The Tenth Step Axiom: If You’re Disturbed the Problem Is Always You – Sandy B.

I'm an alcoholic, and I'm really grateful to be introduced as opposed to being explained.
I'm also grateful that I woke up on this side of the grass this morning, and I didn't come to.
I'm glad to be here, and I want to thank everybody for their message of recovery that I heard from Friday on.
I'm truly grateful, and I feel gratefulistic in being a part of this program.
Now, the good part of what I have to say this morning pertains to this gentleman on my left over here.
If I knew better, I would have gotten a dark coat so we could all have been in sync, really.
I'm the only one wearing a horse blanket, I guess.
I heard Sandy B. speak on a couple of occasions.
I don't remember where.
I don't remember when.
But I remember what he said.
That's pretty good for me because I have a hard time remembering.
I'm trying to remember my name at times.
And you're going to be thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed with this message of recovery.
I give you my good friend, Sandy B.
Thank you, Howard.
Well, good morning, everybody.
My name's Sandy B., and I'm an alcoholic.
It's been a great weekend.
I've enjoyed being here, and I thank the committee for inviting me back.
I forget when I was at this roundup before, but it's a pleasure to be here.
Let's see.
I got sober on December 7, 1964, and I've had the same sponsor since that day to now.
I don't know if that's a record, but that's a long time for two guys to stay alive.
You know what I mean?
It's just...
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I've been very lucky to have this guy in my life, and if you're new, you want to make
sure to get a sponsor.
It's like getting a guide, because AA is the world's largest lost and found department.
And if there's anything that describes us when we're new is we're lost.
We haven't got a clue.
And so it's not like the guides...
You know, Bill wrote about this somewhere.
It's not like the guides are totally enlightened.
And have a clear vision of the entire future.
It's just that the half-blind are leading the totally blind, and somehow, we're following
the next person up there, and it all seems to turn out the way it's supposed to.
So I feel really great about that, and I decided this morning not to tell my story.
I hear it so much that I'm just going to talk to those of you that may have heard it before.
Those of you that may be new, I'm just going to share how this spirituality was put inside
of me and how it came about.
I am an alcoholic, in case you are new.
I did drink excessively and ended up in the Marine Corps and in the nut ward and had the
DTs and convulsions and malnutrition.
And miraculously got sent to AA.
And then got my sponsor and life has just been an entirely different life.
And I think the beginning of spirituality for me occurred probably when I had about
two months or three months.
And my sponsor said, well, we've got the not drinking and going to meetings and we've got
all that going along, but let's just sit down and we're going to talk a little bit about
some other things.
And I said, all right.
Okay.
Let me see.
Let me see if I understand this.
Do you pray a lot?
And I said, no, no, I'm not, I'm not into that at all.
No praying.
Don't like that.
Well, do you think about God a lot?
No, no, I don't think about God.
I stopped doing that a long time ago.
Well, do you do a lot of spiritual reading?
No, no, not into spiritual reading.
Not into that at all.
What about meditation?
Do you, have you tried that?
No, no.
I don't even like the name.
Don't even like, don't even like the idea about that.
He said, well, let's see, um, how's it going?
So that's what spirituality is all about.
How's it going?
And that's what AA and sobriety gets us to look at is how is it going?
You know, like totally honest, which could you get totally honest with yourself and say,
how is it going?
And uh, you get honest, it's not going very good.
It's really bad.
And of course that's the beauty of Alcoholics Anonymous.
It, the, the, the emphasis is not on trying to convince us of the existence of God.
That's for religions to do.
What AA does is convince us of the need for God.
Yeah.
And once we acknowledge that the doors start to open.
And so I started thinking about how bad things really were, that I was uncomfortable in my
own skin, that I had used alcohol to fix the problem that I had.
And so alcohol was not the problem.
It was the solution.
And now the solution had been taken away from me.
So now I was going to be permanently uncomfortable.
You know what I mean?
I mean, going to meetings and not drinking made me feel a little bit better, but it wasn't
making the dramatic change that I had seen in people around me.
And so I was attracted to whatever had happened to some of these other people.
And of all the places that, um, uh, that we find answers, they come in some of the most
unlikely, uh, spots.
And I was looking back and I would say that the prayer of St. Francis in the twelve and
twelve under the eleventh step was just an eye opener when my sponsor explained it to
me.
So if you're new, I'm just going to focus on the first line in that and see if your
evaluation of it was the same as mine was when I first heard it, because that prayer
just starts out with, Lord, make me a channel by peace.
So what do you picture when you see that?
And I'm going to tell you what I pictured.
I pictured here I am, I'm just a wreck full of anxiety, all these things.
And here's this vision that I have, make me a channel of thy peace.
So this channel opens up from somewhere up there and all this peace flows into me and
I feel wonderful.
And my sponsor said, well, that's close, but you have it exactly backwards.
You have it exactly backwards.
That's not what happens at all.
This, you see, you are living in the self-centered intellectual perspective.
Yeah.
And that's exactly how it looks.
But nothing in the spiritual world, it's conforms to the intellectual world and that's not how
it is at all.
And I'm going, oh my God, this is getting complicated.
I just don't understand this.
All we're talking about is a little channel and now he's got me off into advanced something
or other.
And he says, well, look at the rest of the prayer.
It says, I want to be a channel of your peace.
So that I can go out.
Yeah.
And bring understanding and bring love and bring comfort and bring peace so that I can
go out and take care of all other people that I may run into.
And he said, the channel comes from inside of you out.
That's what you had the energy completely reversed.
You thought you needed something.
You don't need anything at all.
You already have it all inside and it's been locked in there through your character.
It's been a defect.
It's been blocked.
And that's why we have these steps to open that channel so that all of this can come
out and you can allow this infinite supply of peace and love that's already inside of
you to get out.
And you're going to find the greatest joy in the world of just spreading this.
And I remember going, well, it doesn't feel like that.
It feels like there's nothing inside of me.
It feels like I'm empty.
And if I ever open this up.
And if I ever open this up.
And if I ever open this up.
And let whatever little was in there.
I had the picture that I was like a balloon and then I was going to go .
And just be flat.
And so it took a leap of faith to understand this is what he was talking about.
And for me the most amazing place to find all of this information in our big book, this
is my favorite chapter, the chapter to the agnostic.
I think it's the most spiritual chapter in our big book.
And I remember when my sponsor gave me my big book, I had no intention of reading it.
I already knew what my problems were.
I knew what the answers were.
I had known it all my life, so I didn't need to be bothered with, you know, details.
But he was dead serious about this book.
And so I knew I wanted to make him convinced that I had read it.
And I remember taking it home and pushing the pages and making them look like they were worn.
And I got magic markers and just scritted around, you know, little things and put the coffee cup and made coffee stains.
And it looked like, let a cigarette burn out on a page, you know.
And it just looked like this book had been just devoured.
And while I was skimming through, I saw this chapter of the agnostic.
And I didn't read it, but some of us know what's in stuff without reading it.
And I know that there may be some of you here that, and you just go,
oh, yeah, that's the chapter for us agnostics, and that's where we stay sober.
And then all the rest of the people read the rest of that stuff and the steps and all that.
So when I get with it, I'll be getting that chapter,
and I'll be learning how agnostics stay sober when I read that chapter.
And, of course, it was quite a bit later when I actually got serious about all this and got into that chapter.
And if you're new, I can tell you what the chapter says in three words.
It says, change your mind.
That's what the chapter says.
If you're an agnostic, become a former agnostic.
That is what it says in there.
And it really helps.
I mean, this is why AA is so practical in terms of spiritual things.
Because it starts out, and this is where I get my definition of the disease of alcoholism out of the chapter of the agnostic.
And it says, I don't have it down exactly, but it says,
something like in the very beginning,
if when you drink, you have little control over the amount you drink,
and if when you try to stop, you can't do it for any extended period of time,
you may be an alcoholic.
Well, everybody, oh yeah, okay, I got it.
That's me.
Little amount, little control over the amount I drink.
And then it goes on to say, if that be the case,
you may be suffering from a disease that only a spiritual experience will conquer.
Now, there aren't too many.
There aren't too many medical journals that would show it that way.
You know what I mean?
Like back in the appendix of all the diseases on the planet are those that only a spiritual experience will conquer.
You know what I mean?
Don't go to the doctor on this one.
This disease is not going to be one that we're going to be working on because only a spiritual experience will conquer this.
But that's what we have.
So what a disease that is.
No medicine, nothing, just a spiritual experience.
And so if you're like me, you go, well, I don't believe in spiritual experiences.
And then my sponsor goes, next.
This only works for somebody who's willing to believe in spiritual experiences.
Oh, well, the only way I could get there is to change my mind.
And that's really what's going on.
In other words, I came in with all these old ideas.
About me and the world and all this stuff.
And none of it involved having a spiritual experience.
And suddenly I have a disease that only a spiritual experience will conquer.
And I'm up against it.
I'm really up against it mentally.
And then the chapter goes on to say,
To be doomed an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not easy alternatives to face.
Now, if you don't think that's a funny line.
Think about that line.
To die an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not easy alternatives to face.
Why is that so funny?
Because when we're new, it's like we're on a quiz show.
And they bring us up and they go, we got two doors and you have to choose one.
You ready?
Die an alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis.
Oh, man.
Whoa.
Whoa.
That's it.
You know what I mean?
There's no door three.
Just coast along like I've been doing.
And you almost feel like sneaking out and getting on the phone, calling up a doctor.
Listen, doc, a friend of mine is curious about this.
How bad is an alcoholic death?
Because I already know what living on a spiritual basis.
I've never done it.
But man, when I imagine it, you know, because what do I know?
So I got to imagine what would living on a spiritual basis be like?
So what do I have?
What are my role models?
And I think the biggest role model I have is Mother Teresa.
You know what I mean?
You can't get beyond that.
And I'm going, that's wonderful for her.
You know what I mean?
But I'm going.
I'm going to give all my stuff.
I'm going to give all my stuff away.
And I'm just going to be over in some little poverty place, just taking care of people.
You know, it's almost like, what about bowling?
I mean, does it have to be that intense?
Does it?
You know what I mean?
I can't get too spiritual.
I might give all my stuff away.
So I've got to control.
I mean, this is the mind trying to come in here, talk about half measures.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I'd like to get half spiritual.
And it turns out that there's no half help available.
There's no middle ground.
You can't get a little bit sober.
You can't get a little bit spiritual.
And so that's what makes it such a monumental program.
And so I'm sitting in here looking at this stuff, you know, like, whoa.
And then we start talking about what the bottom really is like.
If you went back to drinking and then I go to meetings and I hear people who were willing to go beyond the nine.
Not Ward.
And get sick beyond where I dreamed of ever getting.
And as I started realizing this was the only alternative, that if I continue drinking, that was going to happen to me.
That was the most spiritual thing I could be doing.
And if you knew, that's what you want to focus on.
Because that will get you in to the open mind that is so necessary.
Nobody's going to jump up.
With the proof of the existence of anything.
But if you understand the hopelessness of your situation and the reality that you're powerless over alcohol.
We might embrace this alternative.
So it's almost like we become spiritual by default.
You know what I mean?
I wasn't planning on this.
I would have never chosen any of this.
I'm not that kind of guy who's interested in any of this stuff.
I just.
Had a deal.
It's just like the mafia made me an offer.
I couldn't refuse.
You know what I mean?
It was like.
You get spiritual or Guido comes by.
And so.
This almost sounds, you know, like.
Wow, what a strange way of getting people interested in spiritual principles.
But let's face it.
That's how we all got interested.
Whether we admit it or not.
It was because the reality of our own.
Nature.
Was explained to us.
And it was explained that our problem was lack of power.
And so.
I.
Wrestled with this.
And what I wrestled with was.
Not wanting to.
Lose total control over my life.
I wanted to become a little spiritual.
But keep some bad stuff just to have fun with.
You know what I'm talking about?
And so.
When I look at, you know.
We started into the seven deadly sins.
And we got to get rid of all of those.
And I'm going.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Pride.
Yeah.
Get rid of that.
I don't want pride.
I don't want anything to do with pride.
And then I kept going.
No.
But I'm proud of this.
And I always found exceptions.
And I remember there was a meeting up in Washington.
It was an old group.
I mean, this group had been around for a lot of years.
And they had.
I don't know if you remember the old groups.
They used to have like about 50 character defects.
Listed on a.
Big board.
And somebody had hand painted them all.
And lo and behold, on that board, there wasn't pride.
It was false pride.
And I remember reading that.
And I said, that's it.
False pride.
That's bad.
But some pride, like my pride, would be all right.
And I was in the Marine Corps at the time.
And pride.
I mean, I tell you.
I must have gone four years just on the word pride.
Trying to justify it.
And it's, of course, like it says.
It's not by accident.
It's not by accident that it heads the list.
Because it ends up justifying all the rest of them.
And I've got to have some pride.
And so as I examine this, like year after year, I would come up with.
Well, it certainly must be all right to be proud that my son is a good Little League player.
I'm so proud of him out there.
But when I got honest, I'll tell you what that word meant.
It meant I want everyone to know that I'm the father of the kids.
That just hit that home run.
And he never would have hit the home run had I not been the father.
I see you giving him a lot of the credit for that home run when it really belongs more over here.
You see what I'm saying?
It was the pride always came back to me.
And as I moved along a little further, I suddenly realized that I had the wrong word for what I was trying to explain.
And the correct word was grateful.
I'm so grateful that that boy has all that talent, which he got not from me, but from God.
So if anybody wants to applaud that home run, give God a big hand.
Because that's where the credit goes.
So it was a question of inventorying and going in.
So pride was a hard one to even make a beginning on.
Greed.
When I first got into AA, I didn't want to hear anything about the steps.
I didn't want to hear.
Anything about meetings.
I just wanted a loan.
I just needed.
I just needed like $2,000.
You know what I mean?
I saw that as the answer to everything.
I had all this.
Whatever I was worrying me.
I just said, you know, if I had $2,000.
So I just saw this agreed.
Just the idea of not wanting to take care of myself because there was so much lacking inside of me.
I felt this lacking because I was.
I didn't.
I wasn't interested in spirituality.
I was not going to understand that I could be filled from the inside out.
I saw that I had to get things from out there.
And so I just went right through the whole thing.
Envy.
Of course, I remember, you know, everybody look at that car he's got.
And I got this piece of crap and I can't even afford a battery for it.
And I won't be driving it till next Wednesday when I get paid.
And you remember all the things that are going on.
And then lust.
And I remember going, lust?
I want to get totally rid of lust.
Any of you all?
Think about that.
Like 100% gone.
Does that worry you at all?
I mean, or am I the only one?
I mean, is that zero, like zero lust, right?
Zero.
I don't think we want that.
I think what we want, you know how Bill Rice in the 12 and 12, we just don't want it to be enough so that we're raping people.
But they've got to have some of that energy going on.
In other words.
There's no concept of what we were talking about in the sexuality area.
Gluttony.
I'm too skinny so I could skip that one.
That was one of the ones I could just go by.
But procrastination, being lazy.
I'd love to just not do anything.
When I retired, it took me one minute to get adjusted to it.
It just was like, whoop.
I'm so.
I'm so glad to not even say the word work anymore.
I love just, oh, I think I'll take another nap.
Boom.
It just came natural.
So what I'm saying is I just found as I went through anything that you presented to me, I qualified it and moved it down.
I certainly don't want to get rid of all of anything.
But I want to become better.
But then I am, you know what I'm saying?
Does anybody rate this?
I don't want to become a saint.
I just want to be thought of as a saint.
I don't want to be honest.
I want to have a reputation for being honest.
And then people will deal with me in business and I can take care of them as appropriate.
You know what I mean?
I'll be honest most of the time.
But man, if we're not making our.
We got to get in there.
So this is this.
This is the spiritual dilemma.
If you're new, you're probably going, man, this sounds difficult.
Well, it is.
It's very difficult.
It constantly involves changing our mind, changing what we set up for ourselves as an ideal, because these ideals are very limited.
And it's a struggle that's just going on and on.
Now, I was thinking about how this all.
Got started.
And I always like to give credit to Dr. Young.
And if you all remember the A.A.'s origins, it really started when Roland Hazard, the millionaire from Rhode Island, alcoholic,
ended up probably going to lose the family business, which had been there forever, and tried everything the United States had to offer.
And somebody finally came up with the idea that Carl Young in Switzerland was the last chance.
For this young man to possibly save his life.
And he went over there and spent a year seeing Dr. Young.
At the end of the year, Dr. Young said, I've done everything that I can for you.
You understand the situation.
If you keep on drinking, you're going to end up in a sanitarium for life.
And he said, I understand that.
I understand that.
So I think I've made all the changes I can in your personality.
Good luck.
We'll see you later.
And Roland left.
And got as far as Paris, where someone asked him the wrong question.
And they said, would you like a drink?
He said, yes, I'd love a drink.
And he's drunk again.
And he came back to Dr. Young after some drinking.
And again, in total despair, and said, look what happened to me.
And this is when Dr. Young just said the most humble thing I can imagine for the world's greatest psychiatrist.
Talking.
With this millionaire.
And he said to him, there's nothing I can do for you.
And whenever I see that, I think about the end of our readings in Chapter 5.
When it said, no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.
And certainly Dr. Young symbolized the epitome of human power that was available at that time.
And here was the absolute zenith.
Of what could be done by mankind.
And it looked this alcoholic straight in the eye and said, there's nothing I can do for you.
It was the ultimate first step.
Do you understand powerless now, Roland?
And it hit him like a ton of bricks.
Oh my God, it's over for me.
And Dr. Young said, now I have heard of some cases like yours.
Where people have gone and sought.
And it's spiritual experience.
And they have recovered.
So I would suggest to you that you go out and look for some sort of a spiritual experience.
And Roland did.
And he found the Oxford movement.
Oh, thanks, Dan.
One second.
And he found the Oxford movement and got sober.
Because it had all the principles that AA was to adopt.
And of course, it wasn't long after that, then the second character that got the message to Bill,
Abby Thatcher, got drunk one last time up in Manchester, Vermont.
And they finally were sick of him in the town.
He had already driven his car into a farmhouse.
And if you remember the story in the big book and asked the lady for a cup of coffee when the car reached the kitchen.
And then he went out and was going to paint his house.
You know.
His family disowned him and gave him the summer home.
And he's like all us alcoholics.
He said, oh, my God, I've got to do something constructive.
I'm going to paint my house.
A huge house.
So he bought some paint and ladders and brushes.
They got out there about 10 square feet painted and then sat down to admire the work that he had done.
And he said, sort of got a little beach chair and sat out in front and sort of imagined all the rest of the house painted, you know, and having a few drinks.
And some birds came by and crapped on the paint.
And it just infuriated him.
And he went in.
He got a couple of shotguns and sat out there waiting for birds to come by, you know, and the people in the neighborhood thought a war was starting.
And there's just every over there blasting away.
And so he gets in front of the judge and the judge says, I'm going to have to do something with you.
And he said, well, maybe I could call somebody.
And Roland Hazard was up in Manchester doing some Oxford work.
And the judge released every who they had known each other.
And.
And he was the first person to come in.
And he was the first person to come in.
And he wished him off to the Oxford group.
And not too many months later, Ebi thought about Bill Wilson and went and said to him, Bill, I found something.
You ought to come and check it out.
And Bill checked it out.
And the rest is history.
So many years later, Bill realized that he had never closed the loop with Dr. Young.
And so he wrote him a letter and said, you may not realize this, but you saw a patient named Roland Hazard.
And this is what happened.
And as a result of what you told him, that you could do nothing, that he should seek this spiritual answer.
And he did.
And now we have found AA.
And we consider that you are one of the founding energies of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
We're very grateful.
And he wrote the letter shortly before Dr. Young died.
And Dr. Young got to write back.
In the grapevine, you'll see this exchange of letters every so often between Bill and Dr. Young.
And basically.
Dr. Young said, jeez, I often wondered what happened to Mr. Hazard.
Back then, when he came to see me, probably in the late 20s, early 30s,
he said it wasn't safe for a psychiatrist like me to professionally talk about God.
Because the rest of the psychiatrists would laugh at me.
But Young was very spiritual.
If you've read any of his stuff with the symbols and all of the things,
he was very much into spirituality and God being the center of everything.
But he said, I couldn't realize that.
I couldn't really say that back then.
Now I can talk more freely about it.
And that's what I wanted for Roland.
Because I knew that this is what was his answer.
Because I've since looked at a lot of alcoholics.
And I have concluded that one of the things alcoholics have is an inordinate longing for God.
Now think about that as the disease of alcoholism.
That the real problem us alcoholics have, and we don't know it,
is that we miss God.
We miss God a lot.
Only we don't know that's what our problem is.
We know that we're just constantly restless, irritable, and discontent.
And we use our intellect and we look at it and we go,
you're not going to see that we're missing God.
That God is missing in our lives.
It's just that money must be it.
We've got to find something to relieve this freaking thing that's always nagging me.
It was always there.
Something was missing.
I just don't feel right like other people.
And so I'm struggling in the material world,
to fix it.
I'm trying to fix that underlying problem and nothing would fix it until I found alcohol.
And alcohol is the closest thing to spirituality that I think you can get.
It is almost identical to spiritual experiences.
Suddenly a power greater than ourselves fixes us from the inside out.
Nothing out there changes.
Nothing.
You don't get any money.
No, the world doesn't change.
Nothing.
Except we live in a different world.
We're at peace with ourselves.
We really have found an answer.
Unfortunately, vodka is not a loving higher power.
And does not have our best interest at heart,
but it shows how we were struggling with a problem we could never put our finger on.
And no matter what we did to try and relieve this problem,
it wouldn't go away.
You can talk to AAs who came in and became incredibly successful financially
and asked them,
did that fix that underlying problem that you had?
And they said, no.
I was thinking of committing suicide on my yacht.
I was thinking of committing suicide on my yacht.
Get in incredible physical shape.
Become workout addicts.
And then you just stand there in front of the mirror just going,
it ain't gone.
It's still there.
Get on the health food diets.
Get on whatever it is.
Get the perfect relationship.
It couldn't be better.
It couldn't be better.
But then when you're alone,
you're just going,
God, I still have it, whatever it is.
It's just not fixed.
I need to fix something.
And that's when we get to the last part of that thing in Chapter 5.
And this is the part that I think,
last sentence of what I was talking about,
that no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.
And then the next line,
but God could and would if he were sought.
Now, if you're new,
I'll guarantee you,
this is what you just heard me say,
that God could and would.
That's what you just heard me say.
You didn't really sink in,
if he were sought.
That little part just,
it was almost like,
oh yeah, God could and would.
Thank you, God.
I'm here.
I'm in the program,
and I'm just going to meetings,
and I'm not drinking this,
and I'm in God's hands.
Boy, is it great.
And then nothing seems to happen.
And so maybe we got to focus in on a word
that's right in there,
and it's called seeking,
which is exactly what Dr. Young told Roland Hazard.
Go seek a spiritual solution to your problem.
And he did.
And he found it.
And so,
I don't know where I came up with this,
but this is in my mind,
the evolution of seeking,
as I experienced it in my life,
and the first time I ever remember seeking
was in grammar school,
hide and seek.
Okay?
Somebody hides,
you know.
Remember the first time you played that?
You said, what's the game?
Hide and seek.
Okay.
So one guy hides,
and then what do I do?
You seek.
What's that?
You find him.
Okay.
You remember how hard you looked?
It was just like,
I know where,
I mean,
you were totally focused.
It was just like,
mm, mm, mm.
I mean,
it was zooming,
because you wanted to be the one to find it,
whoever this was.
Yeah, it's over here,
it's over here,
it's over here.
You weren't thinking about anything else.
It was just like,
mm.
And the next time I remember getting involved with that
was Easter.
And my mother would hide the Easter baskets
for my sister and I.
And then she'd say,
and we'd go,
can we start,
can we start,
can we start?
You know,
like we're going to really focus on this.
And go.
And then I'd go,
mm, mm, mm.
You know,
and I'm just.
But even there,
all that candy
that I could hardly wait for,
if it went more than like 30 minutes,
the seeking power started diminishing.
I said,
can you give me a hint,
give me a hint,
give me a hint,
give me a hint?
Am I warm?
Am I warm?
Am I warm?
Am I warm?
Because seeking takes a lot of energy
to stay that focused.
Mm, mm.
You know that?
You know what I mean?
And finally,
oh,
I got it.
But this is,
you can get the idea of what it is.
And then the last example I remember
was we had a golden retriever
when I was probably 12 or whatever
and had him for years and years
and he ran away.
I don't know if you ever had
your favorite dog run away.
But I looked for that dog
really hard
and for a long time.
I mean,
I looked for that dog.
I would go out
in the woods
and call his name
two years after he had been gone.
I'd go,
maybe tonight
I can find him.
Maybe because
I missed him so much
that I,
so there was seeking.
Now we come in
and we read chapter five.
It says,
God could and would
if he were sought.
Now let's discuss
some of the seeking
that we've done.
Here's a typical seeking day
for us alcoholics.
You ready?
We start the day
with a 24-hour day book
on the toilet.
Okay.
But we're late today.
We have a very important appointment
and God knows
I might get a deal out of this.
So we have to speed up.
We have to speed read it.
Oh,
you know,
that was cool.
And if,
if anybody asked us
on the way out
what we just read,
ah,
I forgot.
I was,
I was thinking about this.
The end of the day
we get down on our knees
and we go,
thank you very God.
Oh man,
am I tired?
Well,
maybe I'll cut it short here.
I'm very,
very grateful.
I'm very grateful.
Well,
we,
out of 24 hours
and 63 seconds
of seeking.
So I don't know
if that qualifies.
I don't know
if you even know
if you could get
in the dictionary
under seeking
with that.
You know what I mean?
It's,
no,
that's not seeking at all.
That's messing around.
That's what that is.
That isn't even seeking.
And so I think
it's,
I started looking at that
and I just went,
God,
this is,
I'm not,
this is not
that huge priority.
And it's because
it doesn't appear
to be life or death
like the dog was.
It's,
it's like
I could delay
seeking one more day
and it really won't
make that much difference.
I could delay
really
trying to grow
another day.
And I believe
that's why
we have tragedies
come into our lives.
Everybody
who's been sober
has had
things happen
to them.
Painful,
painful things.
Awful things.
And
if you looked
at it
in the big picture,
it's just
God sitting up there
going,
God,
I love that
wonderful Alice
back there.
I just want her
closer to me,
but I can tell
she ain't gonna get closer
the way she is.
I guess
I'll just have
to have
this thing
awful happen.
And it doesn't
make sense
at the time.
When I was sober
two years,
I went to a meeting
every night.
I did everything
my sponsor told me
and I didn't
get promoted
in the Marine Corps
and I got,
I had 14 years
as a regular officer,
six kids to support.
Go to a meeting
every night,
I'm out.
And I remember
going to meetings
and people would say,
anybody got a topic?
Yes,
I got a topic.
And you know,
what's the topic?
Getting thrown out
of the Marine Corps.
That's not really
a good topic
for AEA.
Well,
I don't care.
And I heard
that stupid advice
that you hear in AEA
where people don't even,
they don't even listen
to your problem.
They tell you
to get out
of the Marine Corps.
And I heard that
from Senator Francis.
I wanted them to say,
you were thrown
out of the Marine Corps?
Oh my God.
Listen,
I own this big corporation
and I'm looking
for a top executive.
Would 65,000 a year
in your own car
be all right?
Now that would be
some spiritual help.
I mean,
you know,
just tell me
to say the serenity prayer.
That's really helpful,
you know,
just,
I had this huge resentment
and three months
after I was out,
I was in a lot of pain
and I was just
thinking about
how unfair this was
and what about God
and all that.
And there was a little story
in the Washington Post
about page five,
a paragraph about that big.
It said,
Marine Corps instruction team
killed in Denver
in plane crash.
And that was my team.
And if I had been promoted
like I wanted,
I would have been
on the plane
and that would have been it.
And I remember realizing
when I read that
that God knew I read it.
I'd just been complaining
to God like mad
and I knew that
He knew that I read it
because He knows everything.
And I felt awkward
to say the least.
You know what I'm saying?
And so I said,
well,
if you'd just told me
that was going to happen,
I wouldn't have been complaining
about all this stuff.
And so here we are.
See,
all that the chapter
of the agnostic
and all that AA is
is trying to overcome
our objections
to our ego
staying in charge.
That's all spirituality is.
And that's all the steps are.
All the steps are
is that it's,
we have all these obstacles
called character defects
that are blocking this channel.
And none of this stuff
can get out.
So we have no,
you can put a lie detector
on most of it.
Have you ever had any
contact with God?
No.
And we'd be telling the truth.
It's blocked.
We can't have any contact.
We shut it up
and the disease
has cemented it.
I mean,
it just sealed it.
So we're telling the truth
when we say,
no,
I don't have any of this
at all.
And so that's what this is.
We're just going to
pull all this stuff
out of the way
so that the channel
can be opened again.
And I remember just going,
you want me to believe in this?
You want me to believe
that it's possible
to be guided by God?
You know,
I'm going to turn
my whole life over
and blah, blah, blah.
And I remember
when I was 12 years old,
I joined the Boy Scouts.
Anybody ever joined that?
And I only was in one
year.
And we went to the thing
and probably after
about the 10th meeting,
the scout master got up
and he said,
this is a compass.
And I'm going to explain
how the compass works.
And then you can keep it
in your pocket.
And if you're ever
in the woods
and you're totally lost,
and if you don't
find your way out,
you're going to starve
to death or freeze
to death or whatever.
But this compass
will get you out
because there's this big rock
at the North Pole.
And this needle
will always
point at that big rock.
And it'll save your life.
So all you do
is turn your life over
to this needle
that's pointing
at the big rock.
Now, as a Boy Scout,
I didn't say,
big rock at the North Pole.
You want me to turn
my life,
risk it entirely
on the theory
there's a rock
at the North Pole
that this needle is pointing?
That's a,
I just went,
that's terrific.
Put it in my pocket.
I was now ready
to risk my life
that this needle
pointed there.
And then later on
in the Marine Corps
when I got in flight school
and we're going through
all the different things
and they said,
now we're going to go
to instrument training.
Oh, great, great.
And here's the deal.
We have this little radio station
on the end of the runway
and it sends
an invisible radio beam
up to your plane.
And if you dial
this little thing in
and listen
and you hear the A
and the N
and the B beam,
you could come down
right between these
two huge mountains
without hitting them
and you will end up
right in the end
of the runway.
And I didn't say to my,
are you kidding?
You want me
to believe
that a little beeping thing
down there
is going to make me
miss the mountains?
I'm going to go up
and put my life on,
no, I just said,
isn't that wonderful?
Beep, beep, beep,
beep, beep, beep,
and you just come down.
And right down there
there's a damn runway
right at the end
of the thing,
boom.
Then I come in here
and go,
you know,
there's this wonderful
supreme being
at the center
of the universe
and if you will
follow these steps,
you will establish
contact
and be guided
by this incredible
supreme being.
And I'm going,
you've got to be kidding.
I'm going to turn my,
what do you think I am,
a sucker?
You want me
to believe that?
Well see,
I never would have believed it
because there's no proof.
I've heard the rest of you
so I had to take
your word for it.
But it all comes back to,
I have a disease
that only a spiritual
experience can conquer.
And so I came into this thing
and I finally gave in
and I just said,
okay, what's the deal?
Let's go.
I'm in.
I'm in.
And when I said I was in,
that started the whole deal.
Now I'm in.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I'm going to do the deal.
What is the deal?
No more,
well, I don't think so.
I don't do that.
And then of course,
results started happening.
So if you're new
and you've been studying
the steps for years
and nothing has happened,
you can study them
for 20 more years
and nothing will happen.
You have to do them.
They only become visible
when we do these things.
And then we can see
what prior to that
was invisible.
It only becomes visible
through action.
And then you actually see
the transformation
in your own life.
And you start seeing
a different world out there.
Just like alcohol
made it a different world.
So,
spirituality,
the power of this higher power,
makes people look more friendly,
makes the world
a more comfortable place,
and makes you equal
to everybody else.
That's the power
that is missing
when we're just trying
to go out there by ourselves.
The bottom line,
when I look back
on everything
that I've learned in AA,
this is my favorite place to go,
and I'm going to spend
the last few minutes on this.
It's in the 12 and 12
under the 10th step.
And it's how to live
one day at a time.
That's what this is all about.
So when we finally clear up
the wreckage of the past
and we've done
all of these surrendering
and inventorying that we can,
we're now ready
to get the big reward.
Because that's the,
all of spirituality
is learning how to live in the now.
And let everything sit over here
and just be focused.
And the 10th step is
where it's all done.
And so here's this little sentence
in there,
that axiom,
that if you're disturbed,
no matter what the cause,
there's something wrong with you.
That doesn't sound like
a lot of wisdom.
It's the most I've ever seen anywhere.
That if you're disturbed,
no matter what the cause,
there's something wrong with you.
Well, what's wrong with me?
I'm disturbed.
That's what's wrong with me.
That's what's wrong with me.
Someone did something outrageous,
absolutely unjustified.
Everyone would agree
that it was unjustified.
So I deserve to be disturbed.
You know,
you understand what we just said?
I deserve to go to jail and stay there.
I have sentenced myself
to being disturbed
because my ego wants something.
And I've just shut myself off
from God.
As soon as I slam down disturbance,
I'm on my own.
You want to be disturbed?
God says,
go do it.
But you're going to do that alone.
So now it's just me against the world.
I don't even have my higher power anymore.
So when I'm disturbed.
So what is it saying?
It says,
we've got to have a way
to get undisturbed.
We've got to make being undisturbed
our top priority.
And as you start through the day,
anytime you get undisturbed,
time out,
and get undisturbed.
If you get disturbed,
get undisturbed again.
And there's millions of ways to do it.
Just stop.
Get out the little serenity prayer card.
Read that a couple of times.
Call a sponsor.
Whew.
Thank you.
Now move forward.
It's almost like
you're not allowed to advance
in the disturbed fashion.
Because anytime you advance
in the disturbed fashion,
you do things
you have to make amends for later on.
And you treat people badly.
You got disturbed legitimately.
Somebody goes,
oh, look what they did.
So you go into the dry cleaning place
and take it out on the lady in there.
Where the hell's the suit?
You know what I mean?
And then she retaliates.
And then you do the same thing
in the supermarket.
You do the same thing
wherever else you're going.
And you get home and you go,
the world is filled
with cranky people.
I can't stand it out there.
We have no idea
that we did that
to all the people out there.
This was brought home in spades
to me by my sister,
who now has 25 years in AA,
when my parents,
they're both passed away now,
but some years ago
they were having
their 50th wedding anniversary.
She's planning the party
up in Connecticut.
And I'm going to go
and she's calling me.
And then she said,
Ann, we're going to invite Uncle John.
And I went,
Oh, God, Sue,
don't invite Uncle John.
We're trying to have
a happy family get-together.
God, please.
Is there any way
we can not invite him?
He's just so obnoxious
and abrasive and all this.
And she said,
Oh, he only does that
when you're around.
And I went,
What?
Oh, no.
Everybody loves him.
He's great.
He's a wonderful guy.
And I went,
That couldn't be possible.
You know what I mean?
But she had a lot of years
at the time.
And I just,
so I said,
Okay, I'm going to trust her.
I'm going to say
he is a great guy.
So I'm going to just pretend
he's a great guy.
And so when I saw him,
I ran up and I just went,
Hey, Uncle John,
how are you doing?
I'm so glad to see you.
And I think it just blew his mind.
He went,
Well, I'm so glad to see you.
And he was a great guy.
You know what I'm talking about?
It was,
I must have had
some other idea
and just,
you know,
the worst in him.
And that's what us alcoholics
have the power to do
is to bring out
the worst in people.
And then we come home at night
and complain
about the world
that we live in
and we don't see our role
in it at all.
So it all comes back to
never do anything
when you're disturbed.
In other words,
pick a day next week
and make it
Undisturbed Thursday.
I may not get
anything else done,
but I'm not going
to get disturbed.
I'm going to let,
I'm going to go out
and I'm going to let
everybody be wrong.
Go ahead.
Hey, you want to drive that way?
It's free driving day.
I don't care.
I'm backing off
three car lanes.
You just drive
any damn way you want.
I'm not,
I'm not into this
because I'm going to go through
without being disturbed.
I'm just not going
to be disturbed.
Well, what happens
when we go through
a day like that?
We have so much more energy
than we normally have.
We are so close
to our intuitive,
creative side
that answers
just flow in
to problems,
which is,
yeah, that,
I mean,
it's so easy
to make decisions
because we're in touch
with our spiritual side
when we're undisturbed.
We are allowing God
to flow through us
and guide us
in our thinking
and our actions
and we're treating people
in such a loving fashion
that they're loving us back.
We come home at night
and we just go,
man, I ran into
the greatest people today.
It was just amazing
the people that I ran into.
And so when you look at that
in the tenth step,
it just said,
now, how can we stay undisturbed?
Well, it suggests
the spot check inventory,
but there was the four points,
the honest analysis
of what's wrong.
Really be honest.
What's going on here?
Is it my role
or was it them?
If we decide
that the blame belongs
somewhere else,
we forgive them.
If we decide
it's our fault,
we make an amend.
And a top priority
is self-restraint
in the very beginning.
And that's what we talk about.
Go out of the house
in the morning
with a ten-second cushion.
Let anybody
do what they want.
And if we get disturbed,
we allow ten seconds
to go by
so we can get
absolutely furious
and back down
before we do anything.
And this to me
is just one of the great
spiritual things
that I've picked out
of living a day at a time.
Is if I'm undisturbed,
I treat other people
like God's children
and they treat me back
and I come home
at the end of the day
and I go,
what a great day.
And it all was because
of the priorities
that I put in my life.
And the last thing
that I was going to talk about
was forgiveness.
Because my ego
sets limits on that.
Yeah, I can forgive
up to a limit.
Up to a limit.
You know what I mean?
But sometimes people
go over the line.
They shouldn't be forgiven.
It's almost like
that's going to hurt them.
The only person who hurts is me
when I decide not to forgive.
So I'm trying to go,
has there ever been a teacher,
has there ever been anywhere
where they sort of gave us a clue
as to what the limit might be?
And I was thinking about
a teacher that we had
about 2,000 years ago
and they're nailing him to a cross
getting ready to kill him.
And he said,
forgive them.
They know not what they do.
So in my score book,
when something awful happens to me,
it has to exceed being nailed
to a cross and killed
in order to qualify
for not forgiving.
Okay?
In other words,
I think that's sort of
the standard.
You have something that's worse
than being nailed
to a cross and killed,
I'd go ahead and hold on
to that one.
You follow what I'm saying?
It's all ego.
There's a wonderful reading
in the May 3rd,
it was just in May 3rd,
in that little 24-hour day book,
about forgiveness.
And it's talking about
you're having a hard time forgiving,
you had a hard time forgiving,
forget about trying
to forgive anybody.
You've got to get rid of self.
You've got to get rid of self.
You know the prayer of St. Francis,
we have to kill self.
We have to kill this ego.
We've got to get rid of
this self-centered part of us.
And as we work on that,
by applying our principles,
talking to our sponsors,
praying, meditating,
whatever it takes,
if we can reduce that self
down to a nothingness,
we will find there's nothing
inside of us that remembers
the injury.
Because the only part
that was hurt,
the self,
is gone.
And we're free.
We're free.
So it's always a test of
our self gets hurt,
and that's not who we are.
That isn't us at all.
We're the person behind all that.
And to me,
that's what spirituality is,
is the willingness
to take this journey
with the hope
that we will finally solve
that fundamental disease,
dis-ease that has been inside
of us all along
that Carl Jung suggested.
We just miss God a lot.
And part of us is dying
to get back in contact.
We're just dying to get back
so that we have this channel
so open that all of our needs
are being taken care of
from the inside.
And therefore,
we don't need anything
from the world.
So we can just let it go.
We can just have
a wonderful time
and see where we can be useful.
Useful is, you know,
we just have that
throughout our literature.
Make me useful.
And so it's a question
of giving God all the credit,
just becoming an instrument.
Instead of trying to be
as huge as we can be,
we try to be as small
as we can be.
Remember what a big shot
we wanted to be?
Hey, hey, hey, hey.
Well, we are creating a vessel
to go through the sea of life.
And when you design
an ego-centered vessel,
you have created a boat
that's about 120 feet wide,
15 feet deep,
and you're pushing it through.
And when we can become selfless,
we can go right through
a screen door.
In other words,
there's nothing that can hit our ego
because we've made it so small.
So anything can happen.
The only pain
that human beings experience
is not getting their way.
There is no other pain.
I'm just not getting my way.
And the program suggests,
well, don't have a way.
Then nothing can go against your way.
You remember that?
And then the Twelve and Twelve said,
well, I'll be the hole in the doughnut.
No, I won't.
I'll be an instrument of thy peace.
I'll be an instrument.
I don't have to be anything
because I'm everything
from the inside out.
And if you're new,
this is my wish for you,
that you just try this.
And the reason you should try it
because everything else
is so awful.
That's why you try it.
That's why you try it.
You don't try it
because you believe me
or anybody else.
You just, you're tired
of everything the way it is.
So surrender your will
into this path.
Get a guide.
Follow it down.
And the path
isn't going to go out there.
It's going to go in here.
And we're going to open you up
so that you can see
what a magnificent person you are.
That's AA's present to you.
Is you.
And when you arrive here,
the wrappings around you
are pretty lousy.
It's not like the best wrapping paper
in the world.
It's pretty smelly
and it's not too good.
And you don't really think
you ought to open it
because it looks like
it's going to be
a pretty bad present.
And you don't want to look in there.
But the program forces you
to get away
the artificial exteriors.
Get rid of all of that stuff.
And see what's really in there.
You are going to love yourself.
You've never seen yourself
in all your magnificence.
You've never seen
what a loving,
caring person you are.
It's been trapped.
All these crazy ideas
that you heard
that are just baloney
are preventing you
from carrying out
what you want to do.
Which is to help the next person
and just be an instrument
of God's grace in this world.
It is the greatest life.
And we struggle every day
with our egos
to get close to it.
And that's why AA is so much fun.
Thank you all very much.
God bless you all.
God bless everybody.
Thank you.