The 28th Gopher State Roundup May 25th

good morning everybody my name sandy beach and I'm an alcoholic

it's great to be here this morning it's been a wonderful conference the very powerful speakers I've taken a lot of

wonderful strange knowledge and energy with me when I go back to Tampa

I always like to talk to those of you that may be new to A. A. and trying to let you know that it's a hundred times more than you think it is

it didn't a beginning it seems like lumps over this is really wonderful

but it just unfolds more and more every year

and it doesn't matter how long you've been sober

it's just beginning

we haven't arrived anywhere it's just beginning it's just there's so much more that's going to be available to us as we open more to the power of this program

I love to just be around the big book you know its I'm very comforting thing

and when I think this is what this is

this book is all about one thing

seeking god

as you may understand him but that's what it's all about you know where it says

he could and would if he were sought

and that's our job

after we come in here is to do this seeking

and we're given a game plan for doing that to these twelve steps and having

home groups and conferences and sponsors the pushes along

because as much as I enjoy the rewards in the fruits of the spiritual after there's part of me doesn't want anything to do with it

you know part of me knows that this morning I'm going to talk a lot about god

in part of me is gone what do you have to talk about god all the time

when you talk about me

you know

I'm tired of not getting the credit god get the credit card business this is a god given program this is god is a god

you know I'm important to

and so that's our struggle

as were two beings all locked into one little package here and one part wants to go this way and the other part

he's trying to accomplish what we were sent here for which is to overcome

the part that doesn't want anything to do with spiritual growth thing god instructed principals and sharing and becoming smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller until there's nothing left but a higher power

and channel through which this higher power can do all the great works that we see here in a

and

I was thinking about some of the things today Hey it's given me

and now when I think about you know single instances well I suppose one is I've I've had the same sponsor for thirty six and a half years which is a wonderful thing

that's a

that's a wonderful gift that that same person who came to my house to get me

that was before the treatment centers and all that and that it would seem like sponsors back then were divinely appointed

you know what I mean they came here hosting got to

and I it must be so difficult now when you come in and you go now go find a sponsor

it's like

the B. like being sent out to go find a parent

well how do I know this to be the one that really

take care of me and I sometimes think that the groups we ought to just put all the names in the hat

and then Joe you need a sponsor will get the senior man here to reach in your sponsors go

it would look like it was divinely appointed

saying

so is that there was that initial

relationship and then of course after these years has become a deep deep friendship

and I'm very grateful for my close close friend bill P.

the bill to use up in Virginia and we talk on a regular basis and it's been wonderful

now that's the next thing I was thinking about occurred Bob

two and a half years ago during the course of about six months both my parents passed away they're both ninety three

live long and wonderful life and my mother

ended up with a terminal illness she was in a hospice and my sisters got about twenty five years in a

and fortunately she was living nearby in Connecticut

and so she said you better come up so I came up and stayed about a week and to feel pretty good such a well I'll go back so I went back and then I get the phone call come on back

probably only be another day or two

so I went back up and I went over to the hospice my father was over there

and my mother was under this heavy sedation so she wouldn't feel any pain so he was sort of sound asleep

and so I came over to the bed and I just said hi mom

and she opened her eyes and just smile you wouldn't believe the smile her whole face lit up

he didn't really say anything and then she kind of went back to sleep

and I was on the hallway later on the nurse said I've never seen that happy

now see this is the guy that broke her heart

this is the guy that just you know **** all these dreams for and work so hard to send me to college and they save money and did all that and then I just took off and went right down the drain

and ended up in a not ward and they came down to see me in there and they did not have the talk it was so painful and

even after I've been sober ten years or so I was speaking up in Connecticut and I said would you like to go to this conference and hear me touch you know I don't want to go and I want to go and

later on I found out why she didn't want to hear about all the pain I went through

she just didn't want to hear that so here was with a a gave me was

when I showed up she smiled and was the happiest the nurse ever so far and so it had fixed everything it had healed and gone beyond that it just was wonderful and so it was a very happy event to see this

ending of a wonderful life and so that's something that I really got

they got the gifts

that have come in and I share some of these so you the if you're newly understand when we're talking about

what what does it mean

when we're working the program how does that affect our lives and I can give you a good example I really like to I like to read prayers think about prayers I love the person Francis I'm reading a book about San Francisco he wrote that stuff nine hundred years ago

and it's still so powerful when you read that make me a channel like peace I mean it's just like hello and so for those of you know what I would be reading this stuff why is it important to be using these thoughts that have been written down it's because they don't come to us naturally

that's that's that's not how I think I don't get up in the morning just boy sure hope I'm a channel of peace today

I just wanna go out

I just get up going I'm afraid I don't know what's going on they're going to get me it's awful

don't get close to people don't trust anybody okay

okay so that's me okay

but then if I read some of these thoughts and ideas they take me to a different place and I'm up there I'm going to make me a channel that piece magnet kennel but peace and I am and so there's some sort of a change taking place but very slow you can't you can't feel it and it's not always there

but it becomes part of us

and I was went to Las Vegas last weekend

okay and then with the Laughlin and talked out there it's a long trip in Tate travel and the older you get man everything hurts I mean just

just leaning on my wrists hurt

some of the you know going out it's like a ticket my bags fix them all that stuff and it takes him to taste like nine hours or whatever so finally get there and I don't like to see knows the and the energy is just

so I try to go off and do other things

so I'm complaining okay you can hear the

and I have a great time to let the people and Bob the movers home group not just at the light visiting and all that that this travel and hotel stuff so I'm

finally make it through and I get up at five and go up to the drive back to Las Vegas

get on the plane and I'm telling my body which is going is this over yet you know

and I'm going to hang in there hang in there Babe we got eight more hours and will be home then you could take a little nap and you go to your home group meeting Sunday night

don't worry hang in there so it's I'm on the plane

it's got two seats on the left three seats on the right I'm against the windows ladies sit next to me

and they're not going out of the gate because they're trying to get two people to volunteer to get off the plane for three hundred dollars so they can get the over book people on the plane

and this is going on going on a going on

fine and I'm not paying attention but I'm just sort of gone with ready yet

all of a sudden there's a guy standing in the aisle

who is six five anyways four fifty to five hundred pounds if he weighs an ounce

in the stewardesses explaining to him that he's going to have to get in one of these to center city

and he's looking over their needs embarrassed about the whole thing any stand on their knees can't it's not talking but is this the going like this he started grab his bag out of the overhead I guess he was going to get off the plane

and the lady next to me jumps up

and says I'll take one of the middle seat he can have my C.

so he came over and said the only way to sit down is the lift up the arm rest

and as he got in just sitting he took up half of my C.

his name was up against the tray table

I couldn't put adjust the seat because the arms up here you can't get the button and I was like this

and I started planning what I was going to say to that lady when we got

when we got the Dallas

so we'll use

I mean that's me okay that is V.

and I sat there and I just want to and a half hours

and then

it was like

a flaw in the voice of thought in the voice and it's just like it came right into this year no it's it's me but it's not me

and it just came in and it said

take a look at that guy

you see how embarrassed he is

do you see that he won't even turn his head to look at you

he knows he is

practically squeezing you out of the airplane and he probably feels this way every time he travels

I'll tell you what your job is

your job is to make him feel comfortable that's what your job is

I felt like I'd been let out of jail because I had just given me the assignment of two and a half hours of resentment

and this was like a new freedom I had just been granted a total new freedom

and I really relish the job I said that's right he really isn't comfortable with this how are you I had to go like this his head was up

you

you know where you're going I'm going to Birmingham listen below that though you know and you travel yeah I have to travel a lot it's hard to say yeah I guess it is really

he

and

I didn't eight I had no pains two and a half hours and like this and it was like yeah and I could feel his body relax

is by infiltrated his body relaxed

and I just went there it was like effortless

now the next leg

the Tampa

no problems I got the full sheet I got everything all the room on one I had more aches and pains because

now I was back to focusing on me I had no one to help and I was back you know and so

where did that thought voice come from well this is what

sobriety is as far as I'm concerned we are just taking a series of actions going down the spiritual path for no apparent reason

I mean you know it doesn't it's not like drinking regal book well you get the results just like that so it makes a lot of sense it just isn't that way

but when I look at

what happens in this seeking

I was thinking about

trying to look at the disease of alcoholism

that is I think may have been John the status so many definitions

that I'll try another one this morning just for the fifth what we're talking about this morning

and I'm thinking about the the chapter the agnostic

where and that's what that's my one of my favorite chapters in when I first came in I thought that you know I didn't read the book a look at that chapter heads

of my sponsor wanted me to know about the book and I'm going this is this is ridiculous you know I remember in the beginning what is this I don't need a book I need a loan

nothing in there about a loan is

and I remember looking at that chapter the gnostic eyes that that'll probably be my chapter I I figured this was gonna tell gnostics how to stay sober like a separate program from

Shapiro chill nuts that were over here in the garden and steps and all that

it was only later on that I read the chapter and I realized what it says to

change your mind

become a former agnostic that's what

so anyway in there is it in the second paragraph first per some words in there says if

when you honestly try you find that you cannot stop entirely and if when you are drinking you have little control over the amount that you consume you may be an alcoholic if that be the case and here we come to the definition of alcoholism if that be the case you may be suffering from an illness that only a spiritual experience can conquer now separate definition

you may be suffering from an illness that only a spiritual experience can conquer

I mean

what is the U. S.

your I mean I thought it had to do with drinking

in here it's just saying no no no and then you have this situation that only a spiritual experience can conquer so you have to kind of work backwards you know how they work backwards and they were sailing the ships in the fifteen hundreds or whatever it was and people kept getting scurvy

and then they just started stacking oranges on the ship and then they ate him and then they didn't get it anymore so you don't have to be a doctor you could go

I think scurvy is an orange deficiency

yeah I mean you just work backward just

that's an interesting way to look at alcoholism instead of looking at all the scientific symptoms you look at the solution and then work backwards

if the solution is a spiritual experience and what is the disease

what must be

the absence of a spiritual experience must be a lack of spirituality is the problem

and we try to fix it with alcohol

which is a spiritual solution of some sort if you

stretch your imagination

and in my case alcohol work

in a very spiritual way

it was a higher power

it changed my perception of reality you transform the world into a wonderful place to live in

all while I was just standing there

the ending there when doing anything

nothing changed all the players are still the same and I go up up up up up

and it went from

threatening hostile rotten people into friends that I can hardly wait

that's what alcohol did

so I always wanted to live in the friendly world and I hated going back to the house the world I hate to get this over

and so when people say why don't you just not drink I would just go

do you know what happens when you don't drink

you are sober all the time

you

you

you never get a break and

you know just trying to stay sober like during the working hours

okay it's four thirty

okay I'll get busy all state you know because five o'clock I can go get a drink of my body is telling me to get down to it though you need it you need some gun okay for thirty okay I'm gonna get this I'll go get these files all study this thing up take my mind off of that I work from work work work a look up at four thirty one

somebody **** with the clocks

make it time stop

when I going to get there when we got to get that when I'm going to get their finest five like I go into the bar you member how we were just when it

rushing rushing rushing in the bartender comes over says yes certainly go ahead and wait on them I'm not in a hurry I

because I didn't want to hear that I was eager that I needed this alcohol in my body inside is going what you doing up there what

the number you see down here you're going to

and then finally we poured it in

and fifteen minutes later I'm going to myself

what was it I was so upset about when I came in here

there's nothing wrong now

number I'm complete I'm happy joyous and free

a minute I'm in the center of love of the entire universe this is awesome so that's what drinking was

and in a way that's what the spiritual path is about except it's not a chemical one

it is taking certain actions that will produce the power to see the world as it really is

and that's what Chuck chamberlain just love truck

I was such a privilege to know him and I went to his house and sat in his chair and looked out over the Pacific Ocean and

those of you if you haven't listened to this tape show to get some of trucks and and really is a wonderful was it just a powerful teacher we have some great teachers and they and he my sponsor was one and check was certainly one

and he's said that getting sober was like getting a new pair of glasses

and when you pick them up and put him on and took another look he just loved what you saw man look at this world I'm so glad I live in

but it takes power to hold that vision

so we have to constantly work on establishing and maintaining contact with the power to see that world because as soon as we let up on our spiritual activities the power shut itself up and we start seeing the threatening world again

that's why daily practices are so important and meetings and calling in reading put the power of the spiritual power in so that when we look around we see the world that we live

I like think of sobriety is the power

to remove all the problems so that there's nothing for alcohol to fix

and with nothing for alcohol to fix his issue to stay sober I mean that's why we needed a drink so bad I can't fix this I can't stand this anymore what if if that's fixed if it's removed for that moment

that it's really easy to stay sober and you want to drink no I don't need one

I'm perfectly fine just the way it is

and that's just the wonderful thing

so anyway one of the things that trump said that I just you know I I find things that I've read I'm going to share a few of them this morning the first time you hear me just go

I think that's a little too extreme I think that's a little extreme

and

Chuck would say

you know everybody's running around thinking that it's their job to take care of themselves

because if I don't take care of myself who will

even the old thank god takes care of those who takes care of themselves

and I heard Alan lady one time said that's that's not it

god takes care of those that ask

that's who god takes care of the chuckles even further he says not even your job take care yourself that's god's job

your job is to do his work

that's your job just just do his stuff then you'll be taken care of

and so I was going well I've certainly seen that I was like you know like that airplane incident

I thought all of a sudden I was doing his work and he took care of me but I had no way to paint and have anything and I've had this in terms of finances and all kinds of I was staying active doing this and that and

all of a sudden

so on the van would happen and I would be taken care of

and I was thinking about bill Wilson you could look at this and go Jeez look at bill

is

he was really doing the work I mean man he was just committed to this

and struggling trying to Percy had all these crazy ideas about how to make a a go and he was gonna

get paid missionaries and raise millions and millions of dollars and start hospitals and

all that kind of stuff and none of that would work he couldn't get any money at all

just just broke I mean you talk about broke

it's you'll read if you knew when you think you're broke read about bill I mean there is so he's he's riding the big book director in the draft the final drafts

and they get evicted from their house in Brooklyn they're out in the street and they can't afford to put the furniture in storage and I got no place to stay

and you would say well he's been doing god's work all along

I don't see god taking care of him what's this deal

well what happens next

the a community goes we gotta keep him going he's a central to keeping this whole thing going so let's pass the hand

and we'll come up with a weekly amount of money for him and Lois and will give him an old beat up car we got a cabin over here that he can stay in for a couple of months then you can say it's Joe's house Harry's house Frank's house

we got it all planned for

well there was he just kept plowing ahead with the mission at hand

M. Willis totally taken care of and then of course in the later years

when the big book started selling an a a started becoming financially independent

then he he was he wasn't even concerned with money anymore it wasn't part of his thing and there was plenty of and it was very comfortable but it wasn't in the central part of his life because he had gone beyond that

it's a truck is saying Scott's job to take care of me and my job to do his work and I found that you know what I don't know about you and I said

that's great you know I mean I tell me her lofty principles that's great I really like that but

I think I'll I'll just keep a couple hundred dollars in my wallet

and I think I'll you know have to

set aside something over here and I think that up I won't worry as much as I used to worry about financial security

but I'll in and out and I'll think about that later on I mean it's so hard to let go of

the old way of living

I mean when I was

above think about forgiveness

you know how hard it is to forgive have you ever thought about forgiveness

and you say you know I really ought to forgive them

can you go okay

and you do

but it isn't gonna

you're running in your mind you go change your forgiveness for leaving me for another guy with all the kids are totally forget

but down in here it's like you rotten son of a gun I can't believe what you did nice yet but she's forgiven it's it's over please forgive until we said forgiveness but there's it hasn't happened yet

enter the first time I read about forgiveness growing up I was in the church of brought up in the Catholic Church and I'm reading about my hero at the time Jesus about man look at this is walking on the water I thought that was great I'm just gonna look at that is that cool then he changed water into wine yes

yeah

my kind of guy with this man

I'm going all the way and then people are sick and he just goes in there well and I'm just going I'm going to model my life

after him

then there's all of a sudden they're nailing into across the whoa well

this story has taken an unfortunate turn

I think he

also follow his path I won't be as extreme as he was

certainly one end up getting nailed to a cross I mean that that that has to seriously hurt

so what is he saying well this is going on each saying mother forgive them they know not what they do

and I'm I didn't say this out loud but you know what I'm thinking to myself

Jesus

are you on drugs

they're nailing your blood to a cross

and you're saying free give them I mean hello

I mean what is that

so later on

they're explaining these principles and what these teachings were all about and that forgiveness

is how we get free

of any injuries that are done to us

because that's the only freedom there is so the bar was set

as far as my own education was forgiveness takes them up to and including getting nailed to a cross that's how far you go with forgiveness now you're not gonna

you're not gonna believe this

but all through my life I kept haven't stuff happened to me that was worse than getting nailed

and you know what I was worse as it was happening to me that's why

so I was you know I wish I was willing to forgive up to a certain point but you know what I mean is this all those things

that I was willing to forgive hi Carrie

any time I decide to carry it I picked up the hammer with both Google cross and I go out standing nailing your book to this thing and we ain't gonna ever forgive this room and walk around a lot of pain

over not forgiving but we have called the unforgivable

and I was reading in the little twenty four hour day but

about forgiveness it was a wonderful concept so I just want to pass it on

it said

it is senseless to try to simply forgive

because the only thing that's hurt

when anything happens to us is our selfishness

that's the only thing that gets hurt is our self

and so instead of trying to intellectually forgive we have to concentrate on overcoming our self in our daily lives

and when we overcome our cells the only thing that was hurt is gone and we can't even remember the injuries

now is that total freedom we can't even remember the injuries because you see that's the only part that the ego the self and so this whole program

his overcoming self

overcoming self because that's where all the problems are

no very briefly I grew up in New England and a good nice little family

I didn't drink till I was in college

very uncomfortable around people have my first drink the second or the third drink that I had all these threatening people became friendly people and I knew that I had found the secret to life that's what alcohol was to me it was the panic that I had chosen to follow I had no idea that that's what I decided that's what alcohol was it was my true friend alcohol set me free

until then fear had me trapped in there

insecurity had me I couldn't turn on the create creative part of me I would meet people in hi hi and I'll be thinking of leaving I mean I just wasn't spontaneous I couldn't because I couldn't be me

and as soon as I drank that alcohol it was like there

now I am a hundred percent and I just couldn't talk I intuitively knew how to do everything I'm just it was just fear of economic insecurity disappeared

I'll buy around for this room

you know

I didn't have the rent money but who cares

I'm living today the rent is due tomorrow we got eliminated

so it alcohol was my power to get through life he was my secret answer to everything and I just made it the centerpiece I didn't know I was deciding this but that's what I decided miss I managed to graduate

from the university of new haven the Korean War was just ending but with the Trappist Alonso joined the marine corps all I can tell you about that was I was amazed how intense they were

Hey guys lighten up

just

and

I just I just was in the wrong place and we were we were being trained to be the two leaders and took six months of just run around shooting and digging and hiding in high res guys work out give me somebody kill give you somebody to kill

Hey SO training movie about pilots and they were in the bar and they were talking with their hands over the blonde in the background and I just went over to the majors what's that pilot stuff

so you don't want that you have to sign up for three more years if you do that I got three years I guess so let me sign up for that I signed up I made it on my head my eyes roll right now passed all the tests and then

got married went off the Pensacola got their sick on the plane going to

your propeller planes are bouncing around the smelled gasoline smell now and then I got sick in the sNDA for about five flights in the instructors that I don't think you're going to make it one that went away turns out I was very good at that so I now have a new career they were given out regular commissions yet yeah I'm now I'm going to make the military my career look at me do you see a military bone in my body anything

the military

but I'm going to make this a career given that airplane but the I did reasonably well but there were lots of people going he's a disgrace to the marine corps I mean there was some of that

so I got promoted and we had one kid and I'm a first lieutenant two kids three kids for kids five kids six kids and

getting crowded around the house

you know I'm I'm I'm sort of an observer of all this is

I'm out with the boys at night with a party and you know it was just it was just a crazy time

make up promoted to captain and I'm back from overseas in a minute photo squatter cherry point when the Cuban Missile Crisis was going on and what kind of that and I am starting to

experience withdrawal symptoms in the plains and I'm having these attacks and I'm starting to distrust the pilot of the plane in which is me

this guy is dangerous to be with you know like I don't want to be in here and I'm I'm very apprehensive and

had some close calls and how many accidents but it went on for a number of months and finally I went to the doctor and I said I think I'm having some problems in flying what's happening well I'm losing vision I feel like I'm going to pass out can't see the instruments I'm getting forgetful not that they won't well we're going to send you down very briefly I was down for two weeks to see what caused this and they had no

diagnosis of alcoholism in the navy at that time you had to be something else

so

I went through all these tests

and all they had to go on was I had high blood pressure my hand just trim but with all the time and I just

clammy sweat my eyes were bloodshot very confused I wasn't sure where I was and I reeked of alcohol all the time

all the time

and so they finally had they couldn't find anything physically wrong they had me strapped in a chair and an old lady with wires sticking out of everywhere and they're flying loops and I don't know that's not it that's not it and they're just going through and finally said well we think it's psychiatric so let the psychiatrists decide

and I was written up with childhood fear of flying

never should have been a pilot in the first place in the last twelve years of flying we're just like a a fluke

that was my total attended the that's who I was you know what I meant and now I'm not me anymore and I'm back

yep the cherry point I'm heartbroken and crushed but I couldn't fight it had had no

backbone to I mean I there was nothing left to contest this so I waited for three months for headquarters marine corps to decide what I'm going to make you have to give this guy a new specialty is no longer a fighter pilot so I came back I got orders to become an air traffic controller

and I've

we're not there traffic control school made it through the school which is a very hard school and I spent my last year drinking

over in Japan in charge of air traffic control unit

and fortunately the senior enlisted man sized me up in one minute when I checked in welcome aboard captain glad to have you know we had tents and all of his little place for you nice little captain's chairs to sit in

read our bikes to work you know that kind of environment and we do this we'll do that and captain don't go near radar

meaning don't you control anything

you just you just survive it will cover for you

and that's what I did I just became I just drank around the clock I lost fifty pounds and malnutrition I stopped drinking with my buddies and everybody was partyin you know and I would just be in a Quonset hut I had vodka

use grain alcoholic diets brought five down to grain alcohol over from where they make special weapons

I would step on that when I was out of pocket and during the year I sit the whole five gallons just as extra unum or modified goggles take a little bit green alcohol so you know it's just like

and I was just trying to survive that was just right on the edge of mentally the whole thing and when I was sent back to Quantico to attend a career school had a grand mal seizure in the school

I bit my tongue

took me up to the hospital they still don't know what's wrong what causes seizures guys study into hard what is wrong with him

in about five days and then I went to D. T. and it was just the classic old fashioned

a huge defeat the CIA it come into my room

they were going to arrest me as a spy I was taking these mental tests they kept giving me these passive moving walls and then I'd be wrong as to what's out in the hallway well as the corpsman dissonant and then open the door was a photo lab

you're trying to drive me crazy and I'm writing all the stuff that was just it was terrifying and then let me try again are going to remember the photo lab art if you can remember the photo lab we're gonna let you out of here we're going to declare your sink okay three dryers a big in larger since it was in the photo squadron that's where that came from

so I went back in the bed not memorable five minutes later the five doctors came in well what's on the other side of the door photo labs three drier than larger is the processor and they all look at each other just went home let's see what the hell's and yanked the door open I ran right out onto a flight flying planes are taxiing in the power and that's all that night