Sandy B. — A Retreat Of Purpose, Decision, Steps, Program, and Spirituality.

Wow! Really, Sandy B. is something else. These meetings could actually be put into a book with the wealth of information there is! Sandy nails it right away by stating that we have a hopeless and incurable disease that only a spiritual remedy can cure and throughout the meetings he sticks to this. Being that this is the foundation to AA, I am so pleased, because sometimes speakers veer off this essential piece. Without it, alcoholics will go to the bitter end. Jails, institutions, death.

Sandy also delves into his personal experience with the steps and stepwork and how this is different from the socializing. The 12-steps are not something to be taken lightly, as some of us know with the fourth and fifth step.

That leads to his personal experience with resentments and how they are the number one offenders of alcoholics. How they will get us drunk, because we get angry and drink at other people! How absurd he says. Resentments are like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. How to really let go, as he states, goes back to the spiritual aspect of the program and the essential element of working the steps and having a spiritual experience.

Sandy also nails it when he talks about how alcoholics project and how this always leads to let-downs. In a positive way, we should be able to accept and mediate expectations, because they’re just resentments waiting to happen.

This is a we program. He discusses his time as a newcomer and how isolated he was and how welcoming the group was and because of the unconditional love of AA he kept coming back. The time when he was about to leave a meeting and an alanon lady told him to come back in, “that everything will be alright”. She was right.

Alcoholics often seek attention and affirmations because of self-esteem issues and they have a hard time accepting love from others, because they have a hard time accepting themselves. Sandy discusses this in detail as well.

Again, in the last meeting, he again brings the spirituality aspect of the program to the forefront and how this is really step one. WIthout it, there is no program or hope.

This was a fantastic set of meetings and I highly recommend it to anyone in recovery. The speaker knows his stuff, is easy to understand, and is passionate about sobriety.

Listen to AA Workshop – Mens Spirituality Retreat by Sandy B and more self improvement audio programs on Audiojoy — download free on iOS or Android.