Sandy Beach > Quotes

“Well, you can’t directly achieve sobriety through your own willpower, but it takes willpower to go to meetings. It takes willpower to buy the Big Book and read it. It takes willpower to do the steps. I have to make this choice.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“we saw all of these images that we have put together—all very self-centered opinions and judgments that we’ve put up there on a daily basis. We’ve been collecting them since we were little kids. And then our parents helped us collect them, and society helped us collect them. And we put all that stuff inside of ourselves, and that’s how we’ve seen what’s out there.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“And certainly, no group takes more care of an individual than AA. It’s one of the great spiritual things, which is to put something ahead of yourself. It is a great source of peace when we realize that the smaller we can make ourselves, the happier we’re going to be.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“Humility is the light. It is the absence of me. If I’m not there, everything shines through. I am the cloud between me and the sun. If I can get out of the way, things are going to be wonderful.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“We ask God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully give to a sick friend. At least, God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one. God will help me have a tolerant and kindly view of everything. In other words, everything changes as a result of this kind of work.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“The principle of the program is to teach us to adjust to the situation and not demand that the situation adjust to us.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“There was a tidal wave in Burma, and it ruined my day. I had to look at that. The tidal wave really happened to me. I wish it had happened later, because I was having a bad day, and that kind of pushed me over the edge. The tidal wave didn’t happen to all the victims, it happened to me. This is what self-centeredness does, and this is why we go so wacky that we want relief from it and we drink.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“How could I have forgotten all this? My God, I can’t believe I forgot all this. We didn’t forget it. We went out and created reactions to events, and then we lived in the reactions and that became home, and it’s a scary place to be. It’s very lonely in there because you are the only one that made the story up.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“Are we independent of our character defects? Are we making the decision, or is greed making the decision? Are we making the decision, or is pride making the decision? Am I making this decision freely, or is lust influencing me? Am I not, in fact, being jerked around by all my character defects, even when I’m sober? Am I in a constant state of frustration and anger, restless, irritable, discontent, sober? I’m being yanked around by all these forces—my life is a mess with all of this freedom! What am I going to do about that?”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“The point of the first step, to tell you quite frankly, is to convince you that your situation is a lot worse than you think it is.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“We just have twelve suggested principles that will establish your own contact, and you will have your own experience. That becomes the foundation of your life.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“Sue, ended up running off to get married with one of the first guys to get sober in Akron, Ernie Galbraith, AA number four, much to the chagrin of those around there. He was staying in their house—that is really taking advantage of your sponsor, when you take off with his daughter.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“What if we can get all this human energy out of the way? What do you suppose we would feel? What do you suppose we will then be seeing looking at the world? Would we, in fact, be seeing what we were supposed to see before we made up the big story that is our own drama?”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“In the Twelve and Twelve is the sentence that people use all the time, which is, How do you know if something’s wrong in the booth? Here’s how you know. If something disturbs you no matter what the cause, there’s something wrong in the booth.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“As we live in disagreement with people, we end up doing something that alcoholics are specialists in: bringing out the worst in everyone.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“How are these slides made? They’re made by thinking. All problems are created solely by thinking. That’s how every problem we have is created—by thinking.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“Bill writes on page 72 of the Twelve and Twelve, “For us, the process of gaining a new perspective was unbelievably painful.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“Recall Dr. Jung’s quote about religion: “The primary job of religion is to keep the people away from direct contact with God.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“The secret of AA is one drunk talking to another. There’s nothing else. Everything else in AA is to facilitate one drunk talking to another. We have conventions, we have meetings, we have literature, we’ve got all of that, but the real action is the sponsor talking to the alcoholic.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“But for six, seven and eight, I’ve always felt it extremely helpful to study the Twelve and Twelve. Right off the bat, we find out about forgiveness. This becomes the lead way of approaching this particular chore, the slides where we harm people. Without forgiveness, we look at these and conclude that it’s partially their fault. I know I acted terribly, but they made me do it! If they didn’t do that, I never would have dumped all the beer all over their living room! We’re transferring responsibility for our own actions to other people, which was our specialty before we got to AA. Bill suggests that as we take the fourth step, we also look more closely at harm and forgiveness. We go back as far as we can think, to when we were children, because not only do we want to go make the amends, we want to change the slide so that we don’t do it anymore. That allows us to have an entirely different view up there in the future. Forgiveness is almost like a magic spot remover; just the act itself starts letting light through these various incidences, because it takes a lot of the anger that we have over the event and reduces it.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“That’s why we don’t inventory them anymore. That’s why we inventory me, because we’re going to fix that great big thing by fixing me. And we’re going to go inside and see what’s there.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“There is that eternal sense that everything is fine in spite of any seeming evidence to the contrary.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“I was just thinking about this, and oddly enough, science and religion both deal with the past and the future; that’s all they study.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them.” That’s it for the day. You got it?”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“There are a lot of nice people. As a matter of fact, there are a ton of nice people. Where were they hiding before? Well, they were reacting to me because my old view of things caused me to see them as competitors, as people who are in my way of getting what would make me happy.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“Spirituality occurs not by learning anything, but by unlearning, by undoing what we have put together that really isn’t real.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“Well, you can’t directly achieve sobriety through your own willpower, but it takes willpower to go to meetings. It takes willpower to buy the Big Book and read it. It takes willpower to do the steps. I have to make this choice. So, Bill puts in the Twelve and Twelve that this is the proper use of the will, to bring it in harmony with that of our Higher Power.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“he never could resolve the divinity of Jesus. Bill just debated that until he died. It wasn’t as sudden as that out in Akron, where on your first day, you were taken up to the bedroom upstairs with three guys who’d go, Do you believe in God? Get on your knees. Hey, we’re going to pray. Nice job, son. Done.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“a group of principles, spiritual in nature, which if practiced as a way of life will do two things. They will get rid of the obsession with alcohol, and enable you to become happily and usefully whole.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World

“If you’re in Alcoholics Anonymous, have been in here a while, and you’re working the steps and you are not happy, you are doing it wrong, because they’re designed to enable us to have an underlying sense of joy and happiness even when sad events are happening.”
― Sandy Beach, Steps and Stories: History, Steps, and Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous Change Your Perspective, Change Your Mind, Change Your World