Smashing the Old Ideas – Sandy B.

Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Beach, and I'm an alcoholic. How are you all doing? My sobriety date is December 7th, 1964. I got sober in Washington, D.C. I had the same sponsor for 42 years. He passed away almost two years ago. you should be so lucky to have someone that close to you for that long it was you start out, your sponsor is your sponsor but after 20 years or so you were just very dear friends and he would ask me questions as much as I would ask him and we just became two guys that wouldn't have missed anything and before he died I went up and we went back to the first group that he took me to, to my first meeting. And they were having an anniversary and I spoke there and he was there in a wheelchair and it was like bookends. That's where he took be in the beginning and this is where he was about a month before he passed away. And at the end of the meeting we sat down there and said this has been one hell of a ride and there was a lot of joy. It was a happy event. I was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1931. And the 30s is a long time ago. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about them. Because I'm getting old and I think back on things that some of us don't know anything about. But we had just come out of the Depression, and my father lost his job as an engineer and got a job as a glorified janitor at the local university, Yale University, where he had graduated earlier and went off to build a bridge as an engineeer in Albany. and my grandfather owned a chain of men's clothing stores in New Haven and Bridgeport and Waterbury and in 1928 he came up with the idea that we ought to sell clothes on credit and you could buy a suit for $5 down and $5 a month until you paid it off. It was a revolutionary idea and it caught on big time until all the people that owed the money didn't have jobs anymore. So he lost all the stores. And my mother tells me that without missing a beat, and he had nine kids, he started riding the streetcar down to Winchester Rifle, working on the assembly line, and kept providing the food for all the kids. And he kept that up all the way through World War II and he never mentioned that he lost his clothing stores. He was just, this is what I do now. It's really amazing. And my sister and I were, my sister, by the way, has 31 years in AA. Well, I'm at it. That's my only sister, but I've got six kids and 15 grandchildren and two of my daughters are in AA and one of my grandsons is in AA, So I've covered three generations. I hope everybody else is doing your share to make sure we have plenty of members. And somehow, everybody was surviving and they were closer together than you can imagine because everybody was in the same boat. There was nobody who was escaping this. And it's like us in AA. There was that, yeah, I understand, you know, and I do have some extra bread or I do have this, well, why don't we give you a ride? It was just built-in sharing without, it just came natural. And when World War II broke out, it was just a continuation of that. The country was a unit. and I just can remember all the, my mother every six months would go through her kitchen and look for another pot that she could get along without and then she'd take it over to the center of town and there was a chicken wire enclosure in front of the town hall and she'd throw the pot in there and you'd see the other pots that had been thrown in and melt them down for bullets. and so this was just all being done voluntarily and then, you know, a neighbor would actually I don't need this one it was just amazing how close-knit that's what I remember is how close knit everything felt and we had blackout curtains you didn't drive at night didn't want any lights that you could see from an airplane my mother was an air spotter four times a week she went up on top of the hill and reported by telephone every plane that she saw people were always seeing submarines because we lived right near the Atlantic coast I think we forget that this was a very dangerous time and about a year ago I met a friend a friend of mine told me about meeting this gentleman at a university who was a teacher but from Germany an older man and the older man asked him where he was from he said he was from this little town in Wisconsin and the man said oh that little town isn't that where the Angeron River and the Germont River come together And this guy said, those are the smallest rivers. They don't even show on a map. I mean, how could that guy know that? And he said, how do you know that ? And he says, in Nazi Germany, I was going to be the administrator of Wisconsin. And I knew Wisconsin better than the people who lived in Wisconsin. I mean does that run chills up your spine I mean, there was a guy over there that was going to run Wisconsin and there was one for every state. So, and I remember Churchill came over and thanked us for joining the war. And you got the sense, at least this is my memory, that the war really was between two God-fearing nations and a nation that was out to wipe God off the planet. That was the perception then. That's what, you know, the backbone of this country was the churches. And so that was the two armies that were lined up, was that. And there was a tremendous, I remember my parents talking, we will win. You know, this side will overcome. And the other thing I remember, there was the polio epidemic and I was 10, maybe 11. It was 1942, right in the middle of the war. and I was sent to a voice camp I was in and a whole bunch of the other kids got it and some of them died, some of whom didn't get it real bad. I was sitting in the middle with one leg and one arm that got paralyzed and I went up to a crippled home in Newington, Connecticut and eventually I was one of the small percentage that the Sister Kenny treatment worked for and I got the use of my arm and leg back almost 90%. But I still can remember the spirit of the crippled kids, not the polio kids, the cripple kids who lived there. It was unbelievable how happy they were. And they were running up and down flights of stairs with crutches. You couldn't keep up with them. The kid on crutches could take six steps at a time. And you would just go, God. What I saw there was the tremendous spirit to overcome handicaps and the example of looking at that, and then it was hard to feel sorry for yourself sitting over here with an arm that just wouldn't flop quite right. And the reason I'm telling you this is you get that feeling in AA and you watch people overcome divorces, death of a child, whatever it is, with great dignity, and you feel the prayers of the group, and you realize there's a great similarity between AA and America at that time. And it's a wonderful time to remember, even though it was horrible. You see what I'm talking about? Here's this raging world war, and underneath it was this tremendous unity that made it not only tolerable, but actually taught us a lot of lessons. So I look back on it with almost a desire that it was still like that. But it's only like that when there's a big emergency. And that's what holds us together. I mean, I think the greatest strength that AA has is that they're still making booze. That's what really holds us together. I don't think I'll keep going here. And alcohol's walking around outside. If you knew, they probably haven't told you about this, but there's little half pints of vodka that circulate around the outside of the meetings. and they hide in the grass until someone comes out and says, ah, to hell with it. And then they jump up and go, hey, over here, over here. And you go, must be God's will. Look at that. And then the Bible says, I understand you're not interested in AA. That's right. Well, maybe I can help you. Then he beat you up for a year or so and said, why don't you try it now? And things look different. so there's something as Bill said we're like passengers on a ship that's been rescued and we all still need each other and we still are it's up to us to hold this thing together that's why our first tradition is so powerful putting AA's interest your home group's interest ahead of your own and you know that's one that I think you don't hardly have to teach anybody I remember as a newcomer I'm a clown I like to cut up and talk when you're not supposed to and interrupt and do all these things and do you know that something told me not to do that here there was something that told me don't screw around in here you really need this don't mess it and you can sense it. You know what I mean? You just really hardly have to tell anybody that. That if this group doesn't survive, you don't survive. So it brings us together by necessity until we find out how wonderful it is to be together by choice. And that's that beautiful feeling of being not separate as was so eloquently pointed out earlier but a part of and if there's anything that I've seen after 43 years I see in this room that if I were to harm one of you it would hurt me because I'd be harming myself it used to be a theory but now I see it I see it just as clear as a bell and I wonder how I could have ever missed the fact that we're all part of something instead of being a separate something and that's what we what the steps clarify and Chuck's phrase a new pair of glasses really says it all we simply see everything differently and when you see the world as a happy place with loving people in it full of joy there's nothing for alcohol to fix and it's real easy to not drink because you're already happy sober and the trick is to do that which we don't know how to do before we get the help of the steps. And I want to talk about the program, but I'll tell you a little bit about my story. In spite of all that unity and in spite of being brought up in the Catholic Church and everybody took care of me, I'm in this small family, I felt I didn't belong. I don't know where that stuff comes from, but a lot of alcoholics have that. There's four of us at the table, the three of them and me. I don't know why I had that I just had that and the only two places I ever belonged was the Marine Corps and AA and boy did I I just loved them both my sister and I sat in the front pew in the same church listening to the same priests and nuns and Latin and incense and all of that she still goes because it's so friendly and comforting I saw something similar to Auschwitz. I saw little Nazi Gestapo nuns that were out to get me and taught me about terrible, horrible things that were going to happen. I Saw Confession as a place where they're gathering evidence for later when they're going to hang you. I mean, I just saw everything wacky. And of course it scared me, but that was not what was there. That was incorrect. So I had no comfort from the idea of a God or anything. And as soon as I was on my own, I just stopped going. And a lot of it had to do with the fact you get drunk on Saturday night and you can't get up on Sunday morning. So you start going, actually, I don't believe in God. And that just explains why you aren't going and you just keep on drinking. I know I talked to a lot of us when we arrive here, we're either agnostics or atheists. I don't believe it. I just think it's all that. And sometimes I have some fun and I go, well, how'd you become an atheist? Did you see a non-burning bush? Did a voice yell down to you, I do not exist? How'd you become one. Well, you know how we became one? Well, you just decided to become one! That's how we became one. I figured out that that's what I am. Well look at our third step. It says we made a decision to do just the opposite. Why should we make a decision to reverse the earlier decision? Because we're getting crappy results from the earlier decision. We're miserable, we're afraid, we can't stand ourselves, other people or anything, so the offer is made, why don't you try this and see what kind of results you get? Very scientific, very practical, and the results that we get are what you see in AA. It isn't so much what you hear, it's what you see. It's called a program of attraction. And you see people that have something that you want. You don't know what it is. You can't really put it into words, but you want it. They have a glow. They're happy about something. They are laughing a lot. They are all getting along and there is nothing that would justify that. They aren't millionaires. They don't have this. They don' t have that. And yet they are just delighted with life. and so that's what this says if you want what we have so anyway I went to a little prep school in New Haven I got very high grades I was a good athlete I got a pipeline right into Yale University I got down there I had done construction I worked on all the hometown place but when I got there and I saw the people that came there all these rich guys from all around the country I realized I didn't belong there So what am I doing in here? I'm in dungarees and, you know, work shirt. I don't fit in with this crowd. I knew they were going to throw me out that some bunch of these guys were goingto report me to the dean and go, What's he doing in there? That kid doesn't belong in here. That's the feeling that I had. And I wasn't drinking. I was 19 years old, and everybody was drinking at college, and I was holding off to try and get high grades and go out for the track team. And I attended a social function. I was afraid to meet anybody. It was impossible. They all were very mean people. You could see it in their eyes. They just, they were stuck up. They didn't want to know me. They were looking down. I was just melting in their gaze, just standing there trying to walk over and say hello to somebody. And I said, well, maybe there's a bar here. maybe I'll have a drink and everybody says it makes you feel good and I had one, nothing happened to and about halfway through the third one I concluded that it didn't work and was going to leave except I turned around and all those guys were friendly and they all were smiling and they wanted to know me they were begging me to come over and join them and I went God this is amazing it's like the other guys were gone and these guys were in there They're all, hey. And as I walked over, I realized they were right. They were lucky to know me. And I started shaking hands and I had something to say about everything. And I intuitively knew how to handle situations. My creativity came out. I wasn't afraid. The anxiety was gone. I was smart. I had everything to talk about. I said, my God, I should have started drinking in grammar school. This is amazing. thing. But the big impression was that it changed my world. What a world this is. Look at these people. And I talked to them until they went home. I was still there, talking, talking. The guy who hid in the corner. So I went back and had 15 more drinks just to see what would happen. I got definitely ill. You know, vomited all night, dry heaved. My head is splitting. I'm sitting on the edge of the bed, and the thought occurred to me, are you going to drink again tonight? And I just went, yes! Oh boy, I didn't take any time to think that one through. And I said, this throwing up and dying is a small price to pay for what I had last night. And I made a decision that that experience that I had, which as was pointed out earlier, is very similar to a spiritual awakening, was worth anything to keep. And pretty soon I was sacrificing in order to have that. The grades went, the athletics went, I'm in jail, I am getting my teeth knocked out. But boy, am I having fun. I'm loving it. Oh, who needs the teeth? You know, dentists will fix them up. I mean, you explain everything. And I barely graduated. It was so close. The Korean War was going on and they had a draft. Everybody had to go somewhere, so some of us joined the Marine Corps. So that's how I got into the Marines. After the rude awakening of boot camp, I went off for six months training to become an infantry officer, and during that time I saw some training movies about pilots, and I'd never been in a plane, but That looked cool. So I signed up for it, met a young lady while I was in that training, and we got married. Went off to Pensacola to career as a pilot, and I got air sick on the plane going down, and I had air sick down there for a while, but eventually that went away, and I was very good. I would be number two or three all the way through 18 months of training. and I got my wings and got sent overseas in the first line fighter squadron and the war was over. And so we were flying these missions and drinking and drinking and flying these mission. God, was it fun. Everybody everybody in the squadron seemed to drink as much as I did. The colonel would sit us all down. There was 20 of us and the colonel and he would order the drinks. Bring my boys a round of drinks. Bring my boy... And they drank so fast, I didn't have to sneak drinks. You remember when it's a slow-moving crowd? You'd go to the bathroom and have two at the bar and then come back and join the crowd. And I just was thrilled with the fun I had there. And before I came back, one of the majors was talking about how he wanted to get his own squadron in a couple years and he wanted all the best pilots. And he looked at me and said, And I want you. And then he said, but I wouldn't let you drink. Now, I'm a young first lieutenant. And he said and I wouldn' t let you drink. And I didn' t ask him. I pretended I didn't hear that. And it wasn' t until I got to AA that I realized that even in the middle of very heavy partying marine pilots my drinking scared him. I was doing something they weren't. They were just getting drunk all the time. I was drinking with an intensity that he could see. He could see that this was a necessity and not a choice. When they came back to the States with their family, they just slowed down and adjusted to whatever was socially acceptable. I came back and kept right on the same path. and I ended up with 14 years as I was making a career I loved it so I got a regular commission and I was a forward air controller with the 7th Marines and flight instructor and at the end I was in a photo squadron during the Cuban Missile Crisis very elite squadron at Cherry Point, North Carolina and it was then that the disease decided we're going to up the ante and I started having withdrawal symptoms in the plane because I would not drink for 12 hours and I'd start going into alcoholic withdrawal. I didn't know what it was but it would be heart palpitations and my vision would start to go I'd sweat, real anxiety I'd just be, God, I don't know if I can stay in here. And I'd fly with my hand on the ejection seat. Well, maybe I can punch out. I mean, it was really terrifying, but I kept that up for about seven months. I just kept getting back in and going up. And there were some times when I just didn't want to go. It was too hard. But somehow I was flying good missions. The colonel liked me, you know, so things are going. and I was on a cross country with three other airplanes in a different plane. This was not the photo plane, it was the radar plane. There's the radar guy in the right seat. And we were about a half hour into that flight and I said, I'm out of here. I mean, just like that. I'm outer here. You know how you have to bolt out sometimes? You can't stay where you are. You're just going, I got to go, I gotta go. it's not easy to go out of the plane. You know what I mean? And we had another hour and a half to go and I said, I can't make an hour and an half. And I couldn't remember how you got out of this damn thing. It didn't have an ejection seat. It had a chute that came up. Then some kind of a ramp opened up and you slid out the bottom. It was a real antique. And I'm trying to figure that door out and then I went, geez, this guy doesn't know how to fly. I can't go out and then he'll be going hey where the hell so so I declared an oxygen emergency which is a what you do if you want to land well you do it if you have an oxygen emergency but if you say declare the oxygen's bad somebody could pass out very shortly with bad oxygen so they pick a field and we all landed and we went to the club and I got drunk and felt better the test showed there was nothing wrong with the oxygen and I told the flight leader I said I ain't doing this anymore and they retrained me broke my heart and they they retrain me in something else because you gotta have a specialty took about three months and during that three months I was sitting at this desk in that squadron watching people look at my office with disgust. This guy can't hack it. All I felt was three months of shame and finally I got my orders and became an air traffic controller which is unbelievable. Anyway, I was out in Los Angeles last year and I was at the Brentwood group and there was a gal coming up to get her 30-year medallion and her husband drove her up. And he was not an alcoholic and she mentioned to him there was this guy named Sandy Beach who was leading the meeting that night. He said, I think I know him. Tell him to come out and talk to me. So right before the meeting, I went out and here's a guy I never saw him before in my life and he looked at me and he said, In 1962 you were flying an F3D2Q, the radar plane in a flight of four on a cross country and you declared an oxygen emergency and the planes all landed and you never flew again. Naturally I said how do you know that? And he said I was in the plane with you. Now what are the odds on that? You know 45 years later to run into the guy who was inthe plane with me Turns out he wasn't a radar. He was another pilot. Turns out that we had flown away from Cherry Point because a hurricane was coming, and when they come, you fly somewhere safe, and then you drink until the hurricane passes, so it's pretty good duty. So no radar guys were going. There was all pilots. And he was a new pilot that had been recalled from American Airlines for the Cuban Missile Crisis and had since retired as the second senior pilot at American. And so he came the next day. I was up in Oxnard. And he brought photographs from the squadron. And he bought them for me. He brought back all my memories of what happened. And he said to me, did you know how popular you were in that squadron? Do you have any idea how much the other guys liked you? Do you know how much it broke their heart that you weren't going to be able to fly anymore? The colonel was trying everything to find a way so you wouldn't have to do that. See, there were no alcohol programs. I thought they were all looking at me with disgust. Turns out it was breaking their hearts that I couldn't fly anymore. and this guy's telling me this. Now that story from that man is in total contrast with my story of three months of shame. So I had to go back to 1962 and go erase, erase, erase, erase, erase, erase, erase, erase. All the shame is gone and I put in everybody liked me a lot. And that story feels much better than the old story. Did you know that you can get rid of the old story? What is your life story but a story? Where'd you get it? You made it up. You made it up That was your version of what happened. I heard a speaker one time say, my story is divided into two parts. What happened during the years that I drank and what I thought happened during the years that I drank. And everybody laughs. And it turns out our whole life can be looked at that way. My childhood is divided into two parts. What happened when I was a child and what I thought happened when I was a child. And what I thought happened when I was a child are old ideas. What I thought happened in high school our old ideas. None of those are facts. All of those are my reaction to facts. I had a childhood. I decided it was lonely and I was misunderstood. That's my story. It didn't happen that way. That's how I decided that it happened. I decided that the church was mean. I told myself, this is a mean place. And when I heard that, I got scared. I believed my own comment. This is really terrible. Yeah, it is. I'm feeling sick over it. I'm only feeling sick because I told myself this is bad. It's a permanent con job between my ego and me. Hey, this is really bad. Well, I'm feelin' sick now that it's bad. And then the fact that I'm feelingsick is proof that it bad. You see how the con game works? I tell myself a lie. I believe it. It makes me feel sick, so it's true. The big book is so powerful on that point. Do you remember what it says about the idea that somehow we can drink like other people? What do we have to do to that? Smash it. Remember that line? The idea has to be smashed. There. Now that's how to take care of an old idea. smash it what would happen if we smashed all the old ideas you know what would be left the truth the truth is revealed it's not told to us somebody doesn't just walk up and say here's the truth it becomes revealed to you as you work the steps you find out what you've got to get rid of you ask God to remove it and as that light it's like cleaning the fog off the mirror in the bathroom and then you can see everything clearly and so this is a very powerful message that we've had two talks in a row talking about getting rid of old ideas because that is the reality that we live in are those old ideas we think it's facts is just a story and it can be smashed just like the idea that we could drink like other people. And that man smashed three months of 1962 for me. He walked up and went, crush! Happy three months. So I put that back in and I went, man, that's fun to think back on 1962. That was quite a pleasant time. That was really nice. and I think as you move through the program you're going to find your whole life will do that and you won't be holding anything that is uncomfortable that's making you sad or mad or frightened now our ego doesn't want to let go of certain things oh now what that guy did to me in high school will never be forgiven really Never be forgiven. How about that for a death sentence for yourself? I'm never letting her off the hook. You know how stupid that is? Bill uses the word stupid quite a bit in our big book. We are especially stupid in that area. And that doesn't help a real smart guy to say, well, your real problem is you were very stupid. it's not highly technical psychological it's nothing it's stupid to hold on and not forgive something just for an exercise for the heck of it imagine tonight you go back through your entire life and forgive every unfair thing that ever happened from the time you were a baby till now every single thing where you were hurt and forgive it. Forgive the grammar school, high school, forgive the girlfriend who ran off with you. Forgive this. Forgive the IRS. Forgive the government. Forgive this Forgive all the politicians. Forgive all the situations in the world. Forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive. I would submit to you there wouldn't be much left inside of each of us. We would be about as light as a feather. That's what we live on are the injuries that were done to us. We keep a very close record of all of that and then when we got nothing else to do at night, we review them all. Oh man, yeah. Oh, that was bad. I remember that. I remember this. I remember there. I remember you remember that? What if there was nothing to review? Well, as I look back, whoop, nothing. What would you do? you'd probably just sit there and enjoy the world. You'd probably just look out at the moon and go, that is unbelievable. Imagine that would be all of life would be just looking around going, isn't this amazing? Just like we do in AA. We look around all that sobriety and the countdown and go... Isn't that amazing? Wow! I can't believe this. That's the freedom from old ideas. It's amazing, isn't it? The beauty of it is no one else in the world has to do anything. We do it all ourselves. We fix everything by forgiving. No one else has to change. No one has to doing anything. And we're transformed as people. Just like alcohol used to do it. Terrible day. Oh God, I feel terrible. You couldn't believe all the crap. Give me a drink for it then. Three drinks later, hey, problem free. This is more like it. Let me buy you a drink. I thought you were broke. No, man, I got three bucks. Let me get you a beer. Let me go buy you drink, right? And we're transformed. The world's the same. We're transformed, and that's what the program is for. profound personality change entire psychic change all of those are the same words for awakening seeing things differently anyway I eventually lost my career I went on trying to support eight people I had a couple years sobriety we were broke God we were broken I'm not a good money earner. And after about seven years of that, we split up money. She's working in a grocery store and I'm trying to sell and do all this stuff. And she finally found somebody who could really offer financial stability for the kids. And he's in and I're out. And that wasn't fair. and there was all kinds of periods of adjustment and this and that. My kids didn't want to talk to me. They thought I was the one in the crowd. There was all of the what you call unfair treatment. It's not fair. It's over nine years my kids won't talk to be. I'm working as hard as they can. You should have heard me at meetings. Don't go near them. Don't get near them, you know. How are you doing? Oh, you sit down. It'll take you about an hour and I'll tell you how I'm doing. And my kids and I are so close now, it's just wonderful. And their mother and I were very close. We were childhood sweethearts. She's been married to this other man who's a really nice guy for 30 years. And the kids go visit them, and they go, Dad, he's not looking well. He may pass soon, and you and Mom can get back together. And so it's, you can see, it couldn't be much better than that, considering all the things that happened that were all very close. I'll tell you about how I got the job that I ended up loving and worked in Washington for 22 years and then retired from that I was selling, selling and I couldn't sell it was a real estate market in the 70's and the mortgage money dried up and there's 8 of us and it was just a mess and somebody got me an interview and it was done to all ex-Marines. A friend of mine was a Korean POW and he was working on Capitol Hill. He heard about a little government agency that regulated credit unions and a Marine General just took it over, a retired Marine General. And there was a Marine Colonel lawyer retired who was the General Counsel and they were looking for a Congressional liaison and he could get me an interview and I said what's congressional liaison you know I didn't know anything about this but he got me the interview so I go over to see this colonel and he said do you know all about the congress how it works no but I could learn well do you remember I got money in the credit union no do you Knowall about the law and the regulation well I could and he's trying to give me support but he can see that I'm not the guy they're looking for And he said, by the way, why did you leave the Marine Corps? And I went, oh, I remember saying, I really need this job. So I said, I got thrown out for drinking. But I've been sober in AA for 10 years and I know I can do this job And he says, well, I'll let you know Two weeks later, the personnel office said, if I want the job, it's mine and I went there and they told me the general was a big mean guy and I said well what do I do and I'm in with the young lawyers and they said well when he testifies in front of Congress you write his testimony really what's testimony he said well you better figure out he's testifying in a month on this big banking bill and I go oh jeez so I get a little office and there was a history book in there about credit unions, and I read it. There's nothing else to read. And the whole movement was started by Filene's department store in Boston. He was a philanthropist. He saw credit unions in India, and he wanted to get them for his employees so they could save their own money and borrow from each other, and that way they could get loans which they couldn't get from banks. And when he went to step one up, they told him he had to get a law passed. You can't just do that. So he hired a lawyer to pass the laws, and the lawyer was incredibly spiritual. This whole book sounded like the big book with all these spiritual principles in there that you have to treat each other fairly. If you save up a lot of money, don't go in the credit union and want higher savings rates because they'll have to raise the loan rates, and we've got to help the little guy, so you settle for a low savings rate. And that's the way it works. don't get greedy so I read this whole thing and then I looked at the testimony and I said I'm just going to use the principles I just saw in here these spiritual principles so I'm writing all this flowery stuff and we're going to go and turn it in and the general secretary came back and said the general wants to see you right now and the young lawyers all went you're in for it now and I went up there and this guy he didn't even introduce himself. He just looked at me and said, did you write this? And I went, yes, sir. This is great. And I suddenly was his boy. You know what I mean? He brought me back to the office and he had an arm tattoo there saying, you know, these guys are going, what the hell happened? He liked that style. It was the way we talk here tonight, you know, that kind of. And so I worked there for 10 years and the trade association hired me away for 10. So I had a career and retired and all that. Anyway, I'd been there a couple of years and I was down at the lawyer's house, the colonel, and he was my age and we had become pretty good friends. And he said, do you ever wonder why I hired you? And I said, yes, sir, I did. And he looked right at me and said, I just wondered what it would be like to work with someone that honest. Now, isn't that amazing? He just wanted to know what it would be like. And I had the biggest compliment I've ever had about workplace after I left there. I've been gone about two years and I used to go back over and hang around with those young lawyers. There was about five of them and we became pretty good friends. And we were out to lunch and one of them said this. He said, I'll tell you one thing. It stopped being fun to work here the day Sandy left. And I felt that real deep. I felt it. I may not have been the best worker, not the smartest guy, but it made him happy that I was working there. And it makes me feel good to this day. And that's what you feel in AA. You feel the energy of the other people, and you want it. If I had to describe the program, I'm going to stop in a few minutes, in two words, I would say the two words are let go. Let go. Anybody got a problem tonight that's just really eating you up? Let go of it. don't even pay any attention to it I tell people I'm working with if you've got something that's really eating you up okay here's the plan you ready? yeah go to the movies that's the planned yeah go to movies go to here's a paper you see some yeah that would be fun go to that movie go there buy the ticket look on the ticket before you go in see how long the movie is two hours and 31 minutes. Then go out front and ask God if he can watch everything for 2 hours and 31 minutes that you'll be back and collect all the crap in 2 hours and 31 minutes and then you go in and you get popcorn coke you get a good seat and there's previews there's everything yadda yadada just like when you were in high school and we go oh man I love this movie I love it all you do while you're in there is watch the movie that's it Then you come back out and you go, okay, I'll take them back now, God. And you go... This isn't as bad as it was when I went in there. I guess He's been working on these. And they just get better when they get out of your hands. Just let them go. Let it go. Because when we let it go, we become undisturbed again. When we become Undisturred, we're close to God again. When we're Close to God Again, we intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us. Our spirit cannot be spoken to when we're upset. Movies generally un-upset people. It's sort of a foolproof solution. And in that calm state, when we come back out and look at the stuff again, there are answers that weren't there before. and you go, this isn't so hard. This isn't such a big... And we realize that more was just revealed to us. More just appeared and we just walk off with the solution. We didn't think it up. It just appeared. When I work with new people and I'm sponsoring and they have a problem, I tell them, come on over. And my job is to show them that they don't have a problems that they're looking at it wrong. You are looking at it wrong, you're turning it into a problem. So then we start talking about it and I go, you see this and then over here and your boss likes you and then you got this and you got that and when I get through they say what my sponsor said to me well if you look at it that way it's not so bad. Well as a matter of fact it's just not even a problem if you Look at It That Way Do you see the power we have to create our own problems? We just make it into a big mess, react to the mess, get depressed and want to go drink. And so that's why we need each other, to see what we can't see. It takes two eyes to see the third dimension. and so if you're new I urge you to get a guide that's a sponsor and they're going to take you from the darkness to the light they're gonna take you from the material world to the spiritual world and the big book is a treasure map and the treasure is God and if you follow their directions that's all you do You only need to ask one question from the day you come into AEA until the day you die. What do I do next? Notice, you don't think up what you do next. You ask, what should I do now? I want you to start your inventory. Okay, now what do I go? Well, now you talk to me about it. Okay, not what do i do? Now what do we do? That's it. Now the problem with that is, it leaves us out. I'm not involved in my own life that's my whole secret now I'm happy almost all the time I try not to get involved at all in my on life no I'd rather talk about your life I'll get involved in your life and it just seems to get straightened out it just turns out fine without me being involved so we start out with a sponsor who is handling everything. And then we realize we can turn it over to God who is the big sponsor and in the final analysis we're just supposed to watch it. We're just opposed to take it all in. We're supposed to look at this amazing universe that God put here for us to enjoy and say the prayer that I think makes God the happiest. And this prayer is wow that means that I just stopped and looked at it and went wow this is amazing that's all now isn't that a simple way to live could that be true that that's all we're supposed to do what if it was true what if it was all going to be just taken care of and you just are supposed to watch it like a movie wouldn't that be something think about it thank you Thank you. Thank you.