Spiritual Awakening – 12 Step Workshop – 2025 – Part 1 of 4 – Sandy B.

Alex Anonymous, you know, and especially an honor to be able to host Sandy. You know, I've listened to his tapes over the years. I had an opportunity to go down to Tampa a couple years ago, spend a half-hour hour with him. He's just a wonderful human being. You know? I tried to, like, elicit what he might be talking about, and it's just whatever happens. I know that there was some confusion throughout the last few weeks in regards to when Sandy was going to be talking, was there going to repeat talks. I don't think Sandy ever repeats anything. But at any rate, the deal is 2 to 4 today. He's coming back tonight at 7 to 9, and then tomorrow morning he'll be here from 9 until 11. The first speaker for the conference will be tomorrow at 3 o'clock. if you've got you'll notice people with different color badges that doesn't give you a discount anywhere at any of the food courts or anything like that, it doesn't mean you get special favorites at happy hour, what that means is we're going to sort of monitor that, we're doing this as the first year we've done this dual step study kind of thing and in a conference as well But anyway, any more from me? I'll give you Sandy from Tampa. Yay! I got it. Thanks, Jeff, and hi, everybody. My name's Sandy Beechin. I'm an alcoholic. How are you all doing? The reason I'm sitting down is that my knees have gotten so old with arthritis that standing for hours has gotten to be unbearable. So I asked people if they would mind setting up a table like this. And besides, it makes it more casual and I feel like I'm part of the audience and I like it a lot. What I plan on doing is to just tell some stories, talk about the spirituality of Alcoholics synonymous in a manner that doesn't necessarily cover the steps in order, but will cover all the steps because those are the principles that we live by in AA. And so it's really not a step study where we're going to have a book and we'll go, okay, I want you to all go to page 53 or we're gonna do that. It's more of just totally relax and see if some of these principles cause you to see things differently. In other words, the idea of all of this is to have an experience while we're here. Because that's what the point of the whole program is, is to have that kind of something happen to us. And so rather than start, well, first I'd like to ask, how many people have less than a year? Okay, I'm always glad to know that because I will cover a lot of the basics, but I'm also going to talk about the full deal that we have in AA because, after all, that's the whole point of it. So in order to do that, I'm going to start at the end. How do you like that? I'm gonna start all the way at the very end where it says, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message. So it says there's one result that is supposed to occur as the result of these steps. One, a spiritual awakening. In other words, now we know at the very beginning what the point of it all is. What is the point? The point of this whole thing, to have a spiritual awakening. Then it says we carry this message to others. What message? How to have a spiritual awakening. That's a little different message than sometimes you hear. Sometimes you hear how to get sober, how to go to meetings, how to do this. That's right, but that's not the point of it all. The point is to have this awakening which is a personal awareness of your own creator. Up until then, I was a church guy when I was little, but all I knew was information about a God. No personal contact. The priests had the personal contact we were just sitting there. You follow what I'm saying? Now that's the way it looked to me. And so there's a great deal of difference between studying and coming to learn about a power greater than yourself and becoming aware that this power is inside of you and is real. Now, that's a pretty good deal. That's really wonderful when you think about it. But when we're new, that doesn't sound very appealing. I'll get to that later. I need money. I need some freaking money. I mean, I'll have an awakening later on. Why in God's name would I be looking at something like that? I mean I got a parole officer. I got people looking for me. I mean that seems a little far-fetched. Why would I do that? So we get down to, well, why is AA a spiritual program? Now there's many reasons that we could give. Well, it came from the Oxford group and that was a spiritual way of life and back then people were more interested in churches and so there was spirituality, etc., etc. But I would submit to you that the real answer is because it has to be. Why would it have to be? Because of the disease of alcoholism. So why does the disease of alcoholismo need a spiritual program? Because nothing else has ever worked. And where do we find that? We find that in the chapter to the agnostic, which is one of my favorite chapters to understand not only step one, but step two. And it's all right in the beginning. And it says, if when you drink, you have little control over the amount you drink. Okay, that's everybody. And if when You Stop, you can't stay stopped. That's everybody then by our definition, you're an alcoholic. Then comes the sentence. It says, if that's the case, you are suffering from an illness that only a spiritual experience can conquer. So we better go back and take another look at that one. What did he just say? You have an illness that only a spiritual experiment can conquer so we got to let that sink in and as it sank in, I remember telling my sponsor but I don't believe in spiritual experiences and he said oh you're screwed there's no non-spiritual way to not die from alcoholism there's not a way there's all no other way and then it goes on a little further and it says these are the two choices that suddenly face us One, to die an alcoholic death. Two, to live on a spiritual basis. And then Phil says, these are not easy alternatives to face. Now that's supposed to be a comedy line. In other words, if you're new, we asked you to come up. It's like a quiz show. We got two doors. One of them is on my left and one of them's on my right. And you have to choose one. And so we go, Ralph, come on up here. We're going to let you be the one to choose. What do you choose? To die an alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis? And if you're like the rest of us, you go, whoa, that's a tough one. Whoa. Wow. Eee. Wow. Do I get a phone call, Sandy? Yes, you get a... You get a foam call. You get it. You get the foam call Calls his doctor Doctor, this is Ralph A friend of mine wants to know How bad is an alcoholic death? Oh God, that bad So Because there's no other door to choose from Our poor man Selects Live on a spiritual basis Now why did he select that door? Does he believe in spirituality? No. Does he believe in God? No. Why would he choose that? There's no more doors. There's nowhere else to go. It's by default we become spiritual. If there was a non-spiritual way, we'd all be over there. But there isn't. We are left with, and that's why it's so important to focus on the nature of the problem. Because once we understand the problem, the debate is over about the solution. And once the debate is over, it's really quite an easy program. Most of the difficulties in AA's 12-step program come from not wanting to do it. It's not hard to do, it's I don't want to do it. I mean, how long does it take to do a fourth step? You know the old trick question, you know how long it takes to do the fourth step, oh two years and four hours. Two years of procrastination and four hour to do. I don�t want to, I don �t want and so the importance of the disease and step one and the beginning is essential to the rest of the time they early on they were doing you know surveys of why people with five years or more were sober but not happy and the reason was they never took the first step a hundred percent and so they were hanging around and not drinking but they weren't happy the reason that they weren t happy was they were never desperate in the first place when you're desperate you have I got to get this look you're like you're underwater and you're trying to get to the surface you don't come up partway to the surface ago I don't think I'll go all the way. And you realize that that is saving your life and got you out of that desperate situation. And so it's important to understand how desperate it is to be an alcoholic. And for you, my problem was, all I had to go on was that I had been locked up in a nut ward for six months. I had malnutrition, almost died, had the DTs and was screaming and running around locked up for six months, which is hardly enough evidence to be an alcoholic. I mean, that probably happens to a lot of people. So you can see we have the incredible ability to rationalize and re-explain our stories so that we have a drinking problem but not something that needs a spiritual awakening. I couldn't possibly have something that bad. Jeez, it gives me the creeps to think about it. And so we go back to the problem. That's always, you know, and it's interesting in our history that Bill started out just like I did, talking about the spiritual awakening, notice how I went and I talked to him, I said, I'm going to start at the end. And what did I do when I did that? I immediately went back to the beginning. It was just a tantalizing thing. Okay, this is what's out there. Now why in God's name would you ever go there? Now you're going to know why. And he had this marvelous, transforming, bright lights, mountaintop experience in a hospital in 1934. And out of that was removed the desire to drink. And it never came back. It just was lifted out of him. And part of a spiritual awakening like that, part and parcel of the awakening is an irresistible desire to pass it on. you just you know you can't keep that for yourself and so he's out going in the bars guys guys I got good news you're not going to believe it I'm in the room the mountain the lights oh you can have it come on come on and they're all looking at him going what did you have well I'm on the mountaintop and God talked to me come on coming out of the bar join me and they are looking at him like, hey, that happens to me when I drink rum. I don't think so. So he was trying to attract them to the bright lights. And Dr. Silkworth said, Bill, I think you should focus on the hopelessness of the disease. And that is what he did. And when he started doing that, people started paying attention. and people started going, wow, yeah, he was as hopeless as I am and now he's not. So he has something that I want and we'll discuss what that something is but it's an energy. It is an attraction because of an inner transformation and we are just attracted to that much like people are attracted to the Dalai Lama. I mean, they just want to sit in the energy because it makes them feel better. They don't even have to say anything. And this is what AA generates, is this new kind of energy where if you're new, you're looking around, what are they so happy about? Why are all these people so happy? What is it that's going on? And then you find out they're just living life. They got the same problems you do, but they're happy. And you suddenly are saying, you know, I'd like to have that. We have that saying, if you want what we have, that's what we have, is a new way of seeing the world with new eyes. Or as Chuck Chamberlain's retreat that they turned into a book says, a new pair of glasses. and so we go back to the problem it's the most important part let me see if I can put a few things on it if you're new and you come in and people say you're powerless over alcohol and you go well okay I could see that every time I drink I do get drunk and I never know what's going to happen so I think I'll go along with that I think I'll go along avec that and then we talk to a few more people and they go you know if you ever drink again it will be curtains so you understand that this is almost like an allergy, and it'll kill you even if you don't have a drink for two or three years. You do understand. Oh, yeah, yeah. I understand it. And this is where the problem starts. This is why alcoholism is such a fatal illness. Because that person, after they've been sober a while, their mind is back, they're healthy, they'RE reasonable, and they start thinking, and they go, well, you know, I accept this 100%. I'm not even fighting the fact that I'm an alcoholic. As a matter of fact, I accept to my very soul that I am an alcoholic and can never drink again. I'm no longer an alcoholic and I'm now not even fighting it anymore. Now the question is how much good does that acceptance do in staying sober? None. How do you like that? Well, wait a minute. I just accepted to my soul that I'm an alcoholic. Bill writes, there will come a day when we will take the first drink and we'll have no defense against it. What do you mean? Well, just listen to our stories. The guy knew full well if he ever took another drink, It was curtains. It was curtain. And he was so excited about his new sobriety, he went back to where he used to drink to tell the people in there, guys, give me a Coke. I'm an alcoholic. If I ever drink again, it's the end. My wife said she's going to leave me. Really? Oh yeah, and the doctor told me about the liver damage. He doesn't think I could last another year. Really? Well, tell us more. Yeah, let me have a beer. And here's something else. Thanks. and they sit there and watch him have a beer while he's explaining that it'll kill him. That's insanity. But that's why we need the program. If it was just that alcohol killed us, we wouldn't need the problem. Sometimes people have allergies and they don't know what it is. They suspect it's from food, and they go to one doctor after another, and finally a real good doctor isolates it, and it turns out that it's string beans. He says, you stop eating string beans, and you will never have that problem again. And the person stops eating string beings, and they never have the problem. That's it. They don't get together with other people who can't eat string beans and go to meetings about how not to eat string beans. They just don't eat string beings. But alcoholism is entirely different. Why would it be different? Well, let's look at what alcohol generally does for an alcoholic as opposed to a non-alcoholic. When I had my first drink, I was in the university. I was with all these other guys that were better than I am, which everybody always is. I felt very uncomfortable. I felt isolated. I was afraid to talk and people wouldn't like me. I just was hiding inside of myself and it was painful to be inside of me but I was pretending I was happy but inside is this terrible painful guy just hiding in there wishing it wasn't so painful and due to a certain set of circumstances I decided oh the heck with my pledge to not drink until I'm 21, I'm going to have a drink And, of course, I had it. And within a very few minutes, the people in that room were changed into the friendliest people you've ever seen. All these other people that were better than me and didn't like me liked me. I could see it in their eyes. And they wanted me to be part of their group. And they loved the stuff I was saying. And they're all going, yeah, this guy is great. This guy is good. Oh, man. I mean, I only had three drinks and I was like Alice in Wonderland. I went to a world that I loved. Alcohol changed the world into a place that was remarkable. It was just wonderful. I could spend the rest of my life there. and then I went to bed and got up and I was sober again and it was all black and white there was no technicolor and I was back being insignificant and they were all bigger than me but I knew one thing that as soon as that day was over and I could get to a bar I would be glad to join them I now had a secret that is the equivalent of the secret of life. I had the power to transform the world into something that was fun. And it made me comfortable to be who I am. I wasn't restricted by my fear and my anxiety into being the way I was. and so if you would come up to me that very first night and said we're from the planet alcohol and we can see that you're an alcoholic already because we can spot them like that and we want to give you a warning before you drink any further okay sure sure now if you keep drinking you're going to almost flunk out you won't get any more high grades. Is that okay? And I would have said, yes. Now isn't that funny? And they said, also, you wonít be going out for any athletic teams, which you had your heart set on. Is that OK? And I würde have said yes. Isnít that funny, I would say yes? Why would I say yes when something big must have happened? It must have been very important to me what happened. And they said, you're going to get in fights. You're going to get your teeth knocked out. You'RE going to go to jail. Your family won't like you. That's fine. I just want what happened last night. That's how big it was. Social drinkers don't say things like that. They don't have a sip of wine and go, I'd go to Jail for this. Because it doesn't transform their world. They aren't being set free from a very painful existence by alcohol. And so I didn't know I was, I thought I was just like everybody else and we were all partying, we're doing all these things, but it wasn't true. I was very different from the non-alcoholic partiers. There's a big difference. later on I ended up in the Marine Corps and the fighter squadron overseas lots of drinking it was heaven the colonel would order the drinks we'd drink around the table at the club at night you didn't order a drink the colonels did he ordered a round of drinks for his men and they'd bring the drinks and normally when I'm in a group and they're doing that I have to sneak out and get one from me about halfway through the next round. But this crowd, they drank as fast as I did. I mean, I didn't have to sneak an extra drink in there. And I was there about six months, seven months. And we got in trouble. We did this. We flew together. It was all kinds of stuff, bonding and real close. And one day I was out in the end of the runway. We were getting ready to go aboard a carrier and practice in the field. you have the field practice and I was out there with a big red headed Irish guy major, Newport and he was our maintenance officer and I liked him we drank a lot together and he started talking about how in 18 months he was going to be promoted to lieutenant colonel he was going to get his own fighter squadron and he was going make it the best fighter squad in the marine corps and he was going get nothing but the best pilots And then he pointed at me, a young lieutenant, and he said, I want you. Wow, that's like, you couldn't get a bigger compliment, you know what I mean? And then He said, but I wouldn't let you drink. And I sat there like, what is that? Here's a guy I drink with all the time. It wasn't until I got to AA that I understood even with heavy drinkers, alcoholics can scare them. We drink with an intensity and with an abandon that they didn't know existed. This guy never knows when to quit. I mean, you know, he saw something that scared him about me way before I saw it. So anyway, when we arrive here We're generally at a place that looks something like this Inside of us We're saying to ourselves Even I agree with my family and employers That my drinking is killing me Even I disagree with that. And I can tell right inside that if I keep on, some bad things are going to happen. I can feel it inside. I don't even need the experts telling me. If I got honest with myself, I can really see that this is getting, oh my God, it's getting awful. So maybe I should stop. You ever have that thought? Maybe I should stop. Yeah, I could stop. I just won't drink. But of course if you don't drink then you're sober all the time. All day, all week. All month, all year. Oh my God. There will never be any relief from the pain. So I have two horrible choices. I am going to exist inside of this pain-filled body trying to hold on for years or I'm going to drink and have a whole bunch of horrible stuff happen over there. So it's almost like you're going to put your hand in acid or fire. That's what it looks like. And that's why when people say you ought to just stop drinking, we go, you don't understand. And what we're really saying is, I'll be sober all the time. So in a strange way, one of our major problems is sobriety. It's very painful to not drink. Then we have to go home for Christmas sober with all those in-laws and all of that stuff. we have to go to work and meet people and socialize and go to football games and all the activities that we have with no alcohol. That would mean I'm out there alone, totally unarmed, as the saying might go. And that sounds too big. That's just too hard. And that's why some of us quit and we lasted a month. And what happened at the end of it? It got unbearable. You remember that? It was just, and if somebody said, just keep hanging on another 20 years, it'll get better. You'd go, that's, I don't think so. I don'T think I can possibly last that long. So now we're here and we're going, I still have those same two lousy choices, and that is to die an alcoholic death or to live sober. And the good news is that AA offers us something that nowhere else does, and that ist how to be sober and happy at the same time. that is not possible by just quitting and when I heard about the happy part that's the part I liked you could be happy and sober boy I never heard of that before I don't know how many of you ever thought of that yeah I'll be sober and happy that'll be cool but I saw people in AA that really were happy and then when they told their story I saw that they had the same problem I did, and they were in the same box. They were in this same thing. And so I got a little hope in the middle of all of this duress. And so you can see why it is so important to take the first step 100%. It's as Bill writes, it's the only one admitted we are powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable, it's the only one that is taken 100%. No ifs, ands, or buts. And if you have any exception in there, you can see the problem. Because if you're almost, almost powerless over alcohol, like 99%, but there's 1% that maybe I'm not quite exactly the same as everybody else, then this is what happens. Then you almost need all the meetings. And you almost needs to follow what your sponsor says. And you also need to follow the rules. You almost need the steps and you almost needed God. And those are called half measures. you follow what I'm saying it is leaving us with zero in other words it takes a complete surrender for anything to come in and so that's why we spend so much time on the first step and I don't know how many pages in the big book if you count the appendix the doctor's opinion all that kind of stuff it must go all the way up to page 65 or something before you get to the second step. So you can see how important understanding powerlessness is and inventorying it in yourself. Do you have any reservations? Are you sitting here going, yeah, yeah he's making a good point but I think there's a chance that if I got on a healthy diet and worked out and got in shape that you can see that's not powerless. That's almost, almost. Clancy, who's here this weekend, he always talks about all alcoholics think their case is different. Oh, I wish I was the same as all those people in AA, all those happy people. But I had problems a little different than they did. But I had the whatever, you know, and then you make up whatever your little unique story is that made you just this much different from all the rest of them. I wish there was a program that included this little wrinkle that I have, and I'd join that program. But until that happens, I guess I'm stuck with hanging on the fringes of AA and almost volunteering. God, they were looking for somebody to go to the prison the other day. My hand almost went up. I had to pull it back down. Because that would be admitting to ourselves that we really need God. And there's a part of the human nature that is our biggest enemy, the ego. And it fights us tooth and nail when we start incorporating a higher power into our lives because we have been the higher power. I've been the star of my show, the producer, the actor, the director, the entire thing of my life. And we call that our story. That's why when we get up to the podium and we talk, we go, well, Joe's going to tell his story tonight. And it's a great name. Story. It doesn't say Joe's gonna get up and give you the facts. Nobody said that They said he's going to tell his story And I heard a speaker many years ago Who for a joke started his talk with My name is Jim and I'm an alcoholic And my stories divide into two parts What happened during the years that I drank and what I thought happened during the years that I drank. And everybody laughed, and they just went, look at that. Yeah, you know, boy, we were drunk. We didn't even realize that it happened this way, and then we had it wrong. We had the story wrong. And the same thing could be said about all other areas of our lives. My childhood's divided into two parts. what happened when I was a child and what I thought happened when I was the child. My job is divided into two parts, what happens at work and what I think happens at works. I mean, I've been at jobs where I was the only one who thought the boss was a jerk. I couldn't believe the other people liked him. How could that be possible? How could they all think that he was a nice guy and I think he's a jerk? Which is he? What are the facts here? We know what my story is. My story is, oh man, if you worked where I do with this terrible boss, what am I saying that for? I like problems. That's why I'm saying it. That's what ego specializes in. Problems. If you're in this room tonight and you have a pressing problem been driving you nuts for three months, I mean just God if I could just get rid of this If I could Just get rid Of it And we were able To bring you up To the front Of the room And go Well what is it Oh Well here Here's the fix for it That takes Okay Good And you'd go Yes I can't believe it Before you got back To your seat You'd have another one Well now I got the car problem That I haven't been Working on Since I was so Obsessed with that Other problem How long do you think you would stay problem free? So that tomorrow at the meeting they called on you and you said, sorry, no problems in my life. I got nothing to talk about today. That's the nature of the human ego. That's why Bill writes, old ideas availed us nothing. See what I'm talking about? In other words, when I apply my way, my style of looking at things, my way of problem solving, all of those things, they're going to continue to not work. They're goingto continue tonot work. And so that's why we have this long process of inventory and sharing with other people in order, now I'm going to go back to the beginning, to have an awakening. Now, an awakening is a funny thing. I'll give you one way of comparing an awakening I don't have a cell phone or answering machine or computers. I get lost in there. Sometimes I don'T answer emails for a month. Kind of behind the times. So I can get lost in my car just like you could in the old days but people have these things now in the car where you just go i'm lost i'm trying to go to 24 13 3rd street and the voice comes back and said fortunately it doesn't say okay jerk here's how to get there it says turn left at the next street then turn right and then you there you are now how can that box do that how could it know how to do that there's a satellite you know what i mean it's up there and if you were up there you could see what street was blocked and tell me not to go that way you could you could do all kinds of things if you you were way up there. An awakening puts us way up there. It doesn't give us more information to use down here. It enables us to suddenly be at a point where when we look around, things are clear. Oh my God, that big problem I had really isn't a problem. Now that I look at it from here. So you see the difference between figuring things out and seeing it differently. We're always looking in spirituality for a solution to a problem and generally spirituality works this way. It shows us that it's not a problem in the first place. Now that started with me, with my sponsor where you know when you're new the sky is falling every day several times a day and you run over and you go and he says okay what happened there oh god i'm glad you could well this fell off the building in my but you're not you know you just lay them all out and i think my wife's going to leave me too and then i i know they're going to fire me okay okay so then he goes well yeah now that's yep now i can see your point there But don't forget, you've joined AA. You got some new friends. There's the job opening that should open up next week. Your application is in there. People over here really like you. Your health is returning. And when he gets through, I go, oh yeah, if you look at it that way, it's not so bad. So did he solve my problem? No. He helped me look at that way. Look at it that way. And so that's what the program does that makes it so easy to not drink. That's where we're getting back to this very beginning, where the premise is being put out to those of you that are new that it's possible to not drink and be happy. Now that's worth going for. You see what I'm saying? Can you imagine how nice that would be? Do you know how easy it is to not drink when there's nothing for alcohol to fix? Pretty easy. Follow what I am saying? In other words, mostly we want to drink in order to feel better. We are feeling bad. We are in pain. I can't stand it. I want to feel good. What if you already felt okay? Well, then I would not have a Coke. You see what I'm saying? This is what is in store for us, and nothing less. It's a funny thing about AA. I've been around 42 years. There's lots of guys way past me. But you get to see things differently each year that goes by. And I made this observation, for whatever it's worth. If you went back about 50 or 60 years ago, in AA, in almost all mid-sized cities and certainly in all towns, there was only one meeting a week. One meeting a weak. And people were staying sober in the same numbers they are today, maybe even more. And you go, how the heck do you stay sober on one meeting of week? Wow, that would be hard. Well, number one, you really look forward to the meeting. You know what I mean? And maybe you get together with somebody who's in the group and you halfway through the week have coffee with him or her. That breaks the week in half. But mostly you prayed like hell. Oh God, get me through another day. Get me through Another Day. Get me Through Another Day, please, please. Please, please only one more. date of the meeting. Please God, please God, please God. And that's what they did and the state's over. So now we fast forward to today and we see what success has done. And now there's meetings, certainly there's a meeting every day most of the time there's an evening at 8 in the morning, a noon meeting, a 5.45 meeting right after work, a 7 or 8 o'clock meeting, a lot of places there's midnight night meeting. And there's men's meetings, gay meetings, women's meetings pilots' meetings, doctors' meetings lawyers' meetings. There's conferences there's workshops, there's weekends there's CDs, there're tapes there's literature on every subject that has ever, ever been thought of there is a support system out here that is so powerful you don't have to hardly pray at all Now think about that Think about that You see how easy it would be As Bill says To rest on our laurels Remember him writing that It's easy to rest on your laurels But we're in trouble because alcohol is the subtle foe. The laurels could be just settling for a modestly comfortable sobriety based on just attending meetings and going out to dinner afterwards and maybe taking a meeting here or there, but no personal spiritual intensity. And this would produce what Bill called good sobriety. And then he went on to say, he quoted Abraham Lincoln when he said, the biggest enemy of the best is the good. Isn't that an interesting sentence? The biggest enemy of the best is the good. So if you've, this is now for people who have been around a while, if you feel like, yeah, I got pretty good surprise, then we want to take another look at that. We want to go, am I more awakened now than I was five years ago? because awakening is the magic word in our program. Bill calls it more spiritual growth, and you can see several places in the big book where he'll go, well, the answer to that is more spiritual grow. The answer tothat is morespiritual growth. And what is meant by that is to awaken more. In other words, to see even more than you saw before. Now in terms of spirituality, there's no way of comparing this person's spirituality with that person's spirit. There's no Way to measure that. The only thing we can measure is how I was five years ago and how I am today. In other words, I can only keep track of me. And I can tell you that I'm much more excited over the last three years than all the rest of the program combined. Things have happened and it's just been remarkable. So the journey never ends. And I think that's very good news and very exciting. But it becomes an individual effort at that end of the scale. And we'll get to that one when I start talking about step 11 and so on down. So what I tried to do in this first session was just to throw out a big picture all the way from the end to the starting point. And it's a journey, you know, and it all starts, as they said years ago, all journeys start with one step. You just finally go, okay, I'm going to go. And we decide to work the program. Now, for many of us, what does that involve? Getting a sponsor. That is, if you were going to go to... Oh, good, I'm going to take a 10-minute break every hour. So we've got three more minutes and then I can see four people that if they don't go to the bathroom soon, there's going to be a problem in here. And I'm one of them. Now I lost my train of thought. Anybody remember what I was just saying? Oh, getting a sponsor. If you were going to go tiger hunting in India, you think you'd get a guide? Or would you just go out and say, where are the tigers? You want a guide? No, I'll just go get him. I'm going to go get them myself. Or if you're going fishing, you come down to Florida, what do you do? You get a guide with a boat. He knows where the fishing waters are and he takes you out, right? I mean, we always get guides. That's what this is. Someone who's been there and can lead you down this path and make observation. He can see, or she can see what's going on with you that you can't see. And as time goes on, you learn something very important. No one can see the truth about themselves alone. That's a rule. I didn't know that. It is a spiritual principle so much so that Bill writes in the 12 and 12 that people of very high spiritual development always insist on checking with others the guidance they feel they got from their higher power. That's very high, spiritual development. You know, like one monk turning to another. You know I had this feeling, what do you think? So when people ask me, well I'm not sure what God's will is for me, I say ask somebody else. Just tell them what you think it is and then run it by somebody. And if it holds there, in other words, if you get positive feedback, then that's close. So we need each other desperately in order to live as human beings. We should be doing this all the time. This is how life should be lived. We're all part of one big family and we just go, hey, can you help me with this? and I'll help you with that and we just need to be right now I have about my sponsor I've had the same sponsor for 42 years but he's very ill he's in Virginia has lung cancer and getting near the very end but I have three or four very close friends in Tampa and we have this system amongst ourselves the others are still working but even when I was working it worked the same way Now, if I called them or they called me and they said, Sandy, can I run something by you? It was a secret word for this will only take 45 seconds. So even if you have a customer, you can still do it. You follow what I'm saying? And then I would go, yeah. Listen, my boss came in. He said that. I reacted this way. And then it ended up in this kind of a mess. How do you see it? And then if it's me or them, they just go, well, the way I see it, your boss must have had a terrible night because he was totally off the wall, dead wrong, forgive him. Or the way i see it is your boss is right, you overreacted, you owe him an amend. Now how long did that take? I covered both examples in less than 45 seconds. Bing, hang up the phone, problem over. How did I get it over? By getting somebody else. To get somebody else So in other words, we get disturbed. The difference between a new person and an old timer is the old timer picks up the phone quicker. The new timer goes, I think I'll see if I can handle this myself. And then it gets worse. And then after a week we go, Can you help me with this? We took a tiny little situation and built it into a 500-pound boulder. And then we finally called. So what I'm saying is, out of this early process of sponsorship, we're starting to learn that it's impossible to live life on a happy basis by ourselves. That we need each other in order to get the new perspective that's part of an awakening is to have someone else share their view on it and you listen. It no longer is a competition like who's right and wrong. My idea is better than yours. That's all gone. We just want some honest feedback and then we go, oh yeah, that's a good way to look at it. That's my favorite thing to say. That's a great idea. That's the good way to look at it. Thank you. Wow. I never would have thought of it. Of course you couldn't think of it You're in the problem. You need someone who's not in the problem. You see what I'm saying? And so we start that with the sponsor or our guide. So let's take a 10-minute break and then we'll come back and talk about the guide. That's working, right? Okay. Okay, if everybody got their coffee and visiting and all that, we'll pick up with the guide and the suggestion that we get a sponsor. I think that the concept of a sponsor is the most wonderful thing in the world. I had a sister who's in AA, and I'm three years older than her and we were close and friends and all of that but I always wished I had a brother and I am sure that she wished she had a sister you know what I mean because then you would have both and there is something about the bonding in AA with your sponsor that reminds me of that And it is a trust and a sharing and a coming out of the shame and the hiding place and all of the awfulness that we created in our own minds about ourselves, our past, and all OFAT. and i was very lucky uh the way i got my sponsor i don't you know i don' t know today it seems a lot harder than it was because back then the sponsor was the guy that came to your house to get you you didn't have any say in the matter at all it was predetermined you know so you just said well this is who god wants me to have so i guess that's that and i sometimes think that today we ought to go back to that system and in the, but I tried it in my home group. They voted me down. But I thought we'd put all the sponsors' names in a hat and then Joe comes in and then we go, Joe needs a sponsor. We're going to get the senior person in the group to reach in the hat. Reaches in and he goes, It's Larry! And then it would look like it was determined by God or something like that, because when you have to go out and look on your own, that must be quite a challenge. I mean, I just didn't have to do that. It would be like looking around now, who would be a good mother and father? How do you know all of that? But in any event, if you are new, that's very important is to find someone who has the program, has this energy that we're talking about, who has had this awakening. This is just my thoughts on how you would want to choose someone. who has that energy that you just go, I really like what they have. And it isn't what job they have or anything like that. It's just you can feel there's a way of looking at things that they have that you like. And so that would be one. And then the other is that you will be absolutely honest with. absolutely honest and I'll tell you it was so funny my sponsor I wasn't going to be honest for quite a while I thought it was you all know Tom Ivester from North Carolina a lot of people do he's got 50 years in January and he was telling me as hard as I try still today with 50 years of sobriety sometimes the first thing out of my mouth is a lie. Even if the truth is better. I somehow found when I was little that it was dangerous to tell the truth. It took me a long time to realize it was safe to tell the truth, I remember even I've been sober a long time ago, I hate to even tell you this I've probably been sober 25 years, and I was getting closer to retirement so I could play more golf. That was back before my knees gave out. And finally, I think I was 55, I broke 80. Now anybody who's a golfer knows that that is, that's it. You can die and go to heaven. I had a 78 legitimate, on an easy course, but it was still. And all my friends, and I had their scorecards signed with me. And I got them together and I said, guys, you're not going to believe what happened today. You're not gonna believe what happens today. You know, blah, blah. And they said, what? I said I had 77. and they went wow that's wonderful we're so happy and then I went I was lying I had a 78 why'd you lie I don't know I have no idea then they didn't believe I had the 78 why did you lie I don't know it just came right out but at least today when we do that we go cancel that erase erase erase and we do correct ourselves and promptly admit that we're wrong but anyway I just share this with my sponsor he said look we've been together a while now and we're really going to go into the spirituality it's time to focus on it not talk around it or about it or anything we really want to start getting some real work so i want you to be honest with me about your spirituality okay okay all right how much do you really pray? He's looking right at me. You know what I mean? The answer is never. You know what I'm saying? And he said, I want the truth. How am I going to say never to my spouse? You know what I means? This is a praying program. We pray and pray. So I said, never. He said, that's okay. It's never. I said, yeah, never. I remember in church, I hated it. It made me sick. I don't like what they were doing with incense and Latin. It makes me feel nervous. I hate it and I don' t do it and during the Lord's Prayer at the meetings, I go, ya-na-na, ya-nana-na. And I don''t. So he said, okay, so we have zero praise. Okay, how often do you go to church? Either on a Sunday or drop in because churches are kind of very spiritual energy and you could just sit there and get connected and all that. How often would you say you go into church? Never. I got so angry at that Catholic church I don't like anything to do with churches. when I went to Paris, I didn't even go in the cathedrals. Screw you. I'll go to the museums. I'm not going in there. I'm just going to have God see me going in the churches and going, yeah, yeah, got you, and all of that. So he said, that's all right. Zero. Now how about spiritual readings? There are New Age bookstores that are filled with wonderful books that they can help people. that everybody does it. It's a very wonderful way of going near that section. Bill, it's a joke. It's people fooling themselves. A new age schmoo age. I'm not interested in reading that kind of crap. So I read, I like sports. Airplanes, I'd like to read about airplanes and all that. So zero reading spirit, yep. Well now how about meditation? Do you like to sit and maybe go out by the beach and just sit and let God come in and just let the thoughts. Not only that makes me nervous, I get frightened. I'm not interested. I just want to just not drink. I'm no longer interested. I'm still not interested in that. So zero meditation. Yeah, yeah. Zero meditation. One more question. Okay. So how's it going? How's it going? What does it feel like to be inside of you? It's awful in here. I can't stand it in here, it's absolutely ridiculous. And he said, well let me tell you something, the spiritual life is not a theory. Not a theory, if I was in the school system, I would ask to teach a class called The Theory of God. How do you like that? The theory. And I would teach it this way. I would say it's just a theory. Now, if we have a theory, then we need to be scientists and we need to perform scientific experiments that you personally conduct and then you record the results and that's how a theory is proven until then it's just the theory like the theory that Einstein had was just a theory until it proved out and every scientist agreed and it became a law and so then we've just go now where Where can we find a laboratory to perform a spiritual experiment? There's only one place that's inside of each human being. There's no other laboratory where that experiment can be conducted. And my sponsor was setting me up for this experiment in my laboratory by saying, This is the theory that you are living by now. No praying, no meditation, no churches, no spiritual reading. What's going on in the lab? What kind of results are we getting in there? Bad, bad, bad. Well, would you be willing to try a different experiment, one called a spiritual experiment? Well, maybe I might think about it. Now, why would I say that? Does anybody know where I'm going to quote out of the literature? I think it's in the 12 and 12, where it's talking about prayer. And it says, we recoil from prayer much as a scientist refuses to perform a certain experiment lest it prove his pet theory wrong. So why would I not want to pray? what if it worked? I'd be wrong. All those things I said all those years about prayer, I'd have to take back. I don't like being wrong, and I don' t like taking things back. So I guess I'll stay miserable instead. Would you rather be happy or right? so even though there it is wouldn't you like to try this experiment what if it worked and part of me is going yeah that would be great but my ego goes no it wouldn't we'd look stupid you've been saying for 50 years prayer is stupid now you pray it works you're going to look like a jerk do you understand what I'm saying see how the ego jumps in wants to be happy pride I would be wrong if I tried working these steps, making amends, taking an inventory, praying, meditating, trying to turn my life over to something, and it worked. Where would I be then in terms of my pride? I'd be cooked. I'd been wrong about everything. every idea I ever had would be wrong do you know how lucky it would be if you were wrong about everything when we come in here we're losers every idea we have is a losing idea the world sucks I suck my friends suck life sucks you can't trust anything and it's all gonna end up awful wouldn't you like to be wrong no I No, I don't want to be wrong. I want it to turn out that way. That would be the greatest thing in the world if you were wrong about all that stuff. You see the freedom in it? If it was wrong, what if you're wrong? What if that isn't the way it was? What if you are wrong? Chuck Chamberlain, when he wrote that new pair of glasses, as the years went by, he's just running around. What else am I wrong about? Get rid of it. I mean, it was the most exciting, probably like a ship that could get rid of its own barnacles. Hey, go on. There's tremendous freedom in finding out where we're wrong. There was a speaker friend of mine. He was a lawyer up in Washington. He was actually the counsel for the House of Representatives at one time. And he was an old Alabama guy and when he'd give his talk look everybody real serious and they just go, you know, it isn't the things you don't know that kill you. It's knowing things for sure that just ain't so. And that's what we have. We have a lot of ideas that aren't true. But we believe them because we told ourselves this. And while I'm on to right at this point I want to just explain what emotions are from a spiritual point of view emotions feelings we we hear a lot about those and in the 70s they became like the buzzword of the country that get in touch with your feelings trust your feeling feelings feelings and they became almost synonymous with truth you thought you follow what I'm saying if I feel it it's true and it could be or it might not be that they're real you have to acknowledge that I I have this terrible frightened feeling there's a burglar in the basement so I have to do something about it it's not going to go away I really am afraid that there's a burglar in the base does that mean there's a burgler in the Basement could be most likely there isn't so I call the police they come over and they go sir stall over maybe something just fell off and you heard a noise and it caused you to think that there was a burgla in the basement. And then when you thought there was a burglar in the basement, you emotionally reacted to that thought and got frightened. So it turns out there's no burglar in the basin and my feeling was wrong. Wrong. That's very important to understand that there's a definition that I think is wonderful about what a feeling is. It's the body's reaction to a thought. You follow what I'm saying? You have to think. I could hear a noise down in the basement and not hardly respond to it, just go well something probably fell. So the noise didn't frighten me. See what I am saying? I had to think up the thought that noise could be a burglar. Once I thought that then I got frightened. I just talked myself into getting frightened. I'm not saying it's not a good idea because you want to be on the alert and all that, but there are... How often have you walked in the room and you saw two people over there talking and you knew they were talking about you? And you said, there they are, they're talking about me. As soon as you thought that, you felt bad. You felt terrible. I might sit here and look in the back of the room and there's a gentleman back there and I can tell from his eyes that he doesn't like me. I can just see him. He's looking at me and he does not like me and I say to myself, that guy back there doesn't like me and I go, I can't stand it when people don't like me and I have an emotional, this is very important to understand, I have an emotional reaction just as big as if he walked up here and looked me right in the eye and said, I don't like you. See how powerful the thinking is? That's amazing, isn't it? So whenever we find ourselves emotionally disturbed, a lot of it was chicanery by our ego. Hey, I think I'll play a joke on you. See that guy over there? He hates you. You've been undisturbed for 30 minutes. That's too long. Now I got a problem, now I got a problem. So the ego really it's a charade. It's like Shakespeare said, the world's a stage and we're actors on it. And it's hard to explain this. But I'm going to try anyway. Imagine that you are an actor or an actress, and you landed a role in a play. And in this play, you are the janitor in this office building, and you mainly sweep. You know what I mean? You sweep, sweep, sweeping. And every so often somebody comes by and we'll have a little conversation with you, But your main role is sweeping, sweeping, sweeping and the play opens with you sweeping and then as the curtain comes down, you're sweeping. And that's your role in the play. Now if we were just an actor, we would sweep, sweep, sweep, do our job.