The Misery of the Dry Drunk and Doing It Wrong – Sandy B.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Sandy Beach, and I'm an alcoholic. How are you doing?\nHi, Sandy!\nIt's a pleasure for us to be here, and I'm delighted to have the opportunity to see this place.\nI just had no idea this little garden spot existed up here, and we're taking back some wonderful memories.\nI came into Alcoholics Anonymous a little over 20 years ago,\nand when I went to my first meeting, I had been sober six hours.\nAnd I didn't like my first meeting,\nbecause I saw something, a fatal flaw in Alcoholics Anonymous right during my first meeting.\nNo drinking.\nAnd I looked back, and I said,\nI wasn't planning on staying sober and all of that,\nbut I always like to start my talk out by saying,\nI have not been drunk since that first meeting.\nOh, I didn't mean to applaud.\nThat wasn't the point I was making, but that's all right.\nI owe it all to not drinking.\nThat's the point I want to make.\nFor the benefit of anybody new,\nthe, uh...\nGetting drunk is caused by drinking.\nAnd that is, uh, you know, that's real bad news and good news.\nAnd yet, if just not drinking was the entire program,\num, I know that I probably wouldn't have, uh, stuck around that long.\nBut I think Alcoholics Anonymous, and I say this for the benefit of anybody new,\nwhat I think the promise here is,\nthat we can do this together.\nThat we can stay sober and happy at the same time.\nUh, if sobriety was miserable,\nI don't know how long I could have lasted,\nbecause I can only endure sobriety for just so long,\nand then something is going to have to give.\nAnd early on, I heard something that has stuck with me,\nuh, the years that I've been in,\nand that is that if you're in AA and you're not happy,\nyou're doing it wrong.\nAnd the reason that's such a powerful statement is,\nit puts all the responsibility on your shoulders,\nwhere it belongs.\nIt puts it right on the person who has to do the changing,\nwhich is me.\nAnd while that may be a tough principle to swallow,\nit is certainly one that, in my judgment, offers a great deal of hope.\nBecause if the only thing that's standing between me and the promises of the program,\nserenity, happiness, whatever you want to call it,\nis something that I can change,\nthen that is a great deal of hope.\nAnd I think that's what the program offers.\nIt teaches me to shift the perspective from laying the blame and responsibility\non everything that's screwed up in my world,\nout on someone else,\nand zeroes it in on me.\nAnd that means that I do not have to wait for someone else to straighten out\nbefore I can get happy.\nBecause I'm not able to wait an awful long time.\nAnd you know, for some unknown reason,\nthe old ideas I brought in here to AA taught me that.\nAnd that was the perspective I had.\nI looked at the world in terms of fairness.\nAnd I kept a little scorecard.\nAnd I was a great inventory taker.\nAnd I kept track of when things were going fair for me\nand when things weren't going fair for me.\nAnd I reported to anyone who would listen how things were going.\nAnd I thought that that was my primary job.\nI thought that's what sharing was all about.\nWas reporting to someone in charge when things weren't right.\nAnd it could be my mother,\nor in the Marine Corps I would try to report to some colonel.\nAnd it'd punch me.\nBut I mean, I was reporting that things weren't going right.\nAnd I guess I figured that my primary function was that of a briefing officer.\nIf you could just explain yourself in sufficient detail,\nyou had done your share.\nAnd I came in here and found that that just wasn't the deal at all.\nThat what I was offered was a whole new plan for living.\nAnd I suppose that's what I feel like talking about here tonight.\nIf I had to describe how I feel tonight, I would say,\ndid you ever have the thought go through your head,\nwouldn't it be nice to know what I know now and start all over?\nDid you ever have that feeling?\nOh boy.\nI'd like to be able to start all over knowing what I know now.\nAnd I honestly feel that's exactly,\nif I were to share to you what's going on inside of my head tonight,\nI would tell you that I have that feeling of starting all over knowing what I know now.\nNancy and I got married about six months ago.\nIt's a whole new start for us.\nI feel like,\nif we even start a family,\nthat's okay.\nI already got kids that are already grown.\nI did a lousy job.\nMaybe I can do a great job this time.\nI got a job change.\nI just made a decision about a month ago\nto make a complete change in jobs and I start Tuesday.\nAnd I'm going back and a whole new deal.\nThis year has been very good financially.\nIt's been one of these things where my friend,\nHal Marley,\nback in Washington,\ncalls me up on a regular basis and he says,\nSandy,\nif there's anybody in Alcoholics Anonymous\nwho ought to tell himself that things are going indeed well,\nit is you.\nAnd I'm going,\nyou know,\nHal,\nyou're absolutely right.\nThere's,\nif I shared,\nyou know,\nmy optimism and my outlook on things,\nit would be extremely positive.\nCan you turn the mic up just a little?\nUp?\nUp towards your mouth.\nOh, okay.\nIs that a little better?\nOh, all right.\nI apologize.\nI didn't realize that wasn't coming out.\nAnyway, the,\nI forgot where I was.\nOh, Hal Marley, yes.\nOkay.\nAbout five years ago,\nI had a similar call from Hal.\nAnd this is part of the program I wanted to talk about\nbefore I get into what I had planned.\nI just,\nI've had some things I've never shared at a meeting\nbecause they've been fairly recent\nand I just feel I could get it done here tonight,\nso I'll go ahead and do it.\nBut I guess about five years ago,\nHal called me up\nand was sharing the same kind of thing.\nHe's sort of my alter ego back in Washington.\nEverybody should have somebody like that\nwho takes your inventory on a daily basis\nand lets you know how you're doing.\nAnd he had called me up and\nmy wife at that time and I\nhad just bought a house on Capitol Hill.\nI had just sort of come out of near bankruptcy\nand had gotten a new job and,\nyou know, you're sitting at 15 years sobriety.\nI was relating to Bob earlier\nwhen he was talking that there's these various peaks\nthat we seem to pass.\nAnd he said,\nand it seemed that about 14 or 12,\nsomewhere in there,\nI was going through bankruptcy\nand sobriety didn't seem right at the time.\nIt seemed like,\nwhy isn't the program working right?\nAnd anyway,\nat this point in time,\nI had gotten promoted\nand was doing rather well.\nThere were two incomes\nand so we had bought this house\nand were entertaining\nand it was a nice life.\nAnd I remember talking about\nhow it felt.\nAnd a couple years later,\nI was called in and there was a discussion\nand my wife informed me that she was leaving\nand there was somebody else\nand it was all over\nand this was the end of the deal.\nAnd the next morning,\nHal called me up\nand he said,\nSandy,\nhave you counted all the things\nyou can be grateful for today?\nAnd I remember holding the phone out\nand I thought what I had heard yesterday\nwas outrageous,\nbut that particular phone call\nseemed even more outrageous.\nBut I want to share with you\nthe power of that phone call\nbecause I suppose that\nduring those next couple of months,\nthat's as much pain\nas I have felt in sobriety.\nAnd I wanted relief from it.\nAnd that phone call\nfocused me on something\nthat I just hadn't,\nI don't think I would have gone to\non my own,\nwhich is why I think\nwe need each other so much,\nespecially when we encounter moments\nthat appear unfair,\nthat seem extremely painful\nand indeed something like that\nis supposed to be painful.\nAnd the answer to it\nlay in prayer.\nAnd so I will tell you\nhow prayer works\nin situations like that\nbecause statistically\nthere could be four or five people\nin this room\nwho are in similar types\nof painful situations.\nAnd so I'll share with you\nwhat I think prayer had to do\nwith that particular pain.\nI probably in the course\nof the first 24 hours\nsaid six thousand Our Fathers\nwith no results.\nSo I called Hal\nand I said,\nthis isn't working.\nAnd he said,\nkeep doing it.\nAnd so I would imagine\nduring the first week\nI came in close to sixty-five thousand\nOur Fathers.\nIt was just a steady mumbling\nof, you know,\nand it would alternate\nbetween whining\nand groveling\nand hysteria\nand sobbing\nand racking\nand it was just\nOur Father in heaven\nI'll be like\nWhy am I doing this?\nIt isn't working.\nAnd you know as\nthe time went on\nthe pain was excruciating\nfor the proper amount of time\nfor something like that.\nBut at no time\nduring this particular incident\ndid it occur to me\nthat there was another answer.\nThere is tremendous solace\nin realizing\nwhen we get to Alcoholics Anonymous\nthat we've been given the game plan\nand that my responsibility\nis to just continue doing it.\nAnd I will share with you\nthat after a couple of weeks\nI recall one evening\nexperiencing a break\nin that pain\nand probably feeling\nthe greatest peace of mind\nI've ever had in this program\nhowever brief it may have been.\nIt was just a moment of realizing\nwhere I knew deep down in my heart\nthat contrary to all of my feelings\nand all of these pains\nand all of this mental exercise\nI was going through\nI had the feeling\nthat I have had\nin AA I would say\nthe last 10 years\nthat fundamentally\neverything is just fine.\nThat fundamentally\nI'm going along\nin just the right direction\nand everything is going to work out\nand when it does\nafterwards\nwhen you get on the other side\nyou will look back\nyou will understand it\nand you will be glad\nthat it happened.\nAnd I stand here tonight\nand I can tell you\nI'm delighted that happened.\nI can tell you that\nI've been taken out of a position\nof relative happiness\nand placed in one\nthat is many times more happy.\nI could tell you\nif I went back\nto my early years in the program\nor back to the drinking years\nthat is not how I would have\nshared this story with you.\nI have a hunch\nI would have had a different perspective\non what happened.\nAnd I would have had a lot more\nopinions on what happened\nand what we ought to do\nas a gang.\nAnd I just wanted to get that out\nbecause sobriety\nis not a plan\nto ensure a certain result\nbut rather\na plan and a power\nto enable us\nto have a happy sobriety\nno matter what comes our way.\nThat to me\nis what Alcoholics Anonymous\nis all about.\nThe ability to stay on course\nthrough the good weather\nand the bad weather.\nWhen I had been sober\nabout two years\nI went to a meeting every night\nand I came into AA\nin the Marine Corps\nand I was a jet pilot\nand it was a very exciting career\nthat I had going.\nThey called it a career\nI called it a hobby.\nIt was something that I was able\nto give about four hours a day to\nand my alcoholism\nwas my full time job\nand that was requiring\na great deal more attention.\nBut at any rate\nwhen I came into\nAlcoholics Anonymous\nI had been grounded from flying\nI had had seizures\nand been locked up in a nut ward\nand was let out of the nut ward\nafter about six months.\nThe Marine Corps had to make a decision\nabout what to do\nwith a former pilot\nwho they were not letting fly anymore\nwho had gotten in such bad shape\nthat his hands were trembling\nand his voice quavered all the time\nand so to show that I wasn't the only one\nsuffering from a lack of sanity\nI will share with you\nthat the Marine Corps decided\nto make me an air traffic controller.\nSo I became an air traffic controller\nand eventually I got into\nAlcoholics Anonymous\nI didn't kill anybody\nbring them around in bad weather\nand so on.\nBut I did go to a meeting every night\nfor the first year\nand at the end of that time\nI was the captain in the Marine Corps\nand I was eligible for promotion\nand this is a very crucial rank\nto achieve a major\nbecause then you are guaranteed\nto continue your career\nit's sort of a very pivotal point\nand you get two shots at it.\nSo my first year of sobriety\nthe list comes out\nand neither my sponsor\nor myself is on it.\nSo we experienced a\nthis is a non-Jewish term\nbut they call it a Passover.\nSo we talked to each other\nand we said well that's because\nthe Marine Corps doesn't understand alcoholism\nbut wait till next year\nwe're both doing wonderful jobs\nI'm sure that they will be enlightened\nand we will get this all straightened out.\nSo I went to meetings every night\nfor another year\nand was getting very good marks at work\nand so on down\nmainly because I was showing up\nand my brain was working\nand life was quite a bit different\nand the following year\nhe got promoted\nand I didn't\nand he gave me a pep talk\nabout how I would enjoy civilian life\nwouldn't have to wear these uniforms anymore\nand in spite of his pep talk\nI had a resentment\nbut I didn't show up.\nI didn't share resentments very well\nin those early years\nbecause I didn't want to look bad\nyou know what I mean\nI didn't want anybody to know\nthe program wasn't working\nso you pretend you don't have any resentments\nand you walk around telling everybody\nwhenever they ask you\nhow are things going\nyou go great\neven if you're thinking of murder\nat the time\nyou just go\ngreat, great, great\nsobriety is great\nand then at home at night\nI would beat up a couple of my kids\nand you know\nget dressed for a meeting\nand then go to the meeting\nand if I was leading\nI would lead on humility\nor some topic like that\ngive you a very good discussion\nof the program\nand the wonders of it\nand how happy my life had become\nin spite of this temporary setback\nbut deep in my heart\nwas a rage\nthat was becoming an inferno\nand I was not going to share that\nwith anybody\nso the months went by\nand all of a sudden\nit was a reality\nand I'm out\nand I hadn't even looked for a job\nand so I had to hustle up a quick sales job\nI was selling copiers\nI didn't even know how to sell\nit was just out of the blue\nsix kids\nI'm trying to feed everybody\nno money\nand I started feeling\nthat the program was unfair\nthis was a very strong feeling that I had\nthis program was unfair\nbecause there was another guy in our group\nwho just inherited a lot of money\nand in my judgement\nhis program wasn't half as good as mine\nand I remember focusing in on\nunfair sobriety\nunfair\nand\nI didn't tell anybody\nI didn't tell anybody about this.\nI didn't want to get somebody else drunk by ruining to them\nthat AA was not what it was cracked up to be.\nI would keep that my own secret.\nBut as far as I was concerned, it was a rather big failure.\nAnd the more I focused in on that\nand started devoting more of my attention to this injustice,\nthe bigger it got.\nBut I found if you want to really mess around with a resentment,\ndon't share it. Keep it to yourself.\nGo up in your room, lock the door, take the phone off the hook,\nand it's like putting yeast in bread, you know,\nand putting it in the oven.\nI mean, in a matter of a few hours, it went right past the Holocaust.\nIn terms of a world in justice.\nAnd so this is how I was seeing things.\nAnd that was the way I was brought up.\nThat's the perspective I brought to AA.\nThat is the perspective that is so necessary to change\nin order to see the promises of the program,\nin order to see justice in the world,\nin order to see the kindness in people.\nThe perspective had to change.\nBut it wasn't changed.\nIt was changed at that moment in time.\nBut I always like to share this.\nIt was, and I started a direct communication with God.\nAnd I would let him know about every hour\nhow I felt, how this was threatening my sobriety,\nhow I'd probably be drunk soon.\nAnd it would be his fault.\nBecause after all, I'm the one who went to the meeting every day.\nI went to the meeting every day.\nI didn't drink.\nAnd it was supposed to get better.\nAnd it was terrible.\nAnd it was, mostly it was unfair.\nThat was the key word, unfair.\nAnd somewhere in the middle of this discourse with God,\nI was reading the Washington Post,\nand back near the end there was a short paragraph\nabout a team of Marine officers.\nAnd as I read about it, it was the one I was on.\nIt was an instructor.\nIt was an instruction team that traveled around to other service schools\nand made a two-day presentation all about the future of the Marine Corps.\nAnd my job was, I was the operations officer for that team.\nAnd it had just flown into a mountain in Denver, Colorado,\nkilling everyone on the team.\nAnd, of course, it became apparent to me that if I had had my way\nand had gotten promoted, I would have been on that plane.\nRight?\nSo there was a short period of relief.\nAnd there was immediately followed by a period of embarrassment\nbecause I knew that God knew I was reading this article.\nAt the same time, you know, that...\nThank you.\nAnd I said something like,\nWell, Jesus Christ, if you had just told me...\nI wouldn't...\nSo I guess that was lesson number one\nin perspective changing.\nThat I recall in my sobriety.\nThat was a very significant development.\nAnd I look back and there's a funny thing\nabout the significant perspective altering\nthat has occurred in my sobriety.\nI don't know about anybody else's sobriety.\nAll of them have occurred during intense pain.\nNow, maybe some of you are intellectually curious.\nAnd you get your act straightened out voluntarily.\nThis has not been the case with me.\nI will have to tell you that.\nI would like to claim credit for this.\nAnd I share this for the benefit of anybody who is new.\nYou know, if you're brand new\nand you really haven't asked any questions\nand you're just in the midst of this crowd\nand you hear speakers coming up\nand we're talking about,\nthen I decided to do an inventory\nand then I decided meditation\nand then I decided I wanted to get closer to God\nand then I decided I wanted to become a Christian.\nI wanted to become the best possible person I could become.\nYou could be sitting there going,\nI've never felt like that in my life.\nI must be in the wrong crowd.\nI must be uniquely awful.\nSo what you're missing,\nI think in the computer world,\nthey call it a modem.\nAnd what I need to do,\nis serve as a translator for you\nso that you understand our AA jargon\nwhen you hear us talking about\nand then I decided to take a fourth step.\nThey're way ahead of me.\nWhen you hear a speaker say\nand then I decided to take a fourth step,\nwhat it was really meant by that statement is,\nthey're a thousand steps out of your tears\nfor me.\nBut we're not done here,\nand we're not coming in at four yet.\nI'm gonna make them take four more steps.\nI know I don't have enough,\nwhile I'm going on from here.\nI'm gonna tell you one thing.\nI'm taking a four-step.\nBut we get the four-step route back and out\nand then we're gonna take a\nthen my sponsor said,\nhe'd break my leg,\nif I didn't take a four-step.\nThat's...\nthere's a chapter in the big book\nto the agnostic\nI think it's a great chapter\nI don't know what\nI was talking to Clancy before\nhe said what are you talking about\nI said chapter in the big book\nabout the agnostic\nbecause I have some funny memories\nabout that chapter\nand I don't know\nmaybe there's some new people\nyou have the same type thing\nearly on\nI had this big sponsor\nhe was the marine\nwhen he came to my house\nhe filled the door\nif you know what I mean\nand I had made the call\nto intergroup\nand then I got a drink\nto stay down\nafter I made the call\nmy problem was\nI couldn't get any booze\nto stay down\nI thought I was going to die\nso I called AA\nwith an emergency\nso they got a hold of this guy\ndown at the Quantico Marine Base\nand he's on his way over\nand now I've got some vodka\nto stay down\nso I called him back\nbecause I didn't want to waste\ntheir resources\nand they said\ntwo ladies on his way\nand I'm going\noh god\nI've got to get rid of this guy\nand he just filled the door frame\nand came in\nand he just stood there\nand he just went\nhi my name is Bill\nthis is a 12 step call\nI talk you listen\nwe're in deep trouble here\nso this guy\nget in the car\nthat was the basic message\nI remember going\nwell Bill\nI won't be able\nto do\nget in the car\nand I'm going\nno\nwhy don't you leave\nsome literature\nand I'll look it over\nget in the car\nright now\nyou know\nso\nfor a long time\nI thought that was\nAA's first step\nget in the car\nthe second step\nthe second step\nwas sit in the front row\nand I'm going\nthat was incurable rows\nsit there\ndon't talk\nbut soon\nhe had us go into a meeting\nevery night\nand soon\nit was big book time\nand he said\nhave you got a big book yet\nand all of a sudden\nI said\nyou're all about the big book\nand I knew he was serious\nand I knew\nthat this was\nthere was no way\nof getting around it\nso I did\nI don't know if any\nI'm sure other people\nhave done it\nI got a big book\nimmediately\nand then I took it home\nthat night\nand I opened it\nyou know\nabout nine o'clock in the morning\nnine different places\nthen I messed some pages up\nyou know what I mean\nfolded them around\nI took some coffee\nand slotted it around\nthen I underlined some pages\nand in twenty minutes\nthat book looked like\nit had been around for years\nyou know what I mean\nthe guy had really worked\nbut I didn't read one word\nI did not read one word\nI'm not one of these guys\nwho got the big book\nand digested it\nyou know\nI just went\nthat's enough of that\nI'm going to read\nI don't want to get\ninto this thing too far\nthese people are fanatics\nI saw through\nthe day at a time thing\nimmediately\nthere were\ndon't give me that stuff\nyou're only staying sober today\nthere's people up here\nthat are never planning\non drinking again\ndon't give me that\nday at a time stuff\nI'm just staying sober today\nI'm going\nha ha ha ha ha\nI don't want to get\nwhy does that cake say\nfive years\nyou know how you are\nso I said\nI don't want to get brainwashed\nwhat if they develop\na cure to alcoholism\nyou know\nI want to keep my\noptions open\n, keep your options open\nyou cannot move\nbut you got your options open\nyou can't go anywhere\nyou must remain stationary\nif you keep your options open\nand that's what I did\nbut anyway I had a big book\nand I do remember\nlooking at the index\nand there was a chapter\nor flipping through it\nmaybe I saw the title on the top\nthe agnostic\nnow I'm one of these people\nwho like to think that\npeople who lots of times\ncan tell what's in there\nwithout reading it\nisn't that nice\ncertain of us in the program\nwere gifted this way\nha ha ha ha\nI think they call it\ncontempt prior to investigation\nyou know\nsomebody suggests\nwe do the steps\nand we say\nno I've already read them\nthey wouldn't work for me\nha ha ha ha\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nyou know\nso I knew what was in\nthe chapter to the agnostic\nwithout reading it\nit was the chapter\nthat told\nagnostics\nhow to stay sober\nand then the rest\nof the morons\ndid the steps\nand did all the rest\nof the program\nso I knew eventually\nI would fit in\nthe chapter to the agnostic\nif I read it\nand there came a time\nand if you're new\nand you think\nthat's what that chapter says\nthat's the contents\nof that chapter\nI call it the Jack Benny chapter\nnow the reason I call it that is\nbecause there is a choice\nthat is\nwell in the first place\nI'll tell you if you want a brief summary of the chapter\nI can give it to you in about four words\nthree words\nchapter to the agnostic says\nchange your mind\nthat's chapter to the agnostic\nbut anyway\nit lays out\na rather interesting dilemma\nI think we're always faced with dilemmas\nhere in\nAlcoholics Anonymous\nand we heard a pretty good discussion of that earlier\nbut this is\none that I always\nconnect back to Jack Benny\nwho I used to talk\nabout this in Washington and a bunch of young people\ncame up later on and said what was so funny\nabout that\nand I realized they didn't know who Jack Benny was\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nand\nfor those of you that may not know\nhe was quite a great comedian\nand his\nrenowned\ncharacter\nwas that of being very cheap\nand tight with money\nand probably the funniest radio show\nthat he ever did\nhad this little bit in it\nwhere Jack Benny's walking down the hallway\nall you can hear is the footstep\nclick click click click click\nand all of a sudden\na voice comes out and goes\nstick em up\nyour money\nor your life\nlife\nand then starts the silence\nten seconds\nfifteen seconds\nthere's this silence\nand the radio audience laughter starts building\nand it's still nothing\nyou know it goes on almost forever\nforever\nand finally the guy with the gun says\nwell\nand Benny says\nI'm thinking\nlaughter\nand you sit\nand you howl at someone who would be in that position\nwhere they would be going,\nGod, I don't know whether to give my money away or get blown away.\nAnd there is a discussion in the chapter of the agnostic\nand I think Bill has a marvelous sense of humor\nand I find it all through the big book, the 12 and 12,\nbut there's a little couple of sentences in there\nwhere he says,\nfor the alcoholic to choose between living a life\nbased on spiritual principles\nor dying an alcoholic death\nis not always an easy choice.\nAnd that's what step two or the chapter of the agnostic\nis all about.\nYou know, you come in and you get the rug yanked out from under you\nand if you're new and you've seen this first step\nabout being powerless over alcohol,\nI remember coming up against that one\nand you better watch out if you admit you're powerless over alcohol\nbecause that's a dangerous position intellectually to get yourself in.\nBecause if you admit you're powerless over alcohol,\nyou can't learn your way out of that.\nYou are...\nYou are...\nYou can only be helped out of that.\nYou must find a power.\nAnd so powerless is a rather big word\nand it's sort of the key to our program\nthat that's the fundamental nature of our problem.\nI can't learn about alcoholism.\nI can't learn all valuable insights\nand have them fix me.\nThey can help me,\nbut I still don't have the power\nto put into practice all of the things that I've learned.\nMy problem was powerlessness.\nAnd so when we take an alcoholic\nand we educate them all about alcoholism,\nthen we have a person who is lying on the floor drunk\nbut knows precisely why.\nBut they're still drunk every day\nbecause the problem was not that they didn't know anything about alcoholism.\nThe problem was powerless over alcohol.\nSo our dilemma was powerlessness\nand that was what mine was.\nAnd I didn't want to admit it.\nI did not want to surrender.\nI was afraid to.\nI couldn't surrender.\nWhat would take over if I surrendered?\nI didn't believe in a God.\nI had heard of one from the nuns\nthat so many of us had as children.\nAnd I had abandoned that one\nas punishing and frightening and so on down.\nBut those were childish ideas\nand they should have been replaced with grown-up ideas\nexcept as an alcoholic.\nI had an alternative to growing up.\nIt was called vodka.\nWhy go through the pain of growing up\nwhen you can drink?\nDrink three, you are a grown-up.\nYou intuitively know how to handle situations\nthat used to baffle you.\nYou know?\nIt was like you activated the system.\nIt gave us a different perspective.\nIt showed me.\nSo there really were 14 promises of vodka.\nAnd they all worked just like the promises in the big book.\nSo I can relate to the higher power of vodka\njust as much as I can the higher power I found in AA.\nThe difference is vodka didn't love me.\nThat was the problem.\nIt worked, but it just didn't have my best interests at heart.\nBut the program works very similar in my life to that feeling I had with alcohol.\nI had great faith in alcohol.\nI didn't even actually have to drink alcohol to have it work.\nJust knowing my, if I could look out the window and see my car in the parking lot,\njust knowing the vodka was there in the glove compartment would calm my body down.\nIt wasn't even in my system, just knowing it was there.\nSometimes when we get sober, we have a $50 bill hidden in our wallet, just in case.\nYou've got to cover yourself, right? What if there is no God?\nOr worse than that, what if there is a God and it's really true, you are the one person he doesn't like?\nAnd you know, all those frightening questions,\nthe only way to,\nyou know, get them answered, is to go find out.\nIs to go ask.\nAnd the only way to go ask is to come up against this dilemma that I was talking about.\nTo live a life on spiritual principles or to die an alcoholic, that's not always an easy choice to make.\nAnd I think what helps us make it is our disease.\nI've looked back on it and the disease is what gave me the perspective that I had to choose,\nthe life based on spiritual principles.\nMy impression of AA's first step goes something like this.\nYou come into the AA program, they take you up on top of a parachute tower,\nand throw you off without a chute.\nAnd about three feet from the cement deck, a big hand comes out and goes,\nand grabs you just before you hit.\nIt says, excuse me, we're conducting a survey.\nDo you believe in God?\nThat's the time to ask.\nAnd you know, if you're new here, God and higher power and so on down in AA,\nit isn't that AA has a God.\nI don't think AA demonstrates a particular God.\nAs a matter of fact, it says higher power of your choice, of your understanding.\nGod is you.\nGod is you.\nGod is you.\nI don't understand him.\nSo it's up to me to figure out this God.\nBut what AA does, as far as I'm concerned, without any shadow of a doubt,\nit teaches me the need for one.\nThat's what I learned early on.\nIt says, you don't believe in God?\nI said, no, I don't.\nYou're in deep trouble.\nA non-alcoholic, they might be able to get away with it.\nYou?\nLet's explain alcoholism.\nAnd then I'm up on the tower, they throw me off, and they're going, well, how about now?\nAnd I go, well.\nWell?\nBecause you see, three feet from the cement, even a macho marine doesn't look bad changing his mind there, right?\nSo if you're worried about your ego, you go, hey, anybody would change their mind here.\nAnd that's what our first step is for.\nHelp you change your mind.\nWe explain the true nature of the situation.\nWe pull the rope.\nWe pull the rug out from under.\nAnd you find that there you are, firmly planted in mid-air,\nwith no invisible means of support, as they say.\nAnd the choice then can become a little easier.\nAnd I think that's what's so beautiful.\nBecause of my illness, because of the desperate nature of the situation,\nI made a decision I never would have made had I had other circumstances in my life.\nAnd my decision was, okay.\nWhat's this spiritual crap?\nYou know what I mean?\nThat was the thing.\nAnd I like to share that with new people.\nIt wasn't, I saw the brilliant enlightenment of this program.\nI saw the desperate situation I was in and really saw for the first time,\nthere wasn't any other choice.\nAnd so, by default, rather than by virtue,\nI was hustled down the middle-of-the-road path,\nthe broad highway that Bill writes about,\nour 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous,\nkicking and screaming and swearing they don't work,\nand just the standard recovery that all of us have.\nJust marching along.\nAnd what I'm sharing with you tonight is,\nI am so glad that that happened to me,\nthat sometimes I like to take credit for it.\nI like to stand up here, you know,\nand just go, God, it's been great.\nBeing in these steps and doing this.\nAnd I was always doing them against my better judgment.\nYou know what I mean?\nAs I wrap this up, I'm going to share with you\nsome incidents to show you what I'm talking about.\nThere's a, when John Lennon died,\nin Time Magazine, they had one of his songs printed.\nAnd due to drinking or being the wrong age or whatever,\nI never really listened to anything the Beatles did.\nSo I couldn't have even told you one of their songs.\nBut I was very into this at this moment in time.\nAnd I remember reading this,\nand this particular song was Watching the Wheels Go By.\nAnd the particular line that caught my eye was,\nthere's no problems, only solutions.\nThere's no problems, only solutions.\nThere's no problems, only solutions. There's no problems, only solutions.\nThere's no problems, only solutions.\nThere's no problems, only solutions.\nAnd what happens, let me tell you if you knew why this is so valuable.\nAnd what happens, let me tell you if you knew why this is so valuable.\nIn Alcoholics Anonymous, in my judgment,\nwe don't ever figure out our alcoholism.\nWe never understand it.\nWe don't learn about it.\nAs a matter of fact, we sort of put that over here.\nWe just don't drink.\nAnd we work on other things.\nAnd when we work on these other things,\nlike inventory and amends and prayer and meditation,\nand then we look back at our alcoholism,\nwe find it's been removed.\nIt isn't there bothering us on a daily basis.\nWe have a daily reprieve contingent on our spiritual condition.\nAs long as we're into working the solution,\nthe problems that aren't ours to worry about in the first place\nget taken care of some other way.\nAlcoholism, drinking, just doesn't come up in my mind\nas something I have to fight.\nI don't fight off drinking.\nBut if I stop working the solution, I'm sure I would.\nIt's as if a higher power said,\nSandy, you work this, I'll take care of the alcoholism.\nOkay, that's a deal.\nSo I work it, he takes care of the alcoholism.\nJust holds it over here.\nI go months at a time.\nI never think about drinking.\nIf I stop working the solution to a particular situation,\nand you decide this is the situation that the steps don't cover.\nAnd about that time, the higher power says,\nYou want it back? You got it.\nAnd this is not, you know, I say up here,\nha ha ha ha, kind of in a humorous way,\nbut this is real.\nI mean, over the years,\nand it's not me that decides that the program is the answer.\nIt is you.\nWhen I'm in great pain, my brain is telling me,\nthere has to be some other answer.\nThere has to be some other solution.\nAnd so when I'm at meetings, and I'm sharing,\nand I'm the type of person who at discussion meetings,\nI very rarely am I going to raise my hand when the leader says,\nDoes anybody have a problem?\nBecause I don't want anybody to think a guy with 15 years sobriety has a problem.\nMight ruin some newcomer's opinion of Alcoholics Anonymous,\nand for their sake, I'll stay screwed up.\nRight?\nThat's advanced humility, right?\nBut occasionally the situation can be so horrible,\nthe resentment so deep, the pain so intense,\nyou've got your hand up.\nAnd I had my hand up that time.\nI told you about getting thrown out of the Marine Corps.\nAnd I've been sober about two years.\nI went to a meeting every night,\nand the leader says at the discussion meeting out in Manassas, Virginia,\nHe said, Anybody got a topic tonight?\nAnd I got my hand up.\nI said, Yeah, I'm getting thrown out of the Marine Corps.\nI've got all these kids.\nI don't have a job.\nI don't know what I'm going to do.\nIt's totally unfair.\nI said, Okay, let's discuss Sandy's problem tonight.\nBeing thrown out of the Marine Corps.\nI called on the first guy.\nHe said, Thrown out of the Marine Corps?\nHave you tried the serenity prayer?\nCalled on the next guy.\nHe said, Thrown out of the Marine Corps.\nHow about the prayer of St. Francis?\nMake me a channel of thy peace.\nThat's what I'd do.\nThrown out of the Marine Corps,\nI'd use the prayer of St. Francis.\nNext guy said, You've got to get into action.\nI'd find a new person and work with them.\nInto action.\nGet a new person and work with them.\nI never went back to that group.\nOn the way home, I tried to have an open mind.\nI said to myself, Part of the blame must lie with me.\nI obviously didn't explain the problem correctly.\nThey never would have said what they did.\nSix or seven years later, I had another situation.\nTerrible divorce situation.\nFamily moving out.\nAll the kids.\nOne of the terrible things.\nI was in so much pain.\nI had my hand up.\nI said, I want to discuss the divorce.\nI'm losing the kid and the father.\nAll my possessions.\nThey called on the first guy.\nHe said, Oh, divorce.\nHave you tried the serenity prayer?\nHave you tried the serenity prayer?\nNext guy said, Have you tried the prayer of St. Francis?\nMake me a channel of thy peace.\nThat's what I'd do.\nThe prayer of St. Francis.\nMake me a channel of thy peace.\nAnd the next guy said, No.\nI'd go get some new people.\nInto action.\nGet involved with somebody else.\nGet out of yourself.\nForget that.\nGo over and help somebody else.\nAnd five years later, I was sharing a little bit.\nI was in the real estate business in the money market.\nDried up.\nThere was no mortgage money.\nAnd I'm going bankrupt and everything.\nAnd so, I had my hand up again.\nI think I was...\nI wanted to discuss bankruptcy and employment.\nYou know what I mean?\nI'm going through bankruptcy.\nI'm very talented.\nYou know, a little free advertising.\nThe topic that night was being broke.\nMoney.\nBucks.\nMoney.\nMoney.\nMoney.\nMoney.\nThat was the topic.\nFirst guy.\nHave you tried the serenity prayer?\nI was hoping for would you like a small loan.\nSerenity prayer.\nPrayer of St. Francis.\nGet out there and work with some new people.\nYou know.\nSo, what do we got here?\nWe got a universal answer.\nA universal answer.\nAnd that shouldn't be surprising to alcoholics.\nWe had it before we got here.\nDid you have a specific drink that you used for drinking?\nDid you have a specific drink that you used for different problems?\nSo, I guess for me, if I were to share with anybody who is new, is you're on to it.\nThis is it.\nAll you got to do is get better at it.\nAll you got to do is just get better at it.\nI really believe that when they say that those who scoff at problems,\nthose who scoff at prayer haven't prayed enough.\nThe thing about sticking with it,\nthe thing about just realizing that your own higher power,\nyour own relationship with a higher power is the permanent answer.\nIt can never let you down.\nIt removes a lot of debate.\nIt removes a lot of the decision making process.\nIt is what faith is all about.\nIt's not designed to cause certain results.\nIt's designed to turn out a great product.\nIt's designed to produce what Chuck Chamberlain used to talk about,\nthe ultimate product of Alcoholics Anonymous to become a child of God.\nThank you very much.\nThank you very much.