The 63rd anniversary of the Alexandria group in Alexandria, VA

Come on up, and, he's our guest speaker for the evening. Hi, everybody. My name's Sandy Beach, and I'm an alcoholic. How you all doing? Hey.

I really look forward to this. There's a lot of people here that I've known for many, many years, and, I know there's lots of new people, which is the lifeblood of AA, and I'm so glad that you all are here. Before I get started, I do wanna say that one of the reasons I come back up this time of year is to remember my dear friend, Hal Marley, who a lot of you knew and some of you didn't, but, there were 3 of us got sober in 1964. And, as the years went on, Ed Chandler and myself and Hal Marley would have dinner once a month and take AEA's inventory and decide what was wrong in New York and what was wrong in California and how could we get rid of Akron, Some of those type of things. And so Hal's widow is here tonight, Rosita, and she's been a great friend of AA for over 40 years, and it's just a pleasure.

We had dinner with her tonight, and so it's just a real honor to keep some of those memories going. So, Rosita, we're delighted you're here, and I'm so glad to be your friend all these years. And while I'm on that subject, My sponsor died this year, and Ed passed away this year. Great friend of mine, Clint Hodges on the West Coast, who was one of great speakers out there. And so we see a lot of us passing away.

And our normal reaction to that is one of apprehension. And we start that reminds me. That could possibly happen to me someday, and I don't like to think about that. And so I'll tell you some thoughts on that. I I do a lot of spiritual reading, and many spiritual authors say this, that death is the ego's biggest weapon to use against us, to keep us separate from God.

Oh my god. Sorry. I don't wanna think about that. The only thing that dies is the ego, and that's why it makes such a big deal out of it. Holy cow.

I won't be here anymore. I know, but the The human spirit will still be I know, but the ego won't still be around, and that's who I am. So I got thinking about it and, maybe you never thought of this, but do you know what the it's not even close. What the leading cause of death is? Birth.

There's nothing there's nothing that comes close to that. So they must go together. You follow what I'm saying? It's a package. It's just like breathing in and breathing out.

And when you get real old, 76 is the magic time. They start giving you some glimpses of, you know so I got some glimpses. And, there is a book of life. Not much I can tell you. I can't share everything for everybody.

It's a leather book. It's about 3 inches thick. And I can't tell you anything about it except the last page because the last page is the same for everyone. So just in case you're curious, what's on the last page? It says, my dear friend, your visit here is now over.

Every single good and kind act that you did while you were here will live forever in the people who are coming after you. And every rotten, despicable, harmful thing that you did to other people and to yourself while you were here has already been forgiven. Book closed. So now you understand the importance of helping one another. The only thing that lasts.

The only thing that of you that will be around. And all of these people that we're talking around are still alive with us. I go around the country. I see these little attitude of gratitude pins. And I was telling the folks at dinner, this was Hal Marley's little deal.

He he passed them out all over the place. And so I'll stop people, like in Wisconsin, and I'll go, wow. Do you know Hal Marley? And they go, who? I said, well, you got an attitude of oh, no.

This came from doctor gratitude. They don't even know who it came from, but they know that gratitude's important. And so the message is, never dies, which when you think about it, is all that AA is. It's one message that has been passed on for 72 years. Same message.

It's a it's a remarkable phenomenon to realize that in many ways, everything lasts forever. Now I got sober in 1964. I grew up in Connecticut in the thirties. My sister has 30 years in AA. She and I went to the same church, Catholic church.

She thought it was the most friendly, cute place to be on the face of the earth. The nuns were cute. The Latin was cute. Confession was really fun. Everything they talked about, it was just made her happy, and it still makes her happy.

Now I'm sitting next to her. I feel like I'm in Auschwitz. I am not comfortable in that environment. The nuns are like Nazis. They're out to hurt me, scare me, punish me, and tell me how bad it's gonna be forever.

Going to confession, sometimes I would faint on the way in. I couldn't remember. I'd make up something. I robbed the bank and I'm sorry. You know?

So I was not comfortable there. How did I get uncomfortable? I told myself a story about what was going on that terrified me. One day, I was sitting there at age 10. I was looking at the crucifix staring at it, trying to understand it completely, and it finally spoke to me.

And it said, little boy, do you see this yet? Well, this is what god did to his only son that he loved. Guess what he's gonna do to you? So I created a rather horrifying church world to live in. The church didn't create it.

I did. I made it up. I made it up that it's terrifying in here. I didn't know I made it up. I thought they did it to me.

And for a long time, I blamed my alcoholism on the pope. He allowed this travesty to take place, all this suffering. And whether we realize it or not, that's what we manufacture as we're growing up, is a story. And that's just like if 30 people see an accident, there's 30 things that happened. There is no accident.

There's 30 stories about an accident. No. No. No. The other guy was he was the one.

And then you talk to the guy next to me, and he goes, no. No. No. It was her fault. No.

No. No. The traffic light was broken. It just came back on. And you just you just hear these incredible diversity of the stories, and we don't realize that we think we're dealing with facts and that this world is this way.

I didn't know any of this. I'm just growing up trying to figure out what's going on. I'm afraid all the time. I don't belong anywhere. I didn't belong in my family.

Very uncomfortable. I was smart. I got good grades. I was a good athlete. Went to prep school.

Went right into Yale University in my hometown. I got there, everybody there was smart, rich, and knew what was going on. I couldn't figure out why I was there. I was just, what am I doing here? I thought for sure during that freshman year, the dean was gonna call the 1,000 guys out and go, gentlemen, we have discovered an imposter in our midst, and there he is.

I knew it was coming. I was just, when are they gonna find out? I'm here. And I wasn't drinking. And people said you ought to drink.

You ought to drink. You'll fit in. It's fun. No. No.

No. I'm gonna get high grades in athletics and all that. But there came a time when it was so I felt so much pressure all the time, and I was at a social event to meet people, and no one wanted to know me. I went over to all different kinds of people, and they looked at me with their eyes and said, I don't wanna know you. Do you get it?

Yeah. I get it. I get it. Jeez. Wow.

People can really be hostile the way they look at you. You see right in their eye, they hate you. They wish you weren't even in the room. Get out of here, you. Get out of here.

And I was getting ready to leave, and I said, maybe I will have a drink. There's a bartender there. What the heck? They said it makes you feel better. I think I'll have a drink.

So I went up and had a drink of whiskey, and I waited, and I didn't feel anything. I said, well, maybe it takes 2. So I drank a second one, and I'm waiting and waiting. It doesn't make me feel any better. And I started on the third one, I said, I don't think this does make you feel better.

And I think I was seriously thinking of leaving, and I turned around, damnedest thing. Everybody in the room wanted to know me. I could see it in their eyes. They were they were all looking at me going, I'd love to be your best friend. Don't join that group.

Join our group. And I was I was just torn as to where to go. And I finished the drink, and I started over. And as I was walking over, I started agreeing with them. They would be lucky to know me.

I could bring them up a few notches, and I intuitively knew everything. It was as if all my creativity that had been was in there and couldn't get out due to this anxiety and not fitting in. Boom. I was finally me. And it was great.

I loved it. No pretend. I'm me. Spontaneous. And I talked to pretty soon everybody left.

I'm still talking. Hey. Wait. Wait. Wait.

And I said, boy, if 3 drinks did that, what would 23 drinks do? And I sat there at the bar, and we know what that does. You go home that night and the room spins and you vomit and you dry heave and you sleep by the toilet and you just experience pain that you haven't experienced before. And I sat in the bed the next morning, my head splitting like a hatchet was in it. My mouth was so dry.

I Thought it was gonna cut my tongue. And I just sat there. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. And And the thought occurred to me, you're gonna drink again tonight? And I went, yes. This hatchet and possible death in the next 10 minutes is a small price to pay for what I had last night. So you can see the I was an alcoholic.

Alcohol did something so wonderful for me that I was willing to pay any price. I didn't know I made that arrangement, but that's what alcoholics do. This is worth anything. Why was it worth anything? Because it solved every problem I had.

It finally brought me into the world that you all had been in all along. And I was so happy that I found it. I didn't see it as something bad. I finally said, wow. Now I get to enjoy life for the rest of my life.

This is wonderful. Just always have booze. So the grades went, the athletics went, I'm getting in fights. I'm going to jail. I'm almost getting thrown out.

Somehow graduated. The Korean war was going on. The draft, everybody had to join the military group of guys who are drinking beer. Let's join the Marine Corps. Yeah.

Come on. I'll finish my beer. Let's join the Marine Corps. That was a rude awakening when I got there. I kept saying, you guys are so intense.

Relax. Relax. Relax. Wow. Come on.

And, of course, you know what they do. They just crush you, your identity, and turn you into a marine. And, the Marine Corps and AA are the only 2 organizations that I truly loved. I eventually fell in love with it. I loved being part of something, and I love the camaraderie.

And I also, signed up for some unknown reason to be a pilot. Never been in an airplane, and they accepted me, and I met a young lady in Brantford, Connecticut. We got married, and we went off off on our honeymoon to Pensacola, Florida. Very romantic, except I got airsick flying down there on United Air Lines and was airsick a while. And, it's too hot.

But the motion sickness went away, and then I became a very good pilot. Everything we went through, I would be number 2 or number 3 as we went through formation and gunnery and carrier and advanced training. And then I got into jets, and I got my wings, and I went over seas in the top front line fighter squadron, and the war ended. So now there was, here we were just totally trained and bunch of hotshots, and so you just flew practice missions and drank. And it was just delightful.

It was back when they drank as a unit, the colonel ordered the drinks. My boys, give them another round, and people drank as fast as I did. I didn't have to sneak drinks. Remember when you were the slow drinking crowd? Hey.

I'll be right back by. I said, I gotta go to the bathroom. You got a bartender? Give me a double with a round trip. Oh, another round?

Yeah. I'll have one. Yeah. I just had a double. But I didn't have to do that because they were drinking as fast as I was.

It was I was finally in my element. And I I held up pretty good for the first 6 or 7 years of flying, but it started catching up. I was drinking really a lot, and I let's see. I finished that tour with the forward air controller with the marines out in Camp Pendleton. Then I went to Pensacola.

I was a flight instructor for 3 years, and I flew tons of hops. Jeez. You fly 4 flights a day some days. You got this nut in the front seat trying to kill you, and I'm back there trying to get over a hangover, but it was fun. I'm just telling you, all of it was fun.

And, the last flying I did was, I went to photo school and joined a photo squadron during the Cuban missile crisis, and we were flying the crusader and the, which is the photo plane you see in the movies about the Cuba. And we had a, radar plane. It's an old f three d. It was a, very easy plane to fly, 2 engines, straight wing, had a radar guy over here. Very elite squadron.

There was only 15 pilots. There were no lieutenants. It was really an honor to be in there. I'm in there as I am starting to experience withdrawal symptoms from alcohol in the plane, and I'm getting frightened. I didn't know what to do.

There was no alcohol program. There was nowhere to go, so I just kept going. But I kept telling myself, you're gonna kill yourself. What are you doing in here? And I would, you know, my heart would start racing.

I would lose my peripheral vision, and I start just sweating up a storm. And I said, you're gonna pass out any second. You're gonna pass out any second. Keep going. Keep going.

And then near the end, it was, I gotta get out of here. Do you remember the end of the drink and you get a haircut and you had to leave in the middle of it or whatever? I gotta get out of here. Where are you gonna go? You know what I mean?

There's no real good alternative. And I remember flying with one hand in the ejection seat. Well, I'll fly the mission with them if I need to. I'm out, and people think I'm making this up, but it it went on for about 6 months. And one day I don't I don't remember the details, but I remember coming back, from a cross country in the in the flight of 4 of the easy plane to fly, the f three d, and I had to get out of that plane.

I mean, I just had to get this had no ejection seat. You had to open a chute, and you slid out the bottom. And And I remember looking at that chute, and I said, do you remember how it works? They only show you once, and I'm going I'm not sure I really know, but I get I think I'll but then I said, well, the guy can't fly, then I'm leaving. He's a radar guy.

You know? And here's this guy sitting over there, and little does he know what's going through my mind. And I finally declared an oxygen emergency, told the flight leader we had to land immediately. Something wrong with the oxygen? That's causing me to so when when that happens, you do land immediately.

We went into an air force base nearby, and then they checked the oxygen. Of course, there's nothing wrong. Plus the guy next to me, he's not having any problems breathing the same oxygen. And we got real drunk that night, and I came out the next morning and I said, I'm not gonna get in the plane. And, that was the last time I flew.

And 3 months later, they made me an air traffic controller, of all things. And that's what I did during the last year of my drinking. So Now I'm in, Oxnard, California this year in the early part of the year. And Clancy wanted me to talk at his group, 950 people at 1 AA meeting. So I went there, and then the next night was Brentwood.

And they wanted me to come up, and they have a very interesting format. So I said, yeah. I'll do that, and then we'll go to Oxnard. I went out early to visit some people. I'm getting ready to, start this meeting, and a guy comes up and and and and, actually, a lady came up and said, my friend is here to get her 30 year medallion, and her husband drove her her up tonight.

He's not an alcoholic. He goes to meetings with her, but he thinks he knows you, and he wants to talk to you outside the church. I said, alright. So I went outside and this guy stand there. I've never seen him before.

And he said, in 1962, you were flying an f three d two q in the flight of 4 coming back from across country, and you declared an oxygen emergency. And all the planes landed and there was nothing wrong with the oxygen and you never flew again. And I said, how do you know that? He said, I was in the plane with you. And so now I got the story about what was really going on that I was because he was a pilot.

So why would why were there 2 pilots? It turns out that, a hurricane was coming up near Cherry Point. Whenever there's a hurricane, the military flies all their planes to a safe place, and then you drink and wait till the hurricane goes by, and then you fly back. So it's choice duty, so the radar guys don't get to go and the second pilot goes. And he flew the plane back, And I said, I'll be darned.

That's amazing. And then we got talking. And my recollection of that event, the aftermath of that event was that I came back totally ashamed, beaten. I was 14 years a pilot. Now I'm a has been.

I've washed up a failure, a piece of crap. And I had to come to work every day in that squadron while they all looked at me and felt sorry and wished they'd never met me and realized I was ruining the reputation of that fine squadron. And it hurt me to go to work every day. I did the legal work for 3 months until I finally got orders and got out of there, and I said, boy, were they glad to get rid of me. That was my version of what happened.

And then he said to me, did you know how popular you were in that squadron? Do you know how much everybody loved you? It broke their hearts that see. They did everything they could to get you flying. The colonel, especially, went up to the commandant and tried to get something changed.

And I went, wow. My story isn't the truth. So I went back to my story and I went erase, erase, erase, erase, erase, erase, erase, erase, erase, and put in the story. The story. And I've done that with a lot of my life.

As a matter of fact, our program says old ideas availed us nothing. All we do in spirituality is get rid of things. We don't get anything. We don't learn anything. We unlearn until there's nothing left but the truth.

So our story is what gets shattered. And I tell people, if you were to listen talks I gave when I had 10 years sobriety and compare them to today, today I had a much better childhood than I used to have. Now how could you have a better childhood than you used to have? By looking at it through spiritual eyes. By looking at it as a result of the transformation that takes place in AA.

And that's why the world becomes a better place, That's why your family sudden straightens out. You follow what I'm saying? I don't know, my family's a lot better than they used to be. No. They're not.

You're seeing them through spiritual lenses. They were pretty nice all along. You made up a story about how horrible they were, and you told yourself that story, and that story and many others like it kept you separate from god for all these years. Because when we create a story like that, it's a yarn, and it's composed of 1,000,000 of individual thoughts and assessments that we make. And it becomes, once it gets strong enough, the entire world that we live in.

This is the entire package. It started out like a spider with a web just, you know, one strand across. But then this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, Then I got sick, and I had polio. Oh, there's a whole bunch more. And then I had this, and then I had that, and, and pretty soon, a bug coming along, boom, flies right into it because it's solid.

And I picture that we actually create an egg that we're inside of. You know what I mean? Like a bird is inside of an egg shell. And you know who's in there? You.

Nobody else. And and one of the things that human beings complain about the most is throughout history is this cosmic sense of loneliness. It's just me and the universe and that sense of being alone and alone. Of course, we're alone. We made up a place where that's we're the only ones in it.

When we say we're the center of our world, remember that expression? Well, she lives in her own little world. Well, I wouldn't know because I'm in my own little world, and I don't like her. Well, you follow what I'm saying? Only we don't know that.

We think this is here it is. And we come in here, and we start to dismantle it. I honestly think I like stories, so I make them up and they're what the hell? You don't believe the last page in the book of life? Wait and see.

So I picture that we come into AA in the egg that we made, complaining like hell, we're the author of this entire thing and we can't stand it. I can't stand the world. Well, you made it. And we start working the steps, and then we start seeing things differently. Remember when we did the 4th step?

We took the inventory. We took it over to our sponsor to run it by him or her, and everything looked different. I remember going my spine. Well, I had them. And he said, yeah.

But and I said, well, if you look at it that way Okay. Now if you look at it that way, it isn't so bad. So what's happened? They're just just boom. Boom.

They're slowly punching, chipping away at this material that we made. Until one day, we get a hole through there and some light starts coming in and we call it a spiritual awakening. We get a glimpse of something other than this little world that we created. What the hell is that? Oh, that's just the universe of which you are a small part.

Really? Well, now comes the dismantling of this entire universe that we built for ourselves. And, just to continue the analogy, this is the problem. This is where we run into, spirituality becomes tough. We're delighted to get a glimpse.

Everybody's delighted to get a glimpse. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. And that's what you got by giving up drinking and a couple other life threatening activities, which are the easier ones to give up because the ego knows that it'll die if we don't get rid of those.

So it cooperates a little bit. So now we're sort of maybe we got our whole head out of the shell, and we're looking around and we got, yeah. I'm still in my world, but I like to look out here. Well, wouldn't you like to be all the way out? Yeah.

I think I would. What would I be in charge of out there? Nothing. Nothing. Wow.

Who exactly would I be out there? No one. We we could get you up as high as servant. That's about it. That's the top rank that we have available.

Could I be in charge of something? Yeah. Coffee. I'm used to, I'm used to managing a little more than that of coffee. Maybe I could live happily, partially in the world of light and run the rest of this myself, And that is described beautifully in the 12 and 12 in step 6.

And if you go back and reread 6 with the analogy of coming halfway out of the egg, I think you'll understand. We only wanna settle for as much perfection as will get us by. Remember that line on the 12 and 12? Wanna settle for as much perfection as will get us by. See, something happened in the 12 and 12.

In the big book, it's progress not perfection, and we mastered that. How come you haven't moved any further? Hey. Hey. It's progress, not perfection.

And I've been doing a lot of studying of history, so I'm gonna tell you the if if you if you go to Cleveland and Akron, that's why I was teasing Akron, they still publish. The inner group publishes the 4 absolutes. There's a big pamphlet. I got bought a bunch of them back. I was in Cleveland not too long ago.

And when old timers get up, I've got 40 5 years of sobriety. I owe it all to Alcoholics Anonymous, to 12 Step, my higher power, and the 4 absolutes. Now the the, Oxford group in Cleveland wanted to include the absolutes in AA, But the New York crowd was entirely different crowd than the Akron crowd. The New York crowd was more of an intellectual, psychological crowd, and they'd prefer if we didn't mention God till somebody had about 3 years. And in Akron, on your first night, they said, go on upstairs with these 2 guys, then you go up there and they go, get on your knees.

Do you believe in god? I don't do you believe in god? I don't I don't know. Well, we're staying here until you do hard. I believe in God.

Alright. And he came down, he states over. So it was very important to go boom. And, the absolutes, absolutes, you you can see. So, the big book was a compromise on those things.

The steps were suggested. It was God as you understand him. In Akron, it was Jesus. In New York, it was philosophy. If you find a God, pray, but don't worry about it.

The 2 extremes. And we ended up with a compromise, which is what you and I are familiar with right here. But there are places, I'll tell you, today. I've been in them within the last month where I mentioned the 1212 and the crowd booed. See, that that came on after the big book.

The big book. I'm just giving you a little history now. Bill, he ran across somebody when he was still alive that said that they had studied self help, spiritual help, movements that were started just by regular people, kinda like AA. And as it succeeded, they said, oh, my god. It's working.

Let's write down what we're doing because there's more other people might wanna use it. So then they go, what do you think you were doing? You remember the fight over the big book? And I said, no. No.

No. I said, stand them up. There are no we don't want praying them on their knees. Okay. We don't want this and that.

And out of the big hassle came the big book, which was a collection of ideas from all kinds of different people, different approaches, a very wonderful author for most of it. Bill was very talented in that area. And, what the author of this book, this study said, as time goes on, those ideas that were just thrown together become biblical. They take on the and one of the reasons Bill wrote the 12 and 12 was to make sure the big book did not biblically and become that. Now let me give you some examples to and we all do it.

We we take a word and just go, see that? See that word? I was on a panel with a bunch of old a lot of older timers than me, And I asked them. I said, when's the first time you ever heard anyone say the promises? And they thought and thought, and they came up with about 30 years ago.

So 30 years ago, the promises arrived. Do you understand what I'm saying? They weren't here when I got sober. If you would ask anyone in AA right in this room, how about the promises? They go, what's that?

So they have appeared. You you follow what I'm saying? And now we're finding them everywhere. I'm gonna read the promises out here, and I start teasing people. Well, I'm gonna read the ones out of the doctor's opinion.

Or the final promise. You will surely meet some of us. That has to be the final promise because it's the last line in the big book. Just teasing The 3rd and 7th step prayer, have those become, wow. Bill made them up.

You get it? He made them up. We got them on plastic now. I got this. It's part of my life.

I I just love this prayer. Well, go back and look what it says. What does it say? It says, we might say something like this, or if you don't like, you can use your own words. I'm quoting what it says in the book.

You can use your own words. We go, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But this this this this. I do it. I'm I'm just I've oh, my favorite sentence. If If that sentence wasn't in the big book, I'd be drunk right now. So I'm making fun of all of us.

So to get back to the point I was making I have no idea where this is going. So the point I was making was about perfection in the absolute. When, Kurtz wrote some great history books. Ernest Kurtz, anybody read that not God and the AA way or whatever that new one is? In there, Bill is talking in a letter, says to someone, I snuck the absolutes in in the 12 and 12 in the 6th step.

And suddenly, perfection appears. Not progress not perfection, progress towards perfection. You know, this is it's in the 6th step. We have to raise our eyes towards perfection. What does the step say?

We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects. What would that be? Perfect. Can I become perfect? No.

No one in this room can become perfect. Could we receive perfect help and get there? Yes. Yes. Our creator could easily make us perfect, but there's a big blockage.

We have to let him. Oh, well, I thought you know where it says in the prayer, remove the defects that are standing in the way of me being useful. I just assumed that since most of them are still here, god thinks I'm being useful enough and he wants these defects to stay here. And when he wants them gone, they'll be gone. So I've abdicated all responsibility for remaining an asshole, so it's it's not my fault.

We are funny, aren't we? Goddamn. So now we're over there where why? The full implication of that is perfection. He's gonna remove them all.

I'm gonna be perfect. Wouldn't that be nice? You know how nice that would be? We'd just be you'd be walking hand in hand with God, happy all the time. Wouldn't it be just great?

Why don't we do it? Bill calls that the riddle of our existence. That's a line out of the 6th step. This is the riddle. Why?

Why? Well, turns out some of us like our character defects. I mean, they make us feel superior. Let's get rid of lust. Let's use that one tonight.

Everybody would like to get rid of a 100% of lust, raise your hand. No hands up. What? Why don't you wanna get rid of a 100% of lust? Lust really distracts us.

It keeps us over we've done a lot of trouble with the lust. Let's all volunteer. Go. No hands. No hands.

What's going on in our minds? Well, I could get rid of most of the lust. I certainly would. I think that you can carry it to an extreme. But it what would that be?

No lust. 0 lust. Let me think about that. What is that? Dead?

Dead. I guess that's dead. You're dead. You have no lust. Put me down for 55%.

55% on lust. That's that'll be good for me. We tend to settle for as much perfection as will get us by. It's getting getting me by. They go, you know, he used to be real lustful.

Now he's kinda average. I'm getting by. I'm getting my my sponsor said, hey. You're doing better. Yeah.

That's all I want. Better. I don't want best. Bill wrote, good is the biggest enemy of the best that there is. So if you're doing good, that's dangerous in the spiritual sense because we're gonna stay there.

And this happens after, what, 15 so years of sobriety. You suddenly have arrived and you're at a spot, and we ain't going any further. I'm here. It's comfortable. I like it.

When are we going to try and go kick it up a few notches? And that's the riddle of our existence. That is what each individual has to do something about, because now we're really at the 11th step type of activity. Prayer and meditation, reading other books, asking for advice from other spiritual teachers. It's an individual adventure.

But he certainly lays the groundwork right there. I had some funny thoughts on various things, so I'm gonna share them with you because I'm working up a little lecture, and this will be my practice. One of them had to do with acceptance. I never thought about it this way. You know, doctor Paul said that, acceptance is the key to everything, which in a way is contrary to serenity prayer.

Acceptance is the key to things that you ought to accept, but then there's the things you ought to change, so they're in another category, and you just need the wisdom to know the difference between the 2. So acceptance couldn't be the answer to everything. So if doctor Paul was wrong or the serenity prayer is wrong, and he used to get a lot of flack. He's passed away now. But he used to get a lot of crap for putting that in his story.

He said, I wish they had written the story after I died. I didn't mean to start any trouble. But people love to quote that. You know? It's not on page 449.

I don't know where it is now. 4/17. Where is it? 4/17. 4/17.

Yeah. So anyway and I always sided with doctor Paul. But then I got thinking about acceptance in terms of turning our will and lives over to god. I honestly believe that incorporated into the word acceptance is an underlying assumption that something's going on that I don't like. You follow what I'm saying?

I don't have to accept when the Redskins win. You know, I don't have to have you accepted that they want no, man. That didn't I'm I love it. I don't have to accept it. Do you see what I'm I'm driving at?

If I hadn't made a judgment that something shouldn't be the way it is, I wouldn't have to accept it. I don't know if that's making any sense at all, but what I'm getting at is if I were able to turn everything over, there would never be anything that was unacceptable because I I wouldn't have judged anything, and acceptance would become moot. It would be a non a word that isn't even being used. I helped me take my inventory when I was well, have you accepted it yet? Well, I'm taking it.

You know? And I'm going, why is this a problem? Because I'm forcing something down that I don't want it to be this way. And I'm adjusting myself to the situation that shouldn't have been that way in the first place. But I'm working on my spiritual progress in order to be comfortable with it, and then I finally allow it to be as it is, which is a rather lengthy process that started because I judged something to be wrong.

And I don't like it that way, but I'm going to accept it. It's just a product of a very weird mind that drives himself crazy thinking about things like this. Let me get back to the basics because I got a few minutes left for those of you that are new. If we had to look at the program and and you asked me, what is the point of AA? I would direct you to the 12 step, which is the end.

Sometimes I like to read the end of a book before the beginning, see if I wanna read it. I don't know other people do that or not, but if you jumped ahead in AA when you got here and said, well, how does this thing end? You would find out that it ended with a spiritual awakening. That's the end. That's what you get.

That's the point of the whole book. Having had a spiritual awakening as the one result of these steps, we tried to carry the message. What message? How to have a spiritual awakening? Follow what I'm saying.

So spiritual awakening is it. Do you wanna read the book? Are you interested? I don't think so. Stop a guy on the street.

Hey. Wanna have a spiritual awakening? But that's that's 12. That's it. That's what we're trying to get everybody to do.

How do you get them to do that? In other words, that's one bookend in AA. The reason people are willing to do that is because of the other bookend, the first step, which says, unless you have a spiritual awakening, you're gonna goddamn die. Oh, really? What?

Yeah. And damn soon. Really? What's the You know, check out spiritual awakening. I don't know.

I don't know. In other words, we gotta understand the dynamics that makes this thing work. I came up with an analogy of the Tony Soprano spiritual program. It would be simpler than AA. It'd be a piece of cake.

I could get this thing started. I could cover the whole world and nothing flat. 3 big guys show up at your door. Hi. Are you Ralph?

Yeah. They break your arm in 3 places. Tony said, unless you get a spiritual awakening within a year, we break every bone in your body. Bye. I wonder if that guy's gonna go to the library and look up spiritual awakening.

I think he is. I think he's gonna try real hard. And that's what we are so lucky to have that first bookend that took the reality of our life and helped us see it in its totality. When Bill first was trying to sober drunk stuff, he told him about this hot flash that he had. I saw the mountain.

I saw the white light. It's wonderful, but the the desire to drink left me and I run around. I saw god. It's absolutely wonderful. Follow me.

Follow me. Nobody followed him. They told them that they had that when they drank rum. I'm not interested. And doctor Silkworth said, Bill, you got the cart before the horse.

You gotta tell them about the hopeless nature of alcoholism. And that's why step 1 is what do we got? 50 pages before we get to step 2? I guess step 1 must be pretty damn important. And the essential ingredient is the understanding of the hopelessness of your situation and that nothing can prevent this disease from crushing you in the most horrible way except a spiritual awakening.

Chapter the agnostic, we have a disease that only a spiritual experience can conquer. Once that kicks in, we got the we got it we got the package. We got the necessity for a spiritual awakening and the means to get it. And this is what makes AEA so wonderful, because it forces us to have a life transforming experience that we never would have gone after voluntarily. We were forced into heaven and out of hell.

Forced. Know what I'm saying? Do you know how lucky that is? In order for any human being to get beyond themselves, they have to go against their own ego. They have to suddenly raise up a flag and go, why doesn't somebody else make all the decisions for me?

That's a hard thing to give up. The final say on your own life, that does not come up easily, but that's what total surrender is. And in the beginning, we just give it over to the sponsor. Okay. What do I do now?

What do I do now? What do I do now? And then it works. And we feel better. And things look different.