Sandy B. from Tampa FL. at Aim for Ames 4/24/1998

(0:07 – 0:35)
Wow, nice welcome. Thank you. My name is Sandy Beach, and I’m an alcoholic.
How are you all doing? I am very happy to be here tonight. I love the energy here. I love
this hotel.
It’s just been a marvelous feeling. You can just sense that in this part of the country,
there’s good AA, you know. And you don’t know how lucky you are to have that real solid
sobriety that I can feel here.
(0:36 – 1:03)
I got sober on Pearl Harbor Day of 1964 in Washington, D.C., and I still have the same
sponsor. And he was a major factor in my staying sober. There was a lot of things that I
had to do when I got to AA, and most of them concerned changing my mind about
things.
(1:04 – 1:37)
And as I look back on sobriety for the last 33 years or so, it’s been one endless series of
changing my mind about things and finding one more thing that I’m wrong about and
getting rid of it. But I don’t think being wrong comes natural to us alcoholics. You know
what I mean? Even though we have two steps devoted to that, it just doesn’t come
natural.
(1:38 – 1:58)
And so like every other alcoholic on this planet, I was a prisoner of my own ideas. And I
don’t think that’s just a unique trait of alcoholics. I think that is a problem of humanity, is
being limited by the ideas that we assemble as we’re growing up.
(2:00 – 2:26)
And I was the type of person who never shared anything, so I just bounced my ideas off
of me. You know what I mean? I would hear things, and they would scare me, and then
I’d go in my room and go, What is that? That’s hard to deal with. Some of these ideas
came from friends, came from my parents, came from church.
(2:27 – 2:33)
I heard a lot of scary things in church. My sister was sitting next to me. She didn’t hear
any of them.
(2:35 – 2:50)
You know what I mean? So I’m not blaming anything on anybody. It’s just that we end up
with a bunch of ideas. And I got a lot of information off of bathroom walls, which was
very intimidating.
(2:50 – 3:20)
I remember reading it and going, Whoa, man, that is, wow. And you couldn’t talk about
this with anybody because then they would know you weren’t cool, that you were
confused about life, that you had questions, that somehow you didn’t know everything.
And so I started down the road that I suppose every youngster starts down, which is
trying to act like you know what’s going on and figuring that someday you’ll find out.
(3:20 – 3:35)
But until then, you’ve got to just sort of look like, Hey, man, life is not bugging me at all.
I’m just fine. I’m just standing over here smoking three cigarettes at once because I think
it’s a great idea.
(3:35 – 3:47)
And I just I jiggle a lot because I’m musical. You know, it’s not that I’m nervous and
frightened. I’m just, you know, listening to rhythms.
(3:50 – 4:16)
And so there I sat on an island of anxiety in the middle of the planet and just
overwhelmed. And I don’t suppose that’s much different from other teenagers. You
know, you’re walking around clueless as to what, you know, what is all this? And why do I
feel so anxious and why don’t I understand? You know, and I hear people talking about
things.
(4:16 – 4:51)
You know, I remember hearing a couple of old ladies at a bus stop and I must have been
waiting there for something. And one of them said to the other, Isn’t life wonderful? And I
remember going, Wow, are they out of it? You know, I mean, isn’t life wonderful? So I
just, you know, figured that was senility or something, that they had lost touch with the
reality that I was encompassing, which I found very intimidating. I just found people
intimidating, life intimidating, death, God, you name it.
(4:53 – 5:04)
Sex, fitting in with other people. I mean, just the whole thing. And then studying and
competition and you got to look good on the football field or the track field or wherever it
was.
(5:04 – 5:17)
And there was just all these things going on. And I said, I see what you need to do is win
and succeed. And so, you know, I just would try.
(5:17 – 5:27)
But, you know, everybody can’t win everything. No matter what you try, there’s
somebody better than you. So I just felt like this is going to be a long struggle.
(5:28 – 5:36)
I just, I’m not looking forward to the future. I mean, that was my sense. I’ll just make the
best of it.
(5:36 – 5:48)
That was my outlook in life. And I ended up in, I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut and
ended up in the local university. And I hadn’t had anything to drink.
(5:49 – 5:55)
And I was there and the guys came from all over the country. And it’s a famous
university. And they were all smarter than me.
(5:55 – 6:02)
They were richer than me. They had cars that, you know, they all, you could just see.
You could see these guys.
(6:02 – 6:09)
They knew what was going on. You could just look at them. And I was the only one who
didn’t.
(6:10 – 6:22)
I could feel that. I just felt like, Jesus, this pressure of being the only one out of this
thousand guys who doesn’t know what’s going on. Eventually, they’re going to find out.
(6:22 – 6:29)
They’re going to find out and I’ll be out of here. That was how I felt. But until then, act
cool, act cool.
(6:29 – 6:36)
Just keep showing up. Just keep doing the best you can here, you know. I mean, they’ll
be out of here soon, but until then.
(6:37 – 6:45)
And it just, you know, everybody was drinking. I mean, when you’re in college, you’re
going to be, well, I wasn’t drinking. I was saving up for being an athlete.
(6:47 – 7:06)
I’m not sure about this, but it seemed to me the Catholic Church had some deal. If you
went until you were 21 years old without drinking, you got like 250,000 years off in
purgatory. And I knew I was going to need that bad, bad, bad.
(7:08 – 7:18)
Because I remember they were telling us, even if you think about sinning, it’s sinning.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about a lot of stuff, you know. I just couldn’t stop it.
(7:18 – 7:24)
They just kept coming into my head, all these thoughts. And I could hear the cash
register. Well, that’s 10,000.
(7:24 – 7:40)
Ding, ding, ding, ding, you know, just. So there came an evening when I was about 19 at
a social event. I think I always mention this, my first drink, because that’s where my
alcohol is.
(7:40 – 7:48)
And there it was. It was there. And it was a social situation where you’re supposed to
meet everybody in the room, 40 or 50 guys.
(7:48 – 8:11)
And they picked 50 of the meanest guys in the freshman class to be in that particular
room. These were people who already had all the friends they need, don’t want any
more friends, and resented me being in the room with them, you know what I mean?
Like, man, you are in the wrong room. I’d go back and see the dean.
(8:11 – 8:18)
You do not belong in here. That’s what I could see from their eyes. They were just
looking at me, just going, we don’t need you.
(8:18 – 8:31)
We have enough already. And I just felt so uncomfortable. I’d try to go up and shake
hands, try to go up and meet, but as I got close to each little group, they would look at
me and just go, forget it, you know, don’t even come in and stick your hand out.
(8:31 – 8:42)
And I’d just walk around. And I was about to do what I always do, leave. That’s one way
to handle situations if they’re getting too impossible, is to leave.
(8:42 – 8:54)
And then the anxiety level goes down and the guilt goes up, but it’s a good tradeoff. And
there was a bar. And people had told me, my roommate, oh, you ought to drink.
(8:54 – 8:58)
It makes you feel wonderful. I said, well, I could feel wonderful. I remember saying, to
hell with purgatory.
(8:58 – 9:04)
I’m going up there and have one of these drinks and feel wonderful. So I had one.
Nothing happened.
(9:04 – 9:17)
I had two. Nothing happened. And I was drinking the third one and was under the
impression that perhaps this stuff really didn’t work, that it was overstated by these
roommates of mine.
(9:18 – 9:38)
And I did not feel any change in me. But when I looked out at those 50 mean guys, they
were gone, and they had been replaced by 50 of the friendliest people I have ever seen.
Every one of those guys was looking at me going, hey, hey, I’d give anything to be your
friend.
(9:40 – 10:08)
Could you please come over and join us? Don’t go with those, please, please. And I
remember just looking, and not only was there a transformation of them, but I had this
little zing in my step, and I was kind of just going, I’ll be getting over there when I’m
damn good and ready, man. You’re going to be lucky to know me when I get over there.
(10:09 – 10:20)
And I started experiencing the promises of whiskey. I intuitively knew how to handle
situations that were baffling me. It was just wonderful.
(10:21 – 10:29)
So what alcohol did was change the world that I lived in. That’s what it did. That’s why
I’m an alcoholic, because for non-alcoholics, it doesn’t change the world that they live in.
(10:30 – 10:47)
It doesn’t make all of their problems go away and transport them to a different level of
existence where we’re comfortable, where I felt complete. That’s the first time I ever felt
complete. Up until that point, I always felt there was something missing.
(10:48 – 11:09)
I felt like, you know, what is wrong with me? Am I from a different planet? Why don’t I fit
in here? And I had those three drinks, and I now belonged on this planet with those guys.
I could carry on small talk. It was as if my creativity channel was opened.
(11:10 – 11:17)
See, fear had shut it down. I couldn’t make small talk. Some guy would say, well, how
are you doing? I’d go, oh, fine.
(11:17 – 11:25)
And that’s all I could think of to say, because I was so nervous. Now that was gone. You
couldn’t shut me up.
(11:25 – 11:31)
I had something to say about everything, and I just loved it. I said, now this is the real
me. I have a brain.
(11:31 – 11:34)
I’m creative. I’m funny. These guys are laughing.
(11:34 – 11:55)
Man, I’m so happy to have that shackle taken off. It was like somehow I had been
trapped in there, and alcohol set me free to be a complete person and to be comfortable,
and these other people were wonderful. I mean, I’ll tell you, that’s pretty powerful stuff
for three drinks.
(11:56 – 12:09)
Solved all my problems. I mean, it just was the most amazing transformation. So I made
a decision that night that alcohol and I were going to be very close friends for the rest of
my life.
(12:09 – 12:23)
I saw that I had nothing to fear in the future except the country going dry. So I already
developed a tremendous faith in this thing, this new friend. It wasn’t a friend.
(12:23 – 12:57)
It was a power. It was a power that somehow activated me as a human being and made
me comfortable in my environment, and I just went out and got comfortable every day
until I got to AA, and the price got bigger. You know how the price of drinking goes up,
and my ability to rationalize went up along with it, and all the way to the end I would be
saying to myself, yes, I’m in jail.
(12:57 – 13:03)
Yes, I’m having all these problems. I got in another fight, got my teeth knocked out. My
wife’s going to leave me.
(13:03 – 13:24)
My children hate me, but that is a small price to pay for what I’m getting from alcohol,
and it’s this balancing of forces that we do as alcoholics that non-alcoholics can’t
understand. They go, how can the guy, you know, he just throws up every day. He’s in
jail.
(13:24 – 13:48)
I mean, why would he keep drinking? And the answer, the reason they don’t know why is
because alcohol doesn’t do that for them. It doesn’t solve all their problems. There’s no
way they could understand why we’re willing to go through what we went through in
order to be set free from the disease of alcoholism, which I have when I’m sober.
(13:49 – 14:21)
You know, it’s interesting to think about the fact that when we say we’re powerless over
alcohol, and I say this, I understand there’s quite a few new people here tonight, so
you’re the only ones I’m talking to anyway. Everybody else already knows all this stuff,
so it’s old hat, but I love talking about AA to those of you that are new and trying to tell
you that this is the greatest deal that it’ll ever be in your life, and if you keep sticking
around here, you’re going to be amazed. It’s just going to be the greatest journey.
(14:21 – 14:41)
It is the ultimate journey. It’s the ultimate ride that there is, is this spiritual journey.
There’s nothing that can come close to it, and this powerless over alcohol occurs when
there’s no alcohol in our system, and that’s a very important thing to understand.
(14:42 – 14:54)
I used to think that it had to do with the fact that whenever I drank, I got all screwed up,
you know. I’d pour some alcohol in my system, and then everything bad happened. I
couldn’t stop drinking.
(14:54 – 15:37)
I got arrested. I got all these things, and then I started having liver damage and
blackouts and convulsions and all the troubles that came along, but if that was my only
problem, it really wouldn’t be a big problem because that would be simply like an
allergy. It would mean that I was allergic to the chemical alcohol, and so let’s say that
you have some allergy right now, and you don’t know what it is, but every so often when
you’re out eating, you break out in a rash, and you can’t breathe, and you’re choking and
all that, and you go to a doctor, and finally, after many, many tests, they find out that it’s
strawberries, and they just go, your problem is strawberries.
(15:37 – 15:50)
As long as you don’t eat strawberries, you won’t have all those breaking out problems,
and you know something? All you do is not eat strawberries. You go to somebody’s
house. They go, we’re having strawberry shortcake.
(15:50 – 16:14)
You say, no, not for me. I won’t be having any strawberry shortcake. You don’t get
together with other people who can’t eat strawberries and sit around going, oh boy, I
saw a strawberry ice cream cone today, and I could hardly resist taking it.
(16:16 – 16:32)
So if the problem is only when you drink alcohol, you get all screwed up, then that’s not
much of a problem because all you do is not drink and everything will be fine. But we all
know that isn’t the truth. When I didn’t drink is when I had my problem.
(16:33 – 16:40)
I was back to that problem I had as a teenager. I’m right back there. Life is too much for
me.
(16:40 – 16:48)
Alcohol wasn’t the problem. It was the answer. And so my being powerless over alcohol
occurs when there’s no alcohol in my system.
(16:48 – 17:16)
This is why it’s a fatal illness. I can go through treatment and they can teach me that I’m
an alcoholic and they can show me what alcoholism is and show me the progression and
explain to me that if I ever take another drink, I will probably lose my family and my job
and my health. And I can take that information and I can go home and I can go, my God,
if I ever take another drink, this is unbelievable.
(17:17 – 17:26)
I’m an alcoholic. And I might even go down and tell my favorite bartender about this. Joe,
do you know I just got out of treatment? I’m an alcoholic.
(17:27 – 17:42)
If I were to drink, immediately I would lose my job. Could I have a beer? I would lose my
job. I’m in the middle of explaining this whole thing, having a drink.
(17:43 – 17:52)
Having a drink. So what do I learn? Knowledge doesn’t help. All you have now is a smart
drunk.
(17:56 – 18:12)
He’s passed out on the floor and when he comes to, he can tell you precisely what
happened with this disease of alcoholism. But that treatment and that knowledge
contributes zero to staying sober. It doesn’t help.
(18:13 – 18:32)
Because our first step doesn’t say anything about being ignorant about alcoholism. It
says we’re powerless. Well, I’m powerless over alcohol so I can study all I want and learn
everything there is to know about the subject of alcoholism and I’m still going to be
powerless over alcohol.
(18:32 – 18:52)
And that’s hard for my ego to accept. It really is because, like everybody else, I have
been used to solving problems logically. You know what I mean? I just see a problem and
I go, alright, we’ve got to figure this out and then we figure it out and we see a solution
and it makes sense to me.
(18:53 – 19:11)
I can see that solution and then I just do it and the problem gets solved. We come in
here to AA and this is what I’m trying to talk a little bit about to those of you that are
new. We’re moving from that logical, intellectual realm into the spiritual realm and
everything is different.
(19:11 – 19:28)
It just doesn’t work that way anymore. So when I got this sponsor and I’ll just deviate for
a second here and just say I did all my drinking in the Marine Corps. It was the Korean
War.
(19:28 – 19:37)
We all had to join the military. I got it up in the Marine Corps and I didn’t like it but I saw
they were terrible. They just were mean to me.
(19:40 – 20:08)
I was trying to tell them I’m special and that didn’t help but I did see a movie about pilots
and they were at the bar and they were talking like this and there were women in the
background and it really looked appealing so I signed up for flight school and made it
and then I flew fighter planes for the next 12 years and I also got married. I had six kids.
I got promoted to first lieutenant.
(20:09 – 20:36)
I got promoted to captain and on the inside I was being destroyed by alcohol. So on the
outside you’d go, oh, look at the sky, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, you know, all these
things and I am coming one day closer to a grand mal seizure, malnutrition, puts me in
the nut ward. I was there for a week and I go into the DTs and they lock me up in a
straitjacket in the nut ward for six months.
(20:36 – 20:49)
So that was sort of my ending. That’s my whole alcoholism story and it’s not a
complicated process. I have a disease and it progressed and I happen to be flying
airplanes while it progressed.
(20:49 – 20:55)
You happen to be teaching school. You happen to be practicing law. You happen to be
bringing up four kids.
(20:55 – 21:10)
You happen to be whatever it was, you know, a painter, but it’s the same story, it’s just
different background music and it’s just different scenery going by. You know, I had
clouds going by in mine. But it’s the same story.
(21:10 – 21:17)
That’s why we all can connect in here because it’s not out there. It’s what was going on
inside. I was getting more and more frightened.
(21:18 – 21:25)
It was terrifying and more and more I just got inside myself. I was terrified they’d find out
I was an alcoholic. I didn’t know I was an alcoholic.
(21:25 – 22:06)
I was terrified somebody would say there’s something wrong with this guy and he ought
to stop drinking and that would be the end of my life because they wouldn’t understand
how essential alcohol was. It was my medicine that was keeping me from shaking so I
could fly and it was just absolutely critical in my life. So in a nutshell that was my
drinking story as this disease progressed and took me into that nut war where after five
months AA came in and three of us, three alcoholics out of the 25 in the nut ward were
marched into an AA meeting.
(22:06 – 22:26)
All drunks fall in, right pace. Get on the elevator and go down and there was three guys
from the Bethesda, Maryland AA group and I really liked what they had to say but I didn’t
really connect. I thought it would be great if I ever had a friend who was an alcoholic.
(22:26 – 23:03)
I was going to send them around and see those guys and when I got let out as an
outpatient in a matter of weeks I was drinking again. I was smuggling vodka into the nut
ward even though they told me if I ever had another drink my career would be over and I
just didn’t think they meant it. So I did start drinking and knowing I was going to get
caught on Pearl Harbor Day of 1964 I made a call to Intergroup while I was home over
the weekend and my sponsor came to my house and he was an infantry marine.
(23:05 – 23:19)
Huge, just huge. And when he knocked on the door the house moved a little bit and it
was just ahhh and it just came in. Hi, my name is Bill.
(23:19 – 23:24)
This is a 12-step call. I talk, you listen. Oh, God.
(23:28 – 23:37)
And it was just, you know, the very basics. Just sit there and don’t talk. We didn’t go to
discussion meetings.
(23:37 – 23:58)
Back then we didn’t go to discussion meetings until you had three months. And I’d say,
well, why? And he says, what could you say? What do you know about anything? I know
a lot, man. And then I got, I went to Yale and I’m a fighter pilot and then he said, you got
a wristband from a nut war don.
(24:01 – 24:12)
Nobody wants to hear from you. I don’t know. So I started tucking it up under my sleeve.
(24:15 – 24:19)
So it was just, you know, sit down and shut up. Sit down and shut up. Listen.
(24:19 – 24:21)
Listen. Listen. Don’t drink.
(24:21 – 24:23)
Listen. Listen. I’m just going crazy with this guy.
(24:24 – 24:37)
But I’m staying sober and we’re going to a meeting every night and we jump in the cars
and the meetings were far apart. Sometimes we’d drive 40 minutes. Now there’s a
meeting in Washington, D.C. There’s a meeting on every street corner just about.
(24:38 – 25:01)
So we got a lot of AA, driving in the car, driving back, talking, talking, talking about life.
And sobriety came in and spirituality came in. And I finally realized that I had been
introduced to something that my education had not given me.
(25:02 – 25:18)
And that was the basic course in Life 101. You know what I mean? What is life? What is it
all about? You know, what is the deal? And I had to come to AA to find out what it was.
And that’s what our 12 steps are.
(25:18 – 25:55)
They’re finally going to explain all the mysteries to us. And they’re not going to explain
them in the way that we are used to in education and they’re not going to solve
problems the way we’ve been used to before we get to AA. And that’s what I’d like to talk
about tonight to those of you that are new is the immense practicality of Alcoholics
Anonymous and a spiritual program and how necessary an open mind is in order to be
successful in this.
(25:55 – 26:19)
You don’t have to be smart, but you have to have an open mind. You have to be willing
to allow ideas to come in and to try them even though you don’t think they’re going to
work. If you were to look at AA’s 12 steps, for almost every single person in this room,
you will find that those 12 steps are a series of actions that we took that we didn’t
believe in.
(26:22 – 26:34)
You don’t think I thought that was going to work, do you? I studied those things very
carefully. When they told me, see these 12 steps? This is it, baby. This is your plan for
living.
(26:35 – 26:43)
Whatever problem you have. How many sponsors have told you whatever problem you
have, they’re in the first 164 pages. They’re in these 12 steps.
(26:44 – 26:49)
So I took them at their word. I said, alright. So I went home and I thought about the
problems that I had.
(26:50 – 27:04)
What did I have? I had the fact that I was getting thrown out of the Marine Corps. I got
passed over from promotion. I’ve got six kids and I’m being bounced out with a year or
two sobriety and I don’t know what I’m going to do so I don’t have any money.
(27:04 – 27:10)
So I know that I have a job problem. I’ve got a money problem. I’ve got a health problem.
(27:11 – 27:16)
My marriage isn’t working too good. So I’ve got a relationship problem. So I said, I see.
(27:17 – 27:28)
These steps, what they tell me is true. These steps are the answer to those problems. So
I went back with a renewed interest because I knew how serious these problems were.
(27:28 – 27:35)
They were bugging me. They were a threat to my sobriety. So I went back and took a
look at these steps and I got home and I studied them.
(27:35 – 27:44)
Anybody ever studied these steps? You say, finally I’m going to get into this. You know
what I mean? You finally decide, you know, maybe this is right. I’m going to get into this
program.
(27:45 – 28:01)
So I remember going home and I really read the big book and then the 12 and 12 on top
of that. And I got all through and I said to myself, man, I’ve got to go back and read this
again. I missed the money step somewhere.
(28:02 – 28:17)
I didn’t see… That was the most pressing thing and I think for most of us new alcoholics,
money is a big, big problem. And I kind of said to myself, I’ve missed the money step. I
must have gone right by the money step.
(28:18 – 28:30)
And I went back looking and looking and I saw nothing in there. I did not see anything
about money. Then I looked for jobs and I didn’t see anything about jobs in there.
(28:30 – 28:50)
And I looked for relationships and I didn’t see anything about relationships in there. And I
decided from analyzing those steps that they didn’t apply to my problems. And I could
probably still be studying them and concluding the same thing, that they don’t apply to
my problem.
(28:51 – 29:07)
So I’m sharing all this with those of you that are new because in order for this program to
become visible, we have to do it. We actually have to take these actions in order for
them to become visible. It kind of reminds me of alcohol.
(29:08 – 29:26)
Think back on alcohol when you’re about 16 years old and you’re afraid to ask the girl to
dance. And you’re at the dance and you’re just standing up there and you want to go out
and all that, but you don’t know how to dance. You wish you had followed your mother’s
advice and taken some dancing lessons or whatever it was.
(29:27 – 29:49)
And somebody said, drink this. Just drink this and you’ll know how to dance. And I’m
going, are you telling me there’s like in this glass right here, there’s 12 Arthur Murray
lessons in this glass is what you’re saying? They’re going, yes, there are.
(29:51 – 29:59)
Well, I don’t see them. That doesn’t look possible. It doesn’t look possible that there
could be 12 Arthur Murray lessons in that glass.
(30:00 – 30:10)
Well, the only way you’re going to find out is to drink it. You have to drink it. And then
you drink it and you find out there’s 30 or 40 Arthur Murray lessons in that glass.
(30:11 – 30:39)
And you’re out there with, I mean, it’s unbelievable. But what about the person who
refused to drink that drink? They could go to their grave swearing that whiskey, there
wouldn’t have been any Arthur Murray lessons in there. They could go all the way to
their grave just saying, you know, back when I was 16, you know what they told me, this
story about a glass with Arthur Murray lessons in it? You know, I’m glad I didn’t fall for
that.
(30:40 – 30:44)
I’m glad I didn’t fall. See, those are old ideas. And they’re sticking with them.
(30:45 – 30:54)
And a lot of us stick with ideas that we come into AA. I had so many of them. There’s no
God for me.
(30:55 – 31:05)
This spiritual stuff, that’s okay for other people, but it isn’t going to work for me. I don’t
think I could really get into this God stuff. I don’t think I could really do this spirituality.
(31:07 – 31:20)
And you know, AA has the most wonderful way of teaching us. Because all of us come in
here with tremendous smarts, whether it’s college smarts or street smarts or whatever.
We have survived.
(31:21 – 31:40)
You know, for alcoholics to survive, I mean, we do pretty damn good when you think
about it. Because we’re out there in this competitive world with one hand tied behind our
back, alcoholism, and we’re still doing pretty good. A lot of us get up there to be, you
know, people that people talk.
(31:40 – 31:45)
Hey, look at that guy. He’s a professor of the university. He pukes a lot, but he’s a
professor of the university.
(31:48 – 32:01)
And he’s doing this, you know what I mean? He’s doing this with one hand tied behind
his back. I mean, he has to deal with blackouts, lawyers, going to court, and all that. All
the other teachers just correct papers.
(32:02 – 32:21)
You know, so it’s really amazing how far we do go on our own power. And we come in
here and they’re just going, this isn’t the way it works anymore. We’re going to show you
a way of living, and it involves changing your mind about a lot of things.
(32:22 – 32:35)
And that’s the problem. I think the first time us alcoholics change our mind, it’s kind of
like having the Queen Mary turn around in Baltimore Harbor. You know what I mean? It
takes about 50 tugboats on either end to get this.
(32:37 – 32:51)
And finally, you know, you’re going, oh, God, it hurts to change your mind. You
remember that? And I remember, you know, finally, one time with my sponsor, he just
was going on at some point. I forget what it was.
(32:51 – 32:58)
He was just going on and on. And finally, I just went, okay, okay, okay, you’re right. And
he said, no, you’re wrong.
(33:01 – 33:06)
Same thing. He said, well, say it. And I remember it was like, oh, I’m wrong.
(33:06 – 33:16)
He said, I can’t hear you. It was like a chicken bone was sticking to my throat. It just
wasn’t going to come out natural being wrong.
(33:20 – 33:47)
Geez, today I just love finding out something else I’m wrong about to get rid of this.
Because when you think about all the wrong ideas that we have, all the selfcenteredness, all of the way we saw the world, it was so important to be somebody. We
all are born with this desire to be somebody because we sense that something’s missing.
(33:48 – 34:14)
And there is something missing. And I love the story about Dr. Carl Young because I
think he wrote to us about what’s missing. If you remember the story in the history of
Alcoholics Anonymous, the millionaire’s son, Roland Hazard from Rhode Island, was an
alcoholic, and his father wanted him to take over the business and was willing to spend
whatever it took to get Roland sober.
(34:15 – 34:20)
And nothing worked in the United States. He had tried everything that they had. This was
in the early 30s.
(34:21 – 34:32)
And he had heard about the world-famous psychiatrist in Europe, Switzerland, Dr. Carl
Young. Well, I’ve got all the money we need, so I’m going to send Roland. He sent him
over there to work with Dr. Young for a year.
(34:33 – 34:50)
And Dr. Young worked with Roland and tried to cause this massive personality
displacement that we call a spiritual awakening here in Alcoholics Anonymous. At the
end of the year, he said, I’ve done everything that I can, Roland. I think you understand
your situation.
(34:52 – 34:59)
Godspeed. And Roland got as far as Paris, and somebody asked him the wrong question.
They said, would you like a drink? And he said, yes, I would like a drink.
(34:59 – 35:28)
And he immediately got drunk, stayed drunk for a while, felt terrible, went back to Dr.
Young and said, Dr. Young, I’m drunk again. I said, it’s a mess. What’s going to happen to
me? What can you do? And Dr. Young started this wonderful thing that was read in
Chapter 5 when it said, no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.
(35:29 – 35:55)
Well, if you looked for a symbol in the world of no human power could have relieved our
alcoholism, what could be greater than Dr. Young? This was the epitome of human power
dealing with alcoholism, and Dr. Young said to Roland, Roland, there’s nothing I can do
for you. A tremendous act of humility. You know, psychiatrist with all that education, and
he said to Roland, there’s nothing I can do for you.
(35:55 – 36:22)
So he induced in Roland a terrible sense of hopelessness and despair. And he said, you
mean I’m condemned to be locked up for life? And he said, it may be true that that’s
what’s going to happen to you, but I’ve heard of isolated cases where people have found
a spiritual transformation. And they’re just, I would go seek out some form of spiritual life
that this might happen to you.
(36:22 – 37:06)
And as we all know, Roland went and found the Oxford Movement, and they taught him
some spiritual principles which are the precursor to the AA 12 steps, and he got sober.
And the chain of events was that he had occasion to call on Ebby Thatcher and get Ebby
sober and in the Oxford Movement, and then Ebby went and got Bill Wilson and brought
Bill to the Oxford Movement, and then Bill met Dr. Bob, and you and I are all sober
because of this chain of events. Well, about 15 years later, Bill realized that they had
never written back to Dr. Young to tell him the chain of events that happened after he
said to Roland, there’s nothing I can do for you.
(37:06 – 37:38)
So he wrote him this letter saying, perhaps you don’t remember Roland Hazard, but as a
result of his visit and what you told him, he went and sought a spiritual experience, and
that led to the founding of AA, which is now in 30 countries, and it is a wonderful
movement that’s sobering up people all over the place. And this letter was very timely
because Dr. Young died about six months later, but he wrote back, and he wrote back to
Bill, and he said, I’m so happy to hear. I didn’t know what happened to Roland.
(37:39 – 37:51)
I was so happy to hear this. He said, back when I was treating Roland, back, that was 15
years earlier, it was not fashionable nor safe for us psychiatrists to talk about spirituality.
We’d be laughed out of our profession.
(37:52 – 38:19)
But I long felt that what Roland Hazard was experiencing was an inordinate longing for
God. Now, isn’t that a wonderful way to describe our disease? That what we have is an
inordinate longing for a higher power. In other words, we all sense that something was
missing.
(38:20 – 38:32)
Life was just never right. The problem is that we diagnosed it as not enough sex, not
enough money, not enough power. And then we tried all those things, and they didn’t
work.
(38:32 – 38:50)
And we tried alcohol until we almost died from it. Now, at times, it appeared to fix this
spiritual longing, but it never lasted. As soon as we sobered up, we all said to ourselves,
I’m back where I was.
(38:51 – 39:05)
There’s just something wrong with me. And we never guessed that what was wrong with
us was we weren’t close enough to our higher power. And so tremendous signals were
sent out.
(39:06 – 39:39)
And we were fortunate enough to be selected to come into Alcoholics Anonymous to
have this program explained to us that here are these 12 steps, and all we need for you
to have a beginning in all of this is to change your mind about all kinds of things. And I
think the way that people become spiritual in AA is not by having anybody explain a
higher power to us so that we can believe in it, but this is how I think spirituality works.
The disease of alcoholism is explained to us.
(39:40 – 40:02)
And it is explained that if we keep drinking, we’re going to die. And the only thing that
can stop us from dying is a higher power. And I like to think about taking somebody, if I
had my way and I have somebody new and I want to teach them about AA, and I used to
be a pilot, I would say, I’m going to show you all about spirituality in 30 minutes.
(40:03 – 40:24)
And we’d just jump in a jet and fly up to about 50,000 feet and you’re sitting up in the
front and I’m going, now what I’ve got to start teaching you about first is powerlessness.
Okay? And I want you to experience powerlessness so you don’t, you know, just not the
dictionary definition, you’ve got to feel it in your gut. I want to show you what
powerlessness is.
(40:25 – 40:34)
And without you knowing what’s going to happen, I roll the plane upside down, pull some
negative G’s, and you go out. You’re out. And you have no chute.
(40:35 – 40:51)
And you’re just floating along. I’ve got the radio and I say, are you experiencing
powerlessness? Do you feel powerless out there? And you’re going, wow, I’m
experiencing power. You know, because there isn’t a thing you can do about this
situation.
(40:51 – 40:56)
Gravity is now in charge. You can be real cool. You can go like this.
(40:58 – 41:15)
And it takes quite a few minutes to fall from 50,000 feet and you can be going, whoa,
whoa, anytime he’s going to bring that plane back and get me in, I know. Or he’s got a
rope or I know something. And all of a sudden, it’s getting down around 3,000 feet and
you can see the ground moving now.
(41:15 – 41:22)
It wasn’t moving before. Now it’s going, whoa, it’s coming up. And there’s a truck in the
parking lot down there with your name on it.
(41:22 – 41:38)
It’s just going, whoa. I say, you got the powerless? Have you got the powerless part?
Have you got it? Yeah, yeah, I’ve got the powerless. And about 8 feet from the truck, a
big hand comes out of the sky, whoa, and grabs you.
(41:39 – 42:12)
And a big voice said, excuse me, we’re conducting a survey. Do you believe in God? And
you go, no, but I’m willing to reconsider. So, this is how practical AA is.
(42:12 – 42:24)
AA doesn’t try to convince us of the existence of God. It convinces us of the need for
God. It just shows us what powerlessness, this is a fatal illness.
(42:24 – 42:37)
Unless you change your mind about a higher power, you’re going to hit the truck. And
even our ego says, well, I’m not going to look that bad to the other guys if I change my
mind right near this truck. And we become open.
(42:38 – 42:46)
And that is the secret to this whole program is simply staying open. You don’t have to
figure anything out. You just have to get open.
(42:47 – 43:00)
And in order to stay open, we have to get everything that’s blocking the opening. You
know, the 11th step has the prayer of St. Francis, Lord, make me a channel of Thy
peace. So here’s this peace that’s inside of us.
(43:01 – 43:09)
Bill says in the big book, the fundamental idea of God was born inside of us. Just like the
idea of a friend. It’s there waiting for us to be in touch with it.
(43:09 – 43:24)
But it’s blocked. And all our 12 steps are designed for us to remove all these blockages.
Just find out these character defects or blockages because they are preventing me from
having a personal conscious contact with a higher power.
(43:25 – 43:44)
And unless we have conscious contact, it’s a theory. It’s just a theory. So sobriety and
working with your sponsor is going to open up this channel until an awareness settles in
to you that there really is this loving spirit inside of you.
(43:45 – 44:02)
And for those moments when you can get that close, you sense that completeness. And
you finally feel like I understand life. I understand that in order to see the world as it
really is, I have to get close to my higher power.
(44:03 – 44:22)
I have to become God-centered instead of self-centered. Self-centered view of the world
is so painful and frightening and intimidating because it is only seen from a human being
who is trying to get his or her way. That’s the only problem human beings have is not
getting your way.
(44:23 – 44:32)
And AA suggests, oh, you know what the answer to that is? Don’t have a way. Don’t have
a way. Who will I be? I’ll be nobody.
(44:32 – 44:42)
No, you’re going to be much better than you ever dreamed of. Because Bill talks about
being catapulted into the fourth dimension of existence. And you know what that level
is? It’s the intuitive level.
(44:42 – 45:00)
We don’t give up being in charge of our lives. We give up trying to think it up in our
brain. And we work these steps so that we can have some sense of serenity and peace
and be in touch with the intuitive level of ourselves where we become so efficient.
(45:00 – 45:22)
We’re tuned in to ideas just occur to us. We just see solutions to problems that used to…
That’s what the promises are talking about. They just go, if you will stop trying to figure
everything out and all uptight and panic, if you will take the time every day to restore
your spirituality, intuitive answers will be provided to you.
(45:22 – 45:42)
You don’t have to work that hard at life. You will become in your own way a program of
attraction As each of us becomes God-centered, we are more attractive to people around
us. People like being near unselfish people.
(45:42 – 45:55)
They like being near people who are loving. And as a result of that, we have friends, we
have business, we have things just happening to us. But as soon as we let up on our
spiritual program, they all go away.
(45:56 – 46:06)
I think about this in closing. I’m right at the end of my time. I like to think about our tenth
step, which talks about maintaining our spiritual condition.
(46:06 – 46:16)
You know that what we really have is a daily reprieve, contingent on our spiritual
condition. I just bought a new car. It’s the greatest.
(46:16 – 46:20)
It’s a Sebring convertible. I got down in Florida. I haven’t had a convertible in 40 years.
(46:20 – 46:25)
I am the happiest guy in the world. I’m driving around. I got my sunglasses on.
(46:25 – 46:33)
I got a hat. And I’m just having… I’m so happy I can’t believe it. It’s the smoothest ride in
the world.
(46:33 – 46:48)
And you know what makes that ride smooth? Free air in the tires. That’s the secret to a
smooth ride. It doesn’t matter if it’s a BMW, Mercedes, whatever it is, no air in the tires,
bad ride.
(46:49 – 46:53)
Bad. Bad ride. Very bad.
(46:56 – 47:11)
And I don’t know about you, but do you ever get a slow leak in your tire? And you’re late
for a very important appointment? I’ll just put a little air in it and I’ll fix it tomorrow. And
we go off. And we get away with it for one day.
(47:11 – 47:16)
We get away with it two days. We get away with it three days. And now we’re on to a
really important meeting.
(47:17 – 47:27)
And all of a sudden, bam! There’s a pothole. The rim hits there. And that tire cuts from
the inside.
(47:28 – 47:31)
The rim hits it and it cuts it. And bam! And that’s it. The ride is over.
(47:33 – 47:46)
You know what? I think that’s what a slip looks like. That’s just what a slip looks like. We
let our spiritual air pressure get down dangerously low.
(47:46 – 47:53)
We know it. We know we’ve got to do something. But I’m making a living.
(47:53 – 48:00)
I’ve got all these things. I’ll get to some meetings later on. And we’re walking around
with about three pounds of air.
(48:01 – 48:16)
And guaranteed, that’s when life is going to throw the biggest pothole you’ve ever seen.
And you’re going to go out and you’re going to encounter the very situation that our first
step talks about. Life is going to overpower us.
(48:17 – 48:34)
Something is going to be too much for us because we as alcoholics are not going to stay
sober on our own. What we need with us every day is our higher power. Not total burning
bush conscious contact.
(48:34 – 48:47)
Just about 30 pounds of pressure. You know what I’m saying? You and 30 pounds of
spiritual pressure and you’re going to have a great future. That’s what it takes.
(48:49 – 49:02)
And in closing, those of you that are new, I always like to wrap up with this. The present
that AA gives you is you. You haven’t seen the magnificence of you yet.
(49:02 – 49:10)
You look in the mirror and you go, oh, there’s that kid who screwed up in grammar
school and my mother made fun of me. And you’ve got all those things. That’s who’s
there.
(49:12 – 49:37)
And AA’s going to say, you know all those ideas? We’re going to get rid of all of those.
And we’re going to show you a very loving and caring person who is going to contribute
to this world in a great degree of usefulness. You look on your resume and you think that
all those things that are on there are there to entitle you to a certain salary.
(49:38 – 49:59)
And you go out and try and demand this and you wonder why you get a lot of resistance
as you barge into life. And the program’s going to take your resume and it’s going to
spiritualize it. And it’s going to enable you to look at it and it’s going to say, see this list?
These are all God-given gifts that I was given so that I can be useful out in the world.
(50:00 – 50:10)
And I’m going to go out into the world as serving. I’m going to go out and just be useful.
I’m going to take these talents and I’m going to accomplish things that are going to
benefit other people.
(50:10 – 50:23)
And pretty soon you’ll be living in a mansion. And you’re going to find out that
everything’s just going to be given to you because you’re not demanding them anymore.
You’re going to find things are attracted to you.
(50:23 – 50:56)
You’re going to find you are an awesomely beautiful person with a heart of gold that has
been trapped inside of wrong ideas. And when those are stripped away and you start
blossoming and smiling and that sparkles in your eye, all of us that have been around a
while want to cry because we see our rebirth again and again and again. And I thank you
all very much.
(50:56 – 50:56)
Good night.