(0:05 – 0:09)
Thank you, Mike. And good evening, everybody. My name’s Sandy Beach and I’m an
alcoholic.
(0:09 – 0:28)
How are you all doing? Is this a PA system or is this my voice to carry? I’m it? OK, this is
for Earl and then the rest. OK, I hadn’t heard that line in a long time. I remember that.
(0:29 – 0:39)
I’m writing this letter very slowly because I know you can’t read fast. When you come
home, you won’t recognize the house. We moved.
(0:47 – 0:58)
There’s something wrong with the appliances in the new house. We put all the laundry in
the washing machine, pulled the chain, and we haven’t seen it since. So I remember the
whole letter.
(0:58 – 1:15)
And Mike just remembers the first line. Your sister got engaged. She got a lovely
engagement ring with three stones, missing.
(1:21 – 1:28)
I’ll probably remember the whole letter before the evening’s over. Anyway, my name is
Sandy Beach. I’m an alcoholic and I’m happy to be here.
(1:28 – 2:01)
And great to see the club being so successful and useful in the community. I know what
a very important place this is to a lot of people who are probably here tonight, where you
know that things just aren’t quite right, that there’s a place you can go and find other
alcoholics and you can share and you just have a feeling you’re not alone anymore, and
that you start really realizing that this is a we program. We all succeed together.
(2:02 – 2:18)
None of us can make it on our own. And it’s just a pleasure to be part of this great
organization known as Alcoholics Anonymous. And I came in in Quantico, Virginia area in
1964.
(2:19 – 2:32)
And went to my early meetings down in that area, Manassas. We’d drive up here to the
Alexandria area. We always came up on Thursday nights from Quantico and went to
Columbia Pike.
(2:32 – 2:45)
I mean, that was how far you drove to go to a meeting. That was the closest meeting on
Thursdays to Quantico. So it was a lot of traveling in those early years, which my sponsor
delighted in.
(2:45 – 2:58)
He just loved to see the suffering that I went through in those early. He just loved it. You
know, get in the car and drive an hour to the meeting and then be at the meeting for an
hour and then drive back.
(2:58 – 3:24)
And I didn’t realize in those early months that I was getting a tremendous foundation for
later on. It was just the repetitive, go to a meeting, go to a meeting. You know what I
mean? It was just like, when does this stop? And it was just laying the groundwork for a
lot of changes and a lot of great things that have happened inside of me over the years
as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous.
(3:24 – 3:42)
And of course, I’m very grateful now for my sponsor and for all the things that happened
back then. I just want to talk a little bit about my drinking and then I’ll get a lot of AA
stories I feel like talking about tonight. I’ll tell somebody else’s inventory and that kind of
stuff.
(3:42 – 4:13)
But for the benefit of new people, I think it’s important to just share a little bit about
drinking so that you don’t think that we’re just visiting lecturers or something who have
no personal experience with all of the things that you’re going through if you’re new to
AA. Because there’s a lot of you that I haven’t met, but if you’re new to AA, I know one
thing. I’m glad I didn’t live here last year before you got here.
(4:16 – 4:21)
I’ll just take a wild guess. I’ll bet it was awful. It’s just a guess.
(4:24 – 4:44)
People don’t get here on a roll, you know what I mean? Boy, my life is really going good.
I think I’ll just go to AA and get that added to my resume and I can probably get a better
job. So people come here because things aren’t going very well and you’re not welcome
anywhere else.
(4:45 – 4:56)
So here we are. Drinking for me was literally a higher power. When I look back on it,
that’s what it was.
(4:57 – 5:08)
It was my secret weapon against the world. It was how I hung in there. And I didn’t start
drinking until I was 19, which was very old.
(5:09 – 5:16)
And by today’s standards, we’ve got people in the program with five years’ sobriety by
the time they’re 19. But I didn’t start until I was 19. I was in college.
(5:16 – 5:27)
I was trying to get good grades and be an athlete and all these things. But I didn’t fit in
well. I was like a loner and people made me nervous and everything made me nervous.
(5:27 – 5:34)
And I just felt ill at ease. And one night, my roommates were saying, come on,
everybody’s drinking. You’ve got to start drinking.
(5:34 – 5:38)
You’re in college. I mean, you know, you’re sophisticated. No, no, I don’t have any of that
stuff.
(5:38 – 5:48)
I don’t need it in my life and all that. Well, there came a time when I wanted to feel
comfortable. I was just, just too many things were going on.
(5:48 – 5:59)
And in a social situation where there’s a lot of people in this room and I was supposed to
meet them and I couldn’t go up and talk to them. And it just felt terrible. And they all
were mean looking.
(6:00 – 6:15)
Did you ever see that, that the world is just filled with people who glare at you and you
just, you try, you want to go over and be friendly, but they’re all just going, huh, huh.
You know, and you just, Jesus, I don’t think I’ll go over there now. I’ll come back later and
go over there.
(6:15 – 6:22)
Maybe they’ll be in better moods or whatever. And so I ordered a drink at this thing. It
was like right here.
(6:22 – 6:33)
You just walk back over and I said, let me have something in soda. I don’t know if I had
whiskey or scotch or whatever and drank it right down and waited for what my
roommates told me. You’re going to feel wonderful.
(6:33 – 6:43)
No, I didn’t feel anything. So I went immediately back, got another one and poured that
down waiting to feel wonderful. I didn’t feel wonderful.
(6:43 – 6:53)
So I got a third drink. I said, I’ll give it one more try, three and then the hell with it, this
stuff doesn’t work. And I sort of just drinking that and nothing happened to me.
(6:53 – 7:19)
But to this day, I can tell you that all those people that had been there when I started the
first drink, they left and they were replaced by 50 of the greatest people you have ever
seen. Everybody was smiling. They were all, they were looking at me like, please come
over and be my friend.
(7:20 – 7:31)
I’ve wanted to meet you all my life. And you know, I just looked at this world and it was
just so friendly and everything. And then I was different.
(7:31 – 7:47)
Inside of me, all of a sudden was this, you’ll just have to wait your turn. I’ll start over
here and then I’ll go over there and I’ll tell these guys a joke and then I’ll show those
guys this and that. And I just had the beginning of the 14 promises of whiskey.
(7:48 – 8:09)
And that one was, you will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle
you. And of course that’s, that’s, I could act totally extemporaneously. You know, it was
just, I had a great freedom to be myself and I was in a world where it was just,
everybody was just wonderful.
(8:10 – 8:20)
That’s where alcohol took me. It took me out of this other world and it took me into this
world of friendly, loving people. Now, if you drank too much, you got in fights and you
went to jail.
(8:20 – 8:31)
So somewhere in the middle was this wonderful world. And that’s the reason I drank till I
got to AA. Every time I got sober, the world went back the way it was.
(8:32 – 8:49)
And so I had to endure the other hard world all day long until I could go back to the good
world in the evening when you could start drinking. So I just lived in two worlds. There
was the sober world and you had to stay there.
(8:49 – 8:58)
It was very painful and I hated it. It was just, but that’s where you got your drinking
money. You endured that so that you’d look at the clock.
(8:58 – 9:17)
You remember that clock? God, I remember that clock. In those later years when the
withdrawals would start in and you really needed a drink, it was not only were you
uncomfortable being around people sober, but now the physical stuff. And I can
remember this later on in the Marine Corps and it would be happy hour, not happy hour.
(9:17 – 9:26)
You could get off work at 4.30 and then go to the bar. It was a happy hour every day as
far as I was concerned. And I would look at the clock and it would be quarter after four.
(9:27 – 9:36)
And I go 15 minutes and I’m out of here. But if you look at the clock, you just keep
looking at it. God damn thing, you know, it won’t move.
(9:36 – 9:42)
It just stays at. So it was quarter after four. And I remember saying, don’t look at the
clock.
(9:42 – 9:59)
It’ll take forever to get to 4.30. Get busy with something. And so I got some papers out. I
think I was working on some court-martial and I had some papers there and I said, I’m
gonna just totally study this whole case and take my mind off of what time it is.
(10:00 – 10:11)
So I went work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, and look back up and it’s 16
after. You know what I mean? Only one minute went by. Work, work, work, work, busy,
busy, busy.
(10:12 – 10:31)
And that’s because I needed a drink real bad and the clocks just slowed down and it was
that. And then I’d jump in my car, drive over to the officers club, go up to the bar.
Bartender would come over and he’d say, the usual? And I would say, go ahead and wait
on him.
(10:31 – 10:40)
I’m not in a hurry. That was my, you know, cause I didn’t want anybody to think I have a
drinking problem. So I’d always, and then he’d wait on that guy.
(10:40 – 10:51)
And I said, I’ll have a triple scotch on the rocks. You know, and get that down. And then I,
as soon as that drink hit, I would wonder what it was I was so upset about when I came
in there.
(10:52 – 10:57)
You know, it would just came over me. It just went, peace. It just took a while.
(10:57 – 11:14)
I went down on the legs and did all these things. But the last thing that alcohol just came
over my head and it just said, peace be with you. You know, and then I would stand
there just going, you know, when I walked in here, I was just so, and now I don’t
remember what it was that was even bothering me.
(11:14 – 11:30)
It’s the wonderful freedom from all of life’s problems that alcohol could cause inside of
me. It did something inside of me to make the problems disappear. They weren’t figured
out.
(11:31 – 11:37)
I never discussed any of them. They just weren’t up in my head, torturing me. They just
were sort of lifted away.
(11:38 – 12:15)
The reason I go into detail about that is that’s what is promised in AA by working this
program, is we can get access to a power that can just lift these things that are
tormenting us in our minds away. And very often when we get talking about that in AA,
we get a lot of skeptical reactions from people. You’re saying if I do these stupid steps
that the things that are torturing me in my head will just be removed magically? And we
go, yeah, that’s right.
(12:15 – 12:22)
Oh, I don’t think that could happen. Well, that’s what happened when we were drinking.
And all we have to do is think back on that.
(12:22 – 12:35)
That’s exactly what happened. The alcohol took us away from those problems. It just
lifted us away and we had freedom from them as long as we had the alcohol in us, as
long as we had that power inside.
(12:36 – 12:48)
At least that’s what it did for me. So my plan was to, why couldn’t we drink during
working hours? I mean, you know, I thought you’d have a better worker. You’d have a
guy who’s free of all those problems.
(12:48 – 13:16)
And I always said, but the Marine Corps was not buying into that, drinking during the
working day. Anyway, I was a pilot in the Marine Corps and I got my drinking money
flying airplanes and it was exciting and I had a lot of fun, but I was mostly an alcoholic
and that’s what my story is all about, was externally you could see, gee, it looks like this
guy’s doing all right, but inside he’s about to crash and burn. And so we’re great
pretenders.
(13:17 – 13:27)
You know, externally, you have to carry that out. You have to pretend that everything’s
all right. That’s one of the great prices that alcoholics have to pay.
(13:27 – 13:40)
This is the one disease that kills people and you have to pretend that nothing’s wrong
while you have it. I don’t know any other disease. You don’t, if you get cancer, you don’t
go around pretending you don’t have it.
(13:40 – 13:57)
And if you have whatever, you have high fever and you’re throwing up, you don’t
pretend that you’re healthy. You just tell everybody, I’m dying, I’m dying. But alcoholism,
you have to pretend that nothing’s wrong or somebody’s gonna suggest you stop
drinking.
(13:58 – 14:22)
And that, you know, would be, it would be because they don’t understand. So we better
not ever let those people know that this stuff is bothering us because that’ll give them
the doorway in and therefore you’re dying inside. And when people say, how you doing?
You go, all right, hey, great.
(14:23 – 14:40)
Remember that? Just trying to pretend that everything was fine so they wouldn’t get in
your face and come in there, especially people close to us who wanted to save us and
we thought they were meddling. And just simply trying to help us because they could
see that we were dying and we just pretended, no, no, I’m fine. I don’t need help.
(14:40 – 14:43)
I don’t need anything. Everything’s cool. We’re just throwing up a little blood.
(14:43 – 14:53)
Oh, no problem. Some spaghetti I had as well and all that. But we had to keep people
away.
(14:53 – 15:14)
And so it is, isn’t it ironic that you have to pretend that you feel fine even though you’re
dying inside because that’s the only way to keep the game going. And I knew they’d
come after my drinking and that was my life. So anyway, there came a time when I was
getting withdrawal symptoms in airplanes and I was scaring the hell out of myself and
probably other people.
(15:14 – 15:26)
And the doctors thought that something ought to be done. And so I was sent down and
this was the dark ages of alcoholism. And at least in the military, they had no alcohol
programs.
(15:26 – 15:37)
They had no diagnosis of alcoholism. Nobody ever went to the hospital because of
alcoholism. You went in for depression or whatever, but you didn’t have alcoholism.
(15:37 – 15:49)
And so when they examined me, they found I had high blood pressure. I was sweating all
the time. I smelled of alcohol.
(15:49 – 16:13)
This was down on the paper. Patient smells of alcohol, like, wow, I wonder what this is all
about. You know? Hands trembling, all these things that were happening in airplanes,
bloodshot eyes, confusion, couldn’t count backwards from a hundred by sevens.
(16:14 – 16:20)
Couldn’t remember his name all the time. Mind problem, et cetera, et cetera. And so
they looked at me for two weeks.
(16:20 – 16:30)
They studied me. And all the medical doctors couldn’t find anything. So they left it up for
the psychiatrist.
(16:31 – 16:45)
They said, this must be a psychiatric problem. And the psychiatrist, my diagnosis, and I
still had the paperwork, was childhood fear of flying. That was what was causing all these
things that were happening to me.
(16:46 – 16:57)
So they told me I couldn’t fly anymore. And I was sent back up and they said, just keep
him out of airplanes and everything will be all right. And so I was waiting.
(16:57 – 17:03)
And that was, boy, that hurt. Because that was my whole identity, you know, fighter pilot
and this and that. And now I’m not going to be that.
(17:04 – 17:23)
And then two months later, I got my orders for my new career as an air traffic controller.
And so that’s what I did. And somehow I made it through air traffic control school, which
is a very hard school.
(17:23 – 17:46)
And now I’m working planes in bad weather when they can’t see the runway. So my life
was no longer in jeopardy. And if you cover up one eye, you only see one runway.
(17:53 – 18:16)
I’m only kidding, only kidding. The truth is that I was sent overseas my last year of
drinking and I was the officer in charge of an air traffic control unit in Japan. And the men
in the squadron took one look at me and they just said, Captain, come on down to unit
whenever you want.
(18:17 – 18:31)
Hang around, you know, leave your bike over here, play horseshoes, stay the hell away
from that radar. We don’t want you involved because I was, you know, just daily
drinking. Now, I didn’t have any of this yet.
(18:31 – 18:39)
It’s no drinking 24 hours before you fly or 12 hours, whatever it was. And so I was just
became a daily drinker. And that was last year drinking.
(18:39 – 18:50)
And I just was maintenance drinking. I was trying to not shake. I was trying to just hold
and felt like I was going to just come unglued.
(18:50 – 19:01)
I mean, it was I was losing weight. I had malnutrition and I just trembled all the time and
sweating it. So my job was to just try to show up every day and all that.
(19:01 – 19:09)
And it was, you know, it was just a year of terror. I mean, just I can remember little
things. We got paid in cash.
(19:10 – 19:18)
In those days and payday, I needed payday so that I could buy booze. I mean, this was
very important. You know, like I’m out of money.
(19:18 – 19:26)
I was out of money and I need a drink. So if I can go get paid, I can go buy booze. It’s
that simple.
(19:26 – 19:44)
So I get in the pay line and I’m getting closer and I can feel how shaky I’m getting. Now,
in order to get paid, you have to put your ID card up there and then sign your signature
in a little teeny line and it matched your ID card. And I knew my hand was shaking too
much to sign.
(19:45 – 19:54)
So it would come up and all of a sudden they’d go, yes, sir. And I’d go and I’d check my
hand and I’d go, no way. And I’d say, I don’t need any money.
(19:54 – 20:10)
And I’d walk away. Then I’d go borrow some money so that I could buy some booze so
that I could get back in line to get the money to pay it back to the guy. You know what
I’m saying? I mean, this is, that’s alcoholism.
(20:10 – 20:29)
I mean, those are bizarre problems and non-alcoholics watching this would go, would you
run that by me again? Let’s see. You’re in the line and you say, I don’t need any money.
So you go borrow some money to get some booze so you can get back in line to get the
money to get some.
(20:30 – 20:46)
But everybody in this room goes, right. I know that story. You know, and you just sort of
pat yourself on the back.
(20:46 – 20:55)
Well, I just solved that problem. I was always coming up solving problems. I haven’t told
this one in years, but this also occurred in that tour overseas.
(20:59 – 21:16)
I had been out, God, this is a terrible story. Been out drinking, I guess. And went racing
around and obviously had stepped in several Benjo ditches.
(21:17 – 21:34)
And if you remember what those are over there, they just sort of send everything down
the Benjo ditches that goes through our sewer pipes. And I’d just gotten all over my
shoes and I slept in my shoes. And no, I came home and I just took them off.
(21:35 – 21:49)
I just didn’t untie them. I took them off and left them on the, and I woke up the next day
around noon and the package store closed at one o’clock for inventory every Saturday
afternoon for like four hours. And I was totally out of booze and the shakes are coming.
(21:49 – 22:02)
And I got maybe 15 minutes to get to the package store before it closes. So I’m putting
the clothes on and I’m looking at the watch, you know, you got nine minutes to go. You
remember how everything was like a goddamn emergency.
(22:02 – 22:36)
This is an Alfred Hitchcock thing that’s going on on the edge of my bed. It’s just, Jesus,
am I going to make it or not? So I get the shoes and I try to put them on and the knots
have dried and shrunk. And so the leather in the shoelace has, and it won’t come
undone, you know, and it’s four minutes and I got a fork and I’m working the thing, you
know, and it’s just, you know, hyperventilating and all these things going with these, get
one done and then the other.
(22:36 – 22:50)
And I get over there and the guy’s just locking it up. And I go, could you please, I’ve
company coming, you know, that whole story. I open it up and give me a quart of vodka,
you know, and he said, all right.
(22:50 – 23:03)
And he opened the thing up and I come back and I get the quart of vodka and I get to
drink and then I’m sitting there. Now I’m grown up again, right? The alcohol goes down
and it’s like, all right, you know. And I started going, this is unacceptable.
(23:03 – 23:08)
I remember I was taking my own inventory. This is unacceptable. You’re a grown man.
(23:08 – 23:12)
You’re 33 years old. You’re captain of the Marine Corps. You have six kids.
(23:12 – 23:18)
You’re sitting on the edge of the goddamn bed with a knife and you’re going. Your hands
are shaking. You have to do something.
(23:18 – 23:31)
I remember this. You must do something. And I sat there and I had this little grin on my
face, like, right, and I got up, went over to the PX and bought a pair of loafers.
(23:39 – 23:54)
I just kind of went, well, what’s the next problem? Boing. We tackle these problems head
on. Just right on.
(23:55 – 24:17)
I still remember that. And I’m sure everybody here has had one of these alcoholic
solutions where you just, come up and, anyway, I did end up after that final year drinking
with a seizure and that’s what got me going. And I was sent to Bethesda to see what
caused the seizure.
(24:17 – 24:35)
And while I was in Bethesda, I had DTs, you know what I mean, I just start freaking out, I
was hallucinating. I saw all these things and I was writing down all these things that were
happening to me. It was like Mission Impossible, the walls were moving and the hospital
was conspiring against me.
(24:35 – 24:56)
It was unbelievable the stuff that was going on and scared everybody around me. So I
was put in a straitjacket and then I was put up in the nut ward and I was left there for six
months, just locked up with crazy people. And in that environment, AA came in and they
brought a meeting into Bethesda.
(24:56 – 25:09)
And I think it still meets up there on Tuesdays. And that’s how I got to AA. Corman came
into the nut ward after I’d been there locked up about four months and he said, all
drunks fall in, right face, we get in the elevator and we go down to an AA meeting.
(25:09 – 25:20)
So that was AA. And that introduced me to AA when I was let out as an outpatient. I
drank for a couple of weeks, smuggling booze back and forth into the nut ward.
(25:20 – 25:34)
And I knew I was going to get caught, so I thought I’d join the real AA out here. And I
called Intergroup and they sent this sponsor over, this huge marine. He’s still my sponsor
and I tell this story because it’s such a wonderful story.
(25:36 – 25:47)
Last August was his 30th anniversary. His name is Bill T. He’s still in this area. He’s down
at Quya Harbor, but it was his 30th anniversary in AA.
(25:47 – 26:03)
So I decided to take him out to dinner to celebrate. And we went to dinner in a German
restaurant right outside the marine base of Quantico. And the German restaurant used
to be the house I lived in when he 12-stepped me.
(26:03 – 26:15)
You know what I mean? They transformed it into a restaurant. And so we’re sitting at a
table that’s about as far, well, maybe 10 feet further than that. It was the front door that
he came through.
(26:16 – 26:32)
And he said about halfway through the dinner, he said, You know, it’s a long way from
that door to this table. And it really was. A lot of things happened between the time he
came through that door and, you know, 29 years later.
(26:33 – 26:54)
And that’s what I want to talk about now is, you know, all of us got here through the
various things. I did not think of that corpsman when he came into the nut ward and
said, All drunks fall in. I mean, I felt that this was a wise guy with a hell of a way to talk
to me and all that.
(26:54 – 27:20)
But I did not see him as a messenger from my higher power who was coming to rescue
me from the hell I was in and was going to take me to a wonderful world. And probably
none of you saw the person that intervened. Maybe it was a cop who pulled you over for
drunk driving and sent you, and then a judge sent you to AA.
(27:20 – 27:42)
And you did not see those people as happy messengers from your God who was sending
you on this wonderful thing. You probably tell why they pick on me of all the drunk
drivers out there tonight. You know what I mean? So I look back on that and it’s the
beginning of a spiritual education.
(27:43 – 28:11)
And what I think the lesson is in all of these events is when we start moving into the
spiritual realm, things aren’t what they look like. And that’s one of the first ones is when
you get sent to AA, your mind tells you, I can’t believe it. I’m being sent into this dumb
thing.
(28:11 – 28:22)
And you say, if you’re typical, this is the last straw. I mean, how bad can it get? I’ve been
in jail 50 times. Now I’m going one step lower.
(28:23 – 28:41)
I’m going to AA. How bad can it get? When is my luck going to change? And so AA is just
about the worst thing that could happen. And it turns out it was the best thing that could
ever happen in our lives.
(28:41 – 28:50)
And so it looked like the worst thing. And it looked like this corpsman was another pain in
my side, another thorn. And it wasn’t.
(28:51 – 29:13)
And this begins, and we get a lot of lessons. If you’re new, you’ve got to pay attention to
these lessons and start remembering that as you move along this journey of sobriety,
things are never going to look like what people say they are. So listen to what they say
and stop listening to your own assessment of the situation.
(29:14 – 29:27)
Because your brain will tell you all the way along this wonderful journey that you’re
going, don’t go any further. That’s what your brain will tell you. As they say, well, now we
want you to go to a meeting every night.
(29:27 – 29:33)
Now we’re going to start doing the steps. Now it’s time to make amends. And inside
you’ll be going, no, it’s not the time to make amends.
(29:33 – 29:39)
I don’t want to do any of that. I don’t want to take a search in fear. It’ll probably get me
so upset I’ll get drunk.
(29:39 – 29:44)
Don’t do any of this stuff that these people are doing. No such thing as a higher power. I
don’t want any of this shit.
(29:44 – 30:01)
I mean, this is what’s going on in your head. And the problem is nothing here can be
explained. We can share, but none of it can be explained because this is not an
intellectual program.
(30:01 – 30:08)
It’s a spiritual program. And so I can put it on the board. I can say this is what your
sobriety will look like.
(30:08 – 30:15)
And these are the steps you’re going to take. And these are the rewards you’re going to
get. And you can look at that and it will not make any sense whatsoever to you at all.
(30:16 – 30:27)
Because it’s not an intellectual problem solving thing. It is a series of steps that you can’t
see the results of. And it doesn’t make sense that it’s going to work to you.
(30:27 – 30:44)
The only way it becomes visible so that all of a sudden you go, Whoa, I can see that now,
is after you do it. So it’s one of these things where you have to do it in order to see it.
You have to experience it in order to see it.
(30:44 – 31:22)
It won’t make sense ahead of time. Meetings don’t make sense, do they? Really? Do they
make sense to you? Can you intellectually understand why when you went to an AA
meeting and you walked in and sat down with 20 other people and the topic was
resentment and you all talked for five minutes, you held hands, said the Lord’s Prayer,
and you went home and you feel a lot better? Why, do you like the topic of resentment?
Did you like the person standing next to you? No, I don’t even remember who it was.
Well, then why do you feel so much better afterwards? Who knows? We just know that it
works.
(31:23 – 31:38)
You try it, you experience it, and it works. And then you believe in it. So I’m one of these
guys who sort of follows the thought that Clancy threw out, that the 12 steps are a series
of actions that we take that we don’t believe in.
(31:40 – 31:46)
You don’t believe in them ahead of time. You take other people’s words. So what is AA?
It’s a big show-and-tell operation.
(31:47 – 32:01)
If you’re new, we parade up here and at discussion meetings all kinds of people from all
kinds of backgrounds with all kinds of amounts of sobriety. And we go, tonight we’ll listen
to Helen. She’s a woman.
(32:01 – 32:19)
She has nine years of sobriety. Would you like to see what a woman with nine years of
sobriety looks and sounds like? There. And then you get to look at somebody who’s been
working the steps for nine years, and they tell you where they were and where they are
now, and then they say, if you want what we have, this is how you get there.
(32:20 – 32:37)
So we stop comparing programs and we compare results. That’s what we talk about in
AA, because a lot of times people come in here and they’re smarter than the average
person. And that’s either street smarts or college smarts.
(32:37 – 33:01)
But in both cases, a lot of people who arrive here feel superior to some of the other less
fortunates in the world. And they feel that no one can tell them anything about
themselves. They are the leading expert on Fred or the leading expert on Mary.
(33:01 – 33:11)
And they’ll nod like this, but they’re not going to be talking about anything, because they
know. And they can talk stuff. They can talk up a storm.
(33:11 – 33:26)
Drunks can talk. God, can we talk? We can talk about anything. And you’re used to outtalking people, and you’re at the bar and somebody brings up religion, somebody brings
up politics, and you let them have it, and they’re, oh, my God.
(33:26 – 33:38)
And you come into AA, and everybody beats you in discussions. Everybody wins. Dumblooking guys win, and smart-looking guys win.
(33:38 – 33:54)
Real young kids come up and go, What’s happening in here? Well, I’ll tell you what’s
happening. Nobody’s talking theory anymore. They’re just talking results.
(33:55 – 34:27)
So you get through with all your, and the guy said, Well, that’s very interesting, but I just
never listen to people wearing a wristband. Everything you say sounds wonderful, but it
doesn’t look like it’s working. So instead of listening to everything that you’re capable of
saying, we only look at the results of your life.
(34:28 – 34:51)
And so you get through talking all this stuff, and then somebody just says, Yes, that’s
very interesting, but I understand your family won’t speak to you. Why should we follow
your plan for living? It sounds wonderful, but you are not a very good advertisement for
your own knowledge. I understand the sheriff’s looking for you.
(34:56 – 35:20)
You know what I’m talking about? Are those borrowed clothes? I see your chauffeur has
your car again tonight. Temporarily out of money. I see the trust officer didn’t send the
payment this month from the estate.
(35:22 – 35:36)
So the problem is you get in here, and you start talking results. I mean, what do we talk
about? We get up there, and we just go, Okay, somebody, what do you want to say
tonight? I got 30 days. You see what they’re saying? I got 30 days.
(35:36 – 35:41)
Somebody raised their hand. I got nine months. Then say, I went to Yale.
(35:42 – 35:55)
Sit down. How much time you got? You know what I mean? We talk results in here. No
more theory.
(35:55 – 36:00)
Nothing. Just results. When we talk about the steps, we talk about the results of this.
(36:01 – 36:23)
That’s what I like to talk about. What are some of the results that have happened to me
as a result of doing these steps that I didn’t believe in? The results are everything you
told me would happen has really happened. In order for any of this to happen, Oh,
there’s the clock.
(36:24 – 37:14)
In order for any of this to happen, there’s one major event that has to occur along the
way, and it’s a very difficult part of the program. You have to have the capacity to
change your mind time after time after time because you arrive here with a whole bunch
of ideas that you put together, and I arrived here with a whole bunch of ideas that I put
together, and those ideas sound solid. I remember coming here, and I thought things
through, and I picked up stuff growing, and I put together my plan for living, and
everybody here had to put together some kind of a, this is how you respond to the world
around you, and that’s your plan.
(37:14 – 37:28)
People say, why don’t you get rid of that plan? And you go, because it’s mine. I mean, if I
got rid of this plan, I’d have no plan. And they’d go, that would be better than your plan.
(37:34 – 37:43)
No plan would be better than your plan. Well, what do you mean? Let me tell you, I don’t
want to hear your plan. I can see your plan.
(37:44 – 38:05)
I can see the results of your plan. So based on the results, we get willing, and it’s very
painful to get rid of your old ideas, but that’s what sobriety consists of. If there’s
anything, all the way through, all the years you’re in Alcoholics Anonymous, all you’re
going to do is find another old idea to get rid of.
(38:06 – 38:15)
You’re going to find another old idea to get rid of. There’s an old guy named Charlie
Bruton. I just was quoting him.
(38:15 – 38:27)
I hadn’t thought of him in years. He lived in this area, and he was a great philosopher.
And he used to say, it isn’t the things that you don’t know that kill you.
(38:28 – 38:45)
It’s knowing things for sure that just ain’t so. And that’s what I brought here, and that’s
what I think everybody else brings here. We bring in ideas that we know for sure that
turn out to be wrong.
(38:46 – 38:53)
And we have a whole step about that. And when you’re wrong, promptly admit it. When
you’re wrong, promptly admit it.
(38:54 – 39:08)
Well, in the beginning, I don’t know about you, it’s very difficult to be wrong. I found it
terrifying to be wrong. And I have this one little thing when my sponsor, I finally agreed
with him.
(39:09 – 39:28)
We’ve been arguing about something, and finally I said, OK, OK, you’re right. And you
know what he said? He said, No, you’re wrong. Laughter Hey, it’s the same thing.
(39:29 – 39:39)
And he said, Well, say it. You know, it’s a lot easier to say, you’re right, than to say, and I
remember going, OK, I’ll say it. He said, I couldn’t hear you.
(39:39 – 39:46)
Wrong, wrong, wrong. And finally I had to go, I’m wrong. It’s like, ah.
(39:47 – 39:55)
And it was very hard to do that. But that’s what’s necessary. That’s what all inventories
are about.
(39:55 – 40:16)
That’s what all the rest of it is. What else do I have in my head that I am clinging to that’s
wrong? Because that’s the world that each one of us lives in, is what is up here, what
your ideas are saying. If your ideas, if your mind says there’s no higher power, that’s it.
(40:18 – 40:24)
Then you’re going to live in a world with no higher power. And it’s going to be very
frightening. And it’s just you.
(40:25 – 40:35)
You’re the only one that can, you’re going to have to try to stay sober on your own.
You’re going to have this and that. We have a whole chapter of that in the chapter of the
agnostic in the big book.
(40:36 – 40:47)
When I first saw that chapter, I thought it was the chapter where agnostics stayed sober.
They just studied that chapter and showed you how to stay sober as an agnostic. After I
read it, I realized that’s not what the chapter says.
(40:48 – 40:55)
The chapter in three words says change your mind. That’s what the chapter says.
Become a former agnostic.
(40:57 – 41:19)
You’re like a guy, you know, so why should you do that? Did AA convince you that there’s
a higher power? AA does not try to convince anybody of the existence of God. There’s
nowhere in AA that we try to convince anybody and prove the existence of God, but I’ll
tell you what we specialize in is convincing you of the need for God. The absolute need.
(41:20 – 42:00)
Suppose, for example, that you were, maybe as a teenager, you had a job. Somebody
got you a job in a parachute packing factory, and you went in there and you saw
parachute inspector number nine was drinking, and parachute inspector number 11 was
a drug addict, and you saw some of the games they played as parachute packers, pulling
strings and doing all that, and you saw that a lot of these parachutes were put together
in a very unsafe fashion, and so you decided that you did not believe in parachutes. I
mean, that’s just where you were.
(42:02 – 42:34)
Suppose 20 years later, somebody threw you out of an airplane with a parachute on, and
on the way down, somebody said, why don’t you pull the ripcord? He says, I don’t believe
in these things. Somebody might say, well, you know, this would be a hell of a good spot
to change your mind and just pull the ripcord just for the hell of it. Just pull the goddamn
thing.
(42:37 – 42:55)
What have you got to lose, for Christ’s sake? Just pull the goddamn thing. Okay? So you
don’t believe in a higher power. And you’re going to hit, you’re going to die unless a
higher power comes along and enters your life.
(42:56 – 43:03)
You don’t have to believe, just pull the ripcord. Pull the higher power ripcord and see
what happens. I mean, if you don’t, you’re going to hit.
(43:03 – 43:30)
So it isn’t that we convince you, okay, God, walk out here and do a few autographs. We
just show you the fatal nature of the disease of alcoholism and explain, unless a higher
power shows up like a parachute, you hit. So why don’t you take a long shot at a higher
power before you hit? And that’s how we get an open mind about a higher power.
(43:31 – 43:38)
And so it’s not a very spiritual process. It’s sort of a survival thing. You know, you just go,
maybe I’ll change my mind.
(43:38 – 43:44)
I mean, I’m not going to look bad under these conditions, changing my mind. I’m not
wimping out, really. I’m about to hit.
(43:47 – 44:10)
So that’s it. Now, once you do that, those of you that know, once you understand that
when you have a closed mind and you have these convictions that you’re holding on to,
that’s the weight that’s burying you. And when we let go, we let go of our grasp on all
those other ideas, only then can all these wonderful things come in.
(44:10 – 44:27)
And there’s a lot of great things in store for you. There is a whole new perspective on the
world. See, from where we are when we come into Alcoholics Anonymous, we’re being
totally honest when we say, from where I am, the world looks awful.
(44:28 – 44:37)
And that’s the truth. But it’s not the truth that the world is awful. It’s only from where
you’re looking at it, it’s awful.
(44:38 – 44:48)
The real world is wonderful. So we just have to get you a different view. And there’s a
wonderful book from Chuck Chamberlain, A New Pair of Glasses.
(44:49 – 44:57)
And to me, that’s what sobriety has been. Somebody finally came up and said, my God,
are you trying to look at the world through those glasses? They don’t match your eyes at
all. That’s the wrong thing.
(44:57 – 45:14)
The lenses are all going, come here, come here, give me those things. And they get the
exact ones. You ever get a brand new pair of glasses and then you walk out? The first
time I had contact lenses, I just went out and I just went, wow! And you see everything
as it really is, not how you think it is.
(45:14 – 45:25)
And to me, that’s the greatest gift. And you start getting a glimpse of it early on. And I’ll
tell you, the first glimpse that you get of a reality is a reality that you never saw before.
(45:26 – 45:50)
A lot of this reality has to do about how you feel about yourself and what you think about
yourself and who you are. And tell me if this has happened, those of you that have been
in maybe three months, somewhere in there, and you’re just still struggling along and
you don’t have your self-esteem, you’re still a little low and you’re still sort of struggling
along. And tell me if this hasn’t happened where you’re just selfish and you’re just out for
your own thing.
(45:50 – 46:01)
And you’re at a discussion meeting and in comes a guy in his second day. And you’re
over at the table. He’s late for the meeting and he goes over to the coffee pot.
(46:02 – 46:07)
He doesn’t know anybody. He probably just was sent here by something. You can see
because you were just there three months ago.
(46:07 – 46:18)
You know exactly what that look is. It’s panic and, you know, and I don’t want to be here
and you know it. And you see him over there getting coffee and his hand is shaking.
(46:18 – 46:27)
So he puts the coffee down. He decides not to get the coffee and then he comes over
and sits at the table and he’s looking at his watch and he’s this and he’s that. And you
relate to him.
(46:27 – 46:46)
There was this sort of a secret connection that you just know where he’s, what he’s
feeling. But you’re not there yet so that after the meeting you run up and you say, Hi,
can I, you sort of hang back but you think about him during the week. And you say, I
wonder if that guy’s going to be back.
(46:46 – 46:54)
And then all of a sudden you find out you’re going, you know, I really hope he’s back. I
wonder what the hell was his name. I hope this time when he’s back I’m going to go up
and say hello to him.
(46:55 – 47:03)
So you’re thinking about somebody else other than yourself. You’re just thinking about
this guy. You come to the meeting the next week and he’s not there.
(47:04 – 47:26)
You don’t remember his name so you can’t even ask anybody if he’s all right, this and
that. Ten minutes into the meeting, here he comes and he’s looking better than he was.
He clearly stayed sober for the whole week and he goes over and he gets a cup of coffee
and this time he’s got some coffee in the cup and he’s coming over and he’s sitting down
and inside you’re going, Yay! It’s sort of secret.
(47:26 – 47:45)
You don’t want anybody to see this but you’re going, Yay! Now suddenly you’re sitting
there cheering for somebody else. Now who the hell is this with all the problems that
you’ve got? You’re sitting there cheering for somebody else. That’s not normal for you.
(47:46 – 47:54)
So who is this that’s cheering? Well I’m going to tell you who that is. That’s the real you.
That is who you really are.
(47:55 – 48:14)
All the rest of this stuff, that’s not true. AA starts going in and they find this part of you
and they start bringing it out and you’re going to find out you are a remarkably
wonderful person. You are a remarkably wonderful person.
(48:16 – 48:54)
All this other stuff is just wrapping. See we arrive here all wrapped in garbage and we
assume we’re garbage and sobriety consists of unwrapping and we find that that’s just
wrapping paper and inside, once we get that stripped away, you are a tremendously
magnificent human being with all the capability to pass this message on to the next
alcoholic with great dignity to convey sobriety to assume responsibility in society to have
people be attracted to you. They see something in you that they admire and like.
(48:54 – 49:00)
You’ve always gone out trying to get that. You don’t even try to get that anymore. It just
gets exposed.
(49:00 – 49:07)
It just comes out and you find that people want to be your friend. You don’t have to go
out and make friends. People want to be your friend.
(49:07 – 49:18)
They just get attracted to you. You’re there. You’re just available and all of a sudden you
start changing your mind about a lot of things and that to me is what sobriety is.
(49:18 – 49:41)
It’s this great personal transformation where you get rid of the false identity that you
arrived here with and you find out your true nature, your true identity and how important
you are as an individual to the success of the sobriety of everybody in this room. We’re
all interdependent. I can’t get along without you.
(49:42 – 50:13)
You can’t get along without me and we are equals and we come to love each other and
as we love each other we love ourselves and eventually we love the higher power that
gave us this whole deal and to me this is where it’s at. There’s nothing bigger than what
happens to us in these meetings. All the rest of that stuff is where we go practice these
principles but this is the source of your happiness and joy and love for the rest of your
life.
(50:13 – 50:16)
So enjoy it and thanks for having me over here tonight.
Carry The Message
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