Step 10 and the Goal of Remaining Undisturbed – Sandy B.

Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Beach and I'm an alcoholic. How are you all doing? Well, it's really nice to be back in, you know, where I got sober and where all my friends are. And it's a pleasure to be with all of you this morning. And Dick brought back some good memories of Saturday Morning Live. it's just about the time right now to start that meeting at 10 o'clock and I don't see any potted mums so I don'T think we can have that particular meeting there was just so many great stories about that I donT know if any of you were there the day we had the raffle with no tickets you think it can't be done but it was All the prizes were handed out to winners, and it was quite a morning. And when I think back on that, I'll tell you who got the most out of that was me, because it just was amazing to me how exciting the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous themselves are. You know what I mean? To just realize that somehow, back in 1937, somewhere around there, all this wisdom came funneling through Bill Wilson onto the pages of the big book. And then later on, onto the pages of the 12 and 12. And look how many lives have been enriched by those words and by following the guidance that is set forth in there. And every time I would read those and sort of go over that, I would feel it. I mean, I could just feel the energy of the truth that's contained in there And so I'm going to talk a little bit about them this morning. I'll talk to you a little about myself, but I really enjoy sharing some thoughts about our principles and I'm gonna save a lot of time for that. I got sober in Pearl Harbor Day of 1964 and I haven't been drunk since my first meeting and as I always say, I owe it all to not drinking. That is the, that's the total package on how you avoid getting drunk is you just never drink. Then once you do that, then you're left with getting happy with not drinking and that is what AA is all about. I mean, many of us had tried to not drink on our own before we got here and it was so miserable that we said, to heck with this. And in AA, that's the wonder of Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you're new, I know that may be hard to believe that there's going to come a day not too far, not too long ago, but it's going be a day that we're going to have a great time. In the distant future, when you are going to feel in your heart that it's Saturday night and you're so happy that you're not drinking. You're so excited, you just don't want to go out and celebrate that you're not drinking. Only we don't celebrate the old way. We just celebrate the fact that I'm not drinking, and that's what a miracle is. That's what spiritual power is. It's something that none of us could have done on our own, to just go, boy, I'm so happy that I am not drinking because drinking for me, like just probably everybody else in the room was how I survived in this terrible world. Drinking was not my problem, it was the answer to my problems. My problem was sobriety. Every time I was sober it was awful. And it was just awful. I was born sober. I went to grammar school sober. Went to high school sober. And it was awful. It was just terrible. Everybody was better than I am. I didn't fit in. I was nervous all the time. I couldn't, didn't know what was going on. I was afraid. There was something missing. I knew there was something wrong with me. There was something different with me, but I had to pretend that none of that was true so that I could blend in. You know what I mean? But I felt like someday, I heard a speaker say this, He felt someday a spaceship was going to come down and go, sorry, we put you on the wrong planet. We're going to take you to where you belong. You were right. All those feelings were right, you don't belong here at all. And so there was the problem. There was my problem. It was already there. And when alcohol came along, it fixed it. It was a miracle. I could not believe the power of alcohol. It just changed the world that I lived in. It made other people change, whereas before I had some drinks, they looked intimidating and threatening and hostile and different. And after I had a few drinks, those very same people were friendly. I could see it in their eyes. They liked me. Maybe they didn't know they liked me, but I could see it on their eyes, I just looked around and said, I love this world, I loved the three-drink world, that was my favorite world, and I was just comfortable and I felt complete. I really felt complete as a human being. So alcohol was a tremendous power in my life. I used to think of it as the secret of life. It held all of the answers, all of the power to make me enjoy this world and feel confident of myself and so on down. Now, the problem, of course, is that there were some side effects from drinking. And I think all during my drinking years, I was trying to get rid of those side effects, you know, the going to jail. Getting in fights and losing your money and losing your car and your family doesn't like you. They don't understand that you have come across the solution to life and they don't understand why alcohol comes ahead of everything. And I did. I knew why it came ahead of everything because without it, I was back to where I was with all these problems and feeling uncomfortable. So anytime somebody would say to me you ought to just not drink, I would say what you all said. Hey, you don't understand what you're saying when you say to me don't drink. That's like me saying to you oh, you have cough a lot and you have asthma? Don't breathe. You'll be fine. you know i mean to me drinking was breathing i mean that was how i survived so for someone to say don't drink that just took me back and left me totally unarmed unprotected no power to get along in the world i was back just me and it was overpowering and intimidating and so i never thought of not drinking. I just thought of drinking differently, to drink different stuff and as the years went on I got out of college, I got in the Marine Corps became a fighter pilot and I'm flying these planes and got married, had six kids, got promoted to First Lieutenant, got promoting to Captain and then I never got promoted again. That was as far as I got but at that point in time if you were to look at this little track record you would go, look at the sky He's just moving right along. It looks like, boy, I wish I was him. Boy, you would have really gotten screwed on that wish. I'm going to tell you that. Whoa. It's real dangerous to want to be somebody else. I'll tell you dat. It's just... But, you know, a lot of us look good on the outside, but on the inside it was just getting ready to totally collapse. And there came a time when I was shaking so much, I was so filled with anxiety on the inside, and alcohol could hardly touch it anymore because now I was having the physical withdrawal part of the disease. And so alcohol was causing problems, physical ones for me. As I tried to drink more and I tried To hide it and I Tried to lie and it was just a desperate situation. I went to see the doctors about having withdrawal symptoms in airplanes, which was very scary. I would lose vision and sweat and shake. All of a sudden, I just didn't trust the pilot of the plane I was in, which was me. You know, it's just like... I remember saying to myself, I said, you know, this already is a very dangerous game. But you're raising the odds about 20 to 1 here. You can't see. And you're having an anxiety attack. I mean, that's not even supposed to be in the equation. And so I went to the doctors once. And they were very upset. They examined me down in Pensacola. or what could cause this guy to have this loss of vision and heart palpitations and sweating. And there I was, the perfect alcoholic, shaking, sweating, smelling of alcohol. And this was back in the dark ages before we had any alcohol programs or anything like that. And there was no such thing as alcoholism as a diagnosis in the military. And so at the end of two weeks of studying me, they left it up to the psychiatrists and they determined that it was a childhood fear of flying that had manifested itself. And that's how I was written up. Those were paperwork. He never should have been allowed to fly these last 12 years, you know. And after three months, the Marine Corps gave me a new assignment. You know, here I was. I was a washed-up pilot and just in terrible shape, so I was made an air traffic controller. And, you know, us alcoholics are amazing because that's a very hard school, and I made it through. I somehow make it through air traffic control school. Now I'm in charge of a little unit, and we're overseas. I can still remember. I went over to Japan and go into this air traffic control unit in Iwakuni, Japan. And there was a gunnery sergeant who was the senior non-commissioned officer in the unit. And he just took one look when I walked in. And he said, welcome, Captain. Here's a desk for you. Everything's cool. Come down here any time you want. But don't go near the radar. because he did not want me flying a plane into a mountain you know so I just tried to show up at work for that year and that was my last year drinking and since I wasn't flying anymore I drank a lot more when I was flying I would try to not drink from midnight to six in the morning And now it was kind of around the clock, just maintenance, vodka, brain alcohol type sipping. You know, just little bits going in there trying to stop the shakes and the nightmares and all the freaking out and I lost a lot of weight and I didn't want to be around anybody and I had malnutrition and just a terrible situation and I was sent back to Quantico to go to a career school, you know, to become a general or something. and that was a nightmare down there. I'd started the hallucinations and the paranoia. I would drive in the gate at Quantico and I'd look up where the school was and it wouldn't be there. And I would ask the sentry, where's junior school? It's right up there, Captain, where you was yesterday. And then I'd... You know, and I go up there and it was just like it was real spooky And I'd go in, I wouldn't remember where, what class I was in, where I sat. And people would get me that, you know, guys, you're at this table. Okay, all right. You know, much less being able to focus on any of the material that was being presented. And then the major event was unlocking the combination lock on my locker. I mean that was we could have done a whole TV show on just me and my combination life trying to unlock it you know what I mean I'd have this stuff written down because I couldn't remember it and it wouldn't work and then I knew that they were changing the numbers on me to drive me crazy because they knew there was this plot going on and oh my god It was really scary. And I ended up having a seizure in that class and just about bit my tongue in half, and then I was sent up to Bethesda Naval Hospital to see what caused the convulsion. And I was there about three days, and they're studying me. You know, he's studying too hard. I don't know what he's doing down there. And I went into the DTs and just freaked out, and they put me in a straitjacket and locked me up in the nut ward for six months. You know, just, whoo, you're crazy. You're in there. And, you know, after I got a little bit sober and I've been there a couple of months, then I knew I didn't really relate to all these other people who were in there and there were two other alcoholics and those people that were, you now, the manic depressives and schizophrenics and suicides and all that, they really felt that we were imposters. that we did not have a legitimate mental illness. They just said, all you guys have to do is stop drinking. And I thought to myself, no wonder they're locked up in here. They think that's the answer to my problem? I got a lot of problems. And back in 1964, Red Fenning from Bethesda, who's passed away, but maybe some of you old-timers remember Red. He and two other guys talked the head psychiatrist at Bethesда Naval Hospital into having an AA meeting. And so it's probably in early November of 64, Corman came into the nut war and said, all drunks fall in, right face over to the elevator. And there I am at a meeting and I really liked it. I thought they told their stories and they were so happy. And I just went up afterward and said, give me your card or something. I said, if I ever run into a guy with a drinking problem, I am sending him right here. You know what I mean? Now I didn't have this problem. There came a time when I was an outpatient, and then I went all the way down to Quantico and then drive back up every morning, but I'd be home on the weekends and all that. And I ended up having a beer on one weekend and coming back, and they told me if I ever drank again they'd throw me out of the Marine Corps. And I thought they meant if I never got drunk again. That's a big difference there, they'd thrown me out. And the next weekend I started drinking vodka and I smuggled it back in. I had it out in the car, and I knew the psychiatrists were looking at me funny because all the paranoia came back from just sipping away on vodka. And so on the weekend of Pearl Harbor Day, December 7th, 1964, I was home absolutely freaking out, I mean, seeing things and all this. And I came up with a plan of joining AA, the outside AA, over the weekend. And then when I got caught, which I knew was going to happen, I would blame all my problems on AA. I would say, well, you told me to join AA. I did, and look what happened. Well, I didn't factor in my sponsor into my plan. And when I made the phone call, this big guy came over, Bill T., who is still my sponsor. He lives down south of Fredericksburg now. And he just came into my life and took over. It was just like, you know, my name's Bill. This is a 12-step call. I talk, you listen, sit down. Okay, here's what we're going to do. And he got my family in, tell me about him. And they all, they didn't like me anyway. And so they just went. He's a terrible husband. He's an awful man. He's terrible father. We all hate him. We're afraid of him. He won't give us any money. He's drunk all the time. He's been locked up. He's awful. And I said, now whose word are you going to take? Theirs or mine? They've got a lot of resentments, but he took their word. And we were off to a meeting and he just informed me we'd be going to a meet every night forever. Don't even think about some end point on this thing. And we did. By God, we went there. He was over my house every night and it was just don't drink. and I knew it hurt me if I did so there was a lot of fear of sponsor in the early days and pretty soon you know I've been sober one year then sober a couple years and then came time to get promoted and I didn't get promoted and then come time to get promoted the second year and I did get promoted and that means you get thrown out so I had two years sobriety and I'm bounced out of the Marine Corps and I had a big resentment I remember thinking well, what's this God stuff? You know, turn your life over. Now here's a guy, eight of us, six kids, my wife and I, and I'm out and I got no money. That's what you get for going to a meeting every day. Wow, you should have heard me resenting this stuff. And so I'm up in Arlington. We've got a house up there and I'M trying to get jobs selling stuff. I don't know what a has-been fighter pilot air traffic controller can do in Arlington. So I'm getting a real estate license, a stockbroker's license. I was selling copiers. I'm going to write something and, you know, and I'm making no money and we're selling stuff. And I remember just sitting around with this resentment. You know, go to a meeting every night for two years and you get thrown out of the Marine Corps. You know that was... I remember bringing it up at a meeting one time. I never bring topics up in meetings. I think I did it three times. You know where the leader says, anybody got a topic? and then there's that period of silence and then the leader comes up. Well, I got my hand up. Yes, well, I'd like the topic to be getting thrown out of the Marine Corps. You know, after you go to a meeting every night for two years. What about that? And the leader, you know, was gracious and instead of saying what he should have said, he just said, well we'll see, We'll see if we can get some thoughts on that and going around. Some little wise guy over here said, Oh, getting through all the Marine Corps? Serenity prayer, man. That's what you got to do. Serenite prayer. Next guy said, Throwing out of the Marine Corp? Double up on your meetings. Got a lot of time anyway. Double up. Double up on your meetings is what you got to do. You know, Some other jerk gets his hand up. Oh, thrown out of the Marine Corps? You've got to sponsor a lot of people. Get new people and work with them, man. Stop thinking about yourself. And the last guy said, go to the 12 and 12 and the 11th step and find the prayer of St. Francis and just keep repeating it. See, I was looking for a guy to say, thrown out from the Marine Corp, a talented man like you? how about being vice president of my corporation now that would be good solid advice and help but what do I get I just you know I felt like changing groups after what I heard there and you know about eight years later I'm going through a divorce and it was the second time that I raised my hand at a meeting because it was so painful, so unfair. Anybody got a topic? Yeah. She said me, another guy, all my kids. Wasn't the same people but I'll tell you what happened. Here comes the hand. Oh, get into work. Serenity prayer, man. That's what you gotta do. You're getting divorced, you've got to double up on your meeting. Me, me, just that one. You're going to get divorced, you've Got to work with new people. I would get five new people Stop thinking about yourself. What are you doing over there? Prayer of St. Francis was made for people going through divorces. I'm going to tell you that. and the last time was about five years after that having a few financial problems and I'm talking to a bankruptcy lawyer and I said with all this sobriety you should not be going through bankruptcy so I said let's have a topic long term sobrietry and bankruptcy and you all know what happened oh bankruptcy serenity prayer man every time you're bankrupt you just say that serenite prayer double up on your meetings you've got to double up if you're banked you work with new people because you don't want to get spiritually bankrupt and as we all know the prayer of St. Francis is tailor-made for going to a bankruptcy. So what did we get out of all this? We got out the fact that in Alcoholics Anonymous, we have one solution for all problems. And the problems are irrelevant. You know, like Clancy has his yaha machine and pigeons call him and he puts the phone over there and they're going I walked into the toilet and he goes, uh-huh. You wait 20 minutes and then you go, okay, here's the plan. Do the sorority prayer, double up on your meeting. Oh, yeah, great. So how in the world could there be one solution for all problems? That sounds like pretty wild, doesn't it? Well, the last group of people that ought to be doubting one solution for all problems are alcoholics. Because if I recall, that was our motto before we got here. I never remember having a problem where I said, All right, here's one I will not be drinking over. because drinking was the solution for all problems didn't matter what the problem was the answer was let me go get a drink and think it over i gotta have a drink man i gotta have it didn't mind what it was flat tire getting fired going to jail whatever it was You go out in the kitchen, you get the glass, you get a bottle, pour it in, and you go, I don't know what the answer is now, but I will shortly. Along about the third drink, there it was, The Promises of Vodka. We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us. It would just flow right in. I don' t know where that information came from, but it just, I know, boom, there wasn' t any doubt anymore. It was just, because alcohol made me complete and got me in touch with the creative side. And I could think up and would overcome the fear that was blocking my ability to think. And so there it was, one solution for all problems. And I think that's what we have in here is this incredible power of working these 12 steps. And I remember some of the struggles that I had. And if there's new people here, I'm just going to share some of the hurdles that I had to go over. And maybe you're trying to go Over the Same Ones. And, of course, the first one was surrendering totally. And this was easier for me than I realized because I was an outpatient from the nut ward when my sponsor got a hold of me. and he kept pointing to my wristband any time I would say, well, I think, or I think I, you know. I don't think I'm really totally powerless and he'd go, see that, see tha,t see tha. We don't want to hear from you, you know what I mean? He said, what this is, you're totally surrendered. You have, as our chapter of the agnostic suggests, if you have what we have, then you may be suffering from a malady, the only answer for which the only answer is a spiritual change. The only answer is the spiritual change." And I'm going, oh, you don't understand. I brought up Catholics, they're punishing God's guilt, purgatory. That stuff made me sick. I quit. I don't want anything to do with that. So I really don't wanna get involved with that part of the program. He said, there is no other part of program. That's it. That's the whole program. And I said, well, it talks about, you know, I'm going to be coming to believe in a God and turning my life over and just the whole thought of that. I mean, it's just too complicated. And I just don't think I need to do that. And so he said to me, well, let's just ask a couple of questions. Do you have God in your life every day now? I said no, no, I don't. He said, how's it going? you know, and it was going bad and he knew it, you know then he said now, you've been to the meetings around Manassas and Falls Church down in Mount Vernon group, Wellington group that's where we traveled from Quantico and he said, you saw those people well they are involving a higher power in their lives, how do you think they look like they're doing? And I had to get honest with them. They looked pretty happy. They looked like they were doing well. He said, so let's not talk about theory. Let's talk about results. Your plan sucks. It may sound good. All your words may sound wonderful but it stinks. When we look at the results of your plan for living and we tried to sell it put it into a book, we'd have to keep you off the cover. And then look at the results of AA. So he had me going on just your way is terrible, this way is getting results. So why don't you change your mind? And so I started getting an open mind because he wasn't talking about religion. He was just talking about very practical thinking that life without a higher power was terrible. And then I got into, well, what is this higher power? Is this a, is it Muhammad or is it a Catholic Christ or is that a Protestant Christ or is Buddha? I saw somebody reading one of those Tibetan monk books the other day. Is that what it is? I mean, I need to know who I'm turning my life over to. I remember this great intellectual stuff. God, what a waste of time. What a waste the time, but it was serious back then. And he said, well, look in your case, why don't you turn your life over or whatever, we'll take it. And we won't worry about what it is or anything like that. You see, it isn't so much what happens on the other end that's important. It's the important thing is to get you out of the way. We've got to get YOU out of The Equation. You just turn it over and I'm just going, boy, I'll tell you, I don't, you know, but slowly my resistance is weakening with this humor and this talking about results and not theory and all of that. And it became an amazing adventure. He said that my job was to record in my mind the results that I got from following these instructions. Go to a meeting all the time and see if you see any changes. Pray all the time, see if you see any changes. Try these steps, do an inventory, share with someone else, do these things, and then just see if in fact there are changes taking place in your life. And you know when you're skeptic in the beginning, you attribute these changes to coincidences. Oh, this would have happened anyway. You know what I mean? When you really don't want to believe in any of this stuff. But after a while it gets overpowering. it just gets so that even as skeptical as you might be, it's hard to tell yourself that this is just coincidence, that I'm feeling better on the inside. That I'm actually, I'm not going to tell my sponsor, but I'm glad I'm drinking this Saturday night. You know, I don't want him to find out. He might say, I told you so. But I knew that something was starting to happen. And that something that's happening was my definition of a higher power. So if you were to ask me who my higher power is, I would say it is the force that has, because of working these steps, has brought all this change into my life so that I feel happy from the inside out, so that i see other people as loving people and I'm comfortable in this crowd of human beings and I see purpose in life and I think that there is a point to being alive and that things make sense. I've been taken to a new vantage point where when I look out, it's very wonderful view as Chuck C.'s book, A New Pair of Glasses. That's what I've be given as a result of doing these steps and some power has caused all this to happen because there's no other explanation. There just isn't. So that's my definition of my higher power is just all these things It must be due to something, and that something is what I call my higher power. So these steps are a remarkable plan for each of us to use in our lives to replace the old plan that we had. And, you know, the struggle is getting rid of old ideas. And I think sobriety, for as long as I've been sober, 33 years, and I'm still finding some idea that I thought up when I was 10 that I like and I haven't let go of yet because I thought it up. You know what I mean? There's pride of authorship in all your ideas that you thought up, even if they're dumb. Yeah, I know they're dum... But they're mine, man. They're mine. It's like that would be my theme song if I was still drinking. I did it my way. I didn't do it AA's way. I did het my way Yeah, i'm not sober and i'm in jail but It was me that did it, man. I didn't get any help getting here. I went to the bottom on my own. You know, and there was that pride of authorship in a terrible plan. And so if I were to try and summarize what do I think sobriety is, what do you think the 12 steps are all about? It may surprise you that what I think the point of the whole 12 steps is to remain undisturbed. That's what Ithink the pointof the whole12 steps are. And it gets out ofthe 10th step in the 12 and 12. I really think that's thewholepoint, that if I put my focusas the 10th steps suggests, remember the axiom, if something disturbs us no matterwhat the cause, there's something wrong with us. I remember the first time I heard that, I went, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, time out. The guy cuts me off. I almost lose my life. I get disturbed and there's nothing wrong with me. Please explain. You know what I mean? And it was real simple. Yeah, there's something wrong with you. What's wrong with you is you're disturbed. you're full of anger and resentment. I know, but the guy did that. So this little axiom is not bad news, it's good news. Because what it's saying is, yeah, we know that somebody did that, but we can get undisturbed, go right back to being serene without having him change anything. We don't even have to involve him. we have the power in here if you will set your goal to just get undisturbed because undisturbed to me means there are no character defects blocking the channel between me and my higher power and when the channel between me and my high level higher power is open there's no such thing as a problem it just simply can't exist because God is more powerful than alcohol. And yet, when we used to drink, I can remember I'd have all these problems. I'd go into a bar and I'd say, you know, set them up and boom, one, two, three and all of a sudden I didn't have any problems anymore. I was a happy guy, just full of serenity. And they'd say well what about that guy you're so mad at work? Ah, he probably had a bad day. If he came in here now I'd buy him a drink. Hey man, when you feel like this you can let everybody be wrong. It doesn't matter. have the power to let everybody be wronged and to not be the victim of everybody else out there, a real live-and-let-live. And so this whole concept of setting a goal, a spiritual goal of trying to remain undisturbed, and whenever we get disturbed, stop and take the spiritual actions to become undistburbed. Go say the serenity prayer. As 12 and 12 says, do an honest analysis of what happened If it turns out that someone else did something wrong, we forgive them. We just go, hey, they probably had a bad day. Maybe they had a fight with their husband or a fight with their wives, or maybe they're having money problems. And they're off the hook, and I'm back where I was, just coasting along with my higher power. And what a strange concept. I always take responsibility for becoming undisturbed myself. I'm not going to insist that somebody else get involved in this. Well, if they'd apologize, then I'd let them go. Okay, well, it's going to be ten years before they apologize. So you're going to stay resentful for ten years? You're damn right I am, man. I don't let people off the hook, you know. I'm not... And there's a word that Bill uses in our literature that covers these situations. And if you go back and look in your big book, you'll see it's there more often than you realize. He'll talk about a decision like that. I'm going to stay resentful for 10 years. And the sentence I recall is, he says, we were especially stupid in that area. Because when you really look at that, to not let someone off the hook for 10 years so you can stay resentable for 10 years is really stupid. Because this program is designed for us to achieve God's will to be happy, joyous, and free. And in my opinion, it isn't, this is just my own opinion, it isn'T that God's Will or my higher power's Will is that I'm going to get this job and I'm gonna meet this woman and I'M gonna have this financial success and THEN I'M GONNA BE HAPPY, JOYOUS, AND FREE. What I think makes me happy, joyous, and Free is being near to my higher Power. and then these other things may or may not happen but the source of being happy joyous and free is conscious contact it really is that inner awareness that i am already taken care of that i already have access to everything that i need and then the outer world i'll give you an example that i think has been helpful to me is everybody likes to talk about their resume and there's the materialistic way of looking at a resume and then there's a spiritual way of looking out a resume and so if you think about your resume what is a traditional resume it's putting everything on there that makes me look good you know what I mean I even joined the PTA and I went to this school and I got this degree and I had this job being very good at working with people and selling or whatever it is for five years And I also studied all this. I have hobbies of gardening and racquetball and helping little kids. And I put it all down, and when you look at this, I mean, when I take it out and show it to the world, it's a big pile of information about how much I'm worth. You know, when you see this resume, you've got to pay me about 80 grand, man. This is powerful stuff here. So my resume is what I'm entitled to out in the world. That's the traditional way of looking at a resume. Write it up, hand it in, they read it and they go, yeah, we need this guy. Boy, look at that resume. Now if we were to take the same thing and run it through the steps and then take a look at it, it would look like this. Well, this piece of paper is a list of all of the talents that God gave me that enables me to be useful out in his world. I can contribute by doing this and helping people have better financial condition. I can attribute by doing that. And none of this is due to my anything. These were all given to me by my higher power. These are God-given talents that enable me to being useful. What a difference in looking at ourselves and the world when we go inward to take a spiritual perspective on ourselves. And the reason that it can happen here in the program is without a higher power, we need the resume to go out and have all our needs met. You know what I'm saying? I need the job so I get the money because if I have the money, I'll finally be happy. And I need The Job so I gets self-respect and people talk to me nice and then I feel better because people are telling me that I'm a good person. Or I'm something in society, you know. I finally got a position. I am the vice president in charge of this and when I have the vice presidente written on my chest here then I don't have to worry about it. Then I feel like I am somebody. But if we work the steps and we get close to our higher power our higher powerful tells us that we're somebody and we don't need approval from anywhere else in the planet. We have an inner stamp of approval. We have this big thing stamped right on our forehead. Child of God. Can't go any higher than that. What about vice president? No, that's way down below child of God What about a big yacht millionaire? Way below child to God. You can't get any higher than this. This is the ultimate approval. So as they say, the program is like an inside job. And if you're new, you're going to go, I don't think so. I don'T THINK I'LL BE GETTING A STAMP ON A FOREHEAD FROM A HIGHER POWER. I CAN JUST HEAR TWO NEW GUYS AFTER ME, WHAT DO YOU TALK ABOUT? RUBBER STAMPS. THERE'S AA STAMPs YOU GET ON YOUR HEAD. CHILD OF GOD, I'M GETTIN' OUTTA HERE BEFORE THEY TATTOO THAT ON ME. BECAUSE IT CERTAINLY SOUNDS FAR-FETCHED. The idea of having our needs met from the inside and having an awareness that everything is well from the inside out, but that's exactly what the program is. That's what conscious contact, spiritual awakening, all these jackpots that we get at the end of the steps really are. And so it is just a question of setting aside our old ideas, of getting them out of the way. The only thing... I realize now that my higher power was inside of me all the time. He was there just going, would you like total help today? And I'm going, I don't hear that. I can't hear it. I can hear that signal. There's no way I can here that because of the noise of my character defects. Anger, resentments making so much noise that I can' t hear anything else. I can't even hear my friends yelling at me. You're angry, you're angry. What, what, what? I mean, when you're filled with rage or fear or resentment, you cannot hear the still small voice inside of us. And when you can't hear this, then you feel it doesn't exist. And that's what I thought. I thought that wasn't true for me because I wasn't having the same thing they were. So all the steps are designed is to get the stuff out of the way, to open this channel up. That's our only problem. Our channel between us and this infinite supply of love is blocked, and it's blocked by our character defects, our past, and all the amends we have to make. And as we do this, that channel starts opening, and there's an inner awareness that we really are children of God. We really are loved. And if you're new, we're going to know it before you do that this is happening. You're going to look different in the eyes. That's where it starts. You just see somebody about their third or fourth month and then you see them one night and they just are sitting there glowing and they don't even know it. They're still talking about, I don't think it's going to work. But you can see it already has started. There's smiling while they're saying, I don'T think it'S going to WORK. You know what I mean? Some transformation is taking place And we are so privileged as old-timers to be around and watch this transformation again and again so that we can relive ours and go back and remember the days when we came out of the dark tunnel and started seeing some light and then came out into a world that was brighter than we ever dreamed. So those of you that are new, don't sell yourself short. Don't listen to old ideas that you have that none of this is available for you because the entire jackpot is here for all of us. God bless you all.