The One-Legged Spiritual Stool of Alcoholism – Sandy B.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Sandy Beach and I'm an alcoholic. I asked Lee to set it up this way because I can stand for 45 minutes, but I couldn't stand all morning, I can tell you that. So if you want to change seats and come over here or whatever, be my guest. Let's see, my sobriety date is December 7th, 1964, and my home group is the Saturday Night Fever Group in Tampa, Florida. And it's a great group, just like your group is. Let me tell you what I have semi in mind, because I never have anything really in mind when I start these things, but thinking about it last night, what I'm going to do is just give two talks. It's just like you're attending an AA talk. This is not a workshop or anything like that. There's going to be a lot of thoughts that I have about spirituality and AA. And, of course, these are my own personal opinion. If I say anything that is something that your sponsor would disagree with, then listen to your sponsor. I mean, this is just my experience with spirituality and Alcoholics Anonymous and our 12 steps. and so what I plan on doing is do two sessions and we'll take about an hour and 15 minutes, something like that and then it won't run into the afternoon and we will be through by lunch and we ll take a 15 minute break in between and get our juices churning again it's awful hard to sit that long so that's what I have in mind and the starting point that I was going to take was I don't know why oh no I know what I want to do before I start that and that was I didn't get to finish my story with Larry last night everybody has a Franklin Williams story and I wanted to share mine the first time I met Franklin that Larry was talking about Franklin from Olive Branch Mississippi last night what a great guy so anyway I was invited to talk this is probably 25 years ago I was talking in Hot Springs, Arkansas at some round up there. And Franklin was introducing me. So we got to meet each other and he seemed very nice at the time. And they had a meeting that was called the leaders speak. So each person that was introducing the speakers for the weekend were on this panel. And there was five of them, and they each talked for ten minutes. So they each gave a ten-minute talk. So I attended that, and I think Franklin was the third speaker. And he gave a nice little ten-minute pitch about his life and AA, and then he sat down, and then the other two speakers finished. And no sooner had they, and now I'm sitting out here about three rows back, and no sooner has they finished than he jumped up and he started talking to me, and he sounded yelling, Sandy, I'm so sorry, don't leave, I want to apologize. to you i'm so sorry i'm so sorry and of course everybody is listening to this and wondering what is going on and he comes down and he said i i just i don't know how to how that happened i just feel awful he said i was up there talking and i could see that everything i was saying was going right over your head and i didn't want to and i just want to apologize. And that was the beginning of a great friendship. I just thought that was brilliant. Anyway, this is what I was thinking about last night. I was thinking about the fact that we talk about alcoholism being a threefold disease, mental, physical, and spiritual. And sometimes when you say that, you almost get the same mental picture of that as you do when you talk about unity, service, and recovery. And you sort of see a three-legged stool that holds AA together. You know what i'm talking about they're all equal unity service and recovery but if you apply that same analogy to alcoholism and the program of alcoholics anonymous and you think you got a three-legged stool of mental physical and spiritual i believe that we have totally the wrong picture because I think that all we have is a one-legged stool and it's spiritual and mental and physical that's nice but that won't keep us sober. When we look at in the tenth step I was going to read a few things that sort of lead into this let me just start with we agnostics because this describes the illness and what I think the whole point of the steps is so if you're new and let me say this to the new person if you are new this is why I am doing this these talks is that I hope that if there is someone new here that as a result of these talks, one of you decides to take the action to get closer to your God. That would be my dream, that if that were to happen, because that's the most important thing that any of us can do. And I really think that's what the whole AA program is. And so when we try to look at this disease that we call mental, physical, and spiritual, let's look at some of the stuff out of our big book. And one of my favorite chapters is the chapter of the agnostic because I think we're all agnostics when we get in here. And this is how it describes the disease in there, okay? It's a bizarre disease. It really is. It said if when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take, you're probably an alcoholic. Now what does that mean? If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. What kind of an illness can that be? The only thing that can do anything about this illness is a spiritual experiment. That's it. That's the only thing. Then later on he goes, if a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us no matter how much we tried. We could not wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted. In fact, we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn't there. Our human resources as marshaled by the will were not sufficient. They failed utterly. Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live. And it had to be a power greater than ourselves, obviously. But where and how were we to find this power? Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a power brighter than yourself which will solve your problem. That's it. In other words, what is the point of the whole program? What is this book for? It's to enable me to find a power greater than myself that can solve my problem. And then, of course, we read this at every meeting. Our description of the alcohol in the chapter of the agnostic and our personal adventures before and after make clear what three pertinent ideas that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism, that God could and would provided he was sought. So there it is. We have a disease that only a spiritual experience can conquer. What a disease. Medical people must be going crazy. I don't think we'd ever see that in a medical journal. Alcoholism, a disease only conquered by a spiritual experiment. I mean, there's just everything being discovered about alcoholism. And it's knowledge, knowledge, knowledged. But it doesn't say anything in here about lack of knowledge. That was our dilemma. You know what I'm saying? It says lack of power. That was out of the question. That was a dilemma. God could and would if he were sought. And then the last thing I want to read was in our tenth step. And we've ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We seldom will be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as a hot flame. We react sanely and normally and we will find that this has happened automatically. This has happened automatically. We didn't figure it out. We didn't learn anything. It just happened automatically. We will see our new attitude towards liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. That's the miracle of it. We're not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition. It's easy to let up on our spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism, but we really have as a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all our activities. How can I best serve thee? Thy will, not mine, be done. These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. Those are wonderful words to try and understand what this disease is. The problem doesn't exist for us. It's been removed. We're in a position of neutrality. What we have is a daily reprieve contingent on our spiritual condition. What I think sobriety, spiritual sobriete really looks like is this is what it looks like. There's nothing for alcohol to fix. there's nothing for alcohol to fix. So it's real easy to stay sober when there's Nothing for Alcohol to Fix. You know what I'm saying? It's just, we always have all these reasons for drinking. But as we look at this in a spiritual condition, there wouldn't be any reasons. We would be, the problem wouldn't exist. We just wouldn't be thinking about it. Any more than I think about, well, I think I'll take a hammer and drive a spike through my nose. You know what I mean? I don't have that problem. I didn't get up this morning fighting the urge to take a nail and drive it through my nose. That problem doesn't exist for me, so I don' t have to spend any time today avoiding buying hammers. I don''t have, you know what l'm saying? I don ''t have to do any of that. I don'T have that probem. It doesn''t exist. And the same with drinking. It honestly doesn't exist. I don't, it just isn't there for me to think about or worry about or do anything about. So I don'T do anything ABOUT my alcohol problem. I just do something about my spiritual condition. Now if I do that, then my other problems will be taken care of. And so many of us had faith and belief when we got here. But there's a big difference between that and conscious contact. You know what I mean? When I have faith that someday I'll have conscious contact. You know, I mean, I have, but we want to have conscious contact. That would be like having faith back in the drinking days that there's a bottle in the trunk. You know what I mean? But that isn't going to sustain us. We got to get the bottle and drink it. And so it can only get us so far. And that's what the action, in my judgment, is all about. And so we hear some of these things. I was thinking about candy bars. You know, they talk about candybars in the big book. I think it's in The Family afterward or somewhere in there and how it's recommended for alcoholics. And when I got sober, my sponsor came with a candy bar. and then at meetings they always talked about keep a supply of candy, keep a supply of handy and put honey in your tea and coffee and just keep pouring that in and then as the years evolved and they found that there was a hypoglycemia connection with alcoholism you don't hardly hear about candy bars okay so let's imagine just for discussion purposes that Bill Wilson was allowed to come back for three or four years to see what AA looks like today so he's back and he's looking around and he and he's going hey what happened to the candy bars I see there's a lot of young people I see that there's no candy bars there's not a discussion meeting more than we had and I see this and that but what about the candy bar oh Bill we found out about hypoglossemia and we're not handing the candy bars out and you oh okay that's interesting so a couple of years go by and then I can see him making this observation. He says, you know something, fellas? I've been watching this candy bar thing and it occurs to me that just about the same number of people are staying sober without the candy bars as they were when we were handing out the candybars. Those that don't eat candy and work a spiritual program gets sober. Those that do eat candy and work a spiritual program get sober. And so we have these things that we talk about, like hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. The reason I'm bringing all these up is that they're very helpful and they're important, but our sobriety can never be found in there. You know when we say, don't get too hungry, angry, lonely and tired, it's as if you were never hungry, hungry, lonely and tired, your sobriete would be guaranteed. But you could be well rested, have a full stomach, live with 12 other people and not be angry and still get drunk if our spiritual condition wasn't right. And on the other hand if we had good spiritual contact people go on fast and they go off by themselves for long periods of time and have very little sleep and they're just working on their spiritual condition. So what I'm trying to say is that spiritual condition is the name of the game and that's what the steps are all about and that' s what the program is all about. That sentence that I read in the tenth step what we really have is a daily reprieve and it doesn't say contingent on our mental condition. And it doesn' t say we have a daily reprieved contingent on our physical condition. It says that we have a daily reprieves contingent on our spiritual condition. And to me that's where first things first comes from. Always go to the spiritual condition first no matter what the problem is, and then come back and look and see what the problems are. And we may find that a whole bunch of them have been removed. It just happens. It just happened. But our minds don't see the world that way. See, the problems that hit us don't have spiritual labels on them. As a matter of fact, we hardly ever have a spiritual problem. We just have money problems, relationship problems, sex problems, loneliness problems, anger problems, fear problems. We have all these things and so they never go. They don't have a label that says secretly this is spiritual. We're just disguising it as sex. Secretly this is not a money problem, this is a spiritual problem. So as you look at your inventory list of all the problems you might have, there is no spiritual problems on there. so we don't go to the spiritual solution because our mind, our intellect has been trained to analyze these things and to visualize some sort of a solution and then we go after that. And I can remember saying to myself, yeah, this spiritual stuff, when I was brand new, I remember going, well, I've got to believe it, these old timers, they're really into it and they're doing well. but I think it's something that I'll save until I'm older because it looks like it deprives you of all the fun there is in the world you know what I mean so and I like action and I don't see I like excitement and I don' t see any massage parlors on the spiritual path you know so you don' want to straighten out too soon right so I'm just going to have a great life and then right before it's time to go I'll straighten out slide under the door and I'll get into heaven and of course that was just such a misconception of what's going on but if that's the way it looked to me and here comes my first digression speaking of heaven you know I don't know if you've heard this one but after you've been sober a long long long time you really don't have drunk dreams at least not like I remember when I was new you know oh I got drunk and this happened and that happened but we have nightmares so I'll give you an old timers nightmare okay you ready here's the dream you've gone to bed you're an old timer you've been working as a pro you are just one fine old timer so you go to sleep and here's your dream you're dead that's the thing but you're going up so that's a very comforting feeling you're growing up and by God it's just like they told you here's some clouds, there's music and pretty soon there's this gate it's gold, it's really something there's somebody obviously St. Peter big grin on her face right, and we're coming up there hi name please Sandy Beach you're not on the list I'm not on the list no you're not on the list see that escalator down is right over there well actually St. Pete that's just a nickname my real name is Richard Beach yeah here it is Richard Sandy Beach you're not on the list you're not on it. Well, geez, St. Pete, I mean, I know I did a lot of bad things. I did a lot stuff. I mean I owned up to it. I was really bad. Hurt my mother, hurt my father, hurt kids, hurt family. It was just awful. But St. Pete, like 37 years ago, I straightened out man. I mean and then I've been trying. I've worked in this program, I've been sponsoring, started a group, read the book, pray, pray pray pray, Pray to your father all the time. Pray to you uncle, I mean. Pray to uncle all the time. He said, your name is not on the list. Oh man, this is awful. So I start walking over there and I go, I come back and I forgot to mention something saying, Pete, I'm a personal friend of Bill Wilson's. He didn't make it either. What? I needed a Dr. Bob. What? So I go, I'm totally dejected now. And I walk over the stairs and I go God damn, what is this? So I come back and I say What's the deal up here? You guys don't like alcoholics? Is that it? No alcoholics in heaven? Is that what it is? No alcohols allowed in heaven. Is that It? And St. Pete looked at me and he said Oh no. everybody from Rational Recovery gets in. I just went, whoa! And I woke up with it. Freaking out. Just a terrible, terrible, terrible dream. So anyway, I was talking about how I wanted to straighten out later on. and it seemed to make a lot of sense back then when I was a lot younger because I couldn't imagine what was in store for me. I couldn'T imagine that everything that I thought I wanted wasn't what I really wanted after all and I'm sure that's true for a lot of you where you came to AA and you knew all the things that were missing in your life and if someone had bet you or said, I'm going to offer you a million dollars if you'll just believe this, that I know you like yachting and I know You like golf and I Know You like women and I Know You like this, but in a few years, going to meetings is going to be Your favorite thing. Are you going to believe that? I think most of us would go, hey pal, I don't think you understand me. I mean, to make a statement like that, that going to meetings is going to be one of my favorite things in my life. But it turned out it was true. And a lot of things that appear to be true aren't true anymore. And a Lot of Things That I Thought Was the Way the World Was Organized Just Aren't True Anymore Because the journey from the material world over into the spiritual world is filled with paradoxes. And everything is backwards from what it was before. And sometimes we see this if we're working with somebody who's still drinking, and we're talking with his family, and we've planted the seed, it's all we can do right now, say some prayers, and we'll just hope that his turn will come. And so they call up and they go, well, something awful happened. He just had his fourth DWI and he's in the hospital with a broken leg. And secretly we go, yeah, now we're getting there. Now he's got a chance. Because we know that that was good that that happened. And the family thinks it was bad that that happen. And then he gets out of the hospital and his leg gets recovered and we're sort of waiting around and all of a sudden we get a phone call from the family and they go, God, you're not going to believe this wonderful news. He went back to work and his boss gave him a promotion and a bonus. And we go, oh man, there he goes. Isn't that too bad that that happened? Now he doesn't have a chance. So we're looking at the same events that they're looking out entirely different because we know what the dynamics is. We know what's going on inside. and we know that in order to win, we've got to lose. We've got get down to the point where we get the white handkerchief out and wave it in total surrender just like the Japanese did. Absolutely unconditional. We're here. You tell us what you want us to do. And that's what has to happen to all of us. and there's many other things that we find in the spiritual path that are filled with paradoxes one of them is how to achieve independence and that's done by becoming totally dependent on a higher power and that seems like you couldn't be talking out of how could that possibly be you win by surrendering and you get independence by becoming totally dependent Well, the fact is that it's just an illusion that we're independent before we become spiritual. Before we become spirit, and have a power greater than ourselves in our lives, we're totally jerked around by our character defects. They're in charge. We're not in charge of anything. Well, I think I'll stay at work all afternoon. And lust says, what about the redhead? So we go into the boss, tell a lie, and we're gone. now we planned on staying at work I mean we have every one of these things and our drinking especially well I want to be a good father I want us to stay home we have these intentions we have this and our character defects just take us everywhere and then we come in and surrender all this there's no way I can handle this as I read that sentence about we could wish to have a moral philosophy we could do that we could have a wish to be good but it didn't do us any good and we come in here and we find out that once we're willing to surrender and turn all this over to a power greater than ourselves this power pushes these character defects down so that they aren't harassing us and we'll talk about that in the seventh step sixth and seventh step where these are pushed down so they're not bothering us and that's what freedom is um then trying to have a purpose in life do you ever try to figure out what your purpose was i must have changed my purpose about 50 times as i went along through life well it must be the purpose must be to win in athletics i was listening to larry suck last night i'm sure that was his purpose was and you're driven and you go and then you succeed beyond your wildest dreams and you still have a feeling inside that you haven't accomplished your purpose. There's still something missing. And what is that? Well, that's what I think spirituality is all about. And my favorite story about leading into all of this, believe me, I am going to get to the steps. But it's not going to be one of these things where here's step one, like that. Maybe we'll have some stories and things like that I like to read the big book and think about the history of AA and try to imagine God's heart in it. And as we do that, all you can see is God. You can't hardly see anything else. You can see these human beings that were chosen to be the messengers that started our program. But you can see that they didn't have anything to do with this. The circumstances and this power and this chain of events just occurred, and especially after Bill went off with his ideas about how AA ought to be, and he was blocked at every turn with his chain of drunk tanks and paid missionaries and all that stuff. And it ended up he couldn't raise any money, and all his ideas for the program just were blocked and it turned out the way it was supposed to turn out. And so I think, as I look at it, God's handiwork to rescue you and I probably started in around 1912 or 1913 when a group of teenagers were assembled up in Manchester, Vermont in the summertime. A lot of them were there just for the summer and of course the first one was Bill Wilson who just was down from East Dorset, Vermont to attend Manchester Academy and then over from Albany New York where his father was the mayor and a big shot in politics almost was considered to be the vice presidential candidate at one time didn't make it but he was up for that and his son Ebby came to Manchester where they had a summer home and hung out with other kids his age or slightly older and of course he got to meet Bill Wilson and then up from Rhode Island was the millionaire's son the Hazard family was big industrialists they had plants around the United States and their son Roland came up with them to their summer place in Manchester and then up from Brooklyn, New York was the Burnham family Dr. Burnham and his wife and his lovely daughter Lois and they all met each other these kids in social settings maybe in a bar maybe here maybe there but they got to know each other and there began a chain of events that unfolded as a result of that that brought us AA and the first one in that chain of event and this is why I tell this story so that I can lead up to the Dr. Young letter exchange between Bill that came later on and the 1st one of these was Roland Hazard and his drinking got out of control And his father wanted him to take over the business. He had taken over quite a bit of it, but his drinking was so bad that it was getting where he might have to be institutionalized. And they had tried, he himself and his family had tried everything this country had to offer. And so someone said, there's the best psychiatrist in the world who lives in Switzerland. His name is Carl Jung. If you go there, we're sure that something can be done for Roland. And so he went there and he spent a year with Dr. Young. And Dr. young tried all of his techniques to cause this profound personality change. At the end of that time, he said to Roland, well, that's everything that I know how to do. I've done for you. You understand the situation. If you start drinking again, this could possibly be over for you." Yes, I understand, doctor. Well, good luck. We'll see you. and he made it as far as Paris where someone asked him the wrong question. They said, would you like a drink? And he said, yes. And so he just got totally ruined again and came back to Dr. Young and he said Dr. Yang, look I'm all messed up I'm hopeless, I'm in total despair what am I going to do? And here's where I think where I just read in chapter 5 where it said no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. So if you think symbolically, Dr. Young certainly symbolized all there was in terms of human power. And this is what this concentration of human power said to Rowan. There's nothing I can do for you. How's that for pretty definitive? I am the leading human power on the planet and I can do nothing for you that is going to cause a surrender and it did I mean, that just took the floor right out from under him he had never heard that before you mean, nothing can be done no, nothing nothing can't be done for you and then he added Now, I have heard of a few cases like yours where people have had profound spiritual experiences and have been able to live a happy life. If I was you, I would try to find one of those profound spiritual experience. And guess what? Roland was suddenly motivated to find a profound spiritual experiment. the week before he wasn't interested in profound spiritual experiences but he just got motivated because the ultimate in human power just said there's nothing I can do for you and that's what hopelessness is and that when we begin to win and so he went out with a totally open mind and said where am I going to find something like this and of course the Oxford movement was incredibly popular it's quite normal that someone looking for a spiritual experience would get into one of these Oxford groups and he did and lo and behold he got sober and became very active in this including using his home up in Manchester to help to hold Oxford meetings in to pass the message the spiritual message to other people and right about this time the second in our cast of characters crashed and burned, and that was Evie. Evie had been just alienating his family with one episode after another, and finally after driving his car drunk into a farmhouse and went through the living room into the kitchen on a Saturday morning and came right up to the kitchen table in the car and asked the lady of the home if he could have a cup of coffee. So they called the cops and all this. So the town is going, you know, this guy is really causing a lot of trouble. Shortly thereafter, Debbie had one of those days where you ever sit around and you go, man, this house needs painting. You remember all the times you'd think of stuff that needed to be done back in the drink? This house needs paint. I'm going to go get a bottle of booze and some paint and a ladder and some brushes. And so off he went and came back and started painting the house. He got about 10 square feet painted and then went over and sat down and imagine the house painted. You know what I mean? You look at that and some birds came over and crapped all over the paint. Got them upset, went in, got a couple shotguns and guarded the paint as it dried. Any bird that came near his yard, BAM! So the neighbors are hearing this gunfire and it's a war starting to get the sheriff. Off he goes. He's in front of the judge and the judge goes, I'm sorry but we're going to have to send you away for a while. Everybody's on my back. And he made one phone call and he knew Roland Hazard was a very distinguished family and Roland came down, talked to the judge and said, would you release him to me personally? Well, the judge knew that was safe and nobody would criticize him for that and Roland took him off to the Oxford Movement and Evie got sober and got very active and then they were transferred down to New York City helping out with the main Oxford group Sam Shoemaker down in New York and some period of time went by and Evie thought about his old drinking buddy Bill and he went paid the call on Bill had that wonderful Saturday morning in Brooklyn told Bill about what had happened to him Bill was very agnostic Bill had been brought up in a Christian shirt but he didn't believe that Christ was divine didn't believed any of this stuff He was just, yeah, maybe, maybe. But Ebi said, Bill, you could choose your own concept of God. You just have to surrender. Stop worrying about what it is. And later, after his next drunk in the hospital, Bill had this great spiritual experience after he surrendered. Went off to Akron six months later and met Dr. Bob. And the two of them got the program going and off they went. And then AA took off and of course now it's enormous. so a lot of years go by and suddenly Bill realizes that he never closed the loop with Dr. Young you know what I mean he never really said Dr. Yang you know where you started and so he wrote this letter to him and it was a good thing he did but it wasn't long after that that Dr. young passed away and he wrote him saying dear Dr. yang I don't know if you remember Roland Hazard he was a patient of yours but you did this and as a result this happened the Oxford and now we have AA it's in all these countries we owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude. Now I'm paraphrasing but that's basically what it said. Dr. Young writes Oh my God, I'm so happy to find out I often wondered what happened to Mr. Hazard and said what a pleasure to find out. As you may know I can tell you now what I was trying to do with Mr. Hazard was to cause a spiritual transformation but we couldn't use those terms back then they would have laughed me out of psychiatry if I said anything about spirituality, but now it's okay to talk about that. And of course we all know Young was very spiritual and just saw the spirituality of man in everything. And so he said, That's what I was trying to cause because as I have looked at alcoholics, now we're back to this sentence that I read at the very start. You may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience can conquer. and Dr. Young went on to say that what he thought alcoholics had and this I'm paraphrasing was a very strong longing for God now what if that was our problem and it came disguised in many other ways like lousy childhood irate wife all these other things no money terrible illness as a child lost my husband in Vietnam lost my son to this all these things that we think are making us unhappy and unable to get a grasp on the world when in reality this is such an exciting way to look at it our real problem is We just miss the hell out of God. That's what it is. It's missing in our lives. It's just such an emptiness. And it's missing in everybody's lives. But maybe alcoholics feel it more. We just feel it and we want to fix this. And you know what fixed it? Booze. He fixed it just the same as the program fixes us, from the inside out. Booze didn't transform any of our reality. It didn't make us richer, handsomer, or anything like that. It just was powerful enough to go in and make us feel like that problem was gone. Made us feel like we were complete for the first time in our lives. And it was such an exciting experience for us that we were willing to pay the ultimate price in order to keep it. And for the non-alcoholic, they're not willing to play the ultimate prize because it wasn't the ultimate experience. It wasn't the transforming experience that it was for us. So just pursuing this, we're just operating on this. If this is your problem, as it said in the chapter, you may be suffering from an illness that only a spiritual experience can conquer. Well, then what is the illness? It has to be the absence of God. If the answer is to allow this power to come into our lives then the problem is we miss that power. We're very unhappy and incomplete. How many of us went around going I don't know what it is but there's something missing in my life. I can just feel it. There's something I'm incomplete as I am now. And then, of course, our mind is trained to look around and see what it is. I know what it ist. I'm not in shape. I'm NOT in shape! And then we go out and we get in shape, we lose weight, we're eating a perfect diet. We're treating this temple, the body. And we get all through, we look in the mirror and we go, Man, I can't believe that's me! unfortunately it's still there you know what I'm saying it's still there I make this big muscle and it's still there well it must not be being in shape it must be money I just don't have enough money to be comfortable and then we chase that and maybe we get some people some of us get wealthy some of those dream about getting wealthy but it still doesn't fix anything and then i get promoted maybe if i had my own company maybe if i was this i know how many of us done this i know what it is i need to get married so we run out now we got two kids we got the car we got the station wagon we got this we got that and it's still there and the only thing that ever fixed it was alcohol so there's something that needs to be fixed and that's what i call alcoholism This is just my own personal understanding that it is a disease that only a spiritual experience can conquer. So if that is the situation, then we have these 12 steps. So what are they designed to do? Well, let's cheat and go to the end. Did you ever read the end of the book first? I wonder how this thing ends. Holy cow! And then we go back and read it. Well, how does it end? How about step 11? Conscious contact. How about step 12? Spiritual awakening. That's how the book ends. That is the point of the whole thing, is to have a personal contact. Just you. You have it. And then there's you and this new energy source that you have contact with. And that's spiritual awakening. And so that's the end of the book. that's the point of doing all this and that's what Bill said the purpose of this book is to enable us to find a personal God and so that's where I see the steps at so every step that we talk about is a God step you know what I mean you can label them all the different ways you want oh an inventory step a past step a future step a beepity bop but if you think about it they're all God steps because this is the path that can enable us to achieve conscious contact and spiritual awakening. And of course we talked about what Roland had to do when he saw Dr. Young and that was surrender, surrender, render, surrender. So who's our biggest enemy as we start going down this thing? I'll tell you who our biggest envy is. It isn't the outside world, it's not our boss, it's our wife or husband, it' s not our children, it's that, it''s our ego. our ego goes oh excuse me what's that what are you talking about now God no you don't want God in your life you want me in your Life I've been here all along I'm you man I am you you are your ego I remember thinking I am my character defects did you ever think that way who are you I am I am my character defect you know what I mean and if you take away my character effects I'll be nobody I don't know if you thought crazy like that, but that's how I thought. I'll be the hole in the donut. Remember that in the 12 and 12? Who will I be with no character defects? I better save some just so I can be somebody. That's the ego. It's running in. It does not want anything to do with God because that would mean God would be in charge and especially when the ego sees you reading these steps, turn your life over entirely, get rid of all character defects. kill ego kill ego you know that my friend Hal Marley talks about that in the discussion meeting and the topic is getting rid of ego and everybody's talking oh I gotta kill your ego kill your egos some new person is listening to this about halfway through the meeting somebody comes in late and sits down next to the new person and says what's the topic the newperson said suicide because ego that's who I am there's nobody beyond ego but there is that's the spiritual person this is the real person this is a person that comes from our heart this is this is who we really want to get in touch with this is this is the exciting person to know this is the true spiritual being that everybody is. And we may get a glimpse of this early on. I don't know if this has happened to you, but you might have two months, three months sobriety. You're sitting at a meeting, Mr. or Miss Self-Centered, you know, or just, that's us. And you hear everybody talking about loving everybody else and you're going, I don' t know what the hell that is. you know you hear it but you have no idea what it is they look sincere but you don't know what they're really talking about anyway you're sitting there and in comes a new guy or a new gal you can spot it they're shaky and they're looking around they go over get a cup of coffee they get a half a cup and it spills all over by the coffee pot so they put it down they turn red and you're watching and you go oh man do I know what that feels like. And so they don't have coffee. They just go over and sit down at the table and sweating and there's twisting and nervous and all this and you're watching them because you were just there two months ago. But there's something about this person that you are secretly cheering for. This is a part of you that just hasn't come out very much and you just find yourself going, God, I hope they make it. And at the end of the meeting, you almost go over and shake their hand. You're just not there yet, but you almost did it. Next time you will, but there's this something building inside of you. And then during the week, you actually thought about them once or twice. I wonder how that gal is. I hope they come back to the meeting. And the next week, they come to you. The next week you come there and you're actually looking around and they're not there and your little disappointed. And about ten minutes into the meeting they come in and it's obvious they've stayed sober all week and they go over and they get a third of a cup without spilling it and get it all the way to the table and they sit down with it with sort of a satisfied look on their face and something inside of you says Yay! Yay for somebody else? What is that? Well, if you're new that's who you are. That's what the steps are going to go in and pull out. There is so much of that inside waiting to be released to break through your ego and come out shining. And the way we do it is to fight this ego by surrendering. In the beginning we need circumstances to help us. we need a DWI and then we can go to the ego look I got a DWi I'm going to lose my license I got to try this AA there's this struggle going on between the two of us and so we come in and they explain to us we're powerless that that's our problem it's not ignorance it's no childhood it's any of those things it's that we're powerless and are you willing to put up the flag and we do the best that we can it's impossible to surrender 100% I suppose if you could do it You could have an experience like Bill Wilson had where you have a hot flash and boom, God appears and your drinking problem is lifted away. Most of us, that's not going to happen that way. It's going to be the garden variety. It's got to happen over a period of every couple months we'll notice something else and something else and our friends will notice. And they'll say to us, Alec, are you on a diet? Alec. What's going on? What is happening with you? Your co-workers. What are you doing? and what is happening is the very life of life is being breathed back into us and our souls are being nourished and it's starting to show up in our face and in our eyes and people are starting to see it and they're seeing a clarity there that was never there before and this is the power greater than ourselves coming in as a result of us opening the door there's no way you can get in unless we open the door of surrender And that is the most important beginning for the whole thing. You can be sober for five years and have very little serenity in the program, not hardly working. We're analyzing, did I do an inventory? Did I make enough amends? Did I do this? Did I to that? And guess what our literature suggests? You never surrendered 100% in the first step. And if you don't do that, the rest of it is irrelevant because we've got one foot out there and one foot in here. I'm almost powerless. I'm almost an alcoholic like the rest of them. I almost need a sponsor, I almost needs to do the steps, I almost needed to go to meetings and I'm ALMOST going to get sober. And almost getting sober is like almost having a parachute. You know, I almost took one of those things as you're whistling through the air. I almost grabbed one of these things. You're not much better off than the guy who never heard the word. and so this is so important if you're new is to go back are you holding back anywhere do you see any difference in your drinking than everybody else's do you have any question that you have some reservations that someday you may be able to sip a little wine that'll kill us that'll ruin the entire spiritual program and you wonder, you won't think God exists. Well, I've been trying this, I've bee trying praying, I've be trying this. None of that will work if the door is still shut. And that's what the surrender does is open this thing. And then once it opens it, we can start the thing that I read out of the second step of the chapter of the agnostic. And we begin this wonderful process of changing our mind. Alcoholics, in the beginning, changing the mind for a new alcoholic is like turning the Queen Mary around in Tampa Bay. It takes about 50 tugboats, takes all night, and then finally the alcoholic goes, I changed my mind. You know, like it took all that effort. You want to call a press conference? I changed mine. I remember my sponsor, one time when we were debating things back and forth, and I finally said to him, okay Bill, you're right. And he said, no, you're wrong. I said the same thing. He said, No, it's not. You say it. Okay. It wouldn't even come out. I'm wrong. I can't hear you. I'm not wrong. I'm right. I'm sorry. It was so hard to... Did I shut that off? Yep. How about now? Uh-oh, Lee. here we go less animation okay we're going to go about five more minutes then we'll take a break so this changing mind process in step two is so vital we want to hold on to these old ideas about God we want holding on to this and that and there it is they haven't worked our old ideas about God about spirituality about who we are none of that has worked and so what we're doing here is we're just going to open our minds to what is being suggested by the program we're going to just say alright let's see what happens I'm going to give this a try and I'm gonna see what happens and so we have all different kinds of backgrounds that we bring in here we may be extremely religious and still getting drunk every day and this is a big mystery Bill talks about in the 12 and 12 well it has to do with the quality of faith rather than the quantity whatever our background those ideas just have to be set aside in the second step so that we can finally change our mind about this higher power and make this transition in the second step to open-mindedness. And once we do that, we're ready to make the biggest decision about a spiritual path, which is to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him. This is a decision. Nothing gets turned over in the third step. It's kind of like deciding to get a college degree. Now what's left? Four years of hard work, And then you get a college degree. You see what I'm saying? And so we made a decision to turn our will into a life. Now we're going to do all the work and the rest of the steps to get this turned over. Why can't we turn it over? Because our ego doesn't want us to turn itover. We're going have to chop that thing apart piecemeal. We're gong to have to go in there, character defect by character defect and pry this thing open so that we can open this channel. and the concept that helped me the most about the third step because my intellect wanted to stay in charge well who's going to be in charge I'm going to turn my life around how am I going to know where to go what am Igoing to do and it was explained to me we're going to go beyond the intellectual level to the intuitive level that's what we're trying to accomplish when we say we're turning our lives over we still it still comes through us but it comes through our intuitions instead of our intellect our intellect is controlled by our own thinking so when we use our intellect and we go what should I do in this situation then we go well let's see if I do this I do that if I don't if I can do this I do not you see what I see we weigh the odds and we figure it out and then we make a decision about what we ought to do but someone could say just as they did to me when I went through flight school they said okay, you've learned how to fly this plane now and you can land it you can take it off and you've done this and you're going to do that now we're going to do it when there's no sky visible we're gonna go up when it's IFR the clouds are so thick you can't see the propeller anymore and don't be worried you shouldn't be worried about this at all because we have this radio beacon at the end of the runway and if you go up and you dial in the right frequency in your little radio back then it was the little AM thing with the A and the N you remember that low frequency those would be older pilots and ifyou dial in the rightfrequency and you listen and you properly position the plane to come in on this beam you will come in right between the two mountains and not get killed and when you get down right at 300 feet the runway will pop out of the clouds and there it'll be. Now I didn't say to them you want me to believe in a freaking radio beam on the end of a runway? You want me to turn my life over to a radio beam? Are you kidding? What if it what if it doesn't work I'm going to fly into the mountain I'm not a radio I didn's say any of that I just said what's the frequency please? went right up, dialed that in, mountains all around, just came right down. Boy, I put my life on the line to something made by GE. You know what I mean? I just, hey, I'll be happy to put my wife on the list. I'll put my own life on a line for that. And then I come in here and they go, how about turning your life over to God? God is this wonderful, huge power who created this whole universe. It is inside of you. It is the most powerful signal you can ever have. If you will take the action to get in touch with this, you can be guided through the rest of your life. How do you like that? Oh, I don't think so. I don' t think we want to be doing that. That doesn' t sound like a good plan at all. I don't think I want to do that at all. Well, you're screwed. Because that's where us alcoholics are. See, there isn't any other plan. You've got to do it. We've got a plan. We've gotta try this. And so that's what spirituality is all about. Is to take us out. We made the unconditional surrender. Then we came to believe that there's going to be something. Now we're deciding, how can we get in touch with whatever this is so that I can be guided? Now, how are we guided? We're guided through our intuitions. We struggle with problems. You ever struggle with a problem and then finally you surrender it? You go to a meeting. You talk to a newcomer. You really should be home working on this. This is a very crucial problem. and you go to the meeting and you talk to the newcomer maybe take him out for a coffee afterwards now you don't even have any time to worry about this problem you come home you're just about ready to go to bed and it suddenly occurs to you that the answer to the problem is this just was given just seemed to appear you know you can come to rely on that you can just come to expect it just well I got this terrible problem I guess I'll go to a meeting, take some new guy out for coffee and when I come home, there it will be. It's amazing. But this is what turning it over is. It is to turn over our willfulness, our self-centeredness and all of those things in order to establish the contact. We are at quarter after so how about at 10.30? Let's all get some coffee, stretch, walk around I'm going to come back in at 10.30, and then we'll wrap it all up. Thank you. Thank you very much.