Sandy B. from Tampa, FL at Sioux Empire Roundup – Sioux Falls, SD – 3/1/2006

(0:13 – 0:42)
Hi everybody, my name is Sandy Beach and I’m an alcoholic. How are you all doing? Jill,
I’ve heard my story, so I don’t blame you for getting a ride to get out of here before all
this hot air starts. Anyway, I want to thank the committee and the other speakers have
just been wonderful.
(0:42 – 1:14)
What a remarkable weekend and Tamara Francine, who I’ve known for I think all the
years she’s been sober, is a remarkable woman in AA and just brings all the dignity to
the program that we welcome. And it’s so nice to see all this. I was speaking at dinner
and some of the younger people were telling me that I think that there was a shift going
on in AA to return to the basics.
(1:14 – 1:42)
And I’ve noticed it myself and I think it’s wonderful. I think it’s just a couldn’t make me
happier. Anyway, I got sober.
Yeah, thanks. I got sober in Washington, D.C. on December 7th, 1964. And I’ve had the
same sponsor for the whole time.
(1:43 – 2:00)
His name is Bill T. He lives in Virginia, but he has lung cancer and it’s a real struggle for
him to get around, but he’s still active. His home group comes over and takes him over
to the meeting every day at noon. And he’s still as mean as ever.
(2:03 – 2:38)
And we’re praying and praying because we’re going to try and make 50 years together.
Wouldn’t that be something to have the same sponsor for 50 years? But anyway, I’m
going to just tell a very short version of my story because I like talking about AA so
much. And so that’s what I’ll do if it’s all right.
If it isn’t, I’m going to do it anyway. Let’s see. I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, had
the shock effect of the Catholic Church.
(2:38 – 2:47)
I saw the crucifix when I was nine and what it spoke to me. It said, little boy, do you see
this? And I said, yes. Well, this is what God did to his only son that he loved.
(2:49 – 3:08)
Guess what he’s going to do to you now? Now, that’s that’s not what the church taught,
but that’s what I saw. And so when we see things, this is our story. It is the version of
reality that we tell ourselves.
(3:09 – 3:27)
And so I found it quite frightening and I never found any comfort in the idea of God or of
a God. And as soon as I was old enough or my parents were no longer around, I just
stopped going because it was too painful. And besides, I had started drinking and I
couldn’t get out of bed on Sunday morning.
(3:27 – 3:46)
So that kind of let that all out. I got one sister. She’s got twenty nine years in AA.
So we became pretty close friends. I was a good student. I went to a little prep school in
New Haven.
(3:46 – 4:12)
I was a good athlete, had very high grades. That school pumped right into Yale
University, which is where I grew up. It was the hometown school.
I don’t think I really realized it was important to I left. You know, it was just, oh, yeah,
that’s if I used to work on their buildings and construction and all that. But when I got
there, I found all these guys from around the country and they were they seemed to be
all rich.
(4:12 – 5:11)
They seemed to all know what’s going on and they were cool and they were just it was
so much superior to me that I felt like I ought to quit. It was just too much. It was
intimidating.
And I was not drinking. I was going to continue to get high grades and I was trying out
for the track team. But I was very nervous.
It was very uncomfortable just to be in my skin. And I’d been there about a month and I
went to this event to meet other guys. Our names were typed up on a list.
And this was very hard for me to walk into a room and just say hello to people. But that
night I said, I’m going to go in there and I’m going to just be like I’m one of them. I’m
going to really do this.
I’m going to overcome this insecurity and this fear. And I walked in and I just had all this
energy and I started towards the first group and they turned around. And you know how
people can speak with their eyes and they looked at me and I could see it stopped me
right in my tracks.
(5:11 – 5:43)
The energy from six guys looking at me saying so clearly you couldn’t miss it. We don’t
want to know you. Don’t come over to this group.
We have enough friends. Stay away. I was like, whoa, God, that hurt.
It was just, you know, so I looked over here and these guys were doing the same thing.
And so then I went to the ones in the back and it got contagious. And as I went around,
the whole room gave me a clear signal that the last person they would ever want to
know was me.
(5:44 – 6:02)
So I never met anyone. And I went up and there was a bartender and I said, geez, my
roommate said this stuff makes you feel good. Maybe I’ll have a drink.
So I had one. It didn’t make me feel good. I had another one that didn’t make me feel
good.
And I was halfway through the third one. And I said, maybe it doesn’t work. Vastly
overrated, this alcohol stuff.
(6:03 – 6:21)
And I turned around like I was leaving and I looked out and it was a miracle. All those
mean guys had been replaced by friendly guys. And I started looking in their eyes and
everyone in that room wanted to be my best friend.
(6:23 – 6:27)
And I couldn’t believe it. I saw this. It was just wonderful.
(6:28 – 6:40)
And I said, oh, my God, where am I going? I got to start meeting all these people. And as
I started walking over to the first group, I found myself agreeing with them. They would
be lucky to know me.
(6:44 – 6:51)
And I intuitively knew how to handle situations that used to baffle me. I knew how to
make small talk. I was myself.
(6:51 – 7:00)
Hello. Hello. Hello.
Where are you from? And I just talked and talked. And all these people and they’re
smiling and laughing. They were so happy to see me.
(7:01 – 7:07)
And after a while they started leaving and I’m trying to stop them. No, no, no, don’t
leave. We’re having a great time here.
(7:08 – 7:25)
Pretty soon they’re all gone and I’m left with the bartender. And I remember going, so
this is the world that the people have been talking about. I should have started drinking
in grammar school.
This is unbelievable. I had no idea the world was this nice. It was so friendly.
(7:25 – 7:37)
And I just felt wonderful. And I went back to the bartender. And I said, well, if three
drinks does that, what would 20 drinks do? Didn’t take me long to figure this out.
(7:38 – 7:49)
So later that night I’m throwing up and I’m dying and I’m just lying on the floor in the
bathroom. And the sun came up. I sat on my bed and my head felt like it had a hatchet.
(7:49 – 7:52)
You all know what I’m talking about. Your skin hurts. Your hair hurts.
(7:53 – 8:05)
You’re shaking and dry heaving and all that. And a thought occurred to me, are you
going to drink again tonight? And that took a half a second. I said, yes, I am.
(8:07 – 8:28)
I said, this feeling like you’re going to die and throwing up and all this pain is a small
price to pay for what I had last night. Because what I had last night is the secret of life. I
had found access to a world that was great to live in.
(8:29 – 8:49)
And I didn’t, you know, so I could hardly wait from then on for the mundane day to get
over so that I could go join the real world at five or six o’clock. And boy, when I walked
into that bar, it was just like Alice in Wonderland. I said, well, here I come.
(8:49 – 9:06)
And about two drinks and I was there. And I just loved it. I loved people.
I loved myself. It was as if my creativity was blocked by all my insecurity and my fears
and all of that. And now I was free to be me.
(9:07 – 9:20)
I was now, I was 100% me. And when I was sober, I was trapped in there. And it was like
Clancy said, it was black and white when I was sober and it was technicolor when I had
three drinks.
(9:21 – 9:34)
It was just the greatest. So all the things that people told me, if you drink a lot, you
know, you’ll probably lose your high grades and get in trouble and get in fights. All of
that started happening.
(9:34 – 9:40)
I started getting very low grades, no more athletics. I just wanted to drink. It was the
greatest.
(9:41 – 9:53)
And I barely graduated. And the Korean War was going on, the draft, and a bunch of
guys said, well, let’s not get drafted, let’s go join the Marine Corps. I had a beer, went
down, joined the Marine Corps.
(9:56 – 10:07)
And boot camp was sort of a, whoa, that was a shock. What’s wrong with these guys? I
remember saying to myself, they’re too intense. They’re just too intense here.
(10:07 – 10:21)
Relax, guys. There’s a golf course on this base, I know, and it doesn’t look like we’re
going to see it. And I got through that, and it took six months to become an infantry
lieutenant, and then I saw a movie about pilots.
(10:22 – 10:30)
That was very intriguing. I’d never been in an airplane, but I said there’s something
about that that looks great. So I signed up for it.
(10:30 – 10:55)
And I made it and graduated from the basic school with orders to flight school. I got
married, lovely lady, and we went off to Pensacola, Florida for 18 months of training, and
I got airsick on the DC-3 flying into Atlanta. I got airsick on the DC-3 flying into
Pensacola, and I got airsick in the SNJ for the first five flights.
(10:55 – 11:11)
And my instructor said, son, I just don’t think you’re going to make it. But the motion
sickness went away, and I started doing very well. I would be number two in my class,
number three, as we go through all the phases of formation and knife flying and carrier
work and all that.
(11:12 – 11:23)
I had found the perfect deal for me. So they were giving out regular commissions right at
that time, and I got one. So now I am a career officer.
(11:24 – 11:35)
I’m off to Japan for my fighter squadron, and I finished a tour over there. It was the
greatest. All the pilots drank together.
(11:35 – 11:40)
The colonel ordered the drinks. We sat around a table. It was a unit, and it just was
wonderful.
(11:40 – 12:07)
I loved it. And I was out the end of the runway about halfway through that tour with one
of my heroes in the squadron, a big redheaded Irish major who was the maintenance
officer, and we were practicing carrier landings, and we were watching some of the guys
in our squadron practice on the field. And he was talking about in 18 months he’d be a
lieutenant colonel, and he’s going to get a fighter squadron, the best in the Marine
Corps, and he’s going to get nothing but the best pilots.
(12:08 – 12:19)
And then he turned to me, and he said, and I want you. And, of course, the young first
lieutenant, I just was like, oh, my God, it doesn’t get any better than that. And then he
said, but I wouldn’t let you drink.
(12:22 – 12:27)
Now, this is a guy I’m getting drunk with all the time. We’re all out drinking. We’re all
partying and all that.
(12:27 – 12:57)
And I never understood that comment until I got to AA, and I realized that as an
alcoholic, my drinking scared heavy drinkers. You know what I mean? We drink with an
intensity that is way above guys that are overseas partying until they get home when
they’re going to go back to regular drinking. And I scared him.
(12:58 – 13:06)
And I had no idea that I was different from heavy drinking partying guys. You know what
I mean? It was like that. So that was my alcoholism.
(13:06 – 13:26)
So the only story I’m going to tell is how I got my orders from Atsugi, Japan, back to
Camp Pendle in California. That was my next assignment was a forward air controller,
and then I’m going to just get on to getting in AA and talking about AA. I have my orders.
(13:27 – 13:51)
I’m coming home. I’m going to see my wife and new child who are in Connecticut,
staying with my parents. And I’m at Yokosuka, Japan, where you stage out, and you stay
in that Navy base in the barracks, and they go, Now, gentlemen, at a moment’s notice,
you’ll be assigned to a flight out of Haneda Airport back to San Francisco.
(13:52 – 13:58)
So don’t be wandering all around the base. Don’t be going to all these places. We have
to be able to get a hold of you.
(13:58 – 14:07)
Boom, boom. So I’m going, Okay, okay. Well, like two days go by, and I’m starting to say
to myself, Well, what the heck is this? I can’t stay in here.
(14:08 – 14:17)
Certainly you can make it over to the officer’s club and back, have a drink. So I’m over to
the officer’s club and back. And then I go over to the officer’s club and have two drinks
and back.
(14:19 – 14:33)
There’s nobody calling us. So the rumors are going, Hey, it could be a week. So I’m
going, You know, I should go back into Yokohama, which is about 40 minutes away by
cab, and say goodbye to all those bars again.
(14:33 – 14:46)
You know, we had all these bars that we drank in. So I went down one afternoon, got in
the cab, and I raced into Yokohama. Hey, hey, hey, hey, you know, all the really dumpy
joints, and I’m in there, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
(14:47 – 14:57)
Get back in the cab, and I make it back, no problem. So I do that one more time. Only
this time, I just get wasted in Yokohama.
(14:58 – 15:09)
Now I wake up, and I see the sun coming through the window, and I have no idea where I
am. And I’m just lying in bed. You know how you’ve had those days when you go, I
wonder where I am.
(15:11 – 15:18)
And I’m in an octagonal room. It’s not very wide. It’s just got eight, I remember looking, it
has eight walls.
(15:19 – 15:31)
And then I’m looking more closely, and it’s got drapes with Navy wheels on them, ship’s
wheels. So I thought, Navy, probably Navy. Well, I’m on a Navy base.
(15:32 – 15:42)
Still don’t know where I am. Then I can hear noises down below, voices, talking. So I
finally get up with a splitting headache.
(15:42 – 15:56)
I got my uniform on, and there’s a spiral iron staircase going down. I’m in the guard
shack of the gate at Yokosuka. As a matter of fact, I’m in the officer of the day’s bed.
(15:58 – 16:25)
And when I look a little closer, there’s a note on my uniform from the officer of the day
addressed to me, saying what a disgrace I am, that I came in in a cab at 3 a.m. They
opened the door. I fell out on the street, and I had to be carried in. I was swearing I didn’t
have any money to give the cab driver or all these things, so they had to pay for that.
(16:25 – 16:37)
And I missed my flight back to the States and go see the Admiral at 10 this morning. So
that’s what I woke up to. So this is what you call, back in the drinking days, a problem.
(16:40 – 16:56)
My God, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And then I remembered back in
the locker where I was, there was a couple of beers. And any time you’re trying to solve
a problem, you go get two beers, and generally you can come up with something. So I
went back, and I drank the two beers down.
(16:56 – 17:13)
Now I started feeling a little bit better, and I had all my stuff in the sea bag. So I went
back up to the front gate, and I said, how long to go to the bus to Anita leave? And they
said, oh, about two hours. And I went, two hours? Hell, I can make it there in a cab
before they get there.
(17:14 – 17:25)
So I went in and signed my own orders and just ordered a cab and took off. And I got to
Anita before the bus. And I went in and checked in.
(17:26 – 17:31)
Nobody saw the mistake or anything like that. And there goes my sea bag. It’s loaded on.
(17:31 – 17:34)
Fill out these forms. Go over here. You’ve got to do this.
(17:34 – 17:45)
So I’m bump, bump, bump. Now I’ve got a beer and a cigarette, and I’m sitting there
when the bus arrives with my buddies. And I said, where have you guys been? Let me
tell you what you do.
(17:45 – 17:56)
You’ve got to go over there first, and then you go over here, and then you go over there.
And, you know, I felt so cool that I had beaten the odds. I never did get caught on that.
(17:56 – 18:18)
I guess they probably said, well, he’s back in the States, and it’s too much trouble to go
get him. So now I come to San Francisco, and I’ve got about $400 in cash, special pay, so
that I can buy an airline ticket and fly back. I go to the Marine Memorial on Sutter Street
in San Francisco, which is a building the Marine Corps owns, and party in there.
(18:18 – 18:28)
And I call my wife, and I say, I’m going out to the airport tomorrow. I will call you with the
flight into New York, and you can meet. Oh, great, great, great.
(18:28 – 18:40)
So I drank and drank and drank, and now I wake up on a train going into Los Angeles.
And it’s Sunday morning, and I have no money left. The $300 is gone.
(18:41 – 18:54)
So it’s like, oh, another problem. I mean, you know what I mean? This is the type of thing
that you just sort of handle on a routine basis. And so I get off the train, and I’m carrying
this sea bag, and it’s hot and all that.
(18:54 – 19:07)
Well, back then, the military was looked on pretty favorably because World War II, there
was all the heroes. So like I need to ride to the airport, the cabbie said, I’ll take you out
there, no charge. And I said, yeah, you know, this and that.
(19:08 – 19:24)
I get to the airport, and I’m shaking and hurting. So I go to the bar, and I start waiting for
people to go to the bathroom. And then I drink the balance of their drink to stop shaking,
you know what I mean? And once I had a couple drinks, then I could carry on
conversations with people.
(19:24 – 19:29)
You know, hey, how you doing? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. You know, like I don’t have a problem.
I’m just here talking and chit-chatting.
(19:30 – 19:44)
And then somebody finally loaned me $5 so I could start buying my own drinks for a
while. And when I got to the right level, I went over to the airline counter with the
courage that you get from drinking. And when’s the next flight to New York? Oh, blah,
blah, blah.
(19:44 – 19:56)
And, of course, you had no credit cards then. You had to pay check or cash. And I said, I
don’t have a checkbook with me, but I have an account in the First National Bank of New
Haven.
(19:57 – 20:20)
And you could fill out counterchecks. Now, I didn’t have an account there, but I figured
every city has a First National Bank, so the odds are pretty good that if I fill in First
National Bank on the countercheck, and you give me your ID, and over, blah, blah, blah.
So now I’m flying into New York, and my family meets me, and we go to New Haven.
(20:20 – 20:43)
And then I say, well, I need a car. I’ve got to go up to New London, the naval base, to get
a special payment, an advance draw on my pay, so that I can then go down to the First
National Bank of New Haven and open an account in order to cover the check that I
wrote out in San Francisco. And that was just how I came back from Japan.
(20:43 – 20:57)
That’s just the story. That’s why life is so hard for alcoholics. This is the simple little thing
like that.
(20:59 – 21:09)
Anyway, I eventually ended up in a nut ward with a grand mal seizure and malnutrition. I
lost about 50 pounds. I was back in Japan for a second tour.
(21:12 – 21:43)
And in that hospital, I had the DTs, and they put me in a straitjacket and locked me up
for six months. And there was no alcohol program, but somehow the Bethesda,
Maryland, AA group talked their way into the hospital, allowing them to have an AA
meeting, and that is where I heard about AA. And I had one more drunk in me as I was
being released from the hospital, and that scared me enough to call the intergroup.
(21:43 – 22:03)
And on Pearl Harbor Day 1964, I called the intergroup, and they sent my sponsor over to
see me, who was another Marine captain at Quantico, Virginia. He took me off to the
Manassas group, Sunday night meeting, group anniversary. Guys were celebrating
anniversaries.
(22:03 – 22:08)
They had square dancing afterwards. It was the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. It went
on forever.
(22:10 – 22:22)
And Bill is still my sponsor, and I haven’t had a drink since. I lost my career, but I ended
up doing all kinds of other jobs. We have six kids, 15 grandchildren.
(22:22 – 22:34)
Two of my daughters are in AA. And I retired down to Tampa, Florida about ten years
ago, and I love it there. We’ve got great AA.
(22:34 – 22:51)
If you’re ever in Tampa, it’s the Saturday Night Fever Group, and come on over. So that’s
sort of in the thumbnail thing, my story of hitting the bottom, and I had malnutrition. I
was very sick, and there was no AA.
(22:51 – 23:11)
One thing I will say. After I got sober, I’d been sober about 15 years, I ran into some guys
who were stationed in Washington who were in the last squadron I was in, at Iwakuni,
Japan, in 63. And they found out I was in AA.
(23:11 – 23:18)
A couple of them thought I had died. The word had go out I had died of alcoholism. And
so they found out about AA.
(23:18 – 23:40)
They saw how happy I was, and they just thought it was a miracle, and they just were so
grateful to AA. So we would meet once in a while talking. And I remember one of them
looking at me in the eyes, and he said, you know something, Sandy, when you were
there at Iwakuni, we knew you were dying, and there was nothing we could do for you.
(23:42 – 24:01)
Now, that sentence, it didn’t dawn on me what that sentence said until some years later,
and I went, this is a Marine officer looking at another Marine officer saying, we knew you
were dying, and there’s nothing we could do for you. The Marine Corps never leaves
their dead anywhere. You know what I’m talking about? They go back.
(24:01 – 24:14)
If they lose ten more men getting that one, they will get that person. In other words, that
never happens. And here, the disease of alcoholism had them saying, we knew you were
dying, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it.
(24:15 – 24:24)
I mean, boy, that is quite a statement. And there isn’t anything anyone can do about it.
Whenever I think of that statement, I’ll tell you where that is.
(24:24 – 24:32)
It’s in our big book. No human power could have relieved our alcoholism. So it was a true
statement.
(24:32 – 24:43)
There was nothing they could do about it. And what a powerful message that is. So
anyway, I got an AA, and I got a new career.
(24:44 – 24:52)
I loved it. And I finally retired, and I’m living down in Tampa. I sponsor about 25 people.
(24:52 – 25:05)
I go to five or six meetings a week. I travel. I probably go away about every other
weekend, and I’ve seen AA in all the states and a lot of foreign countries.
(25:06 – 25:19)
And it’s just the most amazing society in the world is Alcoholics Anonymous. It is so
unique. It is absolutely remarkable what we have.
(25:21 – 25:50)
And I’ll tell you, there’s a letter that Carl Young wrote to Bill Wilson after Bill wrote him.
Bill wanted to give the credit to him, and he forgot that he hadn’t ever written him
because Carl Young was very instrumental in sending Roland Hazard to the Oxford
group, and then Roland got Ebby sober, and then Ebby got Bill Wilson sober. So Bill
wanted to thank Roland, I mean to thank Dr. Young.
(25:50 – 26:06)
And he wrote him a letter and said, Well, you may not remember Roland, but this is what
happened, and as a result of what you did, we now have this wonderful organization,
Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s all over the world, et cetera. And Dr. Young wrote back and
said, No, I didn’t know where he went, but I’m so happy to see that.
(26:06 – 26:32)
And when I was treating him, I knew that he needed a spiritual solution, but it was very
difficult for me then in my profession to talk about spirituality. Later on, he talked about
it all the time and not be laughed out of my profession because Freud and the other
guys, they weren’t going to go along with spirituality. You know, there was this deep
analysis had to be done.
(26:33 – 27:02)
And so he said that that is what I knew he needed was a spiritual transformation, and
that’s what I suggested that he find, and he did find it. So he thanked him, and then he
goes on to make a general observation about the human condition. It’s his observation
as a psychiatrist who had been studying human beings and himself had realized through
all his studying that there had to be a God.
(27:02 – 27:11)
They asked him if he believed in God, and he said, No, I don’t believe in God. I know
there’s a God. That was how positive he was.
(27:12 – 27:29)
And he said the human beings, all of them, all human beings are confronted with the
power of evil. Now, in AA, we would say character defects. We have these powerful
character defects, and they struggle against them, and they always lose.
(27:30 – 27:49)
How do you like that? And they always lose with one exception. People who have a
spiritual awakening and are in a society that helps them maintain that spiritual
awakening. Sounds like ours.
(27:50 – 28:13)
Do you know how lucky that is that we would have a shot at having this thing called
conscious contact with our own creator? I mean, this is the whole point of being alive.
And us drunks got sent here. We never chose it.
(28:13 – 28:19)
Boy, the people in the Oxford group, they chose it. They didn’t have to go. They said, I
think I’ll go over there and grow spiritually.
(28:22 – 28:34)
You don’t see anybody in here that got here that way. We were here as a last resort. So
if you knew and we’re talking about spirituality, we’re talking about spirituality.
(28:35 – 28:50)
How do you get spiritual? What is that? This is a spiritual program, not a religion. So I’m
trying to come up with what is the difference between a religion and a spiritual program.
So if you’ll bear with me, I’ll give you an analogy.
(28:51 – 29:12)
Suppose, for example, that there was you know how they’re always finding little lost
tribes of people in South America or other places than some Pacific island. And they
don’t know anything about modern civilization. And the sociologists go in there and then
they gradually inform them what’s going on in the rest of the world.
(29:12 – 29:21)
Well, let’s imagine there’s one somewhere and they live in caves. And they’ve never
even been outside of this cave system. They have fires.
(29:21 – 29:35)
They have water that goes in there and fish come in. And they have lived there since
forever. And the sociologists find them and they go, you know something, we’re not
going to bring them out or bring society in in a big hurry.
(29:35 – 29:51)
Let’s take 25 years to slowly adjust them to this huge reality or some extended period of
time. And so they do that. They start very gradually going in and visiting and chitchatting and sharing a few little things here and there.
(29:51 – 30:07)
And one of the things they decide they have to explain before they come out is
electricity. Because it’s so hard to understand. And when they come out, they’re going to
see everything, you know, lights and trains are running by this and elevators are going
up and down.
(30:07 – 30:28)
What is making all that move? And they said, well, we’re going to have to do that. And
there were two schools of thought on how to explain electricity to this tribe. One school,
which would be what I would call the religious school, would be we’re going to take and
explain electricity right out of the book.
(30:29 – 30:51)
Starting with electrons and protons and resistance and this. And it’s going to take, who
knows, a couple of years, three years, until we get them where they can understand
enough to pass a college level test about electricity. And they would know a lot about
electricity.
(30:52 – 31:13)
Then we could have the AA or the spiritual approach to teaching them about electricity.
And that approach consists of putting a generator outside, way out there, you can’t hear
it or anything, and bringing in about a mile of wire and an electric lamp. And they call
them over and say, we’d like to show you something about electricity.
(31:14 – 31:27)
So they put the lamp there, they hook the wire up, they screw a bulb in, they turn it on,
and boom. Boy, there’s a lot of light coming in there. And they get through that and they
unscrew the bulb and then they say, now stick your finger in there.
(31:31 – 32:10)
So he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa. So the question is, which of them knows the most about
electricity? So what AA does, it forces you to take some actions until you suddenly go,
whoa, what the hell happened to me? And then you’re surrounded by people that are
glowing and you can’t figure out why. And then after you have this finger in the light
socket, you can figure out what it is on your own.
(32:11 – 32:18)
It’ll be your own interpretation of what that power is. And that’s what we’d say. There is
no such thing as an AA God.
(32:20 – 32:52)
What AA specializes in, in convincing you of the need for God. So if somebody were to
ask you a trick question, why is AA a spiritual program? This is a trick question. Why is
AA a spiritual program? Okay, here’s the answer.
Because it has to be. Why does it have to be? Because no human power could have
relieved our alcoholism. In other words, it’s got to be something bigger than human
power.
(32:54 – 33:09)
So the place to see this, if you’re new, is in the chapter of the agnostic. And I always go
through this little routine and then I’ll talk about some other things. What a place to put
the explanation of spirituality, the chapter to the agnostic.
(33:10 – 33:21)
It’s almost like they’re hiding it. I remember seeing that chapter and I said, that’s the
baby I’m going to specialize in. Because I thought that was the chapter where agnostics
stayed sober and they didn’t do the steps or anything like that.
(33:23 – 33:32)
They did what was ever in that chapter. Because I didn’t want to buy any of this, you
know, the God, the crucifix, and they’re going to get me. And so I wasn’t buying into this.
(33:33 – 33:40)
But they weren’t selling me anything. There was no God they wanted me to believe in.
They just wanted me to listen to them explain something.
(33:40 – 33:51)
And so here was this chapter and it said, if when you drink, you have little control over
the amount you drink. Okay, that’s everybody. And if when you stop, you can’t stay
stopped.
(33:51 – 33:54)
Okay, that’s everybody. Well, then you’re an alcoholic. So there it is.
(33:54 – 34:03)
So, okay, you’re an alcoholic. Then comes the sentence. If that’s the case, you’re
suffering from an illness that only a spiritual experience can conquer.
(34:04 – 34:15)
What a strange sentence. I didn’t know there was such a thing as an illness that only a
spiritual. I never heard the American Medical Association talk about that particular
illness.
(34:17 – 34:23)
You have an illness that only a spiritual experience can conquer. And I looked at my
sponsor and I said, I don’t believe in spiritual experience. He said, well, you’re screwed.
(34:30 – 34:47)
Because there is no non-spiritual answer. Huh? What? What they were doing is
explaining the reality of my situation. It was much worse than I thought.
(34:48 – 34:59)
That’s the point of the whole first step is to explain, you know, that situation you got.
Well, it’s a lot worse than you think it is. It’s a lot worse.
(35:00 – 35:06)
So then they sum it all up in the next paragraph. And it’s just like a comedy line. But it
doesn’t look funny when you read it.
(35:06 – 35:20)
But there it is. To be doomed an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not
easy alternatives to face. That’s a comedy line.
(35:21 – 35:29)
If you don’t see it, then come on up on the stage. This is my little routine. If you’re new,
it’s time for you to get spiritual tonight.
(35:30 – 35:32)
So we’ll get John. Come on up. So I got John comes up.
(35:32 – 35:37)
Imagine it’s like a quiz show and I’m the MC. John. So you want to be spiritual.
(35:37 – 35:40)
I’m glad you’re on this program. Here’s the deal. I got two doors behind me.
(35:41 – 35:43)
You got to choose one. You ready? OK. Door one.
(35:44 – 35:50)
Die an alcoholic death. OK, John. Door number two.
(35:50 – 35:56)
Live on a spiritual basis. Ready? Choose. Now, what do you suppose John does? He goes
like this.
(35:56 – 35:58)
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.
(35:59 – 36:05)
Boy. Two crappy choices. Oh.
(36:06 – 36:17)
Oh. Oh. How did this happen? Do I get a phone call? Yes, you get a phone call.
(36:20 – 36:29)
So he calls a doctor that he knows. Hey, Dr. Burnell? Yes, this is John. Listen, a friend of
mine would like to know how bad is an alcoholic? Oh, it is.
(36:33 – 36:46)
OK, I’ll try spiritual basis. How did we get spiritual? We had to. There was no other door
to choose.
(36:46 – 37:07)
It had nothing to do with believing in a higher power. It had everything to do with
believing that there had to be a higher power. And when you suddenly realize that there
has to be a higher power, you’re 99% there.
(37:09 – 37:19)
Because now you’re seeking. You’re not fighting anything anymore. So that’s why they
say the only step we do 100% is the first step.
(37:20 – 37:58)
And the first step should scare you to death. When you realize, oh my God, it’s almost
like the last thing you’d ever do is parachute anywhere. I mean, that’s not even in your
mind until somebody pushes you out of a plane and then says, do you want to try
parachuting? You would be very open to parachuting all of a sudden.
(38:01 – 38:16)
So what this program is, you’ve already fallen out. And the only thing that can save you
is a higher power. How do you feel about seeking a higher power now? Oh, maybe I’ll
give it a try.
(38:19 – 38:38)
So that’s all it takes. The reality of your own situation suddenly makes it quite attractive
to seek God, which is what it says right after no human power could have relieved our
alcoholism. God couldn’t would if he were sought.
(38:39 – 38:45)
So all of our sobriety is seeking God. That’s what the AA program is. That’s what the
whole thing is.
(38:45 – 38:52)
This is not a self-help program. It’s a God-help program. It’s a God-help program.
(38:54 – 39:14)
And that is what our entire program is all about. In the beginning of our book, the big
book, in Chapter of the Agnostic, again, it said, lack of power is our dilemma. Well, that’s
what this book is all about.
(39:14 – 39:31)
Now, listen to this closely if you’re new. The purpose, the main object of this book is to
enable you to find a power greater than yourself, which will solve your problems. Now,
that’s very important to see that sentence.
(39:31 – 39:43)
It does not say, which will teach you how to solve your problems. That would be
returning to self-sufficiency, which is what our ego wants. My ego wants that.
(39:43 – 39:57)
My ego says to me, hey, man, you’ve been sober 40 years. When are you going to get it?
You’re just as dependent as you were when you arrived here. You haven’t made any
progress at all.
(39:57 – 40:10)
That’s my ego, wanting me to become self-sufficient. You haven’t made any progress
whatsoever. You’re still totally dependent on this higher power.
(40:11 – 40:26)
Boy, you haven’t made much progress at all. That’s my ego talking to me, trying to get
me to let go of this dependence on a higher power. So that sentence says, enable us to
find a power greater than ourselves, which will solve our problem.
(40:27 – 40:46)
Now, how does that solve our problems? Here’s the deal. I’ll just skip ahead to the
ending. When you have this awakening, this conscious contact, in that contact itself, no
problems can exist.
(40:48 – 41:01)
Now, you say, well, that sounds far-fetched. That’s almost preposterous. Well, did you
ever walk into a bar, very, very troubled? Oh, my God, I don’t know where I’m going to
get the rent money.
(41:01 – 41:14)
What happened after three drinks? Hey, bartender, set up the bar. What about worrying
about the rent money? Hey, hey, day at a time. Eat, drink, and be merry.
(41:15 – 41:26)
Tomorrow I could be dead. What happened? Alcohol was powerful enough to remove the
problems. They just don’t exist.
(41:27 – 41:47)
And that’s what spirituality is. Because in two places in our book, it says, what does it
say about problems? They are of our own making. And that is a very important thing to
understand, that problems… Well, let me go back to this to lead into the problems.
(41:48 – 42:14)
I heard a speaker one time, and he got up and he had this funny line. And the line was,
ladies and gentlemen, my story is divided into two parts, what happened during the
years that I drank and what I thought happened during the years that I drank. And that’s
a very funny line, and I remember laughing at it for years until I saw how profound that
sentence was.
(42:15 – 42:33)
Because I can make the same statement about my childhood. My childhood was divided
into two parts, what happened to me as a child and what I thought happened to me as a
child. Whatever part of my life, my story is divided into two parts.
(42:33 – 42:48)
So why do we use story? What is your life story? You made it up. You’re the spinmeister
of your own story. You see what I’m saying? When I was brand new in AA, I had a terrible
childhood.
(42:49 – 43:04)
Now I look back, I had a great childhood. Well, how is that possible? Well, I’m happy. And
when I had a bad childhood, I was unhappy because I had a bad childhood.
(43:05 – 43:18)
But once I got happy, well, actually, I couldn’t have had a bad childhood because I’m
happy. You follow what I’m saying? I’m the spinmeister. I’m putting this together.
(43:18 – 43:39)
To understand this, what if the father had twin sons and they lived on the water and
they’re seven years old and they’re both terrified of the water. And he realizes if they
don’t learn how to swim, living near the water could cause them to die. So he takes them
out in the boat and he just takes both of them and just throws them in the water and
says, swim.
(43:41 – 43:50)
And one of them just starts and swims and makes it back in. And then as he got older
and he tells the story, he says, I’ll never forget. My father just took me out there.
(43:50 – 43:56)
He threw me in the water and I had to swim. And I came back and it was the greatest
thing that ever happened to me. It taught me self-confidence.
(43:56 – 43:59)
It taught me this. It taught me that. The other one didn’t swim.
(44:00 – 44:05)
He’s going, and he’s sucking water in. His father had to drag him out. He’s seeing a
shrink.
(44:10 – 44:20)
My father didn’t love me. He threw me in the water and tried to kill me. The father
actually loved them both the same.
(44:21 – 44:26)
But the second one told a great story. Hell of a story. He got a lot of mileage out of that.
(44:28 – 45:00)
So the reason I’m bringing this up is the storytelling part of us is our ego. This is the part
of us that weaves a story that we exist as a separate entity from a child of God, which is
all we really are. That’s all anybody is, is this great divine creator created us to come
down and be useful to each other and to grow spiritually in order to get closer and closer
to this higher power.
(45:00 – 45:14)
So that’s what reality is. Then we were given free will and that allows us to make up
stories. And we just… So when we say problems are of our own making, this is how
problems happen.
(45:15 – 45:27)
Events go on all the time. How many events go on in the day? Thousands of things. Well,
something happened in Uganda, something happened in Brazil, something happened
over here, this happened, the moon, the this and the that and the this and the that.
(45:27 – 45:38)
And then one of them comes along and you go, Brazil, it’s no longer event. It’s not going
to be going by. I classify it as a problem.
(45:39 – 45:50)
I don’t like the idea that whatever is going on in Brazil is going on. And I grab it and
classify it as a problem. And that’s how I make problems.
(45:51 – 46:07)
I just decide that that’s unacceptable, that that’s going on. And so when you look at this,
we hold on to things. I mean, I remember talking to somebody and he said, I said, why
are you so unhappy? And he said, oh, my wife, she left me and she did this and she did
that.
(46:07 – 46:13)
I said, oh, my God, well, I could see why you’d be a little unhappy. I said, when did that
happen? He said, 30 years ago. Oh, whoa.
(46:15 – 46:30)
Now that is holding on to something. But that keeps me separate from God. That is how I
exist as a separate thing is with problems and conflicts.
(46:31 – 46:44)
So I’m always looking for something to tear myself up with. And that’s why we talk about
the 11th step in prayer and meditation to try and get beyond that voice that’s up in our
head. You’re a piece of, you’re no good.
(46:44 – 46:51)
You’re going to be bad. Wait till tomorrow. You’re going to, you know, this is just going
on, manufacturing these problems.
(46:51 – 46:58)
And alcohol gave me a break from all of that. I was able to just sit in the now, talk to
people. Alcohol is the greatest thing in the world.
(47:01 – 47:09)
So anyway, we have a saying, this too shall pass. I’m just thinking of some of the things
we say in AA. This too shall pass.
(47:09 – 47:23)
You remember seeing that? What does that mean? Well, on the one level, what it means
is that if somebody’s having a very hard time, we can say to them, don’t worry, this too
shall pass. And pretty soon you’ll be feeling better. Or if they’re real high, we’ll go, no,
don’t forget, that’s going to pass.
(47:23 – 47:32)
And so don’t get too high. But the truth is, everything passes. Everything passes.
(47:33 – 47:38)
No matter what happens, it’s gone. That’s now. Now here’s something else going to
happen.
(47:39 – 47:51)
So if everything passes, it makes no sense to grab a hold of anything. Don’t become
attached to anything. If everything’s going to pass, then we shouldn’t resist anything.
(47:52 – 48:02)
And if everything’s going to pass, we shouldn’t judge anything. So out of this too shall
pass is almost an entire philosophy. I mean, it’s almost like Buddhism in one little
sentence.
(48:04 – 48:30)
Why am I grabbing all these things? And so here we are with a God-centered program,
and we’re fighting it. I fight it. Matter of fact, if I’m at a speaker meeting and too much
comes out about God, I start getting uncomfortable.
(48:31 – 48:36)
You know what I mean? Okay. And this is what’s going on inside of me. Enough about
God.
(48:36 – 48:50)
What about me? I’d like to hear more about me. I would like to hear… So listen to our
tenth step out of the big book. This is after the promises.
(48:51 – 49:05)
We read the promises after the ninth step, and all of the verbs in the promises are
spiritual verbs. None of those can be achieved psychologically on your own. There’s no
way that you can cause self-seeking to slip away.
(49:06 – 49:19)
Fear of economic insecurity and people will leave us. They’re like, out the back, Jack.
How could all these things happen? And then we read the last sentence.
(49:19 – 49:29)
We suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. That is
called an awakening. That is where it happens.
(49:30 – 49:47)
When you suddenly realize all these things that you’ve been trying to accomplish are
being accomplished by something else. And then Bill writes in the tenth step, we have
now entered the world of the Spirit. And there’s very simple instructions for how to live in
the world of the Spirit.
(49:48 – 50:03)
It’s all in one sentence. It says, if during the day we get agitated, irritated, afraid, upset,
resentful, whatever it is, you know what the sentence is? We ask God that wants to
remove them. We ask God that wants to remove them.
(50:03 – 50:12)
Okay, let’s go to a discussion meeting. I don’t know about you, but here’s my discussion
meetings that I attend. Well, I got up this morning and I was real irritated.
(50:13 – 50:23)
So I said, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to work out. I’m going to go down to
the gym and I’m going to get my mind on working out. And I’m going to take my mind off
of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(50:24 – 50:35)
And we go all the way around the room and no one mentions a higher power. We’re all
going to come up with a solution that leaves God out. That’s our ego.
(50:36 – 50:47)
I don’t know about you, but I can just watch discussion meetings. Think what would
happen if we just followed the book. The discussion meetings would be so boring.
(50:48 – 50:56)
It would be awful. We’d walk in there and we’d go, okay, Mary, why don’t you start out?
All right. Well, my husband left me last night and I’m feeling terrible.
(50:57 – 51:15)
So I asked God to help me with that and I feel much better and I know I’m going to make
it through. I’ll pass. Well, what about you? Well, what about you? Well, I found out I have
cancer and I’ve got to go in for some tests and I was so panicky.
(51:15 – 51:26)
So I asked God to help me with that and I felt much better and I know I’m going to make
it. I’ll pass. And suddenly we realize no matter what the problem is, we’re going to hear
the same crap.
(51:29 – 51:44)
Now, how boring would that be? God, God, God, God, God, God. So we’ve got to come up
with something to make it interesting. Now, I’m making fun of us on purpose.
(51:46 – 52:01)
Think about this. Sixty years ago, if you went to a mid-sized city and smaller, there was
probably only one AA meeting a week. One AA meeting a week.
(52:02 – 52:15)
And they had just as good or even a higher recovery rate than we do now. How the heck
are you going to stay sober on one meeting a week? Well, number one, you’re going to
really look forward to that meeting. That’s one.
(52:16 – 52:31)
Number two, you’ll probably find somebody else in the group and you go have coffee
with them. Number three, and the most important, you just prayed like hell. You just
prayed like hell.
(52:32 – 52:47)
Now, we fast forward and no matter where you live, there’s a 6 a.m. meeting, a 10 a.m.
meeting, a 12 o’clock meeting, a 4 o’clock meeting, a midnight meeting, an 8 o’clock
meeting. We’ve got a club. We’ve got a central office.
(52:47 – 52:51)
We’ve got two million pamphlets. We’ve got CDs. We’ve got conventions.
(52:51 – 53:03)
We’ve got retreats. You don’t have to hardly pray at all. Think about that.
(53:04 – 53:20)
So, here’s the deal. This is just my own one person’s opinion. We have established a
support system that enables us to have pretty good sobriety by relying on the support
system.
(53:21 – 53:50)
And Bill Wilson quoted Abraham Lincoln as saying, the biggest enemy of the best is the
good. And that’s the trap, is to suddenly be in a position where you’re reasonably
comfortable and you haven’t changed in 10 years. You just… It’s there, but there’s part
of us that knows we’re missing out on something bigger.
(53:51 – 54:16)
We’re missing out on closer contact with our own creator. And so this inertia that was
mentioned at dinner, this return to a bigger reliance on a personal relationship with your
own higher power, which is what the steps are for. The steps aren’t to set up a club or to
hold a convention or any of that.
(54:16 – 54:26)
The steps, it’s a very personal thing. It’s a wee program. But once we get through the
basics of up through nine, it’s an individual effort.
(54:27 – 54:37)
Bill writes all that at 11 and 12 and all that. That’s individual. We go out and we become
seekers and we can try harder to get this closer relationship.
(54:38 – 55:14)
I just feel that we’re cheating ourselves out of something even more magnificent than
what you’ve already gotten. So the whole point of this thing was to give ourselves a
jump start to maybe go back and take a look at, am I just sitting on a comfort level and
staying there? Because if I am, I’m slowly settling back in to less reliance on my higher
power and more reliance on the system and on myself. And I’m just settling for a lot less
than what we have here.
(55:15 – 55:31)
I’ll close by reading a sentence out of the big book. I can’t commit things to memory very
good and see if you can relate to this. This is a solution on page 25.
(55:33 – 55:54)
There is a solution. Almost none of us like the self-searching, the leveling of our pride,
the confession of shortcomings, which the process requires for its successful
consummation. But we saw that it really worked in others and we had come to believe in
the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it.
(55:54 – 56:17)
When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved,
there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our
feet. Now, boom! Hardly any transition. We have found much of heaven and we’ve been
rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.
(56:18 – 56:46)
The great fact is just this and nothing less, that we have had deep and effective spiritual
experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude towards life, towards our
fellow, and towards God’s universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute
certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed
miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we would never
do for ourselves.
(56:47 – 57:16)
So if you knew, I hope I’ve given you a slight look at how much more there is here than
just sobriety. If we just got physical sobriety, we would miss the whole point of this
fellowship and these wonderful principles. So grab the thing and go as far as you can.
(57:16 – 57:17)
Thank you all very much.