Sandy B. from Tampa, FL at 13th Robinson House Benefit – Falls Church, VA 11/12/1994

(0:02 – 0:15)
Well, good evening everybody. My name is Sandy Beach and I’m an alcoholic. How y’all
doing? You hear me alright in the back? Yes? Do I have to get up closer? Okay.
(0:18 – 0:55)
First of all, I want to acknowledge all the good work the Robinson House does. It’s really
important that those of us in Alcoholics Anonymous support these activities because
there’s nothing that officially belongs to AA, but we’re really the ones who are going to
benefit from this, and if it isn’t us, these things just aren’t going to survive. The men’s
home, the Robinson House, the women’s home, all these things that are so crucial and
so difficult to get started.
(0:55 – 1:33)
You just try to go to a neighborhood and get one of these places started and it’s just
almost impossible. So to keep the ones that are in existence going is really essential that
alcoholics have a place to get a restart in life and we all are very grateful for the work
that all of them do and especially tonight that the Robinson House does. I came into
Alcoholics Anonymous on Pearl Harbor Day in 1964 and I haven’t had the opportunity to
have a drink since my first meeting and for that I’m very, very grateful.
(1:34 – 1:48)
Like my sponsor says, I didn’t plan on sticking around this long. When I got here, I was
just here to get some people off my back. That was my main reason for coming to
Alcoholics Anonymous.
(1:49 – 2:45)
I was locked up in a nut ward and had been released as an outpatient to go home and
after a couple of weekends of getting these passes to go out and back, I started drinking
again because it wasn’t that I was an alcoholic, there had just been some mistakes made
and I ended up having the DTs and convulsions. It’s probably a world case there to have
a non-alcoholic having the DTs. So I started drinking and I smuggled the vodka back into
the nut ward and was headed out in the parking lot and I would sneak out there and I’d
get a drink and I’d sit around during the week in the nut ward and sip vodka.
(2:46 – 3:26)
When you start doing that again, the paranoia starts and everybody’s looking at you and
I knew that it would just be a very short while and they were going to catch me and then
they told me if I ever had another drink that that was the end of my Marine Corps career,
which had been going on amazingly for about 13 years at that time. What is that? I don’t
know. You picking that up on a tape? Good, you get that good sound in there.
(3:29 – 4:29)
In any event, I knew that this was all going to come to an end and so on this particular
weekend, Pearl Harbor Day weekend in 1964, I decided to call Alcoholics Anonymous on
the outside. We had been to about three meetings on the inside of the nut ward and I
picked up the telephone from down in Quantico, Virginia and called Northern Virginia
Intergroup and asked them if they could send somebody over to help me with getting
into AA. It took about three hours and I got a few drinks to stay down during that three
hours and changed my mind and I called Intergroup back and told them that I didn’t
need, that they could forget the call, that everything was under control and they said it
was too late, that somebody was on his way.
(4:29 – 4:35)
And so I said, well, I’ll just have to get rid of him at the door. That was my plan. That’s
how I got to AA.
(4:35 – 4:50)
So after a while, the door frame shook when someone knocked from the outside. It was a
ba-boom, ba-boom, you know. And I went to the door, opened it and no light came in
through the door frame.
(4:50 – 5:01)
You know what I mean? It was just, this guy was filling the whole door frame and he just
said, hi, my name is Bill. I’m an alcoholic. This is a 12-step call.
(5:01 – 5:12)
I talk, you listen. And that was the… And I don’t want to talk to you, I want to talk to your
family. And he went right in and they started spilling the beans.
(5:12 – 5:42)
You know, right away, oh, he’s terrible, he’s rotten, he’s a terrible father, he’s a terrible
husband, he’s drunk all the time, he’s been locked up in the nut war, he’s had
convulsions and DTs and malnutrition and I’m just trying to get some literature. You
know what I mean? I don’t want to really join this organization. I just want to be able to
tell the people in the nut war that I’ve joined it and that everything’s going to be all right.
(5:42 – 6:14)
But my problem was I had got this guy in my life and it’s almost 30 years later and he’s
still in my life. I always mention this when I speak and start talking about Bill because
last August was his 30th anniversary so I called him up and told him I wanted to take him
out to dinner and he said, okay. So I went down and we went to a German restaurant in
Quantico, Virginia for dinner.
(6:14 – 6:32)
And that restaurant used to be the house I lived in when he 12-stepped me. And so we’re
sitting at a table in there and the front door is like right over there and about halfway
through the dinner he turned and he said, you know, it’s a long way from that door to
this table. And it really was.
(6:33 – 6:57)
I mean, when you think about what happened between that door and that table that we
were sitting in, it’s like going to Mars. It’s like going someplace that I never even knew
existed. And those of you that are new to Alcoholics Anonymous, you’re going to go to
places you don’t even know about yet because that’s what the AA journey is all about.
(6:57 – 7:17)
It’s not about just not drinking and going to meetings like it’s some big burden. There is
going to be a transformation in spite of yourself and most of the program happens in
spite of ourselves. Our better judgment, I don’t really need the steps and my better
judgment, I don’t need a sponsor.
(7:17 – 7:40)
But the program doesn’t work that way. It’s one of the great disguises in the world to call
our program a suggestion. You ever notice that? That these are the steps we suggest
and there’s no must in AA and just come to the meetings and take what you want.
(7:41 – 8:00)
Well, if you don’t take it all, you get drunk. And alcohol works on you to open your mind
a little further and then you come back and try everything. We don’t need to persuade
anybody to do anything because alcohol will do that work for us.
(8:00 – 8:07)
That’s why we don’t have to put any pressure on anybody. You don’t like AA? Go back
drinking. Come back and see us when you do like AA.
(8:10 – 8:18)
Because there’s no escape for the alcoholic. You don’t just go out and nothing happens.
You go out and get beat up.
(8:19 – 8:52)
You go out and then suffer more and that’s what gives us an open mind to try the
program. And of course, here I am locked up in a nut ward and I am still in denial that I
have a serious problem. And so, I feel very grateful that this guy got into my life and
made all of my choices disappear and we just got in that car every night and drove and
we drove from Quantico and there weren’t that many meetings.
(8:52 – 9:00)
There were probably about 15 meetings a day in the Washington area. Now, we got 250.
So, there’s a lot of changes that have taken place.
(9:00 – 9:08)
They’re all wonderful. I think AA is better now than it was in the old days. I’m not worried
about Alcoholics Anonymous at all.
(9:08 – 9:18)
I think it’s doing spectacularly. I know that some of the old timers go, oh, it isn’t the
same as it was. Of course, it’s not the same as it was, but it is the same as it was.
(9:18 – 9:48)
I mean, it’s a paradox. It’s reaching out beyond the wildest dreams of any of the old
timers and we are seeing people come into the program at younger ages and with all
kinds of situations and we’re seeing tremendous acceptance across the country and
we’re seeing other programs copying the spiritual principles and it’s all being done
because of the success of Alcoholics Anonymous. That’s what AA has.
(9:48 – 10:08)
It has a track record that is unbelievable. And so, when this guy came into my life, it was
getting the car. I thought getting the car was our first step, in all honesty, because he’d
come over and I’d go, well, Bill, I’m not sure, because he wanted to go to a meeting
every night for like 10 years.
(10:08 – 10:26)
That was his basic plan for me. And I thought it was excessive and I thought there would
be some slack and so he would come over and I’d go, well, look, Bill, we’ve been to 12
meetings in a row now and I was thinking he’d go, get in the car. There was no, well, let’s
hear what you have to say.
(10:27 – 10:46)
Who cares what you have to say? And for a long time I wondered, you know, if after
three months, I was still an outpatient from the nut ward, but at three months back then,
you spoke. You got up and you told your story. You started leading meetings and they
just poofed you in to the mainstream.
(10:47 – 11:08)
Besides, there wasn’t very many people, so they needed everybody to speak to keep the
meetings going. And I would get up and come up with all kinds of wonderful ideas, not
exactly party line, you know what I’m talking about, in terms of philosophy of life and all
these things. And a guy came up to me, he was sort of new.
(11:08 – 11:28)
He had that glassy look and everything, but he was a smart aleck. And he came up after
I gave this wonderful talk at about three and a half months and he had like three weeks.
You know, obviously knew nothing compared to what I knew.
(11:29 – 11:41)
And he came up and he said, I’d just like to make one observation about your talk. And I
said, yes. He said, I find it very hard to listen to a guy wearing a wristband.
(11:42 – 12:00)
And I went, oh, I have the, I had the wristband from the nut ward and it was still, you
couldn’t get those damn things off. You ever try and get them off and get them back on
so that you could not be an outpatient. And then when you went back in, you still had it
on.
(12:00 – 12:23)
And I mentioned this story because a lot of people who arrive here have a lot of ideas
and some of them sound brilliant. And you come in here and you find that no one really
wants to hear them. Have you noticed that, that before you got here, people used to,
you know, they’re interested.
(12:23 – 12:37)
And you come in here and they go, just don’t drink and go to meetings and say the
surrender prayer. Certainly we can improve on that. I mean, my God, just don’t drink, go
to meetings, say the surrender prayer.
(12:38 – 13:01)
There’s more to life than that. Let me tell you my, my thoughts on life and everything.
And what the people in the program are basically saying to you, even though you’re not
wearing a wristband, is based just on looking at you, I don’t want to know what your plan
for living is.
(13:05 – 13:12)
Because even though it sounds good, it’s not getting good results. I’m looking. You look
awful.
(13:13 – 13:17)
You’re befuddled. You don’t know which end is up. You have no friends.
(13:19 – 13:35)
You want me to listen to your ideas? No, I’m not going to do that. And so that’s why no
one’s listening to you if you’re new and you’re coming up with your thoughts on sobriety
and so on down. So this was one, you know, this is the beginning of humility.
(13:36 – 14:37)
It’s when all of your wonderful ideas have no value. And it’s pointed out to me, if they’re
valuable, why haven’t you been able to stay sober? Why haven’t you been able to have a
wonderful life? Why are you still holding on to those ideas? Why don’t you examine your
life only on the basis of results and not on the basis of theory and basis of what your
background was and what you were taught and what you learned off of bathroom walls
and what you picked up in the bar and what you heard from some other drunk and put
together as your collection of my philosophy of life, you know what I mean? Because it
may sound good, but if we get honest and we look in the mirror, our plan for living
sucked. I mean, if it was so good, why are you here? And so this is what I was being
confronted with and it was real.
(14:37 – 14:50)
It was very frustrating because we’re used to expressing ourselves and coming up with
creative ideas and we come in here and nobody wants to listen to us. Just shut up, don’t
drink, sit there. If you need an opinion, we’ll give you one.
(14:51 – 15:15)
And they were trying to take apart our intellectual approach to life and convert us to a
spiritual approach to life. And that’s a very difficult thing for us human beings to do, but
that’s what sobriety is all about. And for those of you that are new, this is only
accomplished because of alcohol.
(15:16 – 15:32)
This is not accomplished because somebody is real smart and they convince someone
else that they ought to have an open mind about this particular plan. We get our open
mind from drinking. That’s what produces, that’s why Alcoholics Anonymous works.
(15:33 – 15:46)
It works because we all have a common enemy. And the enemy is going to kill us unless
we find a solution that keeps us alive. And the only solution that has ever been found are
the 12 steps.
(15:46 – 15:59)
That’s what this program is. And so it is only out of desperation that I was willing to part
with my superior ideas. And if you’re new, you’re going to have to part with your
wonderful ideas.
(16:00 – 16:13)
And it’s going to hurt your ego. It’s just going to be so crushing to have to abandon all
these things that you thought up on your own. Your game plan for living is hard to get rid
of because you wrote it.
(16:13 – 16:28)
You are the author of this mess. And for some unknown reason we like to cling to this. I
know the plan sucks, but it’s my plan.
(16:28 – 16:50)
You know what I’m saying? Like there’s some dignity and value in standing by something
that’s awful. You know what I mean? There’s a certain nobility in sticking with a losing
plan. At least you won’t be accused of wimping out in the face of reality.
(16:50 – 16:56)
I see. I see what clearly ought to be done. But I’m sticking with this rotten plan.
(16:57 – 17:09)
And Bill writes about this in the literature. And it’s not a complex psychological problem.
He reduces things to great simplicity here in Alcoholics Anonymous.
(17:09 – 17:15)
He calls this stupid. That’s the word. That word is used.
(17:15 – 17:39)
You go look in the Twelve and Twelve in the Big Book you will see sentences all in
disperse throughout at the end of a very complex psychological problem. And he’ll say,
we are especially stupid in this area. And when you think about it for a human being to
stick with a plan that is totally not working is stupid.
(17:39 – 17:45)
I mean, it’s the best word I’ve ever heard for it. And it makes it real simple. You just go,
you know, he’s right.
(17:45 – 17:50)
That is stupid. I’m out of here. You know what I mean? And we’re able to let go of it.
(17:50 – 18:09)
Whereas if it was some I have this twisted childhood that forces me to hold on to these
stupid plans and I’m doomed because of this parental background to fail forever. See,
that’s not as solvable as oh, you’re just stupid. You know what I mean? Oh.
(18:10 – 18:30)
You can disengage much more quickly from that because it So it’s wonderful the
simplicity of how we are approached in Alcoholics Anonymous to let go. Letting go is
such a wonderful thing. We don’t have to get anything to succeed in AA.
(18:31 – 18:38)
You don’t get anything here. You get rid of things. And that’s what this sponsor was
trying to do from the day I arrived.
(18:39 – 18:42)
Get in the car. Don’t think. If you want an opinion, I’ll give you one.
(18:42 – 18:45)
Sit in the front row. Incurable row. Just sit there.
(18:45 – 18:54)
Put the cotton in your mouth and take it out of your ear. All this stuff. And I’m going,
what is this? Platitude Anonymous? I mean, you just easy does it.
(18:54 – 19:04)
Day at a time. Think. Couldn’t we use some five syllable words once in a while? And here
it was.
(19:05 – 19:23)
So I’m very grateful that this cleansing process was forced upon me. And I, like the rest
of the people in AA, take credit for it. I use sentences like and then I decided to take a
fourth step.
(19:23 – 51:58)
And then I decided that I would try prayer and meditation and this creates the
impression that I was attracted to these things that I sort of innately wanted to meditate
and just gravitated towards it naturally and I’m omitting the preface to and then I
decided and the preface to that is one day my sponsor came over with a baseball bat he
said if you get the four step done this weekend both legs so I decided to go ahead and
and do a fourth step now a lot of you are going to become familiar with various steps
because you’re asked to lead on them and you’re gonna go I have to lead on the on the
seventh step where’s the book I’m not going over there and look bad well I’ve always
thought about humility this way and you’re up there you know what the funny thing is
you learn about it you’re getting some new ideas about it even if it’s for the wrong
reason and so a lot of this stuff that happens in here is done for the wrong reason I mean
it isn’t done in order to become spiritual I don’t know too many people who came in here
and said I’ve been wanting to be spiritual all my life and I’m so glad I found this place it
was I understand I have to stay in here or I get hurt out there and in order to hang
around here you have to pretend that you’re getting spiritual so I’ll go ahead I’ll go
through the motions but I’m not really interested in it and so we do so for whatever
reason we get driven down this road now I don’t generally spend a lot of time talking
about my drinking story because everybody’s drinking story is the same I mean you
know alcohol had a different effect on us than it does on other people and that’s why
we’re alcoholics alcohol caused things to happen in our lives that don’t happen to nonalcoholics see I used to think we’re all the same and I always talk about my roommate
when I think about this because we started drinking together and I thought we were very
similar we got arrested a couple times we had this and that and then he went on became
a big businessman down in Dallas and I went on to the nut ward but then I got sober
later on and then I started getting around AA and talking to a few places in Dallas was on
my list several times and they got great AA down there and he came to the meetings
and really liked AA just came to hear me and he was so grateful to AA because his old
buddy was now having a good life and things were really working well and so we were
both about 50 and I was over his house and I said Roy let me ask you something we both
started drinking together and we had a lot of similar experiences but we never really
talked about alcohol you’ve me talk about it all over the place but I’ve never heard you
talk about alcohol so now you look back 30 years of drinking what what do you say what
did what do you say about alcohols tell me your internal assessment of alcohol so he
thought about and thought about and you know what he said he said well number one
alcohol makes food taste better number one that was the number one thing that he said
about alcohol something I never would have come up with myself and and I doubt if
anybody in here would have said I hey first thing I think of alcohol makes food taste
better and I was thinking to myself is that going down or coming up you know makes
food taste better and then he went on to say that it was something at the end of the
workday he’d come home and he might mix a drink and have that and be a little
transition from the workday to being at home I could relate a little bit to that but that
was the only one he had and then he talked about certain social settings when people
get together it would enable them to mix and they’d have a nice time and that was his
total take on alcohol he never said alcohol is the secret of living he had no connection to
that stuff at all his relationship with alcohol was like his relationship with jello you know
what I mean it was it’s nice and I have it once in a while but it’s not important because it
does not solve any problems it doesn’t fix anything it doesn’t give me answers it doesn’t
do anything that it does for all of us and that’s why we’re alcoholics it’s because it does
something for us that it does not do for the non alcoholics it solves problems that’s why
we drank it did something it changed the world and that’s when I look back at what
alcohol did alcohol changed the world I lived in to a very friendly world and when alcohol
was gone the world got mean again and people looked mean and when I looked in your
eyes when I was sober I saw hostility and I saw that I didn’t belong and I saw that I
wasn’t the same as you when I drank I looked into your eyes again and I saw a friend I
saw somebody who loved me I saw a world that was the most wonderful place to be and
I said this is the world they’re talking about because other people used to talk about
what a wonderful world that was and I never said that unless I was drinking and then it
was a wonderful world said man this is a place I love so alcohol fixed the problem now it
started causing problems to don’t get me wrong there’s a but I was willing to endure
those problems because of what I was getting out of alcohol and when somebody said
well geez you got arrested three times you get your teeth knocked out I would say that’s
a small price to pay for what I’m getting I’m willing to pay that price that’s nothing
compared to what I’m getting I’m getting freedom I’m getting feeling of equality I belong
I’m getting companionship I’m getting energy I’m intuitively knowing how to handle
situations that used to baffle me I’m getting free from economic insecurity I’m getting all
the promises of vodka I’m getting everything and so alcohol was a power that I had faith
in so that’s what makes me an alcoholic non-alcoholics don’t have faith in alcohol they
just have a casual relationship with it people that I take out for lunch and business
setting once in a while one of them will have a drink it’s amazing how seldom people
have a drink I used to hang around we all drank I don’t know what’s happening to the
world and the guy will order a drink he said well I have a scotch and soda I said I’ll have
a coca-cola and we’re sitting there at lunch and I go well cheers and he goes cheers and
he takes his scotch and soda and he goes boy you know they’ve done a lot of changes
up on the House Banking Committee going on I said yeah they really are and you know
over on the Senate there’s a lot of things going on and next thing he puts it down the
food comes and he still hasn’t had a sip out of this thing it’s still sitting on the table it’s
just being jiggled around he picks it up once in a while and points to somebody with it
and puts it around here and and I’m sitting there just going drink the goddamn thing
what are you doing with that thing and he’s just walking around like it’s a pointer or
something it’s just no his relationship with that drink wasn’t what mine was so that’s my
drinking story I had that relationship with alcohol and I was willing to die for it and damn
near did and I’m sure most of you damn near did and if you’d hung in there any longer
you would have I could not imagine how you could survive without alcohol that’s where I
came from and I went all the way into the network I had malnutrition and DT’s and all
these things but I’m still hanging in with my idea that alcohol was always going to have
to be my answer and as long as I had access to it I drink and money in my wallet then I
was safe in this world and when that was gone I was vulnerable I was threatened and I
was frightened and I was anxious and angry and resentful and it was a very difficult
place to be in and so when I got the Alcoholics Anonymous and somebody said no more
drinking I said like everybody you don’t understand you’re asking me to give up my
whole way of life and they go that’s right but we’re going to give you a new way of life
and so that’s the difference between AA and going on the wagon we go on the wagon we
give up our way of life and we have nothing to replace it and we sit there with the neck
muscles straining and people say what’s going on I’m not drinking and somebody goes
how long you been not drinking an hour an hour you know I’m gonna try and make it a
week and it’s like I don’t think you’re gonna make it through tonight I mean you might as
well give in now just start drinking because you’re not gonna make it and so how
anybody can think of long-term sobriety in that mode of pure willpower sacrifice is
beyond me and we come in here and we are told that we’re not going to get what we
thought we were going to get when we got here see what I thought we were going to get
once I brain cleared up a little bit and I got here in AA I thought we were going to solve
my alcohol problem because that’s what I had been doing all my life got a problem let’s
break it down discuss it and come up with a solution to it and then you do the solution
came in here and they said no we don’t do that at all as a matter of fact once you come
in here and admit you’re an alcoholic we’re not even going to talk about alcohol anymore
have you noticed that that we don’t talk about alcohol at all in the recovery of Alcoholics
Anonymous we just say are you powerless over alcohol yes I am good now we’re going to
do all the rest of these things in the word alcohol isn’t in there anymore whenever we’re
never going to talk about alcohol anymore we’re going to talk about spirituality we’re
going to talk about a higher power we’re going to talk about all kinds of things we’re not
going to talk about alcohol we got rid of that in the first step if you are an alcoholic and
you are powerless then you need to spend the rest of your life finding a power to take
care of the powerless problem because the whole premise upon which AA is founded is
based on the word powerless and it doesn’t say that you’re ignorant over alcohol and
that you have to study and learn your way out of this situation it said you’re powerless
you have encountered something that is more than you can handle as a human being or
ever will be able to handle so if you try to go through the rest of your life by yourself you
are doomed to being overpowered that’s the nature of our problem now you can
disagree with that and try to prove that you’re not powerless over alcohol but I submit if
you’re an alcoholic alcohol is going to win and alcohol is going to convince you that
you’re powerless over alcohol not me not the program alcohol is what convinces us that
we’re powerless over alcohol we don’t believe it this year keep going and eventually just
go I just can’t win I cannot stay sober and it’s important I always mention this it’s not
that we’re powerless over alcohol after we’ve been drinking it’s that we’re powerless
over alcohol when we’re sober that’s what alcoholism is it is the inability to not take the
first drink when you know it’s going to kill you you are taught you go through detox you
go around you’re an alcoholic if you take the first drink you will be in terrible trouble you
understand that yes oh yes I understand fully it’s almost like somebody said to you look
if you start a softball game on Shirley Highway at eight o’clock in the morning you’re
going to get hurt there’s trucks there’s all that I understand that you want to play first
and you want to play second you and they’re out there in the ball and everybody’s just
all over and you just go whoa you know so we explain it if you take a drink all these bad
things this you understand so this is you totally sober totally in command of all your
faculties your mind is working at 100% and you’re explaining your situation to your
bartender who’s normally our best friend Fred I’m an alcoholic I have been taught what
this means maybe you don’t understand the significance of what an alcoholic is if I take
a drink for example if I were to order a Budweiser and drank it I would end up in jail I
would end up in DT’s again my liver might go all the could I have a Budweiser my liver
might go all the way my what yeah thanks my wife told me she will leave me and we’re
explaining all about our situation and we’re drinking because we don’t have a defense
against the first drink so that’s what our situation is unless something comes but
between us and the first drink we will always pick up the first drink that’s what being
powerless is and that’s a serious problem that is a very serious problem it means every
one of us absent of power is always going to pick up the first drink and go back and have
all this thing happen so that the first step is really bad news it’s what it’s saying is hi
welcome to AA your situation is a lot worse than you thought it was are you gonna buy
that good now you’re saved now the good news see the good news is in the surrendering
and and everything that happens in sobriety is a paradox it’s just the opposite of what
we’ve been used to before we got here and we come in and we were told if you want to
win if you absolutely want to succeed you must surrender because it is that is how you
win in a spiritual environment is to totally give up then you can be set free and it just
looks backwards from everything we’ve been taught and it’s just a few other things that I
would share with those of you that are new about what I think about this program it’s a
lot of fun it made there’s a lot of humor in our own mistakes and when we can see how
funny some of the positions that we have taken and are willing to die for really are it and
we can start laughing at ourselves because everybody else had to laugh at themselves
for holding on to some of these stupid ideas it really becomes a much more enjoyable
way of life is to realize wow another stupid idea I can get rid of and this is what freedom
is all about is being unglued from our ideas so that they can float away and never bother
us again the problem is our ego doesn’t like this process at all we don’t like being wrong
and if there’s anything sobriety is it’s finding all kinds of things that were wrong about
and getting rid of them and then what’s left is the truth and that is what is the great
journey that we get forced into as we go down the road to sobriety let me make another
thought to those of you that are new the this plan this wonderful way of life will never
look like it’s going to work never ever ever ever will it look like it’s going to work that’s
another strange thing about a spiritual program meetings don’t look like they should
work do they ever think about these meetings ever tell your friends about AA and they
go Mary you look wonderful what are you doing you want to die no no actually I’m I’m in
AA I’ve been in there for about six oh you look wonderful I’ve never seen such a change
do you jog or I mean what what happens in AA well we have meetings meetings make
you look this much better oh yeah yeah well boy they must be something what what
happens at these meetings well we sit around a table like 20 of us and one person will
come up with a topic like one day at a time we all talk five minutes hold hands said
Lord’s Prayer just like that it’s wonderful you want to come want to come join in this
exciting way of life no that’s alright Mary maybe that alcohol did more damage than we
thought so this stuff doesn’t look like it should work at all I still go to meetings at night
and I go in there and I’m all bent out of shape and I sit there and listen to a bunch of
semi intelligent ideas hold hands and walk out feeling wonderful I go up to my car and go
what a world what a world and what happened there was power there there was the
power to transform my thinking and that’s what happens in these meetings and that’s
what happens as a result of these steps and our wonderful program so I made one
observation that this stuff will never look like it’s going to work so if you come in and
you’re used to these problem-solving in your life and somebody said the 12 steps are the
answer and you go good I mean you’re all excited you’re doing everybody’s telling you
this is it so you you’re taking it seriously now so you go home and you get the damn
book and you go so this is it huh boy you start reading it and you get no connection
anybody ever do this you go maybe it’s on some other page this this is what they’re all
excited about fearless moral inventory making amends I’m I don’t think I explained to
them what my situation was I’m gonna have to go back and tell my sponsor one more
time bill I’m broke man I’m broke I’m broke I’m I got people knocking on the door I got
bill collectors and you give me this shit about a fearless moral inventory I need a loan I
don’t get this you know and maybe you’re just getting divorced your relationship is just
all that and why don’t you go make amends to simple make amends I’m gonna kill
somebody I’m not I don’t connect that this is the answer to my problem maybe you’re
bro or you need a job and you’re looking and you say I need a job that’s what I need then
I’ll have I can get going again I can have something going and they said here’s the
answer no job here here where where where’s the no job part of the of this or you could
just been to the doctor and he says oh boy we got this whole awful health problem oh
god look at this health problem health problem right here where I don’t see which one is
the health problem step I don’t I don’t see that and all of a sudden no matter what your
problem is people keep telling you to keep doing this and you suddenly are confronted
with the unalterable truth that Alcoholics Anonymous is trying to foist on you the
proposition that there is one answer for all problems one solution for all problems are
you gonna buy into that as unique as you are there’s already a solution been developed
for every one of your problems are you gonna buy into that I would submit that you’re
the last person that should doubt one solution for all problems what were you doing
before you got here I have to admit that I had one solution for all problems it was vodka
and I never remember sitting around my house and saying to myself you know here’s a
situation I won’t be drinking over here’s a real tough area that I’ll be dealing with with no
alcohol I never came up it did not matter what the problem was the answer was I’m
gonna go get a drink then I will intuitively know how to handle these things I will get the
intuition I will get the freedom to think I will get the energy I will get the perspective I will
get I will just be filled with creativity one answer for all problems we come in here and
they go here’s 12 steps one answer for all oh no no no no no and I think the rest of your
sobriety if you’re anything like I am will consist of encountering problems that are the
exception to the steps oh I just came across one that the steps don’t apply to I’ll have to
use my own devices on this one and then you come to the meeting and people go what’s
the matter you look like you’re gonna die well I well just say a serenity prayer don’t drink
go to meetings and help a new guy oh thanks a lot and we’ve been forced back into the
solution well I’m sort of rambling around here I don’t want to run overtime so let me look
at my watch oh yeah we’re almost there and I haven’t said anything a non-talk let me
make a couple observations about what if you’re new you can expect as a result of
following what your sponsor what your groups and what we just get pushed down the
same path we all end up going down a certain path we’re gonna find out that we were
wrong about a lot of things and that as we discover this we get free from these wrong
ideas and these ideas have done two things they’ve blinded us to the truth of the world
that we lived in and they prevented a higher power from flowing through us so we never
were able to experience a higher power a personal one in our own lives one that caused
us to have an entirely different view of our world even though the world stayed exactly
the same we still don’t have a job working on the relationship we’re still dealing with a
health problem but the world looks wonderful there was no reason for us to change our
point of view there was no external circumstance to cause us to change and yet we
changed and we became positive instead of negative with no apparent reason now that
can only be explained that something has happened inside of us something has come in
and given us a different perspective on this world that we weren’t too comfortable with
that is what sobriety is in my opinion and it consists as I said earlier of not getting
anything but getting rid of things somebody once wrote that you already are all that you
can ever become now that may sound absolutely false that may sound wait a minute I
already am all that I can yes you just have to be able to see it you need the power to see
what a magnificent person you already are you have to get rid of the false ideas about
yourself in order to be able to see you already are a magnificent child of a higher power
you are a divine creation and you have a bunch of ideas to say this isn’t true a lady who
did this beautiful sculpture of a marble statue of a woman in a long gown with all these
graceful lines and everything was asked how do you ever create something that
beautiful which is that I just get a big block of marble and I take away everything that
isn’t this beautiful statue the beautiful statue is already there he just gets rid of the stuff
that isn’t the beautiful statue and if you’re new you already are this beautiful statue you
already are this magnificent creature we just get rid in this program that’s all you do is
get rid of character defects that isn’t the real you those are just old ideas that are stuck
to you like crap and it’s just got to be scraped off we just got to dig in there that you
know you’re a you are a present that gets unwrapped the thing that AA gives each one
of us is ourselves they just bring a box up and say Merry Christmas we have a present
for you it’s you now open it open it oh I don’t want to open it I don’t want to see the real
me I don’t want to see the real me why I don’t think I’m gonna like what I find what tells
you that I just know I just know what do you know well I’ve just always had these feelings
just forget all that and so we get rid of all these things that are not the real us that to me
is what this program is all about is getting rid of these things that block us from a higher
power and from the love of other people I believe that alcoholism and the selfcenteredness force each one of us to build a little jail for ourselves only we call it a safe
place this is where we can hide from the world so it won’t get in and bother us and hurt
us and threaten us but when we’re in there we’re totally isolated from everything else
and nothing can come in and as we sit in there we claim that there’s no love in the world
and we claim there’s no higher power none of it ever got in there that’s because we have
the power to build something that can block out all these things if you’re new to AA and
you were sent here with a court slip you can block AA from coming in you’ve got free will
you can go like this and you can say I’m not listening none of this is coming in I’m not
going to allow any of that message to come inside and then later on you’ll be out there
saying well you know I tried AA and it didn’t work so from your perspective AA doesn’t
work but it really does and a higher power really exists and people really are wonderful
and they really do love you and you really are a loving person you really care about the
world all those other ideas are wrong they’re not true and that’s what the present is
that’s what the twelve steps are you just unwrap more unwrap get rid of this that’s not
the real you nope that’s not the real you either that’s out the window and I know you
probably don’t believe me if you knew this guy’s exaggerating well let me close with this
if you’ve been around three months or so the chances are that you’ve been to a meeting
when somebody new came in you know like in their first two or three days and you’re
sitting over at the table discussion meeting you see this guy or gal come in and they go
over to get a cup of coffee you know that they’re new I mean they’re you just were there
so you remember this very well and they don’t want to be here and they’re looking
around funny and they can try to get the coffee and it starts to shake so they put the cup
down and well I don’t even have any coffee they sit over at the table they’re sitting on
their hands and they’re looking at their watch and they want to get out of here and
you’re sitting there watching this and all of a sudden it’s like somebody reached in and
grabbed your heart and it just raced over to that person it’s just you just went oh and
you just connected you just what how do I know what that is and without realizing it you
went home that night and you’re secretly rooting for this person you just go boy I hope
that guy’s there next week and then you come back the next you never talked to him
you haven’t got that far yet but it something happened what you didn’t even do this
voluntarily it just boom your your heart just went out and you just went man make it
man and you come the next week and he’s not there and you’re sitting around oh I wish I
talked to him well 15 minutes into the meeting here he comes and he’s still sober he
looks a little better and he gets a half a cup and he’s got that all the way over the table
and you’re not showing anything on your face but inside you’re going yay well what’s
that all about what’s that all about what’s this what part of you is going yay for
somebody else I’ll tell you what that part is that’s the real you that’s who you really are
and that’s what this program is going to draw out to such an extent that you’re going to
look in the mirror one day and just go wow I love that person just like we already love
you thank you very much