comes.
That's the miracle of it.
We're not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation.
We feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected.
We have not even sworn off.
Instead, the problem has been removed.
It does not exist for us.
We are neither cocky nor are we afraid.
That is our experience.
That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
It's easy to let up on our spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels.
We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.
We are not cured of alcoholism.
what we really have is a daily reprieve
contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.
Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will
into all our activities.
How can I best serve thee?
Thy will, not mine, be done.
These are thoughts which must go with us constantly.
Those are wonderful words
to try and understand what this disease is.
the problem doesn't exist for us
it's been removed
we're in a position of neutrality
what we have is a daily reprieve
contingent on our spiritual condition
what I think sobriety
spiritual sobriety really looks like is
this is what it looks like
there's nothing for alcohol to fix
there's nothing for alcohol to fix
so it's real easy to stay sober
when there's nothing for alcohol to fix
you know what I'm saying
we always have all these reasons for drinking
but as we look at this
in a spiritual condition
there wouldn't be any reasons
the problem wouldn't exist
we just wouldn't be thinking about it
any more than I think about
well I think I'll take a hammer
and drive a spike through my nose
you know what I mean
I don't have that problem
I didn't get up this morning
fighting the urge to take a nail
and drive it through my nose
that problem doesn't exist for me
so I don't have to spend any time today
avoiding buying hammers
I don't have
you know what I'm saying
I don't have to do any of that
I don't have that problem
doesn't exist and the same with drinking it honestly doesn't exist i don't it just isn't
there for me to think about or worry about or do anything about so i don't do anything about my
alcohol problem i just do something about my spiritual condition now if i do that then my
other problems will be taken care of and so many of us had faith and belief when we got here
but there's a big difference between that
and conscious contact.
You know what I mean?
Well, I have faith that someday I'll have conscious contact.
You know what I mean?
But we want to have conscious contact.
That would be like having faith back in the drinking days
that there's a bottle in the trunk.
You know what I mean?
But that isn't going to sustain us.
We've got to get the bottle and drink it.
And so it can only get us so far, and that's what the action, in my judgment, is all about.
And so we hear some of these things. I was thinking about candy bars.
You know, they talk about candy bars in the big book.
I think it's in the family afterward or somewhere in there, and how it's recommended for alcoholics.
And when I got sober, my sponsor came with a candy bar.
And then at meetings, they always talked about,
keep a supply of candy, keep a supply of candy,
and put honey in your tea and coffee,
and just keep pouring that in.
And then as the years evolved,
and they found that there was a hypoglycemia connection with alcoholism,
you don't hardly hear about candy bars.
Okay?
So let's imagine, just for discussion purposes,
that Bill Wilson was allowed to come back for three or four years
to see what AA looks like today.
So he's back, and he's looking around, and he's going,
hey, what happened to the candy bars?
I see there's a lot of young people.
I see that there's a lot of discussion meetings, more than we had,
and I see this and that, but what about the candy bar?
Oh, Bill, we found out about hypoglycemia,
and we're not handing the candy bars out anymore.
Oh, okay, that's interesting.
So a couple years go by,
and then I can see him making this observation.
He says, you know something, fellas?
I've been watching this candy bar thing,
and it occurs to me
that just about the same number of people
are staying sober without the candy bars
as they were when we were handing out the candy bars.
those that don't eat candy
and work a spiritual program
get sober
those that do eat candy
and work a spiritual program
get sober
and so we have these things
that we talk about
like hungry, angry, lonely and tired
the reason I'm bringing all these up is
that
they're very helpful
and they're important
but our sobriety can never be found in there.
You know when we say
don't get too hungry, angry, lonely, and tired
it's as if you were never hungry, angry, lonely, and tired
your sobriety would be guaranteed.
But you could be well rested,
have a full stomach,
live with 12 other people
and not be angry and still get drunk
if our spiritual condition wasn't right.
and on the other hand
if we had good spiritual contact
people go on fast
and they go off by themselves
for long periods of time
and have very little sleep
and they're just working on their spiritual condition
so what I'm trying to say is that
spiritual condition is the name of the game
and that's what the steps are all about
and that's what the program is all about
that sentence that I read in the tenth step
what we really have is a daily reprieve
and it doesn't say contingent on our mental condition
and it doesn't say we have a daily reprieve
contingent on our physical condition
it says that we have a daily reprieve
contingent on our spiritual condition
and to me that's where first things first comes from
always go to the spiritual condition first
no matter what the problem is
and then come back
and look and see what the problems are
and we may find
that a whole bunch of them
have been removed
it just happens
it just happens
but our minds don't see the world that way
see the problems that hit us
don't have spiritual labels on them.
Matter of fact, we hardly ever have a spiritual problem.
We just have money problems,
relationship problems,
sex problems,
loneliness problems,
anger problems, fear problems.
We have all these things.
And so they never go.
They don't have a label that says,
secretly this is spiritual.
We're just disguising it as sex.
Secretly this is not a money problem.
This is a spiritual problem.
So as you look at your inventory list of all the problems you might have,
there is no spiritual problems on there.
So we don't go to the spiritual solution because our mind, our intellect,
has been trained to analyze these things and to visualize some sort of a solution.
And then we go after that.
And I can remember saying to myself, yeah, this spiritual stuff, when I was brand new,
I remember going, well, I've got to believe it, these old-timers, they're into it and they're really doing well.
But I think it's something that I'll save until I'm older.
Because it looks like it deprives you of all the fun there is in the world.
You know what I mean?
And I like action and I like excitement.
And I don't see any massage parlors on the spiritual path, you know.
so you don't want to straighten out too soon
right
so I'm just going to have a great life
and then right before it's time to go
I'll straighten out
slide under the door and I'll get into heaven
and of course
that was just such a misconception
of what's going on but that's the way it looked to me and here comes my first
digression speaking of heaven you know I don't know if you've heard this one but
after you've been sober a long long long time you you really don't have drunk
dreams at least not like I remember when I was new you know I jumped I got drunk
and this happened and that happened but we have nightmares so I'll give you an
old-timers nightmare okay you ready here's the dream you've gone to bed
you're an old-timer you've been working this pro you are just one fine old-timer
so you go to sleep and here's your dream you're dead that's the dream but you're
going up. So that's a very comforting feeling. You're going up and by God, it's just like they
told you. Here's some clouds, there's music, and pretty soon there's this gate that's gold. It's
really something. There's somebody, obviously St. Peter. Big grin on her face, right? And we're
coming up there and, hi.
Name, please.
Sandy Beach.
You're not on the list.
I'm not on the list?
No, you're not on the list.
See that escalator down
that's right over there?
Well, actually, St. Pete,
that's just a nickname.
And my real name is Richard Beach.
Yeah, here it is, Richard Sandy Beach.
You're not on the list.
You're not on it.
Well, geez, St. Pete, I mean, I know I did a lot of bad things.
I did a lot of stuff.
I mean, I owned up to it.
I was really bad.
I hurt my mother, hurt my father, hurt my kids, hurt my family.
It was just awful.
but St. Pete
like 37 years ago
I straightened out man
I mean
and then I've been trying
I've been working this program
I've been sponsoring
started a group
read the book
pray
pray pray pray
pray to your father
all the time
pray to your uncle I mean
pray to your uncle
all the time
he said
your name is not on the list
oh man
this is awful
so I start walking over there
and I go
I come back
and I go
I forgot to mention
something
St. Pete
I
I'm a personal friend
of Bill Wilson's
he didn't make it either
what
and neither did Dr. Bob
what
so I go
I'm totally dejected now
and I walk over the stairs
and I go
god damn what is this
so I come back and I go
what's the deal up here
you guys don't like alcoholics
is that it
no alcoholics in heaven
is that what it is
no alcoholics allowed in heaven
is that it
and St. Pete looked at me
and he said
oh no
everybody from Rational Recovery gets in
and I just went
whoa
and I woke up with a
freaking out
just a terrible terrible terrible dream
so anyway
I was talking about how I wanted to straighten out later on
and it seemed to make a lot of sense back then
when I was a lot younger
because I couldn't imagine what was in store for me
I couldn't imagine that everything that I thought I wanted
wasn't what I really wanted after all
and I'm sure that's true for a lot of you
where you came to AA
and you knew all the things that were missing in your life
and if someone had bet you
or said I'm going to offer you a million dollars
if you'll just believe this
that I know you like yachting
and I know you like golf
and I know you like women
and I know you like this
but in a few years
going to meetings is going to be your favorite thing.
You going to believe that?
I think most of us would go, hey, pal, I don't think you understand me.
I mean, to make a statement like that,
that going to meetings is going to be one of my favorite things in my life.
But it turned out it was true.
And a lot of things that appear to be true aren't true anymore.
And a lot of things that I thought was the way the world was organized
just aren't true anymore.
because the journey from the material world
over into the spiritual world
is filled with paradoxes
and everything is backwards
from what it was before.
And sometimes we see this
if we're working with somebody
who's still drinking
and we're talking with his family
and we're going, well,
we've given them,
we've planted the seed
and it's all we can do right now,
say some prayers
and we'll just hope that his turn will come.
And so they call up and they go,
well, something awful happened.
He just had his fourth DWI
and he's in the hospital with a broken leg.
And secretly we go,
yeah, now we're getting there.
Now he's got a chance.
Because we know that that was good
that that happened.
And the family thinks it was bad
that that happened.
And then he gets out of the hospital
and his leg gets recovered
and we're sort of waiting around
and all of a sudden we get a phone call from the family
and they go, God, you're not going to believe
this wonderful news.
He went back to work
and his boss gave him a promotion and a bonus.
And we go, oh man, there he goes.
Isn't that too bad that that happened?
Now he doesn't have a chance.
So we're looking at the same events
that they're looking at
entirely different
because we know what the dynamics is
we know what's going on inside
and we know that in order to win
we've got to lose
we've got to get down to the point
where we get the white handkerchief out
and wave it in total surrender
just like the Japanese did
absolutely unconditional
we're here, you tell us what you want us to do
and that's what has to happen to all of us
and there's many other things
that we find in the spiritual path
that are filled with paradoxes
one of them is
how to achieve independence
and that's done by becoming totally dependent
on a higher power
and that seems like you couldn't be talking out of
how could that possibly be
You win by surrendering and you get independence by becoming totally dependent.
Well, the fact is that it's just an illusion that we're independent before we become spiritual.
Before we become spiritual and have a power greater than ourselves in our lives,
we're totally jerked around by our character defects.
They're in charge. We're not in charge of anything.
Well, I think I'll stay at work all afternoon.
And lust says, what about the redhead?
So we go into the boss, tell a lie, and we're gone.
Now, we planned on staying at work.
I mean, we have every one of these things, and our drinking especially.
Well, I want to be a good father. I want to stay home.
We have these intentions. We have this.
And our character defects just take us everywhere.
And then we come in and surrender all this.
There's no way I can handle this.
As I read that sentence about we could wish to have a moral philosophy.
We could wish to be good, but it didn't do us any good.
And we come in here and we find out that once we're willing to surrender
and turn all this over to a power greater than ourselves,
this power pushes these character defects down so that they aren't harassing us.
And we'll talk about that in the seventh step, sixth and seventh step,
where these are pushed down so they're not bothering us.
And that's what freedom is.
Then trying to have a purpose in life.
Did you ever try to figure out what your purpose was?
I must have changed my purpose about 50 times as I went along through life.
Well, it must be the purpose must be to win in athletics.
I was listening to Larry's talk last night.
I'm sure that was his purpose.
and you're driven and you go
and then you succeed beyond your wildest dreams
and you still have a feeling inside
that you haven't accomplished your purpose.
There's still something missing.
And what is that?
Well, that's what I think spirituality is all about.
And my favorite story about leading into all of this,
believe me, I am going to get to the steps,
but it's not going to be one of these things
where here's step one,
like that.
Maybe we'll have some stories
and things like that.
I like to read the big book
and think about the history of AA
and try to imagine God's pardonment.
And as we do that,
all you can see is God.
You can't hardly see anything else.
You can see these human beings
that were chosen to be the messengers that started our program.
But you can see that they didn't have anything to do with this.
The circumstances and this power and this chain of events just occurred.
And especially after Bill went off with his ideas about how AA ought to be
and he was blocked at every turn with his chain of drunk tanks
and paid missionaries and all that stuff.
And it ended up he couldn't raise any money, and, you know, all his ideas for the program just were blocked.
And it turned out the way it was supposed to turn out.
And so I think, as I look at it, God's handiwork to rescue you and I probably started in around 1912 or 1913
when a group of teenagers were assembled up in Manchester, Vermont in the summertime.
A lot of them were there just for the summer.
And, of course, the first one was Bill Wilson,
who just was down from East Dorset, Vermont, to attend Manchester Academy.
And then over from Albany, New York,
where his father was the mayor and a big shot in politics,
almost was considered to be the vice presidential candidate at one time.
He didn't make it, but he was up for that.
And his son, Ebby, came to Manchester where they had a summer home
and hung out with other kids his age or slightly older,
and of course he got to meet Bill Wilson.
and then up from Rhode Island was a millionaire's son
the Hazard family was a big industrialist
they had plants around the United States
and their son Roland came up
with them to their summer place
in Manchester and then up from Brooklyn, New York
was the Burnham family
Dr. Burnham and his wife and his lovely daughter Lois
and they all met each other, these kids
in social settings, maybe in a bar, maybe here, maybe there.
But they got to know each other.
And there began a chain of events
that unfolded as a result of that that brought us AA.
And the first one in that chain of events,
and this is why I tell this story so that I can lead up to the
Dr. Young letter exchange between Bill that came later on.
And the first one of these was Roland Hazard, and his drinking got out of control.
And his father wanted him to take over the business.
He had taken over quite a bit of it, but his drinking was so bad
that it was getting where he might have to be institutionalized.
And they had tried, he himself and his family had tried everything this country had to offer.
And so someone said, the best psychiatrist in the world is in Switzerland.
His name is Carl Jung.
if you go there, we're sure that something can be done for Roland.
And so he went there and he spent a year with Dr. Young.
And Dr. Young tried all of his techniques to cause this profound personality change.
And at the end of that time, he said to Roland,
well, that's everything that I know how to do, I've done for you.
You understand the situation.
If you start drinking again, this could possibly be over for you.
Yes, I understand, doctor.
Well, good luck.
We'll see you.
And he made it as far as Paris,
where someone asked him the wrong question.
They said, would you like a drink?
And he said, yes.
And so he just got totally ruined again
and came back to Dr. Young,
and he said, Dr. Young, look, I'm all messed up.
It's hopeless.
I'm in total despair.
What am I going to do?
and here's where I think
where I just read in chapter 5
where it said no human power
could have relieved our alcoholism
so if you think symbolically
Dr. Young certainly symbolized
all there was
in terms of human power
and this is what
this concentration
of human power said to Rowland
there's nothing
I can do for you
how's that for
Pretty definitive.
I am the leading human power on the planet
and I can do nothing for you.
That is going to cause a surrender.
And it did.
I mean, that just took the floor right out from under him.
He had never heard that before.
You mean nothing can be done?
No, nothing can be done for you.
And then he added,
Now I have heard of a few cases like yours where people have had profound spiritual experiences
and have been able to live a happy life.
If I was you, I would try to find one of those profound spiritual experiences.
And guess what?
Roland was suddenly motivated to find a profound spiritual experience.
the week before he wasn't interested
in profound spiritual experiences
but he just got motivated because
the ultimate in human power just said
there's nothing I can do for you
and that's what hopelessness is
and that's when we begin to win
and so he went out with a totally open mind
and said where am I going to find something like this
the Oxford movement was incredibly popular
it's quite normal that someone
looking for a spiritual experience
would get into one of these Oxford groups
and he did
and lo and behold he got sober
and became very active in this
including using his home up in Manchester
to hold Oxford meetings in
to pass the message
the spiritual message to other people
and right about this time
the second in our cast of characters
crashed and burned
and that was Ebi.
Ebi has been just alienating his family
with one episode after another
and finally after driving his car
drunk into a farmhouse
and went through the living room
into the kitchen on a Saturday morning
and came right up to the kitchen table
in the car
and asked the lady of the home
if he could have a cup of coffee.
So they called the cops
and all this.
So the town is going,
You know, this guy is really causing a lot of trouble.
Shortly thereafter, you ever had one of those days where you ever sit around and you go,
man, this house needs painting.
You remember all the times you'd think of stuff that needed to be done back in the drink?
This house needs painting.
I'm going to go get a bottle of booze and some paint and a ladder and some brushes.
And so off he went and came back and started painting the house.
He got about 10 square feet painted and then went over and sat down and imagined the house painted.
You know what I mean?
You look at that, and some birds came over
and crapped all over the paint.
Got them upset, went in, got a couple shotguns
and guarded the paint as it dried.
Any bird that came near his yard,
BAM!
So the neighbors are hearing this,
gunfire, and it's a war starting.
He said, get the sheriff.
Off he goes.
He's in front of the judge, and the judge goes,
I'm sorry, but we're going to have to send you away for a while.
Everybody's on my back.
And he made one phone call, and he knew Roland Hazard was a very distinguished family.
And Roland came down, talked to the judge, and said,
would you release him to me personally?
Well, the judge knew that was safe, that nobody would criticize him for that.
And Roland took him off to the Oxford Movement, and Evie got sober
and got very active, and then they were transferred down to New York City,
helping out with the main Oxford group
Sam Shoemaker down in New York
and some period of time went by
and Ebi thought about his old drinking buddy Bill
and he went
paid the call on Bill
had that wonderful Saturday morning in Brooklyn
told Bill about what had happened to him
Bill was very agnostic
Bill had been brought up in a Christian church
but he didn't believe that Christ was divine
didn't believe any of this stuff
He was just, yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe.
But Ebi said, Bill, you could choose your own concept of God.
You just have to surrender.
Stop worrying about what it is.
And later, after his next drunk in the hospital,
Bill had this great spiritual experience after he surrendered,
went off to Akron six months later and met Dr. Bob,
and the two of them got the program going, and off they went.
And then AA took off, and of course now it's enormous.
so a lot of years go by and suddenly bill realizes that he never closed the loop with dr young
you know what i mean he never really said dr young you know what you started
and so he wrote this letter to him and it was a good thing he did because it wasn't long after
that that dr young passed away and he wrote him saying dear dr young i don't know if you remember
roland hazard he was a patient of yours but you did this and as a result this happened the oxford
and now we have AA, it's in all these countries.
We owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude.
Now I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what it said.
Dr. Young writes, oh my God, I'm so happy to find out.
I often wondered what happened to Mr. Hazard.
It said, what a pleasure to find out.
As you may know, I can tell you now,
what I was trying to do with Mr. Hazard
was to cause a spiritual transformation,
but we couldn't use those terms back then.
and they would have laughed me out of psychiatry
if I said anything about spirituality.
But now it's okay to talk about that.
And of course, we all know Young was very spiritual
and just saw the spirituality of man in everything.
And so he said, that's what I was trying to cause.
Because as I have looked at alcoholics,
now we're back to this sentence that I read at the very start.
You may be suffering from an illness
which only a spiritual experience can conquer.
And Dr. Young went on to say that what he thought alcoholics had, and this I'm paraphrasing, was a very strong longing for God.
Now, what if that was our problem?
And it came disguised in many other ways, like lousy childhood, irate wife.
all these other things, no money
terrible illness as a child
lost my husband in Vietnam
lost my son to this
all these things that we think
are making us unhappy
and unable to get a grasp on the world
when in reality
this is such an exciting way to look at it
our real problem is
We just miss the hell out of God.
That's what it is.
It's missing in our lives.
It's just such an emptiness.
And it's missing in everybody's lives.
But maybe alcoholics feel it more.
We just feel it and we want to fix this.
And you know what fixed it?
Booze.
He fixed it just the same as the program fixes us, from the inside out.
Booze didn't transform any of our reality.
It didn't make us richer, handsomer, or anything like that.
It just was powerful enough to go in and make us feel like that problem was gone.
It made us feel like we were complete for the first time in our lives.
And it was such an exciting experience for us
that we were willing to pay the ultimate price
in order to keep it.
And for the non-alcoholic,
they're not willing to pay the ultimate price
because it wasn't the ultimate experience.
It wasn't the transforming experience
that it was for us.
So, just pursuing this,
we're just operating on this,
if this is your problem,
as it's said in the chapter,
you may be suffering from an illness
that only a spiritual experience can conquer.
Well, then what is the illness?
It has to be the absence of God.
If the answer is
to allow this power to come into our lives,
then the problem is
we miss that power.
We're very unhappy and incomplete.
How many of us went around going,
I don't know what it is,
but there's something missing.
In my life, I can just feel it.
There's something, I'm incomplete as I am now.
And then, of course, our mind is trained to look around and see what it is.
I know what it is.
I'm not in shape.
I'm not in shape.
And then we go out and we get in shape, we lose weight, we're eating a perfect diet.
We're treating this temple, the body.
And we get all through, we look in the mirror and we go,
man that is that's I can't believe that's me unfortunately it's still there
you know what I'm saying it's still there I make this big muscle and it's
still there well it must not be being in shape it must be money I just don't have
enough money to be comfortable and then we chase that and we get it maybe we get
some people some of us get wealthy some of us dream about getting wealthy but it
still doesn't fix anything and then I get promoted maybe if I had my own
company maybe if I was this I know how many of us done this I know what it is I
need to get married so we run out now we got two kids we got the car we got the
station wagon we got this we got that and was still there and the only thing
that ever fixed it was alcohol so there's something that needs to be fixed
And that's what I call alcoholism, myself.
This is just my own personal understanding
that it is a disease that only a spiritual experience can conquer.
So if that is the situation, then we have these 12 steps.
So what are they designed to do?
Well, let's cheat and go to the end.
Did you ever read the end of the book first?
I wonder how this thing ends.
Holy cow!
And then we go back and read it.
Well, how does it end?
how about step 11
conscious contact
how about step 12
spiritual awakening
that's how the book ends
that is the point
of the whole thing
is to have a personal contact
just you
you have it
and then there's you
and this new energy source
that you have contact with
and that's spiritual awakening
and so that's the end of the book
that's the point of doing all this
and that's what Bill said
the purpose of this book
is to enable us to find a personal God
and so that's what I see the steps as
so every step that we talk about
is a God step
you know what I mean
you can label them all the different ways you want
oh an inventory step
a past step
a future step
a beep-beep-dee-bop
but if you think about it
they're all God steps
because this is the path that can enable us to achieve conscious contact and spiritual awakening.
And, of course, we talked about what Roland had to do when he saw Dr. Young,
and that was surrender, surrender, surrender, surrender.
So who's our biggest enemy as we start going down this thing?
I'll tell you who our biggest enemy is.
It isn't the outside world. It's not our boss. It's not our wife or our husband.
It's not our children. It's not that. It's our ego.
our ego goes
oh excuse me
what's that
what are you talking about now
God
no you don't want God in your life
you want me in your life
I've been here all along
I'm you man
I am you
you are your ego
I remember thinking
I am my character defects
did you ever think that way
who are you
I am my character defects
you know what I mean
and if you take away
my character defects
I'll be nobody
I don't know if you thought
crazy like that
but that's how I thought
I'll be the hole
in the donut
remember that
in the 12 and 12
who will I be
with no character defects
I better save some
just so I can be somebody
that's the ego
it's running in
it does not want
anything to do with God
because that would mean
God would be in charge
and especially
when the ego
sees you reading
these steps
turn your life over entirely
get rid of all
character defects
kill ego
kill ego
you know that
my friend Hal Marley
talks about that
in the discussion meeting
and the topic is
getting rid of ego
and everybody's talking about
oh you gotta kill your ego
kill your ego
and some new person
is listening to this
about halfway through the meeting
somebody comes in late
and sits down next to the new person
and says what's the topic
and the new person said
suicide
I mean because ego
that's who i am man you know there's there's nobody beyond ego but there is that's the
spiritual person this is the real person this is the person that comes from our heart this is
this is who we really want to get in touch with this is the exciting person to know this
is the true spiritual being that everybody is and we may get a glimpse of this
early on
I don't know if this has happened to you
but
you might have two months
three months sobriety
you're sitting at a meeting
Mr. or Miss self-centered
you know
or just
that's us
and you hear everybody
talking about loving everybody else
and you're going
I don't know what the hell that is
you know
you hear it
but you have no idea
what it is
they look sincere
but
you don't know
what they're really talking about.
Anyway, you're sitting there
and in comes a new guy or a new gal.
You can spot it.
They're shaky and they're looking around.
They go over to get a cup of coffee.
They get a half a cup
and it spills all over by the coffee pot.
And so they put it down.
They turn red.
And you're watching and you're going,
oh man, do I know what that feels like.
And so they don't have coffee.
They just go over and sit down at the table
and sweating and they're twisting and nervous
and all this.
and you're watching them because you were just there two months ago.
But there's something about this person that you are secretly cheering for.
This is a part of you that just hasn't come out very much.
And you just find yourself going, God, I hope they make it.
And at the end of the meeting, you almost go over and shake their hand.
You're just not there yet, but you almost did it.
Next time you will, but there's this something building inside of you.
And then during the week, you actually thought about them once or twice.
I wonder how that gal is.
I hope they come back to the meeting.
And the next week you come there and you're actually looking around
and they're not there and you're a little disappointed.
And about ten minutes into the meeting, they come in.
And it's obvious they've stayed sober all week.
And they go over and they get a third of a cup without spilling it
and get it all the way to the table.
And they sit down with it
with sort of a satisfied look on their face
and something inside of you says,
Yay!
Yay for somebody else?
What is that?
Well, if you're new, that's who you are.
That's what the steps are going to go in and pull out.
There is so much of that inside waiting to be released
to break through your ego and come out shining.
And the way we do it is to fight this ego by surrendering.
In the beginning, we need circumstances to help us.
We need a DWI.
Then we can go to the ego,
look, I got a DWI, I'm going to lose my license.
I've got to try this AA.
There's this struggle going on between the two of us,
and so we come in, and they explain to us we're powerless,
that that's our problem.
It's not ignorance, it's not childhood, it's not any of those things.
It's that we're powerless.
And I'm willing to put up the flag, and we do the best that we can.
It's impossible to surrender 100%.
I suppose if you could do it, you could have an experience like Bill Wilson had,
where you have a hot flash, and boom, God appears,
and your drinking problem is lifted away.
Most of us, that's not going to happen that way.
It's going to be the garden variety.
It's going to happen over a period of every couple of months.
We'll notice something else and something else
and our friends will notice.
And they'll say to us,
Alec, are you on a diet?
Alec, what's going on?
What is happening with you?
Your co-workers, what are you doing?
And what is happening is
the very life of life is being breathed back into us.
And our souls are being nourished
and it's starting to show up in our face and in our eyes
and people are starting to see it
and they're seeing a clarity there that was never there before.
And this is the power greater than ourselves
coming in as a result of us opening the door.
There's no way it can get in unless we open the door of surrender.
And that is the most important beginning to the whole thing.
You can be sober for five years
and have very little serenity in the program, not hardly working.
we're analyzing
did I do an inventory
did I make enough amends
did I do this
did I do that
and guess what our literature suggests
you never surrendered 100%
in the first step
and if you don't do that
the rest of it is irrelevant
because we got one foot out there
and one foot in here
I'm almost powerless
I'm almost an alcoholic
like the rest of them
I almost need a sponsor
I almost need to do the steps
I almost need to go to meetings
and I'm almost going to get sober
and almost getting sober
is like almost having a parachute.
You know, I almost took one of those things
as you're whistling through the air.
I almost grabbed one of those things.
You're not much better off
than the guy who never heard the word.
And so this is so important
if you're new is to go back.
Are you holding back anywhere?
Do you see any difference?
in your drinking than everybody else's?
Do you see any difference in your surrender?
Do you have any question
that you have some reservations
that someday you may be able to sip a little wine?
That'll kill us.
That'll ruin the entire spiritual program.
And you'll wonder, you won't think God exists.
Well, I've been trying this, I've been trying praying,
I've been trying this.
None of that will work if the door is still shut.
and that's what the surrender does
is open this thing
and then once it opens it
we can start this thing
that I read out of the second step
of the chapter of the agnostic
and we begin this wonderful process
of changing our mind
alcoholics in the beginning
changing the mind for a new alcoholic
is like turning the Queen Mary around
in Tampa Bay
takes about 50 tugboats
takes all night
and then finally the alcoholic goes
I changed my mind
You know, like it took all that effort.
You want to call a press conference.
I changed my mind.
I remember my sponsor,
one time when we were debating things back and forth,
and I finally said to him,
Okay, Bill, you're right.
And he said, No, you're wrong.
I said the same thing.
He said, No, it's not.
You say it.
Okay.
It wouldn't even come out.
I'm wrong.
I can't hear you.
I'm wrong.
I'm wrong.
It was so hard to...
Did I shut that off?
Yep.
How about now?
Uh-oh, Lee.
Here we go.
Less animation.
Okay, we're going to go about five more minutes,
then we'll take a break.
So this changing mind process in step two is so vital.
We want to hold on to these old ideas about God.
We want to hold on to this and that.
And there it is.
They haven't worked.
Our old ideas about God, about spirituality, about who we are,
none of that has worked.
And so what we're doing here is
we're just going to
open our minds
to what is being suggested
by the program.
We're going to just say,
all right, let's see what happens.
I'm going to give this a try
and I'm going to see what happens.
And so we have all different kinds
of backgrounds that we bring in here.
We may be extremely religious
and still getting drunk every day.
And this is a big mystery.
Bill talks about it in the 12 and 12.
Well, it has to do with the quality of faith rather than the quantity.
Whatever our background, those ideas just have to be set aside in the second step
so that we can finally change our mind about this higher power
and make this transition in the second step to open-mindedness.
And once we do that, we're ready to make the biggest decision about a spiritual path,
which is to turn our will and our lives
over to the care of God as we understand Him.
This is a decision.
Nothing gets turned over in the third step.
It's kind of like deciding to get a college degree.
Now what's left?
Four years of hard work
and then you get a college degree.
You see what I'm saying?
And so we made a decision to turn our will and our lives.
Now we're going to do all the work
and the rest of the steps to get this turned over.
Why can't we turn it over?
because our ego doesn't want us to turn it over.
We're going to have to chop that thing apart piecemeal.
We're going to have to go in there,
character defect by character defect,
and pry this thing open
so that we can open this channel.
And the concept that helped me the most
about the third step,
because my intellect wanted to stay in charge.
Well, who's going to be in charge?
Who's going to figure my,
I'm going to turn my life around.
How am I going to know where to go?
What am I going to do?
And it was explained to me,
we're going to go beyond the intellectual level
to the intuitive level.
That's what we're trying to accomplish
when we say we're turning our lives over.
It still comes through us,
but it comes through our intuitions
instead of our intellect.
Our intellect is controlled by our own thinking.
So when we use our intellect and we go,
what should I do in this situation?
Then we go, well, let's see.
If I do this, I do that.
If I do this, I do that.
You see what I see?
We weigh the odds.
And we figure it out.
And then we make a decision about what we ought to do.
But someone could say, just as they did to me when I went through flight school,
they said, okay, you've learned how to fly this plane now.
And you can land it and you can take it off and you've done this and you've done that.
Now we're going to do it when there's no sky visible.
We're going to go up when it's IFR.
the clouds are so thick you can't see the propeller anymore
and don't be worried
you shouldn't be worried about this at all
because we have this radio beacon
at the end of the runway
and if you go up and you dial in the right frequency
in your little radio
back then it was the little AM thing
with the A and the N
you remember that low frequency
those would be older pilots
and if you dial in the right frequency
and you listen
and you properly position the plane
to come in on this beam
you will come in right between the two mountains
and not get killed
and when you get down
right at 300 feet
the runway will pop out of the clouds
and there it will be
now I didn't say to them
you want me to believe
in a freaking radio beam
on the end of a runway
you want me to turn my life over
to a radio beam
are you kidding
what if it
what if it doesn't work
I'm going to fly into the mountain
I'm not a radio beam
I didn't say any of that
I just said
what's the frequency please
went right up
dialed that in
mountains all around
just came right down
boy I put my life on the line
to something made by GE
you know what I mean
I just
hey I'll be happy
to put my life
on the line
for that
and then I come in here
and they go
how about turning
your life over to
God
God is this
wonderful
huge power
created this whole
universe
it is inside of you
it is the most
powerful signal
you can ever have
if you will take
the action
to get in touch
with this
you can be guided
through the rest of your life.
How do you like that?
Oh, I don't think so.
I don't think we want
to be doing that.
I don't think that's
that doesn't sound like
a good plan at all.
I don't think I want
to do that at all.
Well,
you're screwed.
Because that's where
us alcoholics are.
See, there isn't any other plan.
You've got to do it.
We've got to try this.
And so that's what spirituality is all about,
is to take us out.
We made the unconditional surrender.
Then we came to believe that there's going to be something.
Now we're deciding how can we get in touch with whatever this is
so that I can be guided.
Now how are we guided?
We're guided through our intuitions.
We struggle with problems.
if you ever struggle with a problem
then finally
you surrender it
you go to a meeting
you talk to a newcomer
you really should be home
working on this
this is a very crucial problem
and you go to the meeting
and you talk to the newcomer
and maybe take him out
for a coffee afterwards
now you don't even have any time
to worry about this problem
you come home
you're just about ready to go to bed
and it suddenly occurs to you
that the answer to the problem
is this
just was given
just seemed to appear
you know you can come to rely on that
you can just come to expect it
just well I got this terrible problem
I guess I'll go to a meeting
take some new guy out for coffee
and when I come home
there it'll be
it's amazing
that this
but this is what turning it over is
it is to turn over
our willfulness
our self-centeredness
and all of those things
in order to establish this contact.
We are at quarter after,
so how about at 10.30?
Let's all get some coffee, stretch,
walk around, we'll come back in at 10.30
and then we'll wrap it all up.
Thank you.
Thank you.