Step 6 and 7 and the Contractor Who Does All the Work – Sandy B.

Well good evening everybody my name is Sandy Beach and I'm an alcoholic. It's a pleasure to be here tonight congratulations on your 25th convention that's a wonderful thing and I agree with Hollis that you ought to get to as many of these things as you can. He made me think about in my early years of sobriety, my dear friend Hal Marley. Every year he would say, and we're in Washington D.C., and he would say, are you going with me to the Bill Wilson dinner in New York? And I would go, no, I don't have enough money. And then the next year, and the next year, and the next year. No, I don't have enough money. You know, it's not that far from Washington to New York, but I didn't have enough money. And he said, you know, he's going to die someday and you're going to really regret that you never met him. Guess what my biggest regret is today? That I never got up there. And seven years after that started, Bill passed away. So go and you, there's just things happen at these anniversary, convention whatever you want to call it it's an accumulation of the energy and it's quite amazing the effect that they have on even old timers that have been coming around a long time you are very surprised sometimes that you walk home very moved by something and you think about it for years so I agree that this is a great thing that we have these events And I'm glad I was invited, and I'm with some of my favorite speakers. God, you know, you do this long enough, and you cross paths, and sometimes it'll be four or five years, I won't see Clancy, and now we're together three weeks ago, I think, and it's always a great pleasure. And Dick and Peggy and I all got sober in D.C., and we went to the same meetings in our early sobriety, so it's fun reminiscing with them. And so I'm delighted to be here tonight. And my sobriety date is December 7th, 1964. And I've had the same sponsor for all those years. So that's a wonderful feeling. Bill T. is up in Virginia, but he's the guy that came to my house and told me to get in the car. i told him i wanted to think about it he said get in the car you know what i mean so and i never had another drink you know i went to that meeting i was been just had a drink before we left the house and i i think about that meeting it was in manassas virginia and i was so sick god i was sick and the meeting went on and on it was a group anniversary it was in an odd fellow's hall that didn't have flush toilets. And you had to hold your breath to go to the bathroom. You'd take a big breath and run in and hope that you could finish before you had to take another breath. And everybody was so happy and I've been sober like six hours. And I'm not happy. And then they had a square dance and they're playing fiddles and then they had turkey and ham and the thing goes on for like five hours. And I was trying to run away but it was so isolated out there there was nowhere to run. It was winter time, it was sort of almost freezing rain, you know one of those nights and I would go to the door and look around and there was an Al-Anon lady named Betsy Lynch and I got to know her and her husband very well after that and she came up and must have seen me standing out there just looking and she put her hand on my shoulder and said it's going to be alright and it was as if God had spoken to me because I felt it all the way to my soul and I just turned around and went back in and something it was almost like oh good I just went back so you never know and you're going to be touched by an angel and have these things. It's funny, you can't see the solutions to your problems when they are being solved spiritually. But you just have to take everybody's word that they're being worked on. So stop worrying about them. They are being worked upon and then it will be disclosed to you what the solution looks like. And most of the time the solution looks like this. You know, I forgot to worry about drinking last week. How the heck does that happen? You've obsessed about drinking all your life. You go to these stupid meetings. You know what is all this and then all of a sudden you forget to obsess about drinking. That is a spiritual solution. That's exactly what they look like. You are lifted. It's lifted out of you. It doesn't exist anymore. As our literature suggests, we're placed in a position of neutrality. We're not fighting it. We haven't sworn off. It just isn't there. Now that's an entirely different approach to problem solving than anywhere else. It just gets lifted out. So there may be a lot of things, if you knew, that are bothering you. You're going to have to trust us. They're being worked on as we speak. So let them go and have a wonderful weekend. And then report back three months from now. Are they working on them? Yeah, they're working on it. If you stay out of the way, things will happen. You know, a lot of times they say that things happen in God's time. That's true, but it's not true. Everything in spirituality, there's paradoxes everywhere. let's say that you're running out of money and you're panicking and you are having financial insecurity fears and they are keeping you up all night so you decide to pray about it and you go God please help me to find a good job soon and when I get the job Help me to systematically save so that I can pay off some of these debts and accumulate a savings account so that this fear of financial insecurity can leave me. And it takes about four months before you get a job, and it takes a couple of years of saving up until you finally look in the savings account and go, I can relax. And you get the feeling that it happened in God's time. Somebody said, you know, I guess it took two years. Well, that's exactly what you prayed for. You prayed for a two-year solution. If you had prayed for God to lift the financial insecurity from you today, it would have happened a lot quicker. In other words, the problem wasn't money. The problem was, I'm worried about it. and so we ask that these be lifted from us, and then as we find out, when the fear is lifted, we can operate at the intuitive level and all kinds of ideas about where to look for a job or you just get guided and you probably get a job much quicker and besides that, you're not worrying about it while you're going along. I don't know why, I just got thinking about that about a year ago happening in God's time and that I'm the one who sets the time schedule and then if it takes a long time, I go, well, I guess God just doesn't like me that much and he's really giving me exactly what I asked for. I don't know how I got started on these obtuse things, but I might as well stay there because I tell my story so many times that it's tiring me out. the other one that fits in that category is this too shall pass. Now, there's a subset of that and I want to give you this one and then you might find that it works better than this too shalt pass. This too can be let go of. You get a death grip on it and you go, I wonder when this is going to pass. I guess it's going to happen in God's time. Let go and let God, right? That resentment isn't going to go away if we've got a death grip on it and we can't forgive somebody and there we are. Well, I guess. So some of these things, I don't know, I just get thinking about them. As a matter of fact, this week we were at a meeting and somebody was reading out of the 12 and 12 in the 10th step, the spiritual axiom. And the way it's worded in there, it says, I think it says there is a spiritual axиom which says if someone is disturbed, no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with them. Well, when you look at that, it looks like it's referencing something. You know what I'm talking about? He says, there is a spiritual axiom. So somebody said, where did that come from? So then started the search. You know what I mean? People are on Google and they're going all over the place. Never did find it. So if somebody finds it, let me know. I'd be curious. But one of the places that I thought it might be was in William James and the Varieties of Religious Experience. I said, you know, there was a book that Phil was reading. And I got a copy of that when I had a couple years sobriety. And I remember reading it or reading at it. Let's be honest. And it was a series of lectures. This guy was brilliant. God, he was smart. And he was given, I think, about 30 lectures in Scotland. and, you know, when Europe was the center of all intellect and the Americans occasionally would go over there to give a lecture and that was a big deal. And he was talking on spirituality and psychology because his specialty was psychology. Anyway, he gave this long stuff and so I'm looking in there and I can't find it. So then I started really reading it and this guy is really smart And it was fascinating to watch. He was trying to merge the worlds of spirituality and psychology. And he got to the end in the conclusion section, after giving these 30 lectures, and he said after studying all of the spiritual paths in the world and the religions, that there was stuff going in every direction. And he said, you can find things that are just amazing, all the different directions. But they all had two things in common. And boy, if you want to see the program. And he narrowed it down to four words. And I just think it's just amazing. So I'm going to share those with you. There was one and then two words and then too and two words. And the first one was an uneasiness. that was one two it's solution and that was what the whole deal was that they would say to a person an uneasiness as he described it was that man or woman in their natural state had a sense that something was wrong and that that wrongness or that sense that something was wrong could be fixed by seeking the higher powers of the universe. And so that is really what the whole program is, is addressing that sense inside of us that there's something missing and there's nothing wrong and I don't fit in and I'm not good at it. And I don' t really do that. And alcoholics seem to have that in spades. And it seems like that that would be a liability. Boy, I really have that. But when you look at Dr. Young and what he was to say about that, what he's saying is that all people have this uneasiness which is really a longing for completion or a longing for God and alcoholics have it in spades and so one way of describing the disease of alcoholism is that we miss God more than other people and alcohol appeared to fix it and we were so overjoyed by that. For alcoholics, I sometimes think drinking is a spiritual experience. It's the closest thing I ever had until I got here in Alcoholics Anonymous. There was this sense of being a complete person and being united and being part of the universe for the first time and as soon as the alcohol wore off, it was gone and I was back with the emptiness and all that. So I just, I realize now why Bill was so, added that book into the references of where he got the program. Because it was very good. So now I'm starting to reread that and having a lot of fun with it. Let's see, before I get going, the other thing that was on the back of my mind was, I was up in Savannah for New Year's Eve and had a wonderful time. I see some of the Savannah guys here and I had a great time. and I came back from that and I started thinking, what do you do every New Year's? We make resolutions. Remember that? You've got to make resolutions and so I was thinking about a story about a sponsor and the person he's working with and the kid comes up and says, I've made some New Year'S resolutions. He said, oh really? What are they? Well, I'm going to lose some weight. I'm gonna take off some weight I'm going to join the club. I'm gonna work out. I'm gunna take off some weight and I'm gonnaget a better job. I'm guanagestart going to school and I m gunnagetabetterjob. And his sponsor went, That's wonderful. I'm so happy for you. Did you make any spiritual resolutions? No, I didn't make any spiritual resolutions. Well, why don't you go ahead and make some and come back and tell me about them. So he thought he'd use it as a training program for his pigeon. So he came back a couple weeks later and said, did you come up with any spiritual wisdom? Yes. Yes, I did. I wrote them down. So he read them out and he said, I resolve to be more understanding and to listen more at home with my family and my wife. And I resolve to read more spiritual literature and try to become more spiritual. And I resolve to become more generous in my giving. And I reserve to do more service work. And his sponsor said, well, I hate to tell you this, but what you just wrote down is the exact antithesis of a spiritual resolution. That isn't even close. And the young man went, not even close? You mean being more generous isn't spiritual? Oh, yeah, that's spiritual. And being more understanding and listening? Oh, yes, that is spiritual. You went through all of the things? Yes, that part is all spiritual. What is it? The word resolve? Resolve is a bad word to you? No, that was a good one. That's a great word. Well, then what is the problem with my resolutions? The first word. The first word is the problem, I. You are going to become spiritual on your own. Is that what you're saying? Spiritual means of the spirit. So a spiritual resolution is, I'm going to ask God to make me more generous. I'm gonna ask God to make my life better. To make me a better listener. I'm doing this. And I got thinking about how much our ego enjoys sliding God out of the picture, even when we're talking about spiritual matters. You know what I mean? Why drag God in when I can become quite generous on my own? Now, I don't know if you ever had... Bill writes about when he's doing the 12 and 12, sometimes when you refuse to pray, And I think he had that depression that preceded the writing of the 12 and 12. And so he's talking about his own experience. And I Think I've Had That, where I just, you know, I'm not going to say my prayers tonight. I'm going to bed. I'm too tired. And sometimes my ego hears this, and it rescues me. So don't worry. I'll say a prayer for you. So this is what an ego prayer might sound like. Oh, heavenly spirit of the universe, please help us to become fearless. Take away all of our fears and our shortcomings. Make us a loving creature make us generous make us living in harmony with everything about us and please do it as soon as you can so that the second that that gift is bestowed upon us we can get rid of your sorry ass and get handling things on our own You came in here to take care of our drinking problem, but you're muscling in to all the other areas in here. And if you keep it up, I'm going to be out of business. And so this struggle goes on. It's the darndest thing to watch. I don't know about you all, but I find myself sliding God out of the picture without even realizing that I've done it. And if your life is not good, listen in meetings. You will hear that all the time. Well, what are you going to do about that? Well, I'm going to double the number of meetings that I'm at. I am going to, I am goign to, and you rarely hear, well, I' m going to ask God to take care of that. I' M going to as God to tak e care of tha t. And, you know, it's clearly this is not a self-help program. It's a God-help prog ram. And I think it's very important to know that because it makes it a lot easier journey Now, I didn't start out with any of these ideas. I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. Very briefly, I have one sister, and she has 28 years in AA now, up in Connecticut, and we've become very close ever since she came in the program. We just started talking on a different level. and I was brought up in the Catholic church when I was seven or eight I had a spiritual awakening all on my own I was sitting on the front pew terrified my sister was sitting next to me she thought it was cool I thought the nuns were like Nazis and that there was nothing but trouble for little boys like me And it was just, boy, I was nervous about this church stuff. And I was looking at the crucifix, staring at it, and it was looking at me. And I'm just looking and looking. And then it was almost like it spoke without saying anything. And it just said, little boy, do you see this crucifixe? And I said, yeah. Well, this is what God did to his only son that he loves. guess what he's going to do to you? And I literally fainted and carried me out. Of course, you never talk about those things to anybody because if you do, they'll know that you're not cool. So you always pretend you're fine and you already know everything. And it wasn't until I got in AA, I think, that I would talk about personal things with somebody else and say, do you think these thoughts and all that? Back then, you just kept it all to yourself. And so that was quite terrifying. So I never had any support in my psyche from a higher power. It was terror. So I didn't want to die because that would be terrible. That's when the trouble starts. I figured just live as long as you can and then go. So life was not really fun in that sense. And so I was going on and on, good student, pretty good athlete. Went to a little prep school in New Haven that fed right into Yale University. Still hadn't had a drink. I'm going to get high grades. Don't know what I'm gonna be. Still don't. And I'm down there and everybody's going, you ought to drink, you're in college, why aren't you drinking? No, I'm just gonna drink. I'm not gonna wait, I'll wait. but it was just the sense of all these important guys that came from all over the country to my hometown and they all were rich and handsome and they knew what was going on and I didn't the pressure was very, very high and I was at a social event tried to introduce myself to these people and I couldn't because as I went up to talk to them they would look at me and talk with their eyes you know how people can do that And they just looked at me and said, we don't want to know you. Stay the hell away from our little group. Don't come near us. And I would just make a detour, you know, like, actually, I was going to these guys and then they saw me coming and they did the same thing with their eyes. They just went, don't you come over to this group. We already have enough friends. We certainly don't wanna know you Now I'm sweating and just walking around in that little room and they had a bar there and I said, maybe I will try a drink. My roommate said it would make you feel wonderful so I had one, two, nothing's happening. I'm on the third one and this is how I remember it and I get said this in every talk. I turned around to leave and it was as if those 30 mean guys had left and they were replaced by 30 of the friendliest guys I've ever seen. I looked in their eyes again and they were saying to me we would give anything to know you. And I could feel it. I felt them just drawing me, and it was competition. Where should I go? Everyone in this room wants to be my best friend. It's like, ha! So I just pick a group. Who cared? I was now a wanted person. I was part of this universe. I was a brother to these hostile people. They were now loving people, and it was wonderful. And I walked over, and as I walked, I felt stronger and more sure of myself, and I agreed with them that they were lucky to know me. And there was a transformation of the world that I lived in, and I've only been drinking 25 minutes. And I was ecstatic. I felt like the core problem that I've been dealing with since I could remember as a little tiny boy was now solved. End of story. Whatever had been missing all those years was now complete, and I was so happy I thought I should have started drinking in grammar school. I would just go like, whoa, is this wonderful? So then I had, you know, 25 drinks and all that and got sick and dying and lying on the bathroom floor the next morning and just splitting heads and all of that. And I got on the bed and the thought occurred to me, are you going to drink again tonight? And it took about half a second. Of course. Right in the middle of all that pain and it was as if I said, this killer pain is a small price to pay for what I had last night because what I had last night is the ultimate answer. So that's an alcoholic. When you are making a decision like that and you haven't even been drinking for a full day yet, that what alcohol gives you is worth any amount of pain. And that's why alcoholics are willing to go all the way down to the Texas State Insane Asylum or places of that ilk is because of what we get from it. Willing to pay any price because what I got was so remarkable. And the non-alcoholics don't have that transforming spiritual making ourselves complete as human being experience and so they couldn't possibly connect why we would be willing to throw up blood and keep on going and they never will so it's just that what it does for us is so different than what it does for other people that we're willing to pay a hell of a price in order to stay in that state because every time I stop drinking I'm back in the I'm not complete my creativity is gone my anxiety returns now the people intimidate me everything is threatening the world is not in technicolor anymore. It's in black and white, and it's very painful, but not to worry. In two hours, I get through work, and I will be at the bar, and then I'd go in, and I never said this to the bartender, but what we were really saying is, I have a problem. What's that? I'm sober. That's my problem. You got something back there to help this problem of being sober? Yeah, I got something. You have three drinks, and You're going to be back in the great world. And that's what it was. I'd just go, one, two, three. And my problems were removed. I would come into a bar with so many worries you couldn't imagine. I had the financial worry that I can't pay the rent. I've got to study this. Three drinks later, you could ask me, how are you doing? I'd go, is it a great world or what? What about all those problems you have? What problems? You're not bothering me? Well, I thought you didn't have all the rent money. Hey, that's tomorrow. I live a day at a time, man. This is now. Hey, bartender, set them up. Might as well spend the other half of the rent and money. I may not even need the place tomorrow. You know, there was that freedom to live in the now. It was just wonderful. So we really had a lot of experience with something that we later learned in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is that there's one solution for all problems. That's what AA teaches us. There's one resolution for all problem. You have to get closer to your higher power. Bill calls it more spiritual growth. You find that all throughout the big book. You know, after you've been around a while. Now this is happening. What should I do about that? Well, you have to grow more spiritually. If you grow more spiritually, that problem will be lifted out. And so, God, it's always the same thing. No matter what it is, because you have these different problems and then your ego goes, okay, this is not a spiritual one. Let's handle it ourselves. Otherwise, he's dead. You know what I mean? And just once I keep jumping in, this doesn't, this isn't. Keep God out of this. This is something you've got to do on your own, baby. Here we go. And so they go, well, it couldn't be one solution for all problems, but that's what it was before we got here. I never remember having a problem where I said, well, here's a problem I won't be drinking over. I'm just going to sit here stone cold sober, shaking and quivering and handle it. When I didn't know what to do with a problem, I knew I would find the solution shortly in the kitchen. Hey, I just got a subpoena in the mail. What the hell are you doing with a subpena? I don't know, but I will shortly. Remember that? Tear it up. I mean, it was... Bingo! You would intuitively know how to handle a situation. Used to baffle us. So yes, one solution for all problems. So that was what we were already used to that. And it really was the same kind of a solution. It took the problem away. Took the problem way and it got us calm. Got us peaceful. and then we could think a little better. The problem was we kept on drinking. If I just stayed at three drinks, somehow if you could stay at the three-drink level. But I was never able to do that so I went from the lovingest person on the planet to whack over the head with the bar stool guy. Anyway, that was my drinking. I got out of school and I became a Marine fighter pilot. I loved it. It was the career and I lost it after 14 years due to my drinking. But I sure loved it. It was the greatest, and I still love to go to the Pensacola Museum of Air over there and look at those planes and hang around. I'm sponsoring two Marine colonels. I just love to talk about the Marine Corps, and it's a deep regret that I didn't get to finish that, but that's neither here nor there. And in that environment, my disease progressed to where I was getting into F-8 Crusaders, which is a pretty high-performance plane in withdrawals. And it's because I wouldn't drink for eight or nine hours, and I was in the advanced stage of alcoholism. And so I would start shaking and just quivering almost, and my peripheral vision would go away, and I wouldn't be sharp and I'd be just panicking and I'm taking off. And I'm, you know, I'm just flying. I'm going to go ahead with this. Go ahead with it. I'm not going to do anything with this and I didn't crash or have anything happen but I almost had a lot of things happen and it got so bad that I went to the flight surgeons and told them what was happening and they almost freaked out and they just, yeah. There was no alcoholism as a disease in the Navy in the early 60s. So you had to be diagnosed with something else. So they sent me down to Pensacola for two weeks. I was studied by all the doctors and put through all kinds of tests and they couldn't find out what was causing these episodes in the planes. And so they left it up to the psychiatrist. And, you know, when you think about it, it's absolutely ridiculous because I'm in there, my hands are shaking, I've got high blood pressure. I'm very disoriented. My eyes are bludgeoned, covered with clammy sweat, and I reek of alcohol all the time. It's just coming out of my pores. So it was quite obvious that my problem, as they diagnosed it, was a childhood fear of flying that suddenly surfaced after 14 years of flying. so I went back to Cherry Point right up the street here and waited it took about three months I had a regular commission so I was a career officer so they're going to give me a new specialty and it killed me that now they took away jet pilot you know that was my deal that's who I was but at the end of three months I got orders to go to Glencoe, Georgia to air traffic control school and I became an air traffic controller and somehow I made it through the school which is a very hard school and when my last year drinking I was in charge of an air traffic control unit in Japan and fortunately the day I checked in I was on a bicycle going down to the tent area where we were and I got there and two or three senior enlisted men were there and they just took one look at me and they said, Captain, here's your a little chair and tent and all that, and we'll bring you coffee. Sir, we don't think it would be a good idea for you personally to control any planes. So you just try to show up for work and we will do everything else. And I wasn't able to do that because that year all the controls were off. I was now getting ready for the crash and I couldn't eat. So I lost 50 pounds and I had malnutrition and I was drinking vodka and green alcohol and staying in the Quonset hut. I didn't even want to go to happy hour. I didn'y want to hang around my buddies. I just was surviving and I tried to get nourishment out of juice. You know what I mean? I'd just get vodka and juice. And so I was getting sicker and sicker and sickier and finished the tour and came back to Quantico, Virginia to go to a career school to get promoted to some high rank. And during that school, I was only there about a month, I think. It's all very vague because I was about to crash. But I do remember one time going in the gate at Quantico driving up to the school which was a complex of five or six large brick buildings and they were gone. they just weren't there. So, I went back to the main gate to report this. I would love to hear the corporal's story you know, all these years later. And I said, Corporal, I want to report junior school is gone. He said, what is that sir? I said I just went up to go to junior school and it's not there. So he got the squad car with the light. Follow me, Captain. We're going to go up there and check this out. We got up there. It was back. He got out of the car and came over and he said, it's right there. And I said, I know, it is. It's back. So he went in the car and drove off. But anyway, probably a week later in that school I had a grand mal seizure and bit my tongue and they put me in the hospital. And five days later I had the DTs and saw the CIA was trying to trap me and lock me up forever. It was really scary and I must have freaked out and they pulled me in a straitjacket and locked me up for six months in the mental ward. And so that was where I got. And out of there came an AA meeting. Somehow AA, the Bethesda guys, read F. They talked their way in. It's because the Navy, you know, they didn't have any alcoholics so we don't need any AA meetings. But he must have convinced them there was a couple and there was three of us. And then the rest of the guys who didn't like the alcoholics being in there with them because they didn't consider alcoholism a legitimate mental illness like they had. So we were kind of making them look bad by association. So anyway, I got to the meeting and I thought it was a wonderful thing. I didn't think I had a problem. And when they let me out, my career would be over if I took another drink. And I started drinking, smuggling vodka back into the nut warden. and that's when I called AA on Pearl Harbor Day, and my sponsor grabbed me and haven't had a drink since. He just took me to that Sunday meeting, and that started this journey, which in the beginning is really surviving off of the spirituality of the other people. You know, I would just... I'd go, what are they so happy about? I remember that guy Jack Lynch, whose wife was the Al-Anon. and he eventually got cancer and died of it. And he was, like, happy as it was happening. I remember going over to his house, and he's going, Hey, get Sandy a chair. Come on over here, Sandy. Oh, what can we get for you? And he weighs about 80 pounds, and he was just handling it spiritually. And, you know, as he got closer and closer, he was seeing what was coming, and he Was all excited about that, and I'm just going... I used to see people, or they'd get fired, and they'd be at a meeting very calmly talking about getting another job and everything's going to be fine. And I was going, maybe these people are mentally ill and they don't understand what's going on in their lives. They can't be standing there just being relatively happy in the middle of all these crises. What is that? And I got to thinking back on my drinking years. I don't care what the crisis was. If I was at the bar on my third drink, How are you handling it? Oh, man. You know, when you know how to handle these things, you know what I mean. You know how the handle them. It was like, it's not bothering me in here. And so I saw that. Now, I didn't have it myself, but I was inspired to realize that this was real. When I saw real drunks staying happy in the middle of real problems, I was impressed. I was really impressed. And they just kept saying, God does it. I'm not doing anything. I'm just making sure that I got him in. And I think the first lesson I got in this involved steps six and seven. And steps four and five and six and seventh. And I was having a hard problem listing all of my character defects. It seemed like it was just getting set to be a heavy burden to own up to all of this stuff because you know you're going to have to work on it and it's going to be so hard to deal with all these issues. And somebody told me, they said, well, let's pretend that it doesn't say we're going inventory your character defects, but let's make believe what we're gonna inventory is your house and we're going to see what's it going to take to make it perfect again. You know, a typical alcoholic's house is a mess. We haven't done anything to it in 20 years. So somebody comes in and they say, I want to know every single thing that's wrong with that house. So we start going through it. Well, we need all new plumbing, we need All New Wiring and the roof leaks all over so we're gonna need a whole new roof. It's gonna have to be scraped and painted. Oh, the bathrooms. I mean, geez, the toilet doesn't work, so I'm going to have to replace it. Oh my God, oh my God. And we start wanting to stop the list because the amount of work involved is staggering. And right at that point, our sponsor says to us, Oh, you're worried about the work? Oh, didn't I tell you? A contractor's going to do all the work. You just list everything. Oh, really? a contractor's going to do all yes, yes you just list everything well now I'm back going well I want to get on here I think there's some yard work that needs to be done and the hedges and the fence and what about the driveway this place needs a new driveway and the garage is coming yeah we need a new garage I would just get that list all the way up same thing and four, five, six, and seven. You don't do any work. We humbly ask our higher power to remove these things. So we go, geez, if that's all there is to it, why aren't we all perfect? Is it because God doesn't want to remove the things or remove these thing? Is that what the deal is? Because nobody in this room is perfect. And I think this, I'm going to kind of go into this and then wrap it up because this has been a fun thing for me to think about so I'll see what you all think about it. This is how the steps work. In other words, the more we're in the program, the more that we're going to be able to do the work. That's the point of the whole thing. When you turn your will and your life over to the care of God in terms of spiritual growth it is him doing the work and removing all these things that are blocking us from Him. And so, geez, if He's going to do all the work, why aren't we eagerly racing towards spirituality? I mean, you know, what is there? Why would it be that? Well, if you study the 12 and 12, you'll find in the sixth step that Bill talks about a thing called the riddle of our existence. If you haven't run across that sentence, I always like to hear new stuff when I go to meetings and then I go run home and find it. You know, riddle of our existence. I don't remember reading that. So anyway, he makes an attempt in that step to explain what the dilemma is to be a human being. And he goes on to say that drinking, you know, we say, number one, we go, well, what proof do I have that God would remove something if I did get entirely willing? And he goes, well, unfortunately you have 100% proof because you became entirely willing to have your drinking removed and it's gone. You don't think about it anymore. It's just been lifted out. So you already know it works. Well, then what's the problem? Wouldn't you like to be spiritually perfect? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I would. I would really like it. I would Really Like It. It's almost like when people say, would you like the federal deficit removed? Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll cut your program and raise your taxes, and we'll get it done. It's when you get into the specifics that you meet resistance. And that's what Bill is saying. He's saying the rest of our character defects aren't killing us like alcohol was. So it becomes much more difficult to become entirely willing to have you-know-who remove these things. What's the problem with getting God involved? He goes too far. That's the problems. We're moderation people. I'd like some spiritual growth I don't want to be Mother Teresa what would happen what would happen I mean you know my selfishness takes over don't let them take you that far you have to give all your crap away to the poor you won't even have a boat hey you're just here to get sober slow this process easy does it Whoa! So this is what Bill is talking about. He says, we actually like some of our character defects. They give us a lot of pleasure. So let's start going after them, you know, because we've got to eventually make some more growth. What can I entirely get rid of? And you start down the spectrum, there isn't anything. You want to entirely get read of anger? Anger? Yes, I want to entirely get rid of anger unless it's justified. All right, would you like to entirely Get Rid of Gossip? Gossip, Dr. Bob said, hurts AA probably more than anything. It is one of the terrible things that we have going on. Would you like gossip totally lifted out of you? Of course I would. Most of it. what I'd like to do is to no longer originate gossip because that is very mean but if I'm just relaying something what I am is a dispenser of information as you see so I would like to take my gossip down to just relay it. Well, what about lust? Wouldn't you love God to just come in and just go, shoo! Not one ounce of lust left. You'd think how free you'd be. You'd just be able to go around without being tormented by all that stuff. Wouldn't your love that? All of it, huh? Is that like when you're dead? all of it I'd like put me down for 50% I'd be willing to I'd love to I'd to I'd liked to sign up for 50 percent on lust 50 percent on pride 50 percent on this 50 percent on that and then Bill writes the great sentence in there we tend to settle for as much perfection as will get us by. Put it in businessman's terms, I'd like to have a reputation for being honest. But a guy has to reserve the right to save his business so I'd like to just be dishonest occasionally. so what we have is a very difficult process here to muster the entire willingness to get rid of anything and this is the measure of our spiritual growth as we go along and some of us voluntarily acquire the process of humility and move on and the vast majority of us have to wait until the crap hits the fan And somebody goes, that's disgusting. You ought to get rid of all that. And we go, oh, okay, all right. Circumstances finally create the willingness. We go into the process. We come out the other side free of something that's been haunting us for many, many years. And guess who jumps center stage to take credit? Our ego. Yeah, I finally decided that that lust thing had been ruining my life long enough. I just said, you've got to face it, and I did. And we never hear God mentioned anywhere. You see what I'm saying? So this spiritual process is difficult but fun. Everything in a, the joy of living to me means that it's fun. That the fun comes from maintaining the connection with this power. The 12 steps are power tools. They have to be plugged in. You know what I'm saying? You can't take an electric knife and not plug it in. What the hell is wrong? It's cutting two slices. What is this thing? So as long as they're plugged in, they do the work without much effort on our part. And that's the exciting part because any time I am near the energy of my higher power, I'm happy. See, that's where happiness is. The closer I get to being in contact with the higher power the harder it is for any problems at all to exist. They just can't exist there. It's just like alcohol, they just you know, they're there but I haven't classified them as problems because when you think about it a problem is not a problem a problem isn't an event that you decided was a problem you know what I mean? There's millions of events going by well the weather's this, that's going on the election went this way, this went that way yeah, yeah, long that's unacceptable Now it's a problem, you see, that I grabbed and I decided that this isn't the way it should be. I think you could take every problem that we have and narrow it down to one category. It's not going your way. So when we take this process of the 12 steps and we turn our way over to our higher power, then nothing cannot go our way because there's nothing for it to be in conflict with. And this is what a happy life is all about. It is in total acceptance of everything that happens. Yep, that's fine with me. That's fine. That's Fine. Well, how could it be fine? You just got fired. I know, but it didn't take me away from my higher power. My higher power is already looking for another job. I'm taking a week off. I'll be back. I can go to the conference after all. Yay! it sounds irresponsible in the material world but it makes eminent sense in the spiritual world to live life with that loose garment with that realization that we're being taken care of already Chuck Chamberlain used to talk about that it's not your job to take care of yourself that's God's job your job is to do his work and I remember going well, Chuck, you're not serious, are you? I mean, that sounds great in theory, but you couldn't really be serious, are you?" He said, yes. Okay. Okay. So I really try to get in that energy level. If you knew a lot of this, I don't know, maybe it didn't make any sense at all, but I hope that you heard out of it that you are in the middle of an incredible solution. You're going to be taken. It's not your job to figure out your life or to figure OUT where you should go. Your job is to be guided. So there's only one question that you should ask for the rest of the time you're in AA. What should I do next? That's it. In the beginning, you ask your spouse, okay, what do I do next? Well, we're going to work on step two. Okay. Okay. And then your job is to see every three months whether these results are better than when you were in charge. And I think you're going be absolutely astounded. At first your ego won't want to concede that it really is better. Well, it may be better but I didn't do it and I don't like the fact that I didn't do it. You know what I mean? And so as you get guided and you realize the more that you rely on something other than yourself, the happier you'll be and the better results you'll have in your life. The plan that you can think up to make you happy won't work. Happiness only lies in being near our higher power because that's what was missing from the day we were born. And that's what the AA message is, is to just stay close to this solution. And as long as you stay in the solution, problems have a very hard time getting in there. They just go, where's the doorway in here? I want to go in there and bother that guy. And there's no way to get in because we're in that solution. So if you're new, I wish you Godspeed. Stay guided. Stay in the center of AA. You can't fall off the edge, and you will be up here reporting the miracle in the very near future. Thank you very much.