Step 9 and the Extravagant Promises That Only Higher Power Can Do – Sandy B.

Hi everybody. My name is Carolyn and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Carolyn. Hi Dave. And a member of this group. And when we were at a business meeting and Jean said Sandy would be coming to speak, I said, oh, I want to chair that meeting. And then they said, do you know that if you chair the meeting you have to delegate all the different committees? I said well no, maybe I don't want to. But you volunteered, Carol. And so why don't you volunteer? And I'm really glad that I did volunteer. And I just want to thank everybody for all the help that you've given us. And anyway, when I first got sober in Washington, in Maryland, I had a spiritual advisor. Actually, he was just really paying a lot of attention to me because I was a very sick person. And he told me about this talk downtown at the Psychiatric Institute. and he thought that I would gain something from it if I came. So I did, and it was a very small room and you couldn't get a seat unless you got there an hour early. And it was Sandy, and he was talking about one of the steps every week. He'd start out with the first step and then he'd go right through all the traditions too. And then the crowd got too great so we had to move to another place, another psychiatric institute that had a hall right and um we got there and the thing of it was sandy had a way of bringing the steps to life for me um he was funny and yet he never deviated from the literature i'd be reading the literature and i say well that was what sandy was talking about But after we overcrowded that place, then we had to move to a big auditorium at Sibley Hospital. And then after we grew there, we had to move NIH. And that was the last place that I heard Sandy on a Saturday morning. I went every single Saturday for the first seven years of my sobriety. And I taped all the talks and all the steps, and I gave them all away to other alcoholics that I knew that I felt could get a lot out of them too like I did so now I have no tapes left but I will have one from tonight and while I'm saying that if anyone would like a tape of Sandy's talk tonight, if you just check with Suzanne up at the desk before you leave and believe me they're worth it so with that I'd like to introduce Sandy and Thank you very much, and good evening, everybody. My name's Sandy Beach, and I'm an alcoholic. And boy, I can tell you, if I lived down here, I'd be a member of this group. I mean, boy, you study those two books and have this much enthusiasm. You can't go wrong. I mean it's just wonderful to stay in the literature and stay in the path that was carved out all those years ago so that when you pass on a message to the next person, it's not diluted. It's the same message, the one that gets all these great results. And so there's no better way of doing it than staying right in the message as it was laid down. And so I tell you, I think you're on the right track with that kind of a deal. And I like both books. I think that they complement each other in just the most wonderful ways where points are made in the 12 and 12 that are missing in the big book and vice versa. There's things in the Big Book that couldn't possibly be done any better, like the chapter of the agnostic. I mean, God, you talk about an explanation of step two. It just doesn't get any better than that. And so I'm just very excited to be part of this. Um, my friend Bill and I drove down and had a nice visit. And, um, I always like company when I go on these trips because it's just fun to talk about. And we got here early and we went to Mel's to hang out. Obviously, we picked a nice spot that I could tell as soon as I walked in there. So we had lots of coffee and a few little snacks and this and that. And we just talked about, um... AA and life and spirituality. and the more we talked, the more happy we got. It was just like you're getting on a high over there at Mel's just talking about... Not talking about football, not talking about politics, not talking abut any of those things, just talking about what we have here in this program and what the real important things in life are. And this is the deal. This is where the main event is. And all that other stuff is just... it just isn't part of what's important. And it's a wonderful journey to make the transition from the material world over to the spiritual world as far as we can get. And that's why letting go of things is so important. It isn't a question of learning anything, it's the question of unlearning things. Oh, wrong about that too! Pew! Out the door! And the more things I'm wrong about, the less burden I'm carrying and the less baggage I have. Wow, I'd like to find a hundred more things I'm wrong about this year and get them out of the system. It's not embarrassing, it's exciting. Yeah, I am wrong about that. Wow, goodbye. I mean, just getting rid of old ideas that aren't true, that has to be one of the healthiest things we can be doing. Of course, my ego doesn't like to be wrong and I'm in a constant struggle with him. Oh, my God. I want to talk about AA tonight, but I'll take ten minutes and tell you a brief version of my story in case there's new people here who don't believe I'm an alcoholic. Look at that guy, he doesn't look like an alcoholic I doubt if he really is maybe he's just a speaker or something. Anyway, I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut a long time ago my sobriety date is December 7th, 1964 and I've had the same sponsor for 41 years which is a blessing he's very ill Bill T. has got lung cancer and I'm praying for them, so if you have an extra prayer, send it up to Virginia because I'd like to see if we could make it 50 years together. Wouldn't that be something? Anyway, I grew up. I've got one sister. She's got 28 years in AA. My mother and father were very nice. They took good care of us. But from the earliest age, as I sat at the table with my mother and Father and Sister, the four of us, I always felt like there was the three of them and me like i even there i didn't belong at that same table with it now i don't know where i got that but i had that sense of just not belonging and my mother was catholic my father was protestant he had to convert his family almost left him and um so my sister and i sat in the catholic church she thought it was the friendliest nicest place in the world oh the nuns are so cute and the latin And the priest said, oh, isn't this fun? And I sat there terrorized. I mean, it's just a question of perception. You know what I mean? We're both saying the same thing, and I got scared out of my mind. I thought it was the most, oh my God, I hated going. It was so tense. And that was when I read stuff, I would take it in and go, oh my god, oh mom, I'm in trouble. I'm a bad boy. Oh my god. This is awful. And when I was nine years old, I had my first insight. You know, when you suddenly, truth is revealed to you personally. And I was looking at the crucifix. It was huge. It was 20 feet tall, hanging from the ceiling. And I Was sort of staring at it, and it was like it spoke to me. And it said, little boy, do you know what this is? Yeah. Well, this is what God did to his only son that he loved. Guess what he's going to do to you? I fell over in a faint. I mean, it was just, oh my God. You know, so this is what's going on inside of me and was like that for many, many years. And of course, on the outside, you have to pretend you're cool. You know on the inside, you're not sure you're going to be standing in another 15 seconds, but you're cooled. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I was a good student, an athlete. My father got me into a little prep school in New Haven, went right into Yale University. I hadn't had a drink. I got there. All the guys that came from all over the country, they all were smart, rich. They all knew everything. And I was the townie who worked on the buildings and construction and I'd be working on them and then going to school. And I just, you know, I said, I don't belong in here. and I knew in my freshman year they were going to call the thousand freshmen out onto the old campus and the dean was going to come out and go, gentlemen, we've been doing a little checking and we have an imposter in our midst and there he is. And they were gonna point at me and everybody's gonna know and they're all gonna say, yeah, we knew he didn't belong here. So that was the comfort level that I had. And everybody's drinking and I'm not. I'm trying to get high grades. I want to try out for the track team. I wanted to see what I can do, and my roommates are going, come on, you're in college. You ought to be drinking. You're 19. It's fun. It'll make you feel good. No, no, that's all right. That's all all right, but there came a night, and I always mention this in every talk I give because this is what makes me an alcoholic. My name was typed up on a list to go into this room at 8 that night, and it was a social mixer. There was 30 names on there of guys from different parts of the country and the object was go get to know each other sounds like a simple thing that was like going into combat to me to go in a group of strangers that i don't belong in and go actually try and talk to them was oh my god and i got there and i said you've got to go up just go up and shake stick your hand out just don't stop being so so afraid. So I go in there, and they're divided up in groups talking, and so I started right over to that first group of six guys, and I got about three feet away, and all six of them turned. You know how people can talk with their eyes? And they just went, we don't want to know you. We have enough people in this group. Don't come any further. It was just as clear as a bell coming right from their eyes, and it stopped me in my tracks. It almost took my breath away. that much rejection just like that just blatant well actually i'm going over here and as i turned those guys turned no you're not oh i'm gonna go over there and then everywhere i went there was that same clear message from those eyes stay away from us so i didn't meet anybody to meet anybody i started starting well i gotta get out of here which i normally did but there was a bartender there. And I said, geez, maybe I'll have a drink and feel good. That was all I said to myself. They said it makes you feel good, so I had one, nothing happened. I had two. Talking with the bartender, I got halfway through the third one, and I decided, I don't know if this stuff makes you feel Good or not. And, I put it down. I think I was getting ready to leave, and I looked back, and it was, I can still feel it. It was as if those 30 mean guys were gone, and it was replaced by 30 of the friendliest guys I've ever seen. Everyone in that room wanted to know me. They were all looking at me, join our group, please, please join our Group. And I'm looking, oh my God, these people are wonderful. This is just, it was like I just went into another world. It was the greatest world, I couldn't believe it. And so I just said yes, and I started walking over towards them and then I felt something else different. I felt like they would be lucky to know me. You know what I mean? They're right. Here I come. I mean, it was a whole new thing. And you talk about intuitively knowing how to handle situations that used to baffle you. I was now free to be me. All of my creativity, all of that freedom to be spontaneous, all of me that had been bottled up due to fear and anxiety and whatever, exploded. I had something to say about everything. I don't care where you're from. Oh, yeah, Wisconsin, the Badgers. Yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah. I mean, I just went on and on and I just talked and talked till everybody left. I was never so comfortable. I said, geez, this is the world they were talking about. I remember people saying, isn't it a great world? Isn't it great world. And I go, I don't know what they're talking about. But now I did. Now I saw the world and the people in it for the first time the way I had heard about it. Up until then, it was not a friendly place and people were not friendly. It was just not very intimidating. So I said, well, if these three drinks did that, I wonder what 15 would do or whatever. So I went back and stayed with the bartender. And you know what happens when you pour in about 15 or 20 drinks on the first night you ever drank anything and I went back to my room and I'm deathly ill and in the bathroom I spent most of the night sleeping on the tile next to the toilet which it's good to discover that early. Something you use for the rest of your life and was dying. I got up in the morning and this is important I got out I got off in the morning feeling like I had a hatchet in my head and just splitting and dry heaving just really sick. I sat there at about nine in the morning, and the thought occurred to me, are you going to drink again tonight? You know how long it took to come up with a yes? That fast. Yes. This dying, this hatchet in my head, this thinking that I'm deathly ill is a small price to pay for what I had last night. That's how important that transforming experience was it was the equivalent of a spiritual experience to suddenly be aware of the magnificence of the planet of all life and all of that I had that I could see it but I couldn't see it sober and so I knew that alcohol was going to play an important part in my life from that day forward it was my new secret weapon I suddenly felt like I should have been drinking in grammar school I I mean, it could have been a whole different journey. Well, I like to fantasize about if there had been like some kind of an angel that comes down and warns alcoholics. You know, once we drink the first night, it's pretty obvious who the alcoholics are and who the non-alcoholics. And so if this guardian had come down and said, look, before you drink any more, we've got to tell you some warning things so we will explain the whole deal to you before you proceed, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, would you be willing to give up your high grades for alcohol? Yes, that would be fine. I'll be glad to do that. Okay, wouldyou give up athletics for alcohols? Yes, I'llbe glad todo that. That'll be fine Well, how aboutwould you like to start getting in fights, your teeth knocked out, almost thrown out of school? Yeah, that'll be all right. That'llbe all right How aboutyour family? They're not going to like you. You'llprobablybe ostracized. That'llbewallright Well, whataboutyour very soul? Wouldyoubewillingtogivethatup? Yes, I don't use it. It's very important. Now, nobody asked all those things, but I realized my state of mind was, yes, I was willing to go to any length to stay in that world that I just got a glimpse of. And that became a top priority for me. That was where I always was seeking to get. so you had to go through the work day so you could show up for life at about 5.30 and then you go, hi so this day didn't count that's where you got drinking money but here we go and you walk in and you go turn it on we're ready to rock and roll I'm going to be transformed and that's what alcohol did for me it did a lot of things for me that it doesn't do for non-alcoholics You don't hear non-alcoholics, when you ask them about, what does alcohol mean in your life? You don'T hear them say, oh, it's the secret of life. You know, they say, well, I relax a little or it makes food taste better. How about that line? It makes food tastes better. Is that going down or coming up? What are you talking about? So I barely graduated. The Korean War is going on, the draft. Everybody had to join the military. There's five or six of us drinking beer, and somebody says, let's join the Marine Corps. Yeah, let me finish my beer. Wow. That was a rude awakening when I got there. But as time went on, I started just loving it. There was this camaraderie, this closeness, this, wow, it was powerful. And it took six months after the boot camp thing to become a platoon leader. All Marines are trained as platoon leaders. Then you can be trained for something else. I saw a movie about pilots, a training movie. I'd never been in a plane, but I was intrigued by it. So I asked the major, you know, what about the flight school? Oh, you don't want to do that. They want to keep you in the infantry. You have to sign up for three more years. I said, I'll sign up. I'm going to go check that out. Well, I passed the physical. Next thing I got orders to Pensacola. I got married. I'd met this wonderful woman from Guilford, Connecticut, and we took off on our honeymoon flying down to Pensancola. And I got airsick on the plane to Atlanta. I got Airsick On The Plane To Pensacolah. And the first six flights, I got airsick in the SNJ, and I'd have to clean it out after the flight. My instructor is going, I don't think you're going to make it. But the motion sickness went away, and then I started being number two in my class, number five. It was just like I was meant to do this. It was the most exciting thing. So it took 18 months. I come out the other end in a jet fighter squadron. I'm at El Toro, California waiting to go overseas and I get over there for a 14-month tour. The war is over, so there's nothing to do but fly high-performance planes and drink. And God, that was just the most wonderful 14 months I'm over there. Bill flies a lot. And God did we have fun and it was this unit. I just can't get over how tight-knit everything was when we went to happy hour to the officers club you had a table for the squadron had a model of the plane in the middle and you didn't order a drink till the colonel got there and then he ordered for everybody bring my boys around the drinks and the rounds came as fast as i could drink that's how fast everybody else was drinking i thought i was in heaven you know you didn'T even have to sneak one just boom boom boom give my boys another round so as far as i was concerned We're all drinking the same, and we're raised in hell and out until 3, get up at 5, fly up flights all day. And I've been there about seven months. And this is – I just think back on this, and it's just amazing. I had a hero in there, a big redhead Irish guy, the maintenance officer, Major Newport. And I was out at the end of the runway with him. We were getting ready to carrier qualify, and you practice on the field. And some of our buddies were making these practice landings. And we were out there evaluating and critiquing and all that and just talking. And he turned to me, and he said, You know, Sandy, in a year and a half I'll be a lieutenant colonel, and I'm going to get my own fighter squadron, and I am going to make it the best fighter squad in the Marine Corps, and I'M GOING TO GET NOTHING BUT THE BEST PILOTS. And then he pointed at me, a young first lieutenant, and he SAID, AND I WANT YOU IN THAT SQUADRON. AND I'LL TELL YOU, I FELT LIKE I HAD DIED AND GONE TO HEAVEN. And then he said, but I wouldn't let you drink. And I'm going, I drink with this guy every night. What is that? I never understood until I got to AA that even in that crowd of guys, my drinking scared him. I was drinking with an intensity or with an abandon or with something that told him danger, danger, danger, that guy right there. He didn't say that about anybody else. He just zeroed in on me, and he was right. And over the next years, 12 years or so, I got promoted to first lieutenant. I got promotion to captain. We had six children. I finished a fighter pilot tour. I was a forward air controller with the Marine Division. I was flight instructor in Pensacola for three years, and then I went through photo school, and I was up at Cherry Point during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and we had our photo planes. And on the outside, you would say, look at this guy, you know, everything's going good. I'm just about to have it all over because on the inside, alcohol is winning and it's getting urgent and the whole inside is starting to explode with anxiety and confusion and the inability to stop drinking even though I would try and not have a drink for eight hours before I got in the plane. you don't drink for eight hours usually you're in withdrawal and that's the worst thing to be in when you're flying because you're shaking and you're confused and your heart is racing and I can't see very well and I'm just having the feeling that I don't trust the pilot of the plane I'm in which is me I mean I I'm going you don' t know what you're doing half the time and your reflexes and all of that and I' m getting and it got really really bad I almost did some very stupid things, but nothing happened. But I went to the doctors and they went, what? What? What? What is that? My God, you've got to go down to Pensacola and let the doctors look at you. And this was in the early 60s. They didn't have alcoholism. It was not a disease in the Navy. So you couldn't be diagnosed as an alcoholic. You had to be something else. And so I'm down there for two weeks. They're testing me. And several of the doctors, especially the dentist, I remember him going, you know, you reek of alcohol. And I said, well, I got drunk last night. And it was almost like, oh, well that's probably why you're reeking. And then he just went on with, but I just stunk of alcohol all the time, high blood pressure, disorientation, clammy, bloodshot eyes, trembling hands, all of the things. And at the end of the two weeks they decided that the psychiatrist said, you know what you have? You have a childhood fear of flying. that somehow was covered up for 12 years, and so you can't fly anymore. And that killed me because that was my whole identity, but I had no inner fortitude to fight it. I just went, well, that's that. But I had a regular commission. I was making a career, so they had to give me a new specialty. It took about three months, and I got my orders to become an air traffic controller. And I made it through the air traffic control school, which is unbelievable in that shape to get through that school. And my last year of drinking, I was in charge of an air graphic control unit in Japan. And fortunately, when I checked in, the senior enlisted men, who are the smartest of all, saw me, and they just went, captain welcome aboard now we were in tents down on the end of the runway god it's good to have you here here's your little place and coffee and all that sir we'd appreciate if you personally never talk to an airplane or go or go near the radar you you just try to show up for work and we'll do all the rest and um and that was kind of what that year was it was a frightening year because now I drank around the clock. I got malnutrition. I couldn't eat solid food. I lost 50 pounds. I stopped hanging out with my friends. Didn't even go to happy hour. I was trying to eat soup. I'd have vodka and soup. I'd had this and... It was just... I was getting alcohol poisoning. I was very, very sick. And the funny thing is after I got sober in Washington, D.C., I ran into some of the guys that were in that outfit and they were so happy. I had 20 years sobriety or something. We sort of had a reunion and they said something absolutely amazing when you think about the Marine Corps. Now, the Marine Corp is famous. They won't leave a dead Marine out on the battlefield. They will go lose five Marines to go get them. They just, you do not abandon anybody. I mean, this is just, that's in the history books all the way. Now, let me tell you what these guys said about my alcoholism. They said, you know, Sandy, we knew you were dying and there wasn't anything we could do for you. That's a hell of a statement, isn't it? That shows you the power of alcoholism where these guys are saying there's nothing we can do for you because they didn't know about AA. There's no alcohol program. And what they did, they just transferred the drunk onto the next unit and let them worry about it. and eventually maybe he'd die or something would happen, fall by the wayside. But I thought about that line, you were dying, there's nothing we could do. It's just like, God, if you guys can't do anything, no one can. Anyway, I got back to Quantico, Virginia. I'm in a school to become a field grade officer, all high levels, studying all this stuff. And I was starting to hallucinate. I was really freaking out. I couldn't find my desk. I'd come to the school, and I wouldn't know what classroom I was in. I was very disoriented. One day I came in. I lived off the base. I drove through the gates, saluted the sentry, drove up. The junior school was about three big brick buildings. I drove up, and the buildings were gone. I'm like, oh, damn. And I looked around, and they were gone, they were flat gone. So I drove back to the gate to report it. and they and the corporal saw me I just drove in now I'm driving out and he's going but I made a U-turn I came around and he said yes sir I said corporal junior school is gone I was just up there and he says what I said junior school is gone I was he got the car with the red light follow me it was back you know it was there and he turned and he looked at me you know he's pointing and I said it's back you know so it's funny now but it was pretty scary then you know anyway in the school a few days later I had a grand mal seizure almost bit my tongue in half they got an ambulance put me in the hospital and once again we start the routine wonder what caused the grand mal seizure maybe he's studying too hard what's his diet get my wife what does he eat what does everyone you know what could be causing this and i was there about five days and five days without booze i went into the dt's the delirium treatments and i hallucinated about the cia scared i was never so scared in my life they were trying to break me mentally so i'd be locked up in a mental institution forever when they had these memory tests. None of it's happening, but it's just real. It's so real, it's unbelievable. And evidently I broke bad down the hallway and they grabbed me and put me in a straitjacket and locked me up in the nut ward for six months. So that was my finale, so to speak. I made one more little try. And somewhere at the end of four months, the AA group in that area talked to the head psychiatrist and said, you've got alcoholics in there. You ought to let us bring an AA meeting in. Well, I don't think we have any alcohol. Yes, you do. So there were three of us in with the others who really didn't like us there. They felt that alcoholism was not a legitimate mental illness, and what are we doing in their nice place? But I went down, and I loved what these speakers had to say, but I didn't connect for myself. And even in spite of all the evidence I had, I said, God, if I have a friend with a drinking problem, these guys are the answer. This is wonderful. And at the end of the time, I was now going back to duty after all those months, and they let you be an outpatient while you're getting ready to transition, so I'm going home. It wasn't long before I'm having a beer. They told me, if you have one more drink, your career's over. And then I have a vodka, and then I got a bottle of vodka in the car, and I'm bringing it into the nut ward, and I know they're going to get me. And paranoia is setting in. They're all looking at me, all the psychiatrists. So over the weekend of Pearl Harbor Day, 1964, I called Intergroup, and there was one other Marine in AA down at Quantico, my sponsor. And he came to my house, picked me up, took me to my meeting. I haven't had a drink since. It just took. He was very powerful. We went to meetings every night. We just did the whole nine yards. And that's 41 years ago. And lots of things have happened. I will mention this for those of you that are new. Sometimes things happen and you can't understand why they're happening because you think once you get sober, things should start straightening out. Well, I went to a meeting every night for two years. I made coffee. I spoke when everything was done. I was sponsoring people. I never said no. I was probably going six meetings a week. I just couldn't have been more active in AA. And in the military, you have to get promoted to major to make a career. Otherwise, you Have to leave, honorably, but You Have to Leave. And so my sponsor and I were up for promotion to major. And you get two tries. And on the first try, neither one of us made it with our backgrounds and everything. On the second try, he made it and I didn't. So I felt that if I now am straightening out, I'm going to meetings, I'm a responsible person, I'M doing all the things that God wants me to do, this new loving God, not that one that, you know, you told me, oh, no, no ,no, don't worry about that one. This one loves you. well now i'm being thrown out of the marine corps with six kids and all those years are wasted i get nothing i'm you know and i go i don't think this is and this is a word we should never use fair i don'T THINK THIS IS FAIR i'VE SINCE LEARNED THAT FAIRNESS IS A ONE-WAY STREET IT ONLY GOES OUT FROM ME IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO COME TO ME THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS AM I BEING FAIR forget anything else that's their problem are they being fair if not then they're going to suffer but it is a one-way street well i didn't know that and i'm just i'm upset with the marine corps i'm up to my spine but i'm mostly upset with god i am just adamant that he shouldn't have done this what the devil is this and boy if you had known me back then every time i came to a meeting i mean it was just a whining at the top level whining and people that run in the other room. I don't want to hear that crap again, Sandy. And three months, I wouldn't talk to God. I wouldn'T pray. I mostly just said, thanks a lot. Really appreciate it. I'm really not finding a job. I'M in a resentment. I can't look. I' m consumed with this unfairness. And if I got a job, it might be more fair. So I got to stay unemployed to stay resentful and keep this story going about oh god is this awful what happened and there was a little story in the washington post one paragraph i happened to see it it said marine corps instruction team that was what i was on it was a wonderful job and it was headed by a general we went around the world and put on these presentations about the future of the marine corps with film and slides and next it was quite a show eight hours long Marine Corps instruction team killed in plane crash in Denver. And I read, and all my buddies are dead. And I went, boy, if you had your way, and it had been fair, and you got promoted, you'd be dead. And I remember going, well, that makes it a little different. You know what I mean? That's different. and then I knew that God knew I just read it and I sat there like a jerk you know and I think I mumbled well if he just told me that was going to happen I wouldn't have been so upset about all these things so anyway I just I went on I had real hard time getting this job that job just trying everything and struggling and selling and all and I finally ended up with a wonderful thing the credit union movement all the credit unions in the country And, geez, the military, we all rely on. They're great organizations. And I had a 20-year career as a lobbyist for all the credit unions in the country trying to make sure they got good laws passed to help them. It was just like being part of AA. It was that kind of a family, and it was wonderful. Then I retired, came down to Tampa about 10 years ago, and the AA up there is just as good as it is down here. It's very exciting, and life is wonderful. So now I've got some time left, and I would just like to talk just some thoughts about AA. And I was going to start with this. This thought occurred to me. I was talking with Tom I. from North Carolina. Some of you may know Tom. He's here about 49 years and gives a great presentation about the program. And we were on a program together, and he was looking at the service structure of AA and how it's changed since in 50 years and trying to make some observations of could we fix it or is it worse or better and all that. He did a wonderful job, and then he asked me to talk about the spiritual side of AA. Have there been any changes? is there a do you see anything happening and this and that and so we got talking before the meeting and then I decided to start out with this and that's what I'm going to start with here tonight and that is that if you went back 60 years ago in most mid-sized cities and certainly all towns there was only one meeting a week you know it's getting started in all these different locations. One meeting a week. And people were getting sober and staying sober at a rate that's at least equal and perhaps higher than today. So, gosh, you ask yourself, well, how the heck do you stay sober when you're brand new on one meeting a weak? And we came up with this. Well, number one, you really look forward to the meeting. Well, four more days I'll be at a meeting. So there's that. It's kind of exciting looking forward to it. And then maybe you meet somebody who's in your group and you meet for coffee once a week. So you and another gal or another guy sit and have coffee and talk about staying sober. But in the final analysis, the secret was, you prayed like hell. You prayed and prayed and prayed. And today we have 6am meetings, 8am meetings noon meetings, five o'clock meeting seven o' clock meeting midnight meetings, we got conferences, we get CDs, we've got tapes, we got pamphlets on every single thing you could possibly have a problem with we have a support system in place now you don't have to hardly pray at all and out of this support system and relying primarily on it you can get pretty good sobriety pretty good pretty good let me tell you what pretty good is bill quotes abraham lincoln as saying the biggest enemy of the best is the good it will prevent you from having what's really here more than when you're really having a hard time when you'RE desperate see good takes us to a certain level where and as tom and i were talking and we went through phases of this where you got to a comfort level, and it's a we program, and we're all kind of there. And you go along, and you go alone, and it is fun. You are going out to dinner, and doing this, and that. But then you look back on the last ten years, and you realize you personally have not moved that much closer to your higher power. Everything is nice, but you, and I am very aware of this, We're very aware that there's much more available if we would just do something. And so that is what I got thinking about, is once you get, it's a wee program, up to a certain level. And when you read the promises tonight, I see that, I know our sponsors take us all the way through the steps, but as we take the steps and you get to step nine and you read those promises and at the end we say are these extravagant promises and then we go we think not they are extravagent they're absolutely extravagate self-seeking will slip away let's see you do that one on your own fear of people and economic insecurity will leave you okay fred i've been bothering you all these years i'm out of here that'll leave you you'll intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle you all of these things you know why we think they're not extravagant because God's doing them. And nothing's extravagant for him, but those are monstrous. Holy cow! That would be like saying you're going to own Utah. Is that an extravagance promise? Yeah. So this is... Those verbs are all spiritual verbs. Those verbs don't come from going to a therapist and figuring something out. This is spiritually removing things. There's nothing figured out there. If you're a people economic insurer, it leaves you. You don't sit there and go, well, I have a financial plan. I'm going to save some money. Now I see how now it's starting to leave me. No, gone. Gone, gone, gone So the last sentence, somebody's wondering, what does a spiritual awakening look like? How about we suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves? that's a pretty good description of a spiritual awakening. Spiritual awakening is awareness. This stuff is going on all the time. I mean, God's in our lives all the time, but we're not aware of it. We just take credit for stuff and we're this and we see everything with different rules than the spiritual principles. And all of a sudden, somewhere in that ninth step, because we've done all this work and we're ready now to live it a day at a time in the last three steps. That's where this spiritual awakening really takes place is that awareness that, oh my God, God's doing this for me. Nobody told you, you suddenly felt it. Conscious contact, jackpot. We have these two points touching each other and we experience it. So we have this glimpse. And then in the big book when Bill gets there the 10th step, what does he say right off the bat? We have entered the world of the spirit. What an interesting sentence. Why would we enter the world of the Spirit in the 10ths step? Because we just had this experience. So from now on, we want to try and live by spiritual principles, starting now. Up till then, we have to get everything out of the way and settle with the past and get rid of defects that are blocking the channel of this energy coming in. But now it's a question of using that energy, maintaining that contact, as they talk about at the end of the 10th step. We don't have a cure. We have a daily reprieve contingent on maintaining our spiritual condition, which is the awareness of God being with us. And so it starts us into this wonderful realm of the spirit. now the hard part is staying there and it's interesting in the letter from Carl Young to Bill Wilson I'm not going to go through the whole history thing but Bill wrote dr. young after a had been around a number of years he'd forgotten it was almost an oversight that he wanted to give dr. Jung credit for helping to start AA because of what he told Roland Hazard about, I've done everything I can for you. And Roland went out and got drunk. And that was, Dr. Young was considered just about the end of the line in terms of human health. And he turned to this man who he had treated for a year, went out, got drunk, and came back. And he said, there's nothing I can do for you." That is the equivalent of no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. Where are you going to go after Dr. Young? And what he did was A.A.'s first step. He eliminated all hope from Roland. There's nothing I can do for you. Well, where do I grab? What do I do? and then he said there are exceptions people like you have had spiritual experiences which transformed them in a way that enabled them to live a happy life if I was you I would try and go find one of those Roland wouldn't have gone and tried to find one until he pulled the rug out if he had told him before We would call it character defects and he always loses. How do you like that judgment? And he always loses, and then he went on to say with one exception a person who has a spiritual awakening and is in a society that helps him maintain that spiritual awakening which I maintain this group does. This isn't a group, it's a society. We actually are a society who has our own principles that we attempt to live by. Granted, we're here under duress. We can't take the credit of saying, you know, I was out there and thought I'd live at a higher level so I came in here. Now the Oxford people could do that but you and I can't do that. We came men here with a gun in our head, go in there. So we can't take credit for coming up with this plan, but we can acknowledge the magnitude of what we've been given here. This indeed is the golden opportunity to try for the golden ring, which would be to escape as far as we can from the earthly principles, the material and all of those messages that happiness lies here and happiness lies there, which is essential to the free enterprise system. If everybody got spiritual, we wouldn't buy anything. So this is the chance to do it. If you think about it, this is what an epic story is about when we talk about effort we're talking about this is the whole point of being alive is to try and make the journey from your head to your heart see your heart wants to do loving things all the time and your head vetoes it oh i know you i know you want to be nice to that guy but we got to screw him on this one business deal because we got to pay the bill back here and then we'll be nice to them i mean everything coming out of here is love and then up here which has been taught to be oh no we got all these related you know in this poor heart we just break our own heart all the time all the times by vetoing love and coming up with something else and so that's what this the seeking is all about seeking is one of the great words in our book you know god couldn't would if he were sought. Sought, what is seeking? I remember as a kid in grammar school, seek, what does seek? It sounded like a funny word, so the teacher said, well, we're going to play a little game today, show you what it is, hide and seek. Well, how's it played? Well, Mary's going to go hide, you put your eyes, and then we go, okay, try and find her. So then you looked, and I go, Mary, Mary. Mary, well, if I didn't find her about three minutes, I went, who cares about Mary? Okay, that would be called a low-level seeking. Then I got a little bit older, and it was the Easter Bunny game. And my mother said, I'm going to hide four and a half pounds of chocolate, and you seek it. And when you get it, you eat it all. Well, boy, that got my attention much higher than Mary hiding in the closet. I just went, all right. I'm gone, I've gone, but even then, after what? eight minutes. Mom, is it in this room? I need some help. So that's a medium level of seeking. When I was about 14, we had a golden retriever. And I came home one day and my mother said he ran away. He went in those woods and he's been missing for eight hours. We don't know where he is well i went in those woods and i called his name till it was dark and i was just yelling he's got to be around here he's got to somewhere and every day after school i went into those woods and i call his name and a year later i went to those woods he could still show up i think if i went back there now up to connecticut and if i went by those woods i might just take another look and get now that's seeking there's some seeking a lot much higher than the hide-and-seek game how hard do we seek God sometimes it's not the Easter basket level you follow what I'm saying it is now this becomes the individual adventure that's what they talk about in the 11th step 11 step essentially an individual adventure our libraries are filled with books our ministers and spiritual people all over the place to give us more ideas about how to see a deeper aa program now we never leave the aa program but as a way of understanding at a deeper level what we have right here, but that's done individually. And so that's what I think is missing is that we want to get away from the comfort level of this support system and start out on our own with a personal quest to go further than we are. And I find it the most exciting thing in the world. I don't know where I am in relation to any of you, but I'm way past where I used to be, which was in the gutter. I mean, it just feels so good to keep understanding things. And I came across something, and then I'll wrap it up. I'm going over, I guess. And I was reading an author who was just talking about spirituality in general, and boom, he just gave me an idea, and I just went, holy cow. You know the sentence, this too shall pass? How often do we say that? This too shall past, this two shall past. now what we mean by that is a very superficial look I know your heart is broken that she left and you're hurting but don't worry it's gonna pass until you could feel better knowing that the pain is going to be reduced and will be gone or somebody's on a roll and he's just as high as a kite we go want to caution him or her don't forget charlie that too will pass it's not going to stay high and all that so that would be a reasonable explanation of this two shall pass now let's think about this too shall pass from a different slant this too shalt pass means everything passes nothing is permanent every moment that happens goes away and another new moment appears so there is no reason to ever grab on to any moment and there's no reason ever resist any moment and there's no reason to ever judge any moment. All events are simply events until I turn them into problems. I decide, no, oh, you were planning on passing? No. This is unacceptable to pass. This baby ain't passing. It's not fair. It's nothing. The event already happened. it's gone I got this all I have is a fist and I go or the event frightens me they go no it can't happen I can't have that event happen I can't help it I can have it you think the event goes oh sorry I'll go around over here it just goes boom or i watch every event deciding good bad medium huh you said that oh what the president said that i'm judging everything why it's not it's it's going to be gone what do you think i'm judging for posterity go on now i got Now I've got the Mars paper. Holy cow, Morse, hit the judge. Where am I? I'm never in the now. Never. I'm worried about the future. I'm hanging on to this. Now, you take any spiritual philosophy or way of life, and I'm going to tell you there's three things in all of them. resist not judge not and grab not let go and let God I mean there's a whole like a jackpot way of looking at this too shall pass the last thing I'll say is the struggle we have with our ego and I was talking with Bill on the way up In the 12 and 12, I think it's the third step. Turn my whole life over? Well, I'll turn my alcohol problem over, but I'm not going to turn my whole Life. Do you remember this then? I'll be a non-entity. I will be the hole in the donut. Okay. This is what I want you to think about. You know what a nonentity is? A completely spiritual person. that's what a non-entity is no ego nothing left of myself I'm nothing the higher power does the work so I suggest as a goal for this year that we all try to become non- entities thank you all very much Thank you.