The Agnostic Chapter and the Two Crappy Choices – Sandy B.

Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Beach and I'm an alcoholic. How are you all doing? Well, it's a real pleasure to be here. This is a great city, great AA. It's always a pleasure to come out here and to participate in very important things, these conventions, roundups that we have in Alcoholics Anonymous. to remind us of how big a miracle has really taken place. And when you look around at your friends and the people you haven't met yet, and you see 800 people or whatever it is, and you realize this just doesn't happen by some ideas. It happens because of a power. That's what the program has, is power. And you can feel it in this room. And in the very beginning, most of us felt this power before we felt the ultimate power. You can't not feel. In your home group, when you walk in feeling bad and an hour later you walk out feeling good, And it really wasn't necessarily because somebody said something clever or somebody did that. You just sat in the power of the group, and when you walked out, the power had taken the problems and made them a lot smaller. It opened your eyes to seeing that actually your life is pretty darn good after all. Maybe you over-exaggerated some of the things that were going on before you got there, and you'll be able to take care of the hangnail on your own. And so these events, we were in Founders Day this year, which is a, boy, you want to see some high energy go out there. My God, it's just 10 or 12,000 people just, it never stops. It just is amazing. So I really enjoy being part of that and to celebrate the gift that we were given so many years ago that we're passing on, and that's really what is going on. All throughout this room are various lengths of sobriety who are reaching back, the 40 years reaching back to 35 and 35 back to 30 and 30, And all the way down to what Bill described, they said, well, it looks like the blind leading the blind. Back when AA was new and, you know, somebody had three months sobriety and Bill would go, look, Charlie, I understand you're being transferred to Chicago. Start AA in Chicago as well. But I only got three months. That's enough. That's Enough. Go to Chicago and start AA. hey, now we worry that someone could lead a discussion meeting with only three months. And so they asked him, is this the blind leading the blind? He said, no, it's the semi-blind leading the mind. And so this is what is going on. And, of course, when you accept that, then you realize you can't see any further ahead than today. So let's all just join in and help each other get through today. And that's a nice way to live. And so today we've had a great, a lot of action and energy here at the conference. And it's a pleasure for me to be here tonight. And I'm just going to tell my story in about ten minutes because I'd rather talk about whatever's going on in my head about AA and how exciting it is and what I think the program is and share that with those of you that are new. And so let me just start out by saying I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut in my 30s. I have one sister and my mother and father, and they were very nice parents. My sister has 30 years in AA up in new haven now. and I sat at that table and felt like I didn't belong. There was no reason for me to feel that way, I just felt that way. This is what my little head told me, a little story that I don't belong and I don' t know why, I don''t know what it is but it was there. My mother was a Catholic, my father was a Protestant, he had to convert, His family almost stopped speaking to him, and I went off, as did my sister, to the Catholic Church. My sister to this day loves it. She thought it was the friendliest, kindest, cutest place in the world. She thought the nuns were cute and the Latin was fun and the incense was fun, and God isn't it fun to be at the Catholic church. I, on the other hand sitting right next to her thought I was in a Nazi boot camp I thought the trains were going to pull up any minute and haul us off to Auschwitz and I was just terrified by these nuns black and white what, what, and then I'd read things and oh my god this horrible was going to happen to me and i was about nine years old and had this deep insight into spirituality i was looking at the crucifix it was 20 feet tall right in front of you and couldn't miss it and um and it was as if it spoke to me and it said little boy do you see this yeah yeah i see that well that's what god did his only son that he loved. Guess what he's going to do to you? I fell off the seat and I'm lying on the ground. I don't know what it is, but if it's worse than that, oh my God. So that's not what they were teaching, but that's what I took in. And that became part of me. That became my old ideas, which we accumulate as we're growing up. We're little kids. We're accumulating things and we don't check it out with anybody. It's not like you have a sponsor back when you're nine. You just file it away as true. You follow what I'm saying? And that was true. So later on, after we've accumulated all this stuff, whether it's in school, in athletics or great source, our course, the philosophers who write on bathroom walls and you're in there about 12 years old and reading now, oh my God, I didn't know that. Oh, Jesus. and that becomes truth as you know it so we all accumulate all this and this is why bill writes old ideas have failed us nothing those are old ideas but they're very powerful and they constitute who we really are in one sense and so anyway i accumulated these things i had these feelings. I had all these things, and I was a pretty good little student, and my father worked in New Haven, Connecticut for the local university, and they had enough money to send me to a little prep school. I loved it. I didn't smoke or drink. I got high grades. I was on captain of a track team and played on sports, and that school was founded in 1660, and it was a pipeline right into Yale or Harvard or Princeton, wherever you wanted to go. And so I went right into the local university, which I didn't think much of because I was working construction and worked on their buildings all the time. I just said, oh, yeah, I'm going down where I work. But when I got there, it was another story. All these guys came from all around the country, and they all were, like, sophisticated. I mean, they were all, like. Famous. They were all way better than me. I mean, it was very ‑‑ I just felt so out of place. What am I doing here? I don't belong here. My dungarees and these guys and they got convertibles and they just knew stuff. You know what I mean? And I just knew during the freshman year that the dean was going to call out all thousand freshmen on the old campus and go, gentlemen, we've been trekking around and it turns out in our midst there's an imposter and we're going to get him out of here tonight. There he is! And they were going to point at me and I'd be gone. So that was the level of comfort that I had about my own self and other people. It was very uncomfortable and my roommates are going, hey, you're in college, you ought to be drinking. No, no, no. I'm going to keep getting high grades. I don't want to drink and probably something about going to purgatory. I don' t remember, but there was some reason I wasn' t drinking. And I say this in every talk. Somewhere in the first two or three months of the freshman year, my name was on a list of people to meet in a room and just socialize. It's like 8 o'clock at night. You 30 guys who don't know each other yet, just get together and rub elbows and just schmooze. Oh, that's, I don't think that's a good thing for me to do. I don' t like that, but I'll try. I went in. It was just, you know, there they are, them and me. And I'm looking at them, and they're all, there's a group over here. And I just went, what do you do here? What is this? So I tried. I walked over to the first group. And you know how people can communicate to you with their eyes? You know what. And I got over there and I was about six feet away. And the six guys turned and just stared at me. And they didn't have to talk. They just said, hey, we have enough friends. We don't want to know you. You're the last guy in the world we'd ever want to known. We'd really appreciate it if you don't come any closer to this group. And it almost took my breath away. I wasn't going there, I was going over here and they were looking at me doing the same thing. And I just sort of almost talked to those guys and never did. And there was a bartender there and I said, you know, maybe it would be fun to feel good. So I went over and I ordered something, and I drank it, and nothing happened. I ordered another one, and nothing happen. And I was halfway through the third one, beginning to think that alcohol was vastly overrated. No, I don't feel good. I don' t feel anything. And I turned around, and ladies and gentlemen, something miraculous had happened. Everyone in that room wanted to know me. I took another look at their eyes, and they were all going, Hi! Come here! Come near! Well, I didn't know where to go. Everybody wanted me as their best friend. You could see it in their eyes. Come here, come here. So I started over, and then the funny thing happened. As I was walking over, I found myself agreeing with them. They would be lucky to know me. And I intuitively knew how to handle the entire situation. I had small talk about everything. Oh, where are you from? Oh, Wisconsin. Oh, the Badgers. Blah, blah, blah. It was as if all of my creativity, which had been trapped by this fear and anxiety and by these wrong ideas about myself was let free, and now I had 100% access to me. And I loved it. I said, geez, this is wonderful. I should have started drinking in grammar school. This is, whoa, whoa. So it was just the most wonderful evening, and I was still talking when they all left. So I turned around. The bartender was still there, And I said, boy, three drinks. What would 20 drinks do? And so we all know what happens when you vastly over-serve yourself. And later that night, I'm back in my room and it's spinning and I'm getting dizzy and I're lying on the bathroom floor and I'M vomiting and I' m staying near the toilet for most of the night. And then it felt like I just was so sick. It was in the morning. I felt like a hatchet was in my head. I just didn't know if I was going to survive. And I sat on the edge of the bed as the sun came up, and a thought came to me. Are you going to drink again tonight? And half a second, of course I am. This dying and vomiting and feeling worse than you've ever felt is a small price to pay for what I had last night. Ladies and gentlemen, social drinkers do not have stories like that. they don't understand why we would endure arrests and vomiting and coughing up blood and practically dying for alcohol. And the reason they don' t understand it is alcohol does not transform them and their world like it does for alcoholics. It's what happened last night with the drink that made me willing to pay any price for it. It literally was the equivalent of a spiritual awakening. It was a transformation in my view of the world. It caused me to see everything different. It was power that if I allowed this power to work in my life, I saw a world that I loved. and when the power went away I didn't like the world I was very uncomfortable so the worst thing that can happen to an alcoholic is to be sober you know what I'm talking about and people would always say to us hey don't drink and we'd go what if I don't drink I'll be sober all the time and and being sober all the time is why i want to drink so obviously you don't understand or you wouldn't say to me just don't drink you see what i'm saying it's it's alcohol was really the solution to a problem that already existed, which we call alcoholism. We could also call it no contact with our higher power. Now Bob was talking about that today, that Carl Jung diagnosed that. That's what he felt alcoholism was, was a search for a spiritual connection that was missing, that alcoholics perhaps feel the loss of this spiritual connection more than other people. Who knows? You can't prove any of this, but that's a wonderful definition of alcoholism. I'm an alcoholic because I really miss God. It's got a ring to it. You've got to admit. It's good. and alcohol appeared to fix that only it was the wrong higher power and when we came here we found the right higher power we found one that loved us instead of one that was indifferent or hated us anyway very quickly um the korean war was going on i almost didn't graduate because i started flunking out and getting in fights and all kinds of trouble Everything happened as soon as I started drinking. No more athletics, smoking, just party, party, party, partying. Anyway, I did graduate. The draft was on, so a bunch of guys were hanging around. They said, let's join the Marine Corps. Yeah, okay, off we go. I signed up for the Marine Corp and off we went. That was quite a shock when I got down there. It was just... It didn't take me long to see I really shouldn't have brought the golf clubs. They were not going to be used anywhere down there. But anyway, after getting through all the intense and, oh, wow, whatever it was, I started liking the discipline and the camaraderie. You know what? You become part of something instead of trying to be something on your own, like we do in AA. We just want to be – there's a great freedom in just being part of something. And it was very attractive, so I started thinking, well, you know, I took six months training to be a platoon leader. I saw a movie about – a training movie about pilots. I'd never been on a plane, but it looked like fun, soI signed up for flight school. And lo and behold, I got accepted, passed all the tests, met this woman from Connecticut who was a very wonderful woman. We ended up having six children together. and 20 years of marriage, but it just got messed up near the end. And so we ended up getting divorced. But at that time, this was the excitement of brand new two young people and off to this wonderful future. On the plane out of New York to Atlanta, I got airsick. on the plane to Pensacola I got air sick and the first six flights in the old SNJ I got hair sick and my instructor said I think you may have made a mistake but later on the motion sickness went away and all of a sudden it was like I was born to do this I started coming in second in the class or third in the classes we went through all the different stages of acrobatics and formation and carriers and pretty soon after 18 months I get my wings, and I'm now a second lieutenant in the fighter squadron in Japan. And I thought I had arrived. By the time I got there, I was a first lieutenant, and I thought it was the most exciting thing in the world. We were 20 guys in this unit. You had this tremendous pride and this great togetherness feeling, even drinking. Everybody drank as much as I did. and I just felt at home you sat at the table and the colonel ordered the drinks he just called, give us another round you never ordered one on your own and they were drinking fast enough for me wow, normally we have to order drinks on our own because everybody else is messing around but they were keeping up and it was very I just loved it, I fit in And I'll tell you this one story. I'd been there about nine months, and I was out at the end of the runway with this major, and he was telling me about another year and a half he'd be a lieutenant colonel. He wanted to start, have his own fighter squadron, get all the best pilots he could find. And he pointed to me, this young lieutenant, and he said, I want you in that squadron. And I went, oh, my God, that's so, I mean, you couldn't say anything better, you know, to make you feel better. And then he said. But I wouldn't let you drink. and you know I was a young man then and I had no idea why would he say that I get drunk with him all the time why would He say that and it wasn't until I got to AA that I realized that in the middle of heavy drinking guys my drinking scared Him I was drinking at two levels above everybody else in terms of intensity or something and he was able to see it. And he was able to see that I was not the same as the rest of them. But I didn't know that so I went on, we started having children, I had all kinds of different jobs a forward air controller and a flight instructor and then I was in the Cuban missile crisis I was flying photo planes out of Cherry Point and we ended up with our six children and I got promoted to captain and on the outside you would go look at this guy, boy he's got quite a career he had this education he's got this family he's really doing good and i'm on my way over niagara falls you know what i mean alcoholism starts like this and then it just goes boom and all of a sudden i'm flying in airplanes and i'M HAVING WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS FROM ALCOHOL BECAUSE I'M NOT DRINKING FOR 10 HOURS AND WITHDrawal as you get in the advanced stages is very frightening because you're starting to shake and you lose confidence in yourself. And my vision was getting messed up in my hands and I'm getting confused. And I'm the only pilot in the plane. You know what I mean? And I's starting to go, Sandy, you shouldn't fly with you. This is not safe. Well, who am I going to fly with? And so I just forced that for another year or so. And boy, I had a lot of close calls. I had just some bad things, but they were just close. Finally, out of desperation, I went to a doctor, one of the flight surgeons. I told him what was happening, and he said, oh my God, you can't keep flying. We've got to find out what this is. And this was before there was the disease of alcoholism in the Navy. They didn't have any alcohol programs, and you were always diagnosed with some mental problem. There were no alcoholics. And so I was sent down to Pensacola for two weeks while they studied me. And they looked at me, the dentist. I mean, everybody was going all around the barn. And today you would laugh at it because any doctor would have been able to say, we have a drunk here. You know, because I reeked of alcohol. My hands are shaking. High blood pressure is sweaty, clammy, very disoriented. And they're all going, well, I don't know. Maybe it's his childhood. I don' t know. Maybe it' s his childhood, I' n't know either. So at the end of the time, the psychiatrist did in fact write me up as a childhood fear of flying that showed up after 12 years of flying. It just appeared out of the blue. And I was taken away from being a pilot. I had a regular commission. They had to retrain me. It waited about three months and now I got orders to become an air traffic controller. I went to air traffic control school and passed. And now my last year of drinking, I was in charge of bringing airplanes in in bad weather when they couldn't see the runway over in Japan. So even the Marine Corps was going crazy there. You know, they'd take, what do you do with an alcoholic? I'll make him an air traffic controller. and fortunately the senior enlisted men took one look at me when i checked in captain sit down here's your chair put your bicycle over here there's your tent sir please you yourself never talk to an airplane okay and i went okay guys and so they took care of me and i never went near controlling planes and now with no 12 hours uh you know between the bottle and the throttle I drank around the clock, and during that year I lost 50 pounds due to malnutrition. I had alcohol poisoning. I wouldn't talk to anybody. I didn't go to happy hour with my friends. I tried to survive on soup because hard food wouldn't stay down, and it was terrifying. It was just terrifying. and some of my fellow officers I met later after I'd been in AA about 15 years and they were delighted that AA had turned me around, I was healthy and all that and they made an interesting statement during that year. That was in 1963 in Japan and they said, you know, we knew you were dying and there wasn't anything we could do. now the marine corps never leaves its dead anywhere i mean they will go back to get people that were killed even if other people get killed getting them i mean that's the standard that they use and here's these guys are saying we knew you were dying there wasn't anything we could do for you. That shows you the power of alcoholism back then. We are powerless over you, and there was no place to send me. There was no answer to this problem. So I came back to go to a career school in Quantico, Virginia. I was there about a month. I stood up in class. I don't know what was going on. I had a grand mal seizure. I bit my tongue. I'm on the floor. They get an ambulance, take me The hospital, Bethesda, big naval hospital. Again, wonder what caused this? You know, a seizure. Well, I don't know. The high pressure, the food. I mean, it's just amazing. And so I was up there about six days while they studied what could have caused the convulsion. Six days without alcohol put me into the delirium treatments in the big old-time DTs where I'm seeing things that aren't there. and it was the CIA and they were trying to break me mentally with memory tests and just it was freaking me out and they Were Cheating and They Were Moving Walls So That I Would Flunk And It Was The Scariest Thing In The World And After About Four Tries And I Flunked Every Time They All Shook Their Head Said Oh We're Sorry But I Guess You're Gonna And I Guess I Freaked Out And I Ran Out And Started Screaming And They Caught Me And Put Me In A Straight Jacket And I went in the nut ward for six months. And that was it. And there was no alcoholism talked about in the Nut Ward. I was in there with all the other crazy people who thought we didn't belong there. They thought we were imposters. What are you? Just don't drink. And I would go, well, that's why you're locked up here. I've got a much bigger problem than that. What do you mean, don't drank? and very luckily some a.a members in bethesda talked the head psychiatrist into allowing them to bring an a.e meeting in and the corpsman came around one night and there were three drunks out of the 40 guys and he just said all drunks fall in over the elevator and the three of us go down and there's these guys waiting for us and they told their stories. I thought it was wonderful. I just connected immediately as that this had to be a wonderful organization, but I did not connect that I was an alcoholic. And I said, well, boy, if I have a friend who gets this problem, I'll send him around to see you guys. You know, so it's just amazing how you can deny your own self and what's going on and um so i think after four months i was uh sent out as an outpatient so you could live at home and commute back during the day and then be home on the i mean yeah home at night and then home on weekends and um about a month of doing that and i thought it'd be good idea to have a beer during a redskin game you know what i mean it's football game if you're at my house you're going to have a beer. It's just a local rule. So I had a beer and nothing happened. I slept like a baby. I went back to the nut ward the next day, and I went, God, I thought they said that drinking would get you all messed up. I had to drink. They told me if I had another drink, I'd lose my career. And nothing happened, I didn't have a second drink, I slept better than I've ever slept. I was free from alcohol. I were so excited about this new freedom from alcohol, I couldn't eat. And the next night, I couldn't sleep. I just sat there totally obsessed with the new freedom from alcoholic. It's all I could think about how God I had the beer and nothing happened. My God, I did it all week. I don't know if I ate hardly at all. I was wanting to tell somebody but I didn't. I had this great new secret. And So the next weekend, I mean, I really like vodka. I didn't like beer. So I remember going in and buying a fifth of vodka. And if you put a lie detector on me and said, what are you doing? I would have said, I'm buying a year's supply. And the needle wouldn't have moved. I really believed it. I said, I got this so that every so often, now not being trapped by alcohol, like that beer, here's a whole week went by. So I'll have this maybe every couple of weeks. I'll Have Another One. So later that night when I went back to get the second bottle, I knew I was in trouble. I kept it up for a couple weeks, and they were spotting me. I knew they were starting to look at me in paranoia, plus they were really looking. So I called AA on December 7th, 1964, which is my sobriety date. And another Marine from Quantico, the only other Marine sober down there, came to my house, put me in his car, took me to a meeting in Manassas, Virginia, and I haven't had a drink since. And he's been my sponsor for 41, almost 42 years. And it's a great thing. So I started going to meetings every night. I did everything I was asked. I did whatever AA asked me to do. And after two years of doing that, the Marine Corps got rid of me. I didn't get promoted to major, and something inside of me said, I just started to trust a loving God instead of the one on the crucifix. And I said inside, wow, this new God is looking a little bit like the old one. I did exactly what he said. I went to meetings. I do the steps. I took inventories. I make coffee. I go wherever I'm asked. And I just got thrown out of the Marine Corps with my six kids, and I don't have a job, and I don' t have any money, and I don t think this was fair. Anybody ever keep track of what's fair and what's not fair? Yeah, yeah. Well, I m going to tell you right now, that was not fair! And I got a resentment that you wouldn't believe. It was huge. And even with two years, I knew if you want to keep a resentment, don't tell anybody about it. They'll rip it away from you, especially your sponsor. Just keep it inside. What's going on? Nothing. That's your... And I'm just... And I am furious at God. That is who I am mad at. I am just going, thanks God, really appreciate it. I don't know, the kids will probably starve. Thanks God, I can't find a job. Well, you can't find a Job when you're that mad. You go in and say, what do you want? I don't even know if I want to work here. So the money's running out. I mean, it's just awful. And that went on, that resentment went on for about three months and I was up in Washington, D.C. at that time and there was an article in the Washington Post, just a small article, and it said Marine Corps instruction team from Quantico killed in plane crash going to Denver. And that was my unit. This was a team of about 10 or 12 officers headed by a general, and we went around putting on a show about the Marine Corps with films, eight hours long, about the future. It was five years in the future, Huntley Brinkley started this. We hired them to start the thing. And that is what I did. That was my job. and all these other officers were dead and if I had had my way and life had been fair by my standards and promoted me I would have been on the plane and I remember reading that and then I went oh well that makes a little difference here when I'm reading here and then I knew that God knew I was reading this because he knows everything and it was almost like I didn't want him to see me. And I mumbled something like, well, if you just told me this was going to happen, I wouldn't have been complaining so much. So I had a terrible time with career. I got into selling and I don't like selling and I was in stocks and bonds and real estate. It was just awful. and uh but somehow we survived we were broke in aa for about 15 years i mean with the eight of us you know just right on the edge you know if the car battery died you had to wait get a ride from somebody else for three days till you got paid then you got a battery and then oh but it was fun in spite of all of that sobriety was a joy in spite of all the hassles and all the uncertainties and all of that, you just start living with all the uncertainties. Well, so we don't have, can't go to a movie this weekend. It just became part of what was going on. And eventually a friend of mine got me, I'll just tell you this one interview because I ended up with a 25-year career with the credit union movement. And I love credit unions. They're wonderful, wonderful people filled with volunteers and great people to work for. And a friend of mine got me an interview with this little government agency that regulated the credit unions, headed by a retired Marine general. The general counsel was a Marine colonel, lawyer, retired, and the guy that got me in there was a retired marine in AA. And so I go in there on this interview, and I'm not qualified at all. They want somebody who understands credit union law and understands Congress, and I only knew about how to get a loan. And so I sat there during the interview, and he said, well, we're actually looking for somebody. I said, yeah, but you know, Marine officers, we can learn this stuff. We could do that. And I'm giving him that pitch, and I can catch up on all that stuff and nothing flat. I'll just give anything for you. And he said、Well, I don't know. We'll have to think about it. By the way, why did you leave the Marine Corps? And I sat there and I went, jeez. So I just said, I got thrown out for drinking. But I've been in AA for 10 years and I'm sober and I can do anything. And he said, well, we'll let you know. And a couple weeks later I got a call from the personnel office that said, do you want this job? And I said, yeah. So I went over, and they said, well, we're testifying in two weeks. The general, write the testimony for the general. And I'm going, about what? And it's the strangest thing. There was a history book about the credit union movement on my desk. And I read it. And it was started by a philanthropist who saw this in India. And it was a way of bringing banking services available to the little guy. And it Was all based on spiritual principles. And when I read it, I totally connected with it. I just said, oh my God, I'm in another program. It was really, God was mentioned everywhere throughout, in the origins. Granted, as time goes by, then we don't hear about it anymore. And it It was almost like I internalized that. and then I looked at issues that we were supposed to talk about and I wrote about them using those principles and the general got this stuff and he came running back in and the guys in the office and he was famous for chewing your head off and the guy's in the office said, the general's looking for you oh Jesus and I went in to see him and he said did you write this? and I said yes sir He says, great. I love it. And I became like his star or something. I don't know what was going on. I just said, oh, good. And off I went. And it was like I intuitively knew how to do this stuff, how to write and how to figure stuff out to say. And so I had a 25 year career and retired from there and went to Tampa. So that's my background. But the main event had nothing to do with having a career. It didn't have anything to do with any of these things. It has to do with what happens to a person who is forced because of a life or death situation to try spiritual principles that you really don't believe in. And that's what I want to report to you tonight. What is that? What happens? You see, when we're new and we look at the steps And they say to us, see these steps? You see this book? Everything you'll ever need right here. And I go, okay. I mean, geez, you guys are sincere. Got sober a long time. There's no reason for me not to believe you. So I believe you, I believe you and give me that book. I'm going to look at it. I'm gonna absorb it. I'm gong to internalize it. I'm gunna take these ideas and make them mine. and I read and read and nothing happened I didn't feel anything I just read and red I remember I said in the workshop today I kept looking for the money step where do you get the money I want the money part I saw that money was the solution wasn't it I mean, you're broke. You've got to feed all these people. Well, how are you going to feed them? Money. And so I remember reading that and reading that and reading it. And reading that. And it's a funny thing. As time has gone by, something happens with our attitude about money. And I'm going to interrupt the story just to give you some thoughts I've had. I was talking to Sue about this before the meeting. Our founding fathers were all very spiritual, and they were all Freemasons. And one of the things that had been passed on was the power of money and the creation of money, which is done with a central banking system. And it's like if there's a poor country in Africa where everybody has their money under the bed, If you could start a central banking system in that country, you could quadruple the amount of money that's available to people just with the money that is already there. In other words, there was this whole idea. And so it was all the idea of prosperity doesn't mean that one person gets a lot of money. It means that the whole society will be blessed with an abundance of resources through this system. and they felt inspired and guided, et cetera, towards this whole thing. And here's the funny way of looking at it. If you look at our dollar bill, it says in God we trust. And I'll tell you what I see when I see that. I see a warning label. Don't trust this money for happiness. Trust God. that's where happiness is. This is simply a way of having abundance in the society, but abundance will not make you happy. So it's almost don't trust this dollar bill to bring you what you think it's supposed to bring you trust in a higher power. And what do we get in AA? I'm looking for the money part. What step covers the money? Oh, we don't have any steps that cover the money. The steps all lead you to your own creator. Well, that's very interesting, but I still need money. You see, our connection with money, I've got to see the answer. And so, you know, say, okay, here's the answer, you get a job, you save $50 a month, and 20 months, okay? And then you pay that over, and you can see it all laid out. You can't see it in the steps. You can see anything. There is no way to see anything. So we end up having to take a series of actions that we don't believe in. You follow what I'm saying? Why do we take them? Because there's nowhere else to go. That's why we take him. Right in the chapter, the agnostic is the greatest spiritual doorway that I've ever seen. And if you're new, go right there directly to that chapter and teach you how to become spiritual. Most of us don't want to. I don't wanna become spiritual, why would I wanna become spiritual? Well, let me help you. Let's all get spiritual. If you're new, we're gonna get spiritual right now. Okay, here's the chapter. Are you ready? Okay. Right in the first paragraph. If when you drink, you have little control over the amount you drink. Everybody. And if when you stop, you can't stay stopped, everybody, then you're an alcoholic. OK, all right. All right. I'm an alcoholic now. Here's the next sentence. Are you ready? If that's the case, you're suffering from an illness that only a spiritual experience can conquer. Would you repeat that? What'd you say? I said, you're suffering from an illness that only a spiritual experience can conquer. Oh, that's bad. I don't believe in spiritual experience. Oh, you are screwed. There is no non-spiritual way to not die. What? What? Oh, yeah. you don't have to understand spirituality you have to understand the problem when you understand the problem you might be a little more interested in spirituality than you were before you we got through with the problem so let's move to the next paragraph are you ready yeah well what does it say there well I'll tell you what it says as a matter of fact we'll turn it into a quiz game we got two doors up here and I'd like Larry the new guy come on up Larry come on up. I just want you to move into the second paragraph. Are you ready? Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm ready. Okay. You've got to choose one of the doors, Larry. Are you ready door number one? Live on a spiritual basis. I don't think I'll be choosing that door, Sandy. Door number two, die an alcoholic death. Oh, that's not good. So what are you saying, Sandy? Two crappy choices. Yep. That's what it is. It's two crappy choices. To be doomed in alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis are not easy alternatives to face. That's exactly what the chapter says. Do I get a phone call? Yes, you get a phone call. You do. Dr. Owen, it's Larry. Listen, a friend of mine's curious. How bad is an alcoholic? Oh, Jesus. Oh, oh, really? OK, Sandy. I'll take the spiritual basis door. That's how you get spiritual. There's no burning bush. There's no nothing. There is simply an understanding of your situation. It's like the difference. Let's say your father was a parachute packer and he was drunk all the time. And you saw him stiffened in there and you said, boy, I'll never use a parachute. And you're in the plane, all the engines quit and they go, here's your chute. Oh, I don't believe in those. Good time to change your mind. good time to change your mind that's how you get spiritual you change your mind not because you saw something big because you saw the truth about your own situation in spades and it suddenly hit. Wow! I am, my life's unmanageable. This is never going to turn out right. Unless what? Unless what ? Unless a freaking miracle happens. Come on in. Come on In. We'll show you how to have one. Really? Yeah. You do these steps and when you do them then it becomes visible then you see in all its glory the truth of what can happen here. And we have tremendous resistance to this. I remember the first time I read in the chapter of the agnostic, it says, finally, we have to come to grips with God is either everything or he's nothing. He either is or he isn't. What was our choice to be? And I said, what do you mean God is everything? God is every person in this room. He's the rug. He's a ceiling. He's he's all the planets in the universe. He's everything there ever is, ever was or ever will be. Now, can you digest that? And I'm going, OK, God, it's everything. Every single thing, everybody. And here's the thought that my ego had. wow, I don't know how it's possible but somehow I exist in addition to everything. But how do you do that, Sandy? I just make up a story that I exist in addition to everything and that's what our story is there was a guy who started his talk with this as a joke good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Joe I'm an alcoholic my story is divided into two parts what happened during the years that I drank and what I thought happened during the year that I drink isn't that fun well I submit to you we could say that about every part of your life. Your childhood's divided into two parts, what happened when you were a child and what you thought happened to you when you was a child. Every situation, your college years are divided into three parts, divided into 2 parts, what happened when you where there and what YOU THOUGHT happened when YOU were there. And that is our old ideas. Those ideas are what separates us from being part of the world, being part of our own spirituality. And so the process of becoming the transformed person that Bill writes about, the great fact that we come to understand and feel the nearness of our own creator inside of us as a real thing that we understand from the inside out that we have catapulted to the fourth dimension of existence, that we haven't awakening about which there's no doubt all of those sayings happen. And when they happen, we realize, wow, that was the whole point of being alive was to have that happen to you. That's why people are struggling so hard since the beginning of time. all the writers that we read about, William James that's in our big book in The Varieties of Religious Experience, all of them say that inside of every human being is an awareness that something is missing. Even when I got everything, it doesn't feel like I got anything. There's still something missing. And, of course, in the world that we live in, they go, yeah, not enough dollars. You know what I mean? And they go, this is what's missing. You've got everything except a jag. Get the jag and that missing thing will go away. And of course it doesn't. And so it is forcing us to keep looking. That is what Carl Jung was talking about. There's still, it's not fixed yet, is it? There's Still This Thing That Is Inside Of Us. And drinking fixed it. That was the amazing thing. That's why it's so similar to spirituality. It fixed it so that all of a sudden I am complete. It's the only time I felt complete, but I'm chemically complete instead of what can happen here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And so kicking and screaming, we are forced down a road that we never would have taken voluntarily. And we start going down towards what Bill calls the fourth dimension of existence. And we understand the power of humility, the powerof being nothing instead of everything. Instead of wanting to be a big shot, we want to bea servant. Bob was talking about that today. The freedom that comes from being down to making the coffee. You can't go higher than making the copy. That's it. There's just and I was thinking that we were making the list the other day about what is let go and let God mean. And a lot of us go, well, I turned my drinking problem over. And we came up with about 40 things. And some of them you would just go, I'm never letting go of that. I'm not going to let go of this. I'm going to let go of all my opinions. I'm gonna let go of all ability to judge things. I'm never going to judge anything anymore. I am going to let go all causes. I will let go of all goals. I am going let go of all fears. I am going let go of all politics. I am going let go of all hatred towards anything. I am going let go of all... And you get through with that and you go, now wait a minute. If I let go through all that. I'll be nobody. Out of the big book, chapter 12 and 12, chapter 3, I'll be a non-entity. I'm not going to be a person. I don't want to be the whole in the donut. Who the hell will I be without all that? You'll be a spiritual person. Well, it just seems It's almost shocking to realize how hard we hold on to judgments, ideas, opinions. I'm right. They're wrong. I'm Right. And it just is churning and churning. And we go, well, would you be willing to let go of all that? Not this year. That may be a nice goal for later on when I'm old. I want to make a difference. Well, who do you think made a difference in the world? Somebody like Bill Wilson, who let go of everything? No more jobs on Wall Street, no more big shot, no nothing? Dr. Bob? What did they ever accomplish? You know what I mean? Just run around telling some drunks how to find a higher power. What the hell do they ever do? They didn't try to accomplish anything. They just allowed themselves to be guided by something that has a much better plan than any of us could ever think up. so do we want to follow our own guidance or be guided by something that is much bigger than that to me that's the question that is what our own personal journey in aa is how much am i willing to give up we start out giving up the drinking now can i give this and this and this. So sobriety, as we go through the years, is not achieving more self-sufficiency, but getting rid of more self sufficiency and becoming more dependent than we were when we first got here. Sounds backwards, doesn't it? I think old timers pick up the phone quicker than new people. I got something that's bothering me hey Joe, let me run something by you oh, I gotta make an amend, thank you boom, bam, done I just had a resentment lasted almost a minute and a half I used to let them last a month and then I would go ask somebody how the hell did he get rid of this thing making amends you see what I'm saying I'm dependent I'm dependent. I'm dependant. I want to rely on guidance. I don't want to be the one to think up the answer to anything. So what is spirituality? It's staying plugged into a constant supply of guidance and help. And the problem with that is you get none of the credit for your own life. You have to give it all to your friends in AA, to your higher power. and there's part of us that doesn't like that at all. Well, but when do I get to do something? Make the coffee. But I know a lot of make the coffee so you make the call. You go, God, I'm really happy. I'm making coffee now. There's so much freedom in letting go and there's so much resistance from the part of us that doesn't want to let go so your struggle and my struggle is not with them it's right in here it is the struggle of trying to go however far it is from here to here the journey from your own mind to your own heart and your own heart has wanted to be in charge since the day you were born it wants to control and have you love everyone it wants you to just go out and see everyone in this room, as Chuck would say as God's kids and when we say the Our Father that means we all have the same father that means that we are all brothers and sisters we're all created exactly alike and whenwe share here in this AA environment, we ought to have a sign out front that says spiritually spoken here because we all learn a new language of the heart. Communicate with that and we live in a different world than we will ever see anywhere else. Thank you all very much and it's been a pleasure. 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