The Pain and Suffering That Become Your Greatest Assets — Sandy B.

Thank you.\nHi, everybody. My name is Sandy B., and I'm an alcoholic. How are you all doing?\nWell, I'm honored to be here. The Florida State Convention is just a remarkable event.\nI think I spoke at one in 75 or somewhere around there in Hollywood, Florida.\nYeah. And I remember back then it wasn't as big as this, but it was just full of spirit.\nAnd Sister Maurice from New York was speaking there. And what a character she was.\nSo and then I ended up moving to Florida. And of course, every time I fly back into Tampa, I just go, I am so glad I live here.\nI mean, I just travel all over and this is just the greatest. So anyway.\nMy sobriety dates December 7th, 1964. And my home group is the Saturday Night Fever Group in Tampa, Florida.\nAnd if you're over that way on Saturday night, please drop in.\nWe'll probably ask you to speak because we're always I can't find a speaker.\nSo that would be something we'll be glad to do before I get started.\nI'm going to try. I've tried this announcement over the years, but I got to thinking that.\nI'm looking for this guy. And he's old enough now to be retired.\nAnd since most people come to Florida after they retire, there's a good chance that you could be in the audience.\nAnd if you're the guy, you and I were in the same mental military mental institution in 1964.\nAnd I was a captain in the Marine Corps and you were a luger.\nAnd I was a lieutenant commander in the Navy.\nAnd you and I were in the same clay class.\nAnd they were having an ashtray making contest.\nAnd I had clearly and the doctors were judging it the next morning.\nAnd I had.\nI had clearly made the best ashtray.\nAll the other patients locked up in there agreed that mine was clearly superior to that thing that you had made.\nAnd you came into my room the night before smoking that big cigar, acting real casual.\nAnd then as if by accident, you put it out in my ashtray and knocked it on the floor and it shattered.\nAnd you won the contest.\nNow, I myself have forgotten about this incident.\nAnd but I figure anybody that would do something like that is probably an alcoholic.\nAnd if you were an alcoholic, you could have ended up in a.\nYou could have moved to Florida.\nYou could be working.\nYou could be doing the steps and you have this one a man that you're unable to make.\nSo I'll be right outside after the meeting.\nOne chance in a million.\nWhat the heck?\nLet's see.\nI briefly my story.\nI grew up in New Haven, Connecticut.\nI got one sister.\nShe's got almost 30 years in AA.\nYou know, our parents went through the Depression and money was real tight, but they were great providers.\nAnd my sister and I shared about this and she thought it was just the happiest little family.\nAnd I thought it was very intimidating.\nI didn't belong.\nI sat at the table and they all seemed like a unit and I was somewhere else all in my mind.\nAnd the Catholic Church frightened me.\nMy sister thought it was the greatest place in the world.\nShe thought the nuns were cute.\nThe Latin was great.\nThe incense smelled good and all is wonderful.\nAnd I sat there like I was in a Nazi boot camp of some sort and was very frightened by it all.\nAnd when I was about eight or nine, I remember looking at the crucifix and it's kind of spoke to me and it just looked down and it said, little boy, do you see this?\nAnd I said, yes.\nWell, this is what God did.\nIt was the only son that he loved.\nGuess what he's going to do to you?\nAnd of course, that's not what the church was teaching.\nThat has nothing to do with anything except I thought up that thought.\nAnd that thought scared me almost into a fainting condition on the front pew.\nI mean, that's our thoughts are so powerful.\nSomeone told me once.\nThat if you're sitting in a room and you see a person on the other side of the room and you think that they don't like you, the physical and emotional reaction that you have to that thought will be equal to the one as if that person walked over and said, I don't like you.\nThat's how powerful our thoughts are.\nThey create the reality that we react to.\nSo it's no wonder that we try to get rid of old ideas.\nAnd that was certainly one that just paralyzed me.\nAnd so I had no comfort in thinking about a higher power.\nI just was I felt like I was isolated.\nAnd I just still have a lot of those tendencies.\nI was a good little student and athlete.\nAnd I went to a little prep school fed right into Yale University in New Haven.\nI got there and everybody who arrived from all over the country was clearly superior to me.\nMy God, they all had where they were rich.\nThey had confidence.\nThey had convertibles.\nThey knew what was going on.\nAnd I felt like they were going to expel me, that they're going to find out an imposter was in their midst.\nAnd what was I doing there?\nWho do I think I was to be with these people?\nAnd I've been there a couple of months and my roommates are going, you're not drinking.\nNo, no, I'm not going to drink.\nI'm going to get high grades and all that.\nAnd I was at a social function where there was 20 people were supposed to meet each other.\nAnd I find that very difficult.\nAnd as I approached each group, the guys looked at me and very clearly with their eyes said, we do not want to know you.\nDo not come any closer.\nAnd boy, I could pick that up.\nYou know that energy when you can see it?\nAnd boy, they don't like you.\nThey don't like you.\nAnd I went to the other group and the other group and they all had the same basic message.\nWe have plenty of friends.\nWe don't need a creep like you.\nAnd so I was thinking of leaving and there was a bar there.\nAnd I said, well, maybe I'll get it.\nI'll drink.\nIt'll help me feel better.\nI ordered something in soda, had two, starting third one, didn't think anything was happening, decided to leave.\nAnd I turned around and it was as if those guys were gone.\nAnd these 20 or 25 of the friendliest people in the world, they were all looking at me, begging me to be their best friend.\nPlease join our group.\nPlease come over here.\nAnd I'm looking.\nAnd I.\nI felt like Alice in Wonderland.\nI had just gone into a new world, a new level of existence where everything was wonderful.\nAlcohol didn't change me, but it changed the world that I lived in.\nAnd it was wonderful.\nAnd I went up and I intuitively knew how to handle things.\nNow I could talk about anything and gabbing and talking and everybody's going, yeah, this guy is funny.\nHe's telling jokes.\nHe's doing all that.\nAnd I realized prior to alcohol.\nAll my anxiety and my fears had all my creativity stopped up inside of me.\nI was afraid to try anything.\nAnd suddenly I'm released.\nIt was like a reawakening and being reborn.\nIt was just so exciting.\nIt was remarkable.\nAnd eventually I talked to everybody so much they left.\nAnd even then I was going, don't go home.\nDon't go home.\nYou know, I don't want the party to stop.\nAnd so I went back to the bar and said to myself, boy, if three drinks do that, what will 20 do?\nYou know, I might as well find out.\nSo I stayed there for quite a while, just pouring down tons of alcohol and enjoying every drink.\nGot better and better.\nAnd I got back to the dorm.\nAnd then, of course, I started getting sick.\nYou remember when you first start drinking and I'm in the bathroom on the cold tile floor,\nwhich, as I was to learn, is a great place to hang out when you're throwing up and trying to feel better.\nAnd I vomited most of the night and sat on the bed the next morning feeling like a hatchet was in the back of my head.\nAbsolutely just dying.\nAnd the thought occurred to me, are you going to drink again tonight?\nAnd it was like that.\nAnd I went, of course.\nI said, this hatchet in the back of the head and this sense that I may die in the next 15 minutes\nis a small price to pay for what I had last night.\nSo.\nThat's why I'm an alcoholic, because what alcohol did for me was worth any price.\nNow, I didn't know I was making that decision.\nI thought I was the same as everybody.\nBut that's how I reacted to it.\nThis stuff is so incredible and it solves every problem I've ever had since I was a little kid.\nAll in 10 minutes.\nI will.\nThis is going to be my way of getting through life.\nI mean, that's a lot to happen.\nYou only been drinking one day.\nBut I knew that I knew inside that I had discovered what was missing in my life, a power greater than myself.\nAnd so I devoted myself to this new way of life.\nAnd I started flunking out.\nNo more athletics, getting in fights, going to jail, all kinds of things happening.\nAnd none of them caused me to reassess my decision.\nSo you get in.\nYou get in trouble.\nBut boy, we look what you get for it.\nIt was always fine.\nWhat's the problem?\nAnd very briefly, I did finally graduate and the Korean War was going on.\nEverybody had to join the military.\nAnd we were drinking beer one afternoon.\nTwo or three other guys said, we're going down to join the Marines.\nWhy don't you follow us?\nYeah, OK.\nLet me finish my beer.\nI'll go.\nSounds like fun to me.\nAnd I'm sure.\nThat recruiting sergeant saw us coming in.\nHe just went, oh, boy, have we got some live ones.\nAnd yes, sir.\nSigned our name.\nRaise our hand and all that.\nAnd the first 10 weeks were a little shocking to me.\nI was.\nI knew it was a mistake to have brought my golf clubs.\nLet's just put it that way.\nAnyway, somehow we survived that.\nAnd, you know, actually, in the middle of all of that, I started liking it because there was so much.\nThere was so much discipline and I couldn't drink and I was getting healthy and I was feeling better.\nAnd I was starting to get this camaraderie feeling.\nKeith knows all about it.\nAnd it was great.\nYou just felt like you were part of something, which is what a enables us to be is not to be something, but to be part of something.\nAnd it felt good.\nYou're something is more important than you.\nThe core.\nAnd you just people die for it.\nIt's just, oh, my God, what a change in perspective.\nAnd so six months training.\nYou're an infantry platoon leader.\nAnd that's what I was trained as.\nAnd we're ready to go.\nAnd I saw a training movie about pilots.\nAnd I had second thoughts.\nThe pilots were at a bar.\nThey were talking with their hands.\nThere was some blondes in the background.\nAnd I paused a second.\nThey weren't sleeping in sleeping bags.\nThey sleeping in big rooms with TVs and that kind of stuff.\nSo I asked somebody, what's the what's that?\nThe pilot stuff.\nI'd never been in an airplane.\nAnd they said, oh, they.\nYou don't want that.\nYou have to sign up for three more years.\nDon't sign up for three more years.\nWhat is that?\nSo I signed up and passed all the tests.\nGot my orders to Pensacola, Florida.\nTo start 18 months of training.\nI met this lovely woman while home on weekends one time.\nAnd we had gotten engaged.\nAnd so we're off on our honeymoon to Pensacola, Florida.\nAnd I remember getting on a DC three in New York.\nTo go to Atlanta.\nAnd I got air sick all over that plane.\nIt was just, oh, boy.\nAnd then I got on another one from Atlanta to Pensacola.\nAnd got air sick all over that plane.\nAnd got to flight school.\nAnd the first six flights, I got air sick.\nAnd it looked bad.\nBut the motion sickness went away.\nAnd then I became very good at it.\nI would be number three in our class, number two or whatever.\nAnd I just said, I am in heaven.\nI'm being paid to do this.\nIt was so much fun.\nAnd.\nSo I got through all of the gunnery and carrier qualification.\nAnd instruments and formation.\nAnd all the stuff you do.\nWent to advanced training in Kingsville, Texas.\nDrinking and drinking and drinking.\nBut not enough to not do well in the school.\nAnd finally, after 18 months, I got my orders to Japan.\nWith a four-month layover at El Toro, California.\nLiving on Balboa Island.\nMy God.\nHad a rental unit for about $120.\n$120.\nA month.\nI have no idea what it would be today.\nAnd I couldn't have been happier.\nFinished that Marine Corps training.\nAnd then went over to a fighter squadron in Japan.\nThe war had ended.\nAnd there wasn't much to do except fly high-performance planes and drink.\nAnd, boy, we did it.\nAnd we drank as a unit.\nThe colonel would have us all at the table in the officer's club.\nAnd we had a big model plane in the middle of it.\nAnd you did not order a drink on your own.\nThe colonel ordered the rounds.\nHe'd call the waiter.\nWe want another round.\nAnd they were drinking fast enough for me.\nSo I was never sitting there going, man, I've got to order another drink.\nThey were drinking as fast as I do.\nThe colonel said, boy, this is wonderful.\nAnd so a lot of wonderful stories and all that.\nBut about nine months into this thing,\nI was on the end of the runway with a major who was the maintenance officer.\nHe was one of my heroes, a big Irish guy.\nAnd he was telling me that we were watching field carrier practice.\nHe was telling me he's going to get a fighter squadron in about a year and a half.\nHe'll be a lieutenant colonel.\nAnd he wants nothing but the best pilots in the Marine Corps.\nAnd he points to me, this young lieutenant, and he said, and I want you.\nAnd I felt like, oh, my God, I've died and gone to heaven.\nAnd then he said, but I wouldn't let you go.\nI wouldn't let you drink.\nAnd I'm going, I get drunk with this guy all the time.\nWhat does he mean?\nHe wouldn't let me drink.\nEverybody drinks.\nAnd it wasn't until I got to AA that I realized in the middle of real heavy drinkers,\nmy drinking scared him.\nThere was something about the intensity with which I drank that scared him.\nHe just said, this guy.\nHe's out somewhere that we don't know about.\nThis is not partying like the rest of us are doing.\nAnd he was right.\nAnd I went on and I, you know, look like success.\nI have different assignments.\nWe ended up with six children.\nI got promoted to captain.\nI'd been all over the place and flew photo planes in the Cuban Missile Crisis.\nBut the.\nAlcoholism was going to bring everything to an end and I started going the physical\nsymptoms, the withdrawals, and I started getting on those F8s and I didn't want to\nget in there because I was anxiety attacks and I was losing vision and my heart would\nrace and it was just like something's going to happen.\nI knew I was going to pass out and there's no one else in the plane and this was going\non for like a year.\nAnd I'm still going out and getting in the plane and I just, I knew something awful was\ngoing to happen.\nUm, so I went to the doctors and I only go there as a last resort and I went in.\nI said, something's happened to me in the plane.\nThey said, what?\nWell, I'm starting to lose vision.\nI feel like I'm going to pass out.\nI'm sweating.\nThey saw my heart is racing.\nIf something is happening to me.\nAnd of course that scared him to death.\nAnd they said, well, you're not going to fly anymore until we find out what this is.\nThey sent me back to Pensacola for two weeks for all the doctors to study me.\nAnd of course there was no such thing as the disease of alcoholism.\nThere were no alcohol programs.\nAnd so that was out.\nIt had to be something else.\nAnd it was, now I look back, it was really funny to watch the heart guys test me and\nthen the nerve guys and stomach guys and the dentist, the dentist came the closest because\nhe's looking in there and that gets him real close to my breath.\nAnd he said, you reek of alcohol and it's 12 noon.\nAnd I said, well, I got drunk last night.\nAnd he said, oh, okay, well that, that's probably why you reek of alcohol.\nAnd just went on with the exam.\nAnd we went through all of the different tests and they could find nothing physically wrong.\nSo they left it up to the psychiatrist.\nHe interviewed me.\nIt was a bizarre interview.\nI don't even remember some of the questions.\nAnd he concluded that I had a childhood fear of flying that just showed up after 13 years\nof flying and I can't fly anymore.\nAnd so that killed me because that's who I was.\nThat was my total identity with wearing those wings and just here we are.\nAnd now I'm going back up to Cherry Point and it's waiting orders from headquarters,\nbecause I had gotten a regular commission.\nI was making a career.\nThis was my career.\nAnd it took about three months and they gave me orders to become an air traffic controller.\nI went to air traffic control school and passed.\nThat's a hard school.\nAnd somehow I got through the hardest part with my hand shook so bad I could hardly fill\nout those little strips.\nThere was no computers.\nIt was, you did it manually.\nAnd I was sent overseas to be in charge of an air traffic control unit.\nIn Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan for 14 months.\nAnd I got there and thank God, the senior enlisted men, E8, came up to me when I took\nover the unit and, oh, Captain, we're glad to have you, but here's your tent and put\nyour bike over here, blah, blah, blah.\nAnd he took one look and could smell me and he just said, sir, I think we should have\nan understanding that you personally never talk to an airplane.\n.\nAnd I went, right.\nSo my job was to try and show up.\nThat was basically what I would try and do is to ride my bike to work and stay there\nand yeah, yeah, yeah.\nBut mostly I was drinking.\nI now didn't have to wait 10 hours before flying.\nAnd during that year I lost 70 pounds, 50 pounds.\nAnd I had malnutrition.\nI stopped hanging out with my buddies.\nI didn't go to happy hour.\nI just stayed in Quonset hut, went to work and tried to stay alive on soup and vodka\nand juice because hard food, solid food just wouldn't not start to chew it and it would\njust start throwing it up.\nAnd so that was a very bad year.\nAnd I was just so sick.\nAnd the funny thing is about that year, I was in an outfit.\noutfit that had incredible spirit. We had reunions later on back in Washington. It was\njust a wonderful group of guys, half of them pilots and half of them other Marine officers.\nAnd we got together after I'd been in AA about 15 years. And we're sitting around talking\nand, you know, they were drinking a beer or two. It wasn't a big party or anything. We're\njust reminiscing a lot of funny stories. And two of them were talking to me privately\nand they said, you know, we knew you were dying. I mean, it was obvious you were throwing\nup blood and we just knew you were dying. But there wasn't anything we could do for\nyou. Now, that's a heck of a statement. The Marine Corps goes back to get their dead,\neven if they lose other people. I mean, this is you do not leave anyone anywhere and\nyet with as far as the disease of alcoholism was concerned, they were powerless. There\nwas nothing we could do for you. And I remember, boy, wow, what a statement to make. There\nyou are. Sorry, we can't help you. And that's where we were as far as the disease was concerned\nin 1963 and 64. Somehow I made it through the year and I came back of all places to Quantico,\nVirginia, to go to a career school to become\na bird colonel or something. And most of the time I couldn't find the school. I was now getting the\nhallucinations and things were really starting to go freaky in my head. I mean, I remember every\ntime I would find the school, I couldn't find the room I was in. And when I came to the room,\ngenerally late, I would stand there. Which table am I at? We were divided up in groups and guys\nwould be going here. So I'd go over and sit at the table and then there'd be PT and everybody's\ngoing to their locker to get their athletic gear. And I wouldn't know where my locker was. And so\nsomebody would show me and then I couldn't work the combination lock, even though I had the\ncombination. Three right. And then we'd go back. Did I do three right? Have I already done three\nright? Maybe I got to do three right again. So I'd never get my locker open. So you can see it was\nlike, whoa, things are bad.\nAnd right about then I had a grand mal seizure, almost bit my tongue right in half and ambulances\ncame and off I went to Bethesda to see what caused it. I was there about four days while they're\nstudying me to see what could have caused a grand mal seizure. When I went into the DTs where you\nhallucinate and I saw the CIA was trying to break me with memory tests. None of it's real, but you\nknow, when you go in a nut word,\nevery nut word I've heard about you go in, they go, ask you your name. And then they go, listen,\nwould you mind counting backwards by sevens from a hundred? Oh, I see a lot of people. It's okay.\nAnd what happens is you go 93 and you never get another one. That's the end of\nsee, that one's hard to do when you're sober and okay. But wow, 93 minus seven.\nLet me start over again. Okay.\n93. So you can't do it. So that must've got my mind going. They're trying to embarrass me and\nbreak me. And so then they CIA came in and asked me all these questions and then they would move\neverything. So when I went out to tell them what was there, they had changed it and they moved\nwalls. That was clearly, they were trying to drive me crazy. And evidently I reacted to this and ran\nout and they caught me and put me in a straight jacket and we were live. I was locked up for six\nmonths. So that was the finale.\nre yeah.\nAnd during that period,\nhuh,\nthere was no AA. They were handling everything psychiatrically\nand we would go and sit with all the other people talk about our mother,\ntalk about whatever. and one day the a group from Bethesda\ntalk to intersection to letting them bring it Mac meeting in.\nAnd that's how I heard about AA.\nnow. It didn't take right them. I was very excited about it,\nbut I am\nbut I wasn't sure I was an alcoholic.\nI didn't have enough evidence.\nAnd so when I was released as an outpatient,\nyou could go home at night and come back during the day and go home on weekends.\nIt wasn't long before I was having a few drinks at home to watch the Redskin Games.\nAnd they told me if I had another drink, my career was over.\nAnd I said, well, they didn't mean that.\nThey meant if I ever got drunk.\nAnd it wasn't long before I was bringing vodka into the nut ward because I needed it.\nI knew they were going to catch me.\nAnd out of desperation on this Pearl Harbor day, I called the intergroup,\nand they sent over another Marine captain by the name of Bill T.\nAnd I haven't had a drink since.\nAnd he's been my sponsor for almost 42 years.\nAnd...\nAnd his anniversary is tomorrow.\nAnd his home group has called me and asked me if I could come up there\nbecause he's had lung cancer for a long time,\nand they think this could be, you know, the last one.\nSo I'm going up there.\nI'm going home tonight, and I go up there tomorrow morning.\nAnyway, this guy just came to my...\nTo my house, put me in the car, took me to Manassas, Virginia,\nto my first AA meeting.\nI'd been sober about four hours.\nIt was a group anniversary.\nGod almighty, they had ham and turkey and all this stuff that was going on.\nI couldn't eat, and I was sitting in this smelly room with a space heater blowing down.\nAnd the bathroom was not the flush type.\nAnd so when you went in there, you had to take a deep breath outside\nand then get in.\nGet in there and get back out.\nAnd then they had square dancing.\nThey had fiddle players.\nThey had all this country stuff going on.\nAnd that meeting lasted about five hours,\nand now I'm sober about nine hours.\nAnd I'm trying to get out of there, but it's so remote.\nI looked out.\nThere weren't even streetlights.\nAnd it was like almost raining snow.\nAnd just terrible night.\nSo I was thinking, I'm just going to make a break for it anyway.\nIt looked like they were going to stay there.\nAnd I felt a hand on my shoulder,\nand it turned out it was an Al-Anon lady by the name of Betsy Lynch.\nShe saw what was going on.\nAnd I turned around to see who it was,\nand it was like an angel was standing there.\nAnd I looked at her, and she said,\neverything's going to be fine.\nAnd it was like I believed her.\nAnd I just went back in.\nThat was a very big turning point,\nwas that hand on my shoulder,\nand everything's going to be all right.\nAnd I went back in, and, God, it wasn't long after that.\nAbout ten months, I was driving along in my car\nand had sort of an awareness.\nIt was as if my higher power told me,\nas long as you keep going to AA, everything will be fine.\nAnd for some unknown reason, I believed that,\nbecause a lot of things bad started happening.\nAfter I got sober, I lost my career in the Marine Corps,\nI lost my marriage,\nand I couldn't make money.\nYou know, I had six kids.\nThere was eight of us, and I get thrown out of the Marine Corps,\nand I didn't know, I wasn't prepared for anything.\nAnd I wasn't very good in my mind at promoting myself\nor even asking anybody for a job.\nAnd so it was really, went years.\nI think I had about 15 years before I earned more money than I owed.\nSo when I hear new people talking about financial problems,\nI go, do you have more than 15 years?\nWell, then I'll listen to you, but up to 15, what's the problem?\nSo?\nSo you got to wait till payday to buy a new battery for the car,\nso you have to walk.\nSo?\nSo?\nYou remember all that, oh, the power's off for only two days,\nand we'll have it back on.\nBut it was a little difficult bringing people over to my house to sponsor,\nif you want what I have and are willing to go to any length to get it.\nYet, June was asking about Ed C. from San Antonio,\nand he and I got sober with Hal Marley,\ngot sober in 1916.\nHe's 64, and we were the class of 64, and Tom is in the class.\nAnd Ed had the same kind of stuff.\nIn early sobriety, everything was great.\nAnd then the congressman he was working for didn't get reelected,\nand Ed's back in San Antonio and had about 11 years of sobriety\nand couldn't get a job, and he's getting depressed and all that.\nAnd Hal called him up and said,\ncome on up to Alexandria, Virginia.\nWe'll put you in the men's home.\nAnd he said, well, I got 11 years of sobriety.\nWell, are you willing or not?\nSo up he comes.\nHe goes in the men's home.\nI'll never forget, and I was getting divorced again\nand now had whatever possession I had, they were now gone.\nAnd Ed is in the men's home, and he wants to get out and not live there.\nSo we became the odd couple in a one-bedroom apartment in Alexandria\nthat we call the Hotel California.\nAnd I had bedroom furniture.\nSomehow I had saved that.\nI had rescued a single bed and a bureau.\nSo when you went in my little bedroom, things looked cool.\nBut Ed was sleeping in the dining room, and he had a bed and a box with a table,\nand he was a night watchman in a motel, and they gave him a used TV.\nSo he had the TV.\nWe had a TV there, and the living room had nothing in it\nexcept the bicycle and the 5AA slogans, scotch-taped on the wall.\nAnd we each had a knife and a fork and a spoon.\nI don't know where we got them.\nAnd we used paper cups and paper plates and all that kind of stuff.\nAnd then we chipped in, and we bought a redwood picnic table that we assembled\nand put it in the kitchen.\nBut then people who wanted us to sponsor them,\nwe'd invite them over to the picnic table,\nand that's where we'd sit.\nAnd you could see them walking through the living room kind of looking up.\nAnd then we'd sit at the table, and I'd say,\ndo you want some coffee?\nAnd we'd get the styrofoam cup.\nI'd take mice.\nI'd take a spoon out of the sink.\nI'd rinse it off.\nGet a whole dirty towel and wipe it off.\nMake them a cup of instant coffee,\nand I would explain the promises to them.\nEspecially the part about sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.\nSlowly.\nAnyway, Ed and I, that was kind of a turning point.\nHe got plugged into a...\nActually, it was the Machine Tool Builders,\nthe huge trade association.\nHe became their top guy, top lobbyist.\nAnd when he retired out of Washington,\nhalf of the Congress came to his retirement party,\nand he went back to San Antonio.\nAnd I ended up with a wonderful job\nwith the credit union movement of the United States.\nAnd worked there for 20 years,\nwriting speeches and testimony on behalf of the credit unions,\nwhich are a great group of people.\nRemind me a great deal of AA.\nSo you can see that God has been very good to me.\nAnd it's...\nAnd of course, I don't deserve it.\nNone of us do.\nYou get rewarded for messing up big time.\nAnd you go,\nwhy would that happen?\nYou know, when you ever think about that,\nwhy do you get rewarded for messing up big time?\nWell, this is my thoughts.\nUntil you mess up big time,\nyou rarely ask for help.\nAnd if you don't ask for help,\nyou never get help.\nSo if you wonder why God hasn't helped you,\nyou've probably never asked.\nNever asked.\nBecause I really believe God's will for me\nis to be happy.\nHe'd be glad to personally be involved\nevery day of my life.\nJust saying,\nI will personally guide you through each day\ntelling you exactly what you should do.\nAnd I will supply you the power\nto do that on a daily basis.\nThat's my commitment to you.\nThe problem is that God's real stingy with this help.\nHe only gives it\nwhen I ask.\nAnd most of the time,\nI don't need that help.\nMatter of fact,\n95% of the time,\nI don't need that help.\nAnd I don't get it.\nAnd then I go,\nI guess God's busy.\nMust be helping somebody else.\nMust not be interested in me.\nAnd that's the spiritual dilemma\nthat we all have.\nIs this,\ninability to pick up the phone.\nInability to stop somebody at a meeting\nand say,\ncan I talk to you about something?\nYou remember that feeling?\nIt's right here.\nYou can feel it.\nWhen this meeting ends,\nwhen this discussion meeting,\nas soon as they say the Lord's Prayer,\nI'm going over to Harry,\nwho I really trust,\nand I'm going to ask him\nabout this situation.\nAnd the meeting ends,\nand we start over,\nand then we go talk to Fred\nand go out for coffee or something.\nAnd we almost asked for help,\nand that's such a hard thing to overcome.\nNewcomers talk about the 15-pound telephone.\nI went over to call my sponsor\nand I couldn't get the phone up off.\nIt was just too hard to ask for help.\nSo why is that?\nBecause in our eyes,\nin our self-centered ego eyes,\nasking for help is a sign of weakness.\nIt is a sign that you are unable\nto be self-sufficient\nand you can't handle life on your own.\nAnd, of course,\nthat causes a great deal of problems for us.\nSomehow, because we're together,\nwe keep reminding each other of the solution.\nI was talking with Bob at lunch,\nand I reminded him of the letter\nfrom Carl Young to Bill Wilson\nwhen he was thanking Bill\nfor letting him know about AA and Roland Hazard\nand how Dr. Young had always felt\nthat alcoholics were really looking for God.\nThat that's what they were doing.\nThey had a thirst for spirituality\nand found it in alcohol\nand it appeared to be working,\nbut, of course, that isn't God.\nAnd so that's why he sent Roland Hazard\nto find a spiritual solution,\nthe Oxford Group, etc.\nSo then after thanking Bill,\nhe just was talking in a general way\nabout,\nabout human beings.\nAnd he said,\nI've been studying human beings\nand he's a very spiritual person\nfor, you know, 60 years.\nAnd this is what he,\nwhat I think,\nthat's what he said.\nHe said,\nI think that every human being\nhas to struggle with evil.\nNow, in AA,\nit would say character defects.\nAnd evil always wins.\nThat's a pretty negative thing.\nEvil always,\nalways wins.\nWith one exception.\nPeople who have had a spiritual awakening\nand are in a society\nthat helps them maintain\nthat spiritual awakening,\nwhich I think describes\nAlcoholics Anonymous to a T\nand enables us to be\nin a rather small percentage\nof people who actually have\na character defect.\nWe don't have a chance\nat discovering what life\nis really all about,\nwhich has nothing to do\nwith the set of rules\nand ideas that we thought\nwas what life had all to do about.\nWe suddenly realize\nthe reason\nthat life is so difficult\nand so hard to do\nis what causes us\nto look for God.\nWithout that,\nwe'd never do it.\nSo it's almost like\nit was built into us\nas part of the package.\nAnd our Creator\nwants us to return to Him.\nHe just can hardly wait\nfor us to turn and go,\nI don't want all this.\nI don't want a big yacht\nand a thing on the beach.\nI want you.\nWell, why would we ever do that?\nBecause it's too painful\nto not do it.\nAnd that's what the whole deal is.\nThere is something inside\nof every human being\nthat is unfixable\nexcept by God.\nNo matter what we try,\nit's still there.\nThere's a sense\nthat something's missing.\nThere's something wrong.\nEven when you're on a roll.\nOkay, I'm there.\nNow everything's fine.\nNow everything's fine.\nThen you go lie down in bed\nand it goes,\nno, it's not.\nNo, it's not.\nYou are not there.\nWell, what is it?\nAnd of course,\nwe heard this\nwhen we went to church\nor we read spiritual books,\nbut we didn't connect\nuntil we got in here.\nBecause out there,\nand this is what Bill talks about this,\nwe just didn't like to listen to authority.\nWe were always being talked down to.\nYou know what I mean?\nThe cop,\nthe judge,\nno offense,\nlooking down at us.\nYou know what I mean?\nHow many times you stood in front of the judge?\nYou were all,\nI was like this.\nMa, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma.\nAnd so that's how we saw\nthe wonderful ministers and priests in our lives.\nMa, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma.\nIt was sort of down, down.\nIt wasn't meant that way,\nbut that's how we saw it.\nAnd in AA,\nthe first time,\nthe teacher was looking at us\nfrom a level playing field.\nIt was one other sinner\ntalking to you.\nGoing, welcome, drunk.\nHere's my story.\nAnd you go, wow, that's worse than me.\nAnd so we listen\nfor the first time in our lives.\nSo if you're new and you're so ashamed\nof your horrible past,\nand you go, God,\nwhy did I have to waste all those years?\nWhy did I have to do all those horrible things?\nIsn't it awful\nthat I wasted all those years?\nAnd then you come in here,\nand you find out\nthat those years\nare the reason\nthat you are able to help\nthe next alcoholic\nsave his life.\nThat is your gift.\nThank you.\nIn essence,\nthat is\nthe most valuable part of you\nthat we have.\nIs the pain\nand suffering\nthat we went through\nthat caused us to become\ndesperate enough\nto take spiritual actions.\nAnd that is the connection\nthat the new person makes.\nAnd when they realize,\nthis guy, this gal,\nis just like me.\nHe's talking to me on the level playing field,\nlooking me in the eyes,\nand he went through it,\nso I have visual proof\nright in front of me,\nthat it could work.\nAnd we instilled in the new person\nthis hope\nto try this plan.\nAnd if you're new,\nthat's the greatest thing\nthat will ever happen to you.\nBecause the spiritual power\nthat is achieved\nby working the 12 steps\nas your sponsor guides you through them\nis designed to cause results.\nAnd these results are magnificent.\nAnd we talk about them in the promises.\nAnd possibly the greatest promise\nthat we get\nis at the very end.\nAnd I believe this is\nthe spiritual waking itself.\nIt says,\nwe suddenly realize\nthat God is doing for us\nwhat we could not do for ourselves.\nThis is a realization\nthat you have as an individual.\nYou suddenly go,\noh my God,\nthis is all due to my God.\nAnd that is the moment.\nAnd in the 10th step in the big book,\nafter that 9th step,\nit says,\nwe now enter the world of the spirit.\nAnd that was the transformation.\nNow we want to maintain this,\nimprove this,\nand learn to get rid of\nas many old material ideas as possible\nand get out from under their influence,\nget out from under their power,\nand totally be directed\nby this new loving force.\nAnd this is the struggle\nof the rest of our sobriety.\nAnd we would always,\nall fail\nif we were trying to do it on our own.\nIt just,\nthere's something about\nbeing in a group,\nin a family,\nbeing part of something\nthat continuously refocuses us\non the spiritual answer.\nBecause our mind and the TV,\nlike Bob was talking about yesterday,\nevery other message\nthat we are bombarded with\ntells us it's something\nother than the spiritual answer.\nAnd so when we come back to AA,\nwe should have a sign out there\nthat says,\nspiritually spoken here.\nAnd this is the language\nthat we talk to each other in.\nAnd Bill has called it\nthe language of the heart.\nAnd when one heart\nis talking to another,\nthere is a power\nthat is beyond comprehension.\nIt needs no translation.\nYou simply respond to it.\nYou simply experience it.\nYou don't explain it.\nYou don't have to intellectually understand it.\nYou simply experience it.\nWhich is why\nevery time we go to a meeting,\nwe feel better.\nIt wasn't what was sad\nor this or that.\nWe went there.\nThere was a connection made\nbetween hearts.\nAnd the healing process took place\nin spite of ourselves.\nAnd we walk out of there going,\nI don't get it,\nbut I feel better now\nthan I did when I walked in.\nI feel better.\nI feel better.\nI feel better.\nI feel better.\nI feel better.\nAnd that's the spiritual power\nof love,\nof fellowship,\nand of commitment.\nAnd if you're new,\nthe biggest present you'll ever get\nis a new vision of yourself.\nI heard it said,\nand I can't remember who said it,\nbut you really are\nall that you can ever become.\nYou are the most important thing\nand the most magnificent creation\nthat you can imagine.\nYou just can't see it yet.\nAnd you cannot become that.\nYou can only allow yourself\nto be shaped into that.\nYou are the incredibly beautiful statue\nthat is inside of a block of marble.\nAnd there is a master sculptor\nwho is going to chip away\nat all of the defects\nthat are not you.\nAnd when this work,\nthe work of your higher power,\nis finished,\nthere will be a sight to behold.\nAnd one day you're going to look in the mirror\nand you're going to thank God\nthat you stuck around\nfor the entire process.\nThank you all very much.\nThank you.