Spiritual Power of the 12 Steps – Sandy B.

Well, good afternoon, everybody. My name is Sandy Beach. I'm an alcoholic. And Bob asked me to lead it off and then he'll pick up and say the wise things later on. This is a great honor for me. Bob and I have done a lot of things together, and I just look forward to it because we always have so much fun. It's just somehow we've managed to play off each other in a way that I think gets the job done and also allows us to have a lot more time together. It's a lot fun. And I'm really happy that Tampa has a new conference in June that's just Bob and me. And last year, this year we did the history. It was on Founders Day and next year it will be a week later and we don't know what the theme will be but it will be crazy so everybody try to come over. The schedule said spiritual power And when I think about that, power is one of the greatest words we can use in describing spirituality because it gets to the essence of it, which is finding this power that takes care of being powerless. and so I always go back to our first step whenever we talk about spirituality the people who have these transformations are people who got desperate and when we get there and of course Alcoholics Anonymous corners the market on desperation which is why churches don't have as many spiritual awakenings as we do because their congregation is probably 2% desperate and 98% I'm doing okay. And we have almost 100% desperate, and so we have a much better chance of the ego being cracked open enough to let some spiritual help in. And that is the condition, the human condition is we just don't want to give up the right to run our own lives. That's the most precious gift we have and it's pretty hard to pry that loose from someone unless they're in a lot of pain and alcoholism has driven them to a point where they're willing to hold up the white flag and surrender. And for some unknown reason, I was drawn to the second step on this as a way of starting the discussion. I have no idea where Bob will go when I finish, and that's what makes it so much fun. But it is the idea of coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. And probably one of the greatest chapters in our literature is the chapter of the agnostic. It is just brilliant. Because Bill knew, as he said in the chapter, half the people who come here are atheists or agnostics or are uncomfortable with God. We don't like him. We don' t know him. He let me down. I don' T believe in him. Whatever it is. And here's this chapter that gathers us all in, whatever our background, and slowly leads us into having an open mind, which is all that's required for the wonderful magic of AA to get in. And sometimes we get hung up on the word sanity. I know Bill probably thought about it later on because in 12 and 12 he reminded us that his definition is soundness of mind and we've got to remember that this is a spiritual program so when we're using the word sanity we're not using it in the sense of a psychiatric evaluation and that if you're going to be returned to sanity you must be insane so I've thought about it and I'm going to just offer some thoughts on what I think that word means in the spiritual sense And I simplified it down to this. Sanity is God-centered. Non-sanity or absence of sanity is self-centered, and the reason I use that is a self- centered person has a perspective on the world that is erroneous. It's not true. And yet we are stuck with it and we react to it and it causes us a lot of discomfort because when we open our eyes, that's the world that we see and it's a threatening world. It's an uncomfortable world. Everybody's out to get us. It's me against the whole thing. And that's not the real world. And so we're just like someone who is crazy, who thinks he's Napoleon or whatever it is, because when he opens his eyes, he sees himself leading a charge. And so it's all a question of perception. What is it that you see when you open your eyes? And self-centeredness leads to a very frightening perspective on life. and our book suggests it's just one of the great problems that we have is self-centeredness. And the program's designed to transfer us to become God-centered through the steps. And as that happens, our perspective changes. and as Bill says later on, sanity returns. Our view of life changes. So whenever I see Chuck Chamberlain's book, The New Pair of Glasses, I imagine putting on these new glasses and sanity returns I am now seeing God's world as he created it and I'm no longer tormented by all of the misinformation and the perspective that I used to have and so I use that so that we can get more comfortable with that word sanity and not be using psychiatric terms and I don't feel like I was insane and I am being restored and all this, we're simply coming home to God is restoring us to our right mind. And to me that makes it a little more comfortable. The last thing I'll say about the second step is there's just one little quote that I've always liked, that we have to come to grips with this, that either God is everything or he's nothing. He either is or he isn't. And then comes the most important question of all. What is your choice going to be? The choice that we make causes spirituality to happen. What is Your choice? Well, alright, well I choose... You don't have any evidence. You're just going to choose this. That God is everything. And in making that choice, it's like making the decision in the third step. It's the beginning of transforming our lives. Because our previous decision was God isn't. And we lived with the results. And we know what it felt like. So this simply requires an open mind where we're going to say, I'm going to jump into the God is everything camp and see what happens. and it's amazing what a simple thing like that can do to have an open mind on this God thing. Here comes my partner in crime who will straighten out everything I just said. Hi, I'm Bob. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Bob. And I would straighten it out if I understood it. Kind of like listening to Chamberlain. You know, it's fascinating, but I was a little bit over my head. But Sandy is not. I find I listen to Sandy the same way I used to still listen to Chuck. No one was like Chuck. Even Chuck wasn't like Chuck as we remember the idol, my hero. but for me, Sandy has a gift of language that stimulates me and clarifies some stuff that I love to listen to. It was interesting when he talked about people in church not having the level of desperation. I think people in Church do have the level of desperation, they do not have any focus and they do not have a tradition of surrender. I think when Thoreau says that most men lead lives of quiet desperation, I think that's more true than we would realize it to be. Sanity's definition, as I'm around longer, is a perfect definition of sanity, is being God-centered versus being self-centered. Chuck used to say you can have a God- centered life and suffer the consequences or you can Have a Self-Centered Life and Suffer the Consequences. And it's an entirely different paradigm. And why it's a different paradigm, I was thinking of her fellowship and by the way I just love Larcine's talk it was so powerful yay Larcines and I think the balance of ten to one is about correct I don't think it would be fair to have ten Larcides And it was powerful because it was as articulate and as pointed a transformation and a before and after as almost anybody that I hear does that, and as succinctly and as articulately as she does do it. And that's what Sandy and I are talking about a little bit right now. shows one of the distinctions he made was self-centered versus God-centered. One of the other distinctions is at the level of the problem versus the levelof the solution. When you're self- centered, you're mind-centered and ego-centered When you are mind- centered and ego centered psychology is the religion of the day thinking is the mode of analysis that we are relying on to reach a conclusion When we're thinking, the mind is like a computer and it throws everything we know about a given problem up on the screen. It just boots it up, you know. And then we massage the data on the stream, which is normal. I mean, if you were doing a mathematical problem or you're doing an analysis, you would take all the information you could access about it, you'd put it on the scream and then you'd order it in some way that you'd hope you'd be able to reach some conclusion about it. The problem in life is, especially in the spiritual process, is almost all the resolutions come from off screen. Almost all the solutions come at a different time than our analysis. Almost all our analysis is not just-in-time analysis. It is not analysis in the moment. It is analysis before and after. And so there's always a gap. There's a reality gap. because, you know, I mean, cheap words, but the only reality is in the moment. We keep looking for the peace to be able to kind of understand ahead of time how to resolve a problem that has not yet truly been presented to us. And I say in the momento, when you are in the moments of that event. You always have access to what you need to know. It's just in time knowing. it is being present and in the present if we're clear enough if our emotional content is not too high once your emotional content is past 4 or 5 you're done you're just toast there is now no content no process that is going to bring you any peace or resolution in that process so heightened emotionality reduces the IQ screws you in terms of being able to function in that process, and the only thing that orders that is spirituality. Spirituality will bring peace and quietening of mind that emotionality has. I went to a meeting Thursday morning before I got on the airplane to come here at 6.30 in the morning. It was one of my favorite meetings, a meditation meeting. We meet, meditate, and then talk about the 11th step for a while and we break up into groups and finish the meeting. And one of my sponsees gave the meeting, and it was really terrific. And he cited a book that was called The Question of God, which is an exposition on Freud and C.S. Lewis. Fascinating personalities. One a believer, one an arch non-believer, but very succinct. And what I was taken with is what Sandy said, is that our book pushes your nose into the question of what is God to be. Is God everything or He is nothing? And I'm thinking that we show up here with our pants on fire, with our lives disintegrating around us, as clueless as everybody who's watching us, but demanding control. I mean, we do. We do not want to give up. We do Not want to get our hands off the steering wheel. I mean, it is going to pry our hands off the steering wheel. And it's in shambles. And we're asked, you know, to surrender. It is just... But no place else... I was thinking that the strength of the program... So they said the question that Freud and C.S. Lewis are addressing is should you be a believer? Is there a God? It's a central question of life. and how, as a practicing alcoholic, you can't address that question. It is just, I mean, most of us, first of all, would not want to engage the question and have no interest in engaging the question, would feel like it's kind of licking the third rail of the subway. We do not want it. You know, we do not wants to get too close to whatever that question is. and yet without answering that question, you're not connected to the meaning of life. And I've always felt that ultimately for those of us who make the distinction about are you alcoholic or you're not alcoholic, the question is do you want to live or not live? And for a hell of a lot of alcoholics, that's not an easy question when the book talks about even living a life on a spiritual basis, I mean it is or dying, suffering an alcoholic death people don't get that we're afraid of living we're not afraid of dying for many of us the sense of dying is a relief it's a relief from the angst of life and it is now when you talk about craziness I mean that at some level and I'm telling you people don'T my wife looks at me funny when I say that they don'T get it And, you know, and that's the same question of why do you still go? You know. I'll stop going for six months, and then you ask me the question if I'm still around. I think that will answer it better than any. Ah, that's funny. Okay. But to me, the great strength, and it's kind of funny. I felt like a bozo recently. When I hear Sandy talk, he just says things to me that I can hear louder than anybody else that I listen to. And last night, he Just takes a simple subject and just, you know, I'm saying, where have you been? You've been here 44 years. Why can't you say that? Why can'T you get that? And I'm, you don't know. But there's a beauty and a simplicity and a power in it that I find enormously attractive. But I was thinking the power of AA is that we're taking people, us, totally lost, pants on fire, life being burnt around them, and we are forcing them by culture and conversation to confront the question of God. I mean, where else would you go? I mean you have to come here. It seems to be the only practical access to the answer for alcoholism. And then to access that resolution, you have to confront the question that Sandy brought up to have access to the power. And when you do that, you are then like a sprinkler being connected to the hose, like a lamp being plugged in the wall. And prior to that, we were these empty vessels that did not have a clue in our God and our only method of thinking and analysis was psychology, which is not deep enough. As DeMellis says, psychology transfers the bomb from your lap to under the seat. It does not resolve the central question. And Sandy sometimes in his conversation talks about the Big Bang, The Big Bang of Alcoholics Anonymous starting, whether it was, you know, there's two or three kind of instigations of the Big Bang of Alcoholic Anonymous. But our Big Bang, our personal Big Bang was our surrender when I think of it. I'm sure if someone had a conversation, maybe there's more than one. But the instigation of that was our falling apart. And I have to go to the bathroom. I'm leaving for a moment. I will be back. I've decided that urinating in my drink cup would not be an acceptable right now. Well, he's pulled a lot of things on me, but this one takes the cake. Picking up on a couple of things Bob said. When Dr. Bob gave that talk, his final words, and then he said, let's keep it simple. I don't know if, it took me many, many years to recognize the power that was in that sentence. Let's keep It Simple. Alcoholics can't stand simplicity. because if it's complex, we have an excuse for not making any progress. So we've got to keep it complex. If it's simple, there's no excuse. And so simplicity really is synonymous with spirituality. It is reducing things to their true essence and getting rid of everything that isn't necessary. And spiritual growth is done by getting ridof. And so when I sponsor people, I've been trying to help them work on this. And the technique that I've used is at discussion meetings when they finish, they're going to talk about resentment. They're goingto talk about whatever it is. Oh, I'm so glad you came back. I was running out of things to say. And so a typical share at a discussion meeting on resentment or whatever it is, is probably two paragraphs long at minimum. And we all know that there are people who share on forever. but I will get the person that I'm sponsoring and I'll say now you covered it everything you said was accurate but do you think you can say the same thing in two sentences? I want you to practice that I want to you to try as you're getting ready to share share in two or three sentences instead of two or three paragraphs. And as they practice it, it sounds just so good when you do that. And as an incentive, I tell them that when you're doing this, when you go through this, you're showing off spiritually. And so this... Oh, really? So... And it's amazing what it'll do to your own thinking and your own writing is to eliminate everything that doesn't need to be said and just say what covers it all in a very short amount of time. I was struck when Bob said that when the emotional disturbance gets up to a certain level, It cancels out the whole power of the program. It cancles out almost everything. And so one of my favorite things to talk about is what do we do about that? Where do we have some information on not allowing that disturbance to get up to a level that interferes with our connection to God, with other people, with our ability to be nice to other people and so on down. And it's really contained in the 10th step in the 12 and 12, which is one of my favorite little sections. And it all spins off that spiritual axiom, if something disturbs me no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with me. And, of course, the first time you read that, you go, what do you mean there's Something Wrong With Me? somebody just did something awful and it disturbed me so why is there something wrong with me? They're the guy who did that so I don't get it. And what's wrong with you is you're disturbed. That's what's right. What's wrong? What's not wrong with you? And so there's in the material world there's a game and I guess in the interior world the game is whoever gets the most money wins. and if we come in the spiritual world there's a game we can play in here and the game is whoever stays the least disturbed during the day wins so that becomes that becomes the new goal and if you think about it if you could stay undisturbed you'd have one fine day The problem is there's people out there who don't want you to stay undisturbed. They see you sitting over there undistURBED, and they go, we don't like undisturbED people sitting around here. I think I'll drop by, see if I can stir it up a little bit. And so I just go through this wonderful little four-part package on how to stay unDISTURBed. and it's hidden in the 10th step in the 12 and 12, but it's there. And it says what we want to develop is, number one, we want a cushion of time. We want to not react. We want self-restraint. And we can pray for that in the morning. We can say just give me self- restraints so that as events happen, I don't knee-jerk react. I have time to not do anything and allow myself to process it and to let the temperature come down a little. So self-restraint is a very powerful thing because if we practice it, we don't have to make so many amends. The second thing is an honest analysis of what happened. this generally requires calling someone else because if something happened that got you upset and you self-restraint and you sort of come down so I have people that I call and the signal is can I run something by you which means it will take 45 seconds and then I run the thing by them I was at work today and I was working really hard my boss came out And he said in front of everyone in the office, Sandy, this is the worst memo I've ever seen. I'm so ashamed of you. This really sucks. And so the person I'm calling says, well, read the memo to me. And I said, okay. He says, it does suck. So you owe your boss an amend. Go in there and tell him you're going to write a good memo And next time, he'll be really happy with it. And I went, I'm sorry I called you. But he said, you forget the name of the game is to get undisturbed. Remember, you decided that's going to be your top priority. This will get you undistburbed. You walk in there and you go, you know, I really did. I did it in a hurry, and you're right. I'm going to do a better job. On the other hand, it could be just the opposite of that. It could be that the boss comes out and he just says, I don't like the way you're sitting at your desk. I'm sick and tired of your ugly face around here and I don' t know how long I'm going to leave you here. Now, you can see I played no role in that. It was totally unwarranted. And I call up and I get some feedback on that. I say, what do I do when somebody comes out? And they go, He said, well, you forgive them. And I go, why? because the name of the game is to be undisturbed. This is the top priority. Didn't you tell me your boss is going through a divorce? Didn't You tell me that he's got some bankruptcy problems and got all kinds of stuff? He just lost it, so why don't You forgive him and let it go? Okay. So you can see all circumstances are covered. No matter what it is, there's a way spiritually to return to a state of undisturbed so that the program can work. Absent that, as Bob pointed out earlier, you can't be helped. So the top priority is working on maintaining this non-disturbed status. Do you feel better now and you're ready to go? An empty bladder does not help my level of intellect. I wish it were. Sandy, I mean, it's all a trick. I mean did you notice that you could take any kind of a problem to him and he'd have a conversation with you that you'd end up not having a problem? Which is really disappointing. It is. It makes you feel like he really didn't listen. I have to go to the bathroom. Thank you. He changes the focus from the problem to my resistance to the problem. Ah, yes. And not fair. But it is astounding, and that's part of what I enjoy when Sandy talks is the simplicity when he's talking about trying to make what his sponsees share more brief. When we are briefer, we get closer to the essence of it. We've all been in meetings where people do the dump. Third step, they turn on the machine, they do the dunk, and then they usually repeat the dunk two or three more times. It gets shorter, but it gets, you know, and there's no exit. It is just kind of a sort of thing. And he talked about not trying to react too quickly. I think if you have a certain level of intelligence, you should be allowed to act quickly. I mean, there is a certain group of us that grasp things quicker than others. and can almost immediately select the correct response. I notice that sometimes when I do that, people throw up around me, but I'm not. When Sandy talked about remaining, I mean, there was some place just recently where I shared a weekend with a guy and the subject was kind of the barriers that get in our way of our spiritual condition. And one of them is they talked about being at the level of the problem rather than the level the solution. That is not a small, that is like going from God-centered to self-centered, or self-centred to God-centered. Going from the problem to the solution. Those are two entirely different paradigms. They are not just different ideas. They are like different rooms, only it's bigger than that. And in the room where we're self-centered, all we have to think about in that room, we're limited to circumstances and thoughts and feelings. Those are ego and intellect. When you move over to God-centered. All of a sudden, you don't matter as much. And it doesn't matter is much. There's a space in that rule. That does not exist when all you have to thing about is yourself. There's no space in there. Your reality is to take that thought that you have, paint it on your eyeball, and it is your reality. I think sometimes the environment we live in is invisible to us. And I just want to spend a minute talking about what we are living our lives into. today i think society supports addiction and illness rather than recovery i think when i came in in the 60s i think societies still supported recovery now i think the best of our society supports recovery and being grounded but we are just being inundated first of all we The velocity at which stuff is being thrown at us has been increased three or fourfold over what it was. I mean, it just feels like today, like there's no time. I mean everybody just feels busy, overloaded. It is a different sort of feeling that I had in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The velocity At which we are living our lives is going faster. We are being inundated through television and magazines with ideas that you're not okay. What you need is a better body, more money, bigger house, different car, sunglasses. I mean, you're going to halfway houses with guys with $300 sunglasses with a $6 Starbucks drink who can't put a buck in the meeting container. I mean, it is, and it isn't just, I don't want to hang a lever. I just go to a lot of early morning meetings where we have a lot of people from sober. It isn'tjust sober house people. This is an epidemic everywhere. So if you don't have the right stuff, you're not okay. I mean if you look the right way, if you have the right stuff. If you are not doing the right thing, you are being deluged with that message in thousands of different ways all day long. You can take your computer in your bedroom and you can do porn, order medication, and gamble. If they would have had that when I came in, they would say, whatever happened to Bob? I don't know. He died in his bedroom. It was the damnedest thing. He died of starvation. He never left his bedroom, I don't know what, but now I found out you can order food. You know, so problem solved. And when you add to that computer, remember how we thought how fast faxing was? Okay, and now you can't wait. You know I mean there are, I mean the problem of texting in meetings is not a small problem. I mean it's just nuts. I mean, I've asked a couple of people to put their thing away, and they've left the meeting because I've ask them to stop texting next to me in the meeting when a discussion is going on. And the look you get is like, you know, you're just, we are nuts. It is nuts. So if you're looking for a place, if you wonder why when you, if, if your aren't aware, if you don't have a place to stand, if don't you have a placed to grab onto, there's a 40 mile an hour wind going on! If you wonder why we're drifting, we're drifting because we're living our lives into that. If you wonder why we can't access some of the things that we hear, it's because we're never quiet. The combination of us being lazy, I mean when you go around and ask most alcoholics really what to examine the question of God, we haven't taken the time to examine the question of God. When it says God could and would if he were sought, we haven't sought. We don't pick up books and read it on God. We're busy. And we are busy. But I mean, we are lazy. And we aren't quiet. The language of God is quiet. Silence. To have the kind of thought and access what we need to access, we have to have some peace in our lives to have even, to be able to engage that space, that holy space that is in there. It doesn't, once the velocity is up over 25, 30 miles an hour, forget it. Just forget it, I mean those of us that try to meditate, I mean our minds are often like gerbil tracks, no one does that well, most of us stop meditating because we don't do it well. Well if that was the criteria, none of us would meditate. No one does it well. What you realize in the process of meditating is that you've got a stream of thought and consciousness going on that you are not generating. You are observing. There are 60,000 thoughts a day going through your mind and you are nicht generieren sie. Every once in a while, one has to do with you. That's got Velcro on it. You grab the damn thing and interact with it and it seems like you have then generated, you have caused this thinking. If you cause it, stop it. And if you've ever tried to stop it, you will realize you cannot stop it The only thing you can do is stop engaging with it Detach from it Let the train go through the station Have an indifference to that thought process and in that indifrence comes a separation of peace and a space that allows non-craziness to enter great, I love that thank you Bob I think we'll all remember that when we were back drinking in the bars somebody came in and said God, I just got fired Do you remember what our response was to them? Have a drink. Let me buy you a drink God, that's awful Let me bye you a dink Next guy comes in Jeez, my wife just slipped Let me by you a drink God, I was just at the doctor He says, I got this Oh, God, let me by your drink Didn't matter what the problem was, did it? Let me bi you a drin It was very The alcoholic life was really simple. That is absolute simplicity. There's eight million problems and one solution. Wouldn't it be nice if life was like that? Was that simple? Well, it is. The spiritual life is organized exactly like that. And we come up against these turning points, these crucial decision points. And one of them was God is everything or is nothing. What is your choice going to be? You have to make a choice. And as we make this, the end of the chapter of the agnostic says when we drew close to him, he disclosed himself to us. So it's a decision. I like that game Texas Hold'em, You know where you go all in? All in. There's something about that term that I really like. It's kind of like with abandon, you abandon yourself to God. all in with God. That type of a commitment will produce amazing results because we're not looking for alternative solutions. We're going to rely on the one true solution. And if you want to talk about somebody who reduced everything to its absolute simplicity, It's Chuck Chamberlain, when he made that unbelievable statement that all problems can be reduced to one problem, conscious separation from God. And all solutions can be produced to one solution, conscious contact with God. If you can digest that, it means no matter what problem you have, the real problem is you're too far away from God. It doesn't require money to fix it. It doesn'T require sex to fix. It doesn' t require a higher position in society. It doesn''t require any of those things. the problem that is disturbing us will disappear as we establish contact with the higher power. Much like the problems disappeared with the third drink. Do you remember how that used to be? I can't stand it, I'm older than one, two. Hey, more like it. How's everybody doing? What happened to all your problems? Oh, the hell with them, man. I'm just kidding. they were removed by the power of vodka. And as you study our language in spirituality, look in the promises all throughout the book, the problem doesn't exist for us. It was removed. What a difference that is. It wasn't explained. It wasn'T figured out. It wasn' t analyzed. It simply was removed. It's gone. Now, it doesn't happen like that, which it did with drinking. So it requires a commitment to go all in and just say, I am going to buy into that 100% that my real problem is on my conscious separation. I have allowed that to take place. Your ego is constantly battling against you. The last thing the ego wants is anything to do with God. And it wants us to be in charge of our own lives. We are giving up the most precious gift that God gave us, which is free will. And we're giving it back to him. Giving it backto him. and as he makes the decisions through us where we intuitively know how to handle situations, it looks like we're making better decisions. But we're not. They're being made for us. We intuitively know how to deal with the situation or how to handel situations that used to baffle us. So it really takes a heck of a commitment to go all in with your higher power. But that's where the jackpot is. Everything else is middle ground. Everything else is just rehatching what we've done for 35 years, getting the same crappy results. And here's a chance where you take the reins of your life and seek your higher power with all your heart. Over to you, sir. I have regularly been exposed. Someone once said you can't learn anything you don't already know. so from time to time we are granted the gift of hearing something that's true just so and your soul doesn't go isn't that interesting i like that i agree with that i'm going to write that down your soul just goes oh yeah oh yeah it just it knows that it's so So, Chamberlain was a guy that I listened to in that way. Sandy is the guy that i listen to now in that way. The problem is, is that i'll take that home and someone will say, how was the weekend? You say, oh, it was really special. What was the best? Oh, i don't know. We had this meeting and Sandy said this thing and you might be able to repeat what he said. Most of the time not. most of the time not and often if we repeat it we repeat it as a memory as a concept it has devolved from an experience to an idea so we keep getting so for one thing we need to keep coming back to keep the marble going around in the bowl so it doesn't keep ending up in the bottom of the bowl so we can get our daily bread rather than our annual supply and take it home. And because the process is spiritual, and both because it's a process, not something once you get it you own it. You don't own it I mean there are people that seem like they've got everything there is to know. They memorize the first 164 pages of the book. You know, they memorize the menu and sometimes they're starving to death. It is taking these spiritual principles and bringing them into our souls and hearts and engaging them. And this is where I think ongoingly the power comes from increasing our spiritual capacity, from increasing Our Consciousness, that we have had a spiritual awakening. And cumulatively, I think we're more awake. I think that just happens in our ability to be able to interact with the spiritual principles because I really think that most of us, if they passed out an exam about what we're supposed to do in our lives, about the stuff that Sandy's talking about or I'm talking about, we could all pass the exam. We just can't live life. in a manner, at a level, in a space that which we would like to. We would like to be more gentle. We would want to be happier. We would like to be more consistent. We would like to have fewer problems and less conflict and all those sorts of things. And more money, by the way. You keep saying money won't solve the problem. No, but it helps. I mean, it is What I find is, I think most of us bring our intellect to the spiritual process. Most of us bring our memory to the spirit. To the spiritual process. Most of us bring psychology to the spiritual process. And mostly the spiritual process is an empty space. It is not a space of information or data. It is a clearing. And I really want to say that because I think that most of us are frustrated. It's almost as if we don't, at some level, I mean it sounds disloyal. We're saying, does the program work? and saying, yeah, it works. Well, what about that guy over there who just filed bankruptcy or lost his car, lost his house, cheated this guy and acted in a way you're not supposed to act? We are problem people, as Bill Wilson would talk about. And there's as much evidence, it seems to me, sometimes at meetings of our problem as there is about the transformation and the evidence of the transformation is astounding. But I want to remind myself that I need to, in the maintenance of my spiritual condition, there's a way of being that I have to bring to the process for me to be able to access a contact with that spiritual experience. If I don't have that, But if I can't summon some aspect of that being, then all I've got is my intellect. I've just got my mind. My mind can't... It's like bringing a knife to a gunfight. It is not up to, it is not big enough to give me the peace and the space and the clearing that I need to really make the conscious contact with God. And everything that's going on in the world today, the secularness of it and the busyness and the crap that I've talked about before is an interference with that, you know, space. So I just want to bring up that I think many of us, the biggest problem I have is bringing my information to the process rather than my heart and soul to the practice. Okay, thank you, Bob. We have a few more minutes, and we're going to have our friend with the portable microphone. We've got time for three questions, and she's going to walk down there, and if you've got something you want to ask Bob, he's the only one that is going to ask them. Be thinking it up. If you're dumb enough to ask me, we don't need the questions. Yeah. Go ahead down, and raise your hand if you thought up something. because it'll be interesting for everybody else in the room. I'll take the first three people who just want to come right up here and ask a question. I've got one right here. Oh, good. Here we go, Bob. You ready? Don't be shy. I need two more. Hi, I'm Ilana. I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic of a year and a half. I have recently experienced physical pain, and all of my spirituality, all of my faith, everything went right out the window. I'm baffled, I'm troubled. When physical pain just overcomes everything, how do you get it back? I think I'll answer that. Thank you. I've been dealing with that for a number of years and I agree with you. Quickly repeat the question. Oh, the question is that physical pain became so strong that it totally wiped out her spiritual connection and spiritual program. And I think that this happens to almost anyone who has chronic pain at a certain level. It's very wearing out and it's very tiring, et cetera. And I've been dealing with this for about six years. And it did sever the positive connection that I had for 45 years or 42 years. And I was astounded. My spiritual pride was shocked that I would be fitting in the same category with everyone else. and find myself in the same position that you're talking about, it was a shock to my ego. And then I decided that the biggest thing I have to do is every time it increases or whatever it is, I haveと fully accept it. I have то say, that's where we are, and I'm going to make the best of it, and I'm going to work even harder on keeping my connection with my higher power. And no matter how bad I feel, I'll find some spiritual books to read and I realize that this is what happens to people who have this type of pain. And I have good days and bad days, but when I can change my attitude, which I did about 10 days ago I was the biggest whiner for about a month it seemed like everything was going and somehow I got I don't know how but I simply said to myself this really isn't that bad I'm going to go out and enjoy life or I'm gonna go do this and it's really made a huge difference I don' t know if that answered everything but it is an extremely difficult thing and I admire you for coming up thanks Thank you, Sandy. Roberta? This is Bob's. I'm an alcoholic. My name is Roberta. I, this time, have about 16 months in the program, but I believe I had that spiritual awakening this time. My question is, 22 years of struggling with this and my ego, you talked about keeping it simple, and I'm already finding again that my ego is trying to tell me things, you know, once again that it needs to be more complex and that, you now, it's too simple. It's too simple. We need to complicate it some more. And I'm wondering how do you, what can you, is it just going to be a daily struggle? Is there something that can be done to quiet the ego when that happens I mean it just screams at me you know like you know all this there's got to be more to it you know there is is this all there is you know I just and I and I recently I found myself because I'm in a very difficult situation at home I have a fiance who's in ICU and in a comatose type state and I'm snapping at people and you know I'm just, I don't know. Go, Bob. Thank you. So the question is when your ego is telling you that, you know, you need to, that it's more complex and you need to focus on different sorts of things. I think that's the choice. I think That's one of the reasons why we, I think you've got to keep bringing your damp log to the bonfire of Alcoholics Anonymous. us. There is a conversation and a collective consciousness in the meetings with your sponsor in the space of the program that is more grounded than the conversation that's in the world. And if you keep letting the suck of the world, I mean, and that seems like it's always the choice. Always the choice. Me or God. I mean, it is, and that's why we need to have the focus and need to be the awareness. I just recently ran into some woman who was coming in the meeting and her friends and family hooked on to this, you know, that AA is a cult and, you know, this powerlessness had to do with demeaning you as a woman. I mean, people have been telling you you're disempowered all your life. You need to get empowered. And somehow we have to get, the message and resolution we need is spiritual. It is not intellectual. And we need to create a space for ourselves where we can have a holy space. And I believe that meetings are one of the best places for that. Thanks, Bob. Okay, grand finale. Oh, two more. I'm Tracy, alcoholic, 11 years. Excuse my language, but sometimes my prayers are, Jesus Christ, what is that shit all about? And then I go on to say, well, I know it's your will, Lord, but this shit is crazy. And I pray a lot like that because I'm a rageaholic also. And the conscious contact with God that I feel is appropriate when I need to express to my higher power, God my frustration and anger with his doing I would like your take on you know, how acceptable is that in a conscious, loving relationship with my higher powers Thank you I really think you're describing something we've all been through I mean, that is just I go back to the third step where it says we made a decision to turn our will over to a higher power what that means is I'm turning over how everything should be and I no longer play the role of how things should be I do not, in my own mind, come up with how things should be. Every single problem can be traced back to me not getting my way. This didn't go my way and I'm very upset about it. There's only two solutions. One is to be able to control the world so that things always go your way. Just point out to the ten people, hey, I'm in charge of the world. You change your mind. You change. You change, and that's what we tried before we got here, and it doesn't work. The second is don't have a way. Then nothing cannot go your way. It'll only go God's way, which is going to be far superior to any plan you ever came up with, And so I know it sounds crazy, but in order to be spiritual, we just have to give up goals, causes, plans on how everything should turn out and all that. And you go, well, geez, if I don't plan how the world will turn out, things could get screwed up. And I'm going, yeah. I want to add to that wonderful response is that many of us are surprised as we are out in the field harvesting turds that we forget that we had been out for years planting seeds of crap. We actually went to the feed store and got a bag of crap seeds and planted them, and when the crop came in, we keep thinking that somehow it's unfair. And as we stop planting crap seeds, the crop will change. I'm going to make you a little package of crap seeds. Yes, sir, you're the wrap-up. My name is Mario. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is November 7th of 2007. And my home group is the Weekend Serenity Group out of Winter Haven, Florida. Wow. And my question is this, because I've learned that I'm fallible and Alcoholics Anonymous. Spiritual pride. As I'm almost getting close to five years and, you know, I see a lot of long-timers that say things in recovery and to do things in recovery that I think has to do with spiritual pride, and it frightens me because I don't know how to interpret it. And I want to know how I diffuse that for myself as a recovering alcoholic. Good question. That's yours, buddy. I have to go to the bathroom. The quick answer is I don't know, which has never stopped me from answering a question. Those two words don't belong together, spiritual pride. We're all human beings. It is one of the greats. Sandy and I had the same sponsors for over 42 years. You have to imagine in that time that we certainly had no shortage of experience of the humanness of our sponsors, the ordinariness of our supporters. To end, we had no shortage of exposure to the magnificence of these ordinary men. I think that's one of the great challenges in life as it is in Alcaldes Anonymous and if you're going to stay involved in an entity for a lifetime is the texture of the humanness of the people that are involved in the process, and we are a more troubled group of people than ordinary. If the Olympics, which are on, if they were picking a team of jerks, we would have seen recruiters passing through the audience in large meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous Thank you all very much we had a wonderful time, we appreciate it Thank you Boy, you really hit some good ones near the end. Okay, hold on one second.