“A New Pair of Glasses” Part 1 – Chuck C.

My name is Chuck Steele, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Chuck. Hi. I don't know when I have felt any more grateful than I do tonight. This gang that have come down here to hear me bark for about six sessions, officially, and 16 unofficially, is something else. And it's a great tribute to me for those of you who came down here here to listen. And for those of you who came down here to get away from your wives, I thank you for coming too. But it's a beautiful sight standing here and looking at this. You're a big bunch and I love you this has been an event for weeks so far I had to give a funeral on Monday in Pasadena chap who was 51 and who was getting an AA pitch and right in the middle of it he went down and didn't get up. Hard to say. And so that was Monday and Tuesday. I had another one. This was one of the original members, the Compton group, came in just after it was started. Old Tex Mullis. And Tex had been sober for 21 years. And he did it sort of the hard way because he was a compulsive gambler, too. He loved to gamble. And he won and lost once in a while. The last time I knew him was to be in Las Vegas it. He won $17,000 on the craft table. Took it up to his wife and said, now you send this home. And she didn't. She put it in the safe in the hotel, and he lost most of it before he got out of the place. So it wasn't too bad for him because he thought that was a great joke. He blamed his wife entirely because he had told her to turn it off. Well, this time he went up again and he left with a heart attack. So I put him away on Tuesday. Wednesday I got my 29th birthday cake, which is something for a tongue-chewing, babbling idiot drunk. 29 years without a drink of pill. And that was pretty nice. I'm here to finish the week out. I have you people to share with and to be shared with, and I'm again very grateful to you for coming. I thought tonight we might just think a little about the problem, to get started. This retreat is supposed to be in all of our affairs. The 12th step says, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, meaning the first eleven, we try to carry this message throughout all of us and practice these principles in all of our affairs. In all of our affairs and thinking a little about the problem I have to think a little about a Texan who was the first chap that sobered up in Houston. He has I guess close to if not already already, 35 years of sobriety. He's half a Texan white and a Texian half tall. And he tells a little story. He says if you're going to solve a problem, it helps that you know what the problem is. For instance, says he, I've always been afraid of dogs. He says some little old girl come walking down the sidewalk with a great bane on the leash and says she's not afraid of them at all. Says a poodle runs out and I take off. And he's that high, you You know, I can just see him running from poodles. And he says this caused him a lot of embarrassment in his life. And it finally became necessary for him to look at the reason that he was afraid of dogs. And he looked and looked, and he started to turn the pages. He would laugh back, and... He got turned back to when he was seven years old. And he remembered that when he were seven, a little... A dog bit him. and that was the reason he was for his dogs. But he said, that didn't completely satisfy him. And so he looked at it again and he saw that the reason the dog bit him was that he was chasing a little girl at the time. Now she'll see all my life I've been chasing women and getting in trouble and running from dogs and dogs never were my problem in the first place. So he says it helps to know the problem. And I think it helps to know what's going on. To know the problems. And I'm going to tell you what I think the problem is. And I am going to tell you what I think the solution is. and there'll be some of you that will not agree with my thinking and that's perfectly all right. But if I talk, I have to say it as I see it. So, our immediate problem when we came here was booze. Uh-huh. off. That's the thing that ran it in here. It ran me in in a hurry after 25 years because I had used every resource I had, and I had lost the battle. So I got here at the ripe old, age of 43. A failure in every department of life. Failures as a husband, a father, a businessman, a man, and a drunk. And I had run out of everything, including people, places, things, money, whiskey, and home, and everything else. And there wasn't any place else for me to go, but here. However, on my last trip out, I had a very great good fortune. The bottle killed me. The bottle beat me to death. Beat me into total and absolute nothingness. And only then could I come to investigate Alcoholics Anonymous. Up until that time, there was no way that anybody could have talked me into coming here. As long as I had the power of choice, my choice was never to come to Alcoholics Anonymous and never came, until I'd lost everything including the power of choice. And so, I would say to you right off the bat that the greatest single event that has ever happened in my life and I'm 72 years old happened in January 1946 when the bottle beat me to death. Had it been necessary for me to consciously surrender the first time I would have died without coming to this program. There was no way that I could surrender. I had never admitted defeat one time in 43 years of life, not to God, man, woman, or the devil. The word surrender wasn't in my vocabulary. It's been bred out of me for generations. So, thank God, On my last trip out, the bottle did it for me. The roadblock was burned out, and I got to the program in a state of total abandonment of self when I got here. And everything in the fifth chapter of this book was something I wanted to do the first time I ever heard it. The very first night when I heard this thing read, everything in it was something I wanted to do. And I'm certain it was because of the total state of abandonment itself in which I got here. Now there was one thing that I didn't think I could do, and that I would have turned my will and my life over to a jackass if I could have gotten rid of me. But, where it says we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him, I didn't think that this was possible for anybody like me because I didn' t think it was cricket ticket to believe that I could give the mess that was me to anybody, let alone to God. I wouldn't have taken me with a large dowry, and I didn't think God liked me any better than I did, and it hated my guts. So I let it lay. I just let it lay. Picked up the last third of step 12 and practiced these principles in all of our affairs. Now, after attending a meeting every night for six months, I discovered that I was sober and had been without a drink or a pill for six weeks. Which was quite a discovery because I'd attended every one of those meetings with a great fear upon me that I couldn't have this thing, that I didn't have enough left physically or mentally to get it. And after six months of a meeting every night, I discovered that I'm sober and have been all the time. And at that time, I started getting a little attention through Step 3. Because I was thinking, well, maybe there's some way that I could come to feel that God would take a package like mine. And I couldn't get any solution to the thing. I was messing with it for quite a little while. and finally it occurred to me your father and then I started conjuring up the most heinous crimes I could imagine and laying them on these two boys of mine and I let my imagination go crazy building the worst possible kind of crimes that anybody could perpetrate. And when I got that done, I would say to myself now, would this keep me from wanting to see my boys? Would these things make me want to cast them into perdition to burn for eternity and I had to say no I couldn't do it no way could I regardless of what they did no way could I assign them to hell and so I came to believe that maybe Maybe the Heavenly Father, being a good guy, you know, an evil one, maybe he would forgive me. And I got comfortable that it had to come through that kind of procedure with me. Now, the funny part of it is that when I got, when I discovered that I'd been sober for six months, I had to get lost in trying to give this thing to alcoholics because they'd given it to me, drunks. had given it to me. And I lost myself working with drunks, and after a while I had another discovery, and that was that something had happened in our household. A year before Mr. C was divorcing me, the kids wouldn't come home when I was around, The boss man was going to throw me through the window if I ever stepped foot in the plant again. Had no health, no sanity, no home, no job, no nothing. And it appeared that the war was over. The household was living like kittens. And that was a good discovery. That was about a year after he got here. and another six to eight months went by and I made another discovery and that was that I was still trying to clean up my desk at the office we'll talk a little about this when we talk about A in business or practicing these principles in business that here I was still trying to clean up my desk at the office and business was good it was plum good and that was a pretty good discovery maybe another year went by and I discovered that the state of my being was better than anything that I had ever dreamed of in my life my livingness being itself was better than anything I've ever dreamed of and that was a good discovery and now five, maybe six years have passed and I made another discovery which I believe to be the great discovery When we make this discovery, the search is over and life begins. Life isn't over, life just begins, really. And this discovery was that I was never alone anymore. I who had walked alone for forty-three years, totally alone, I was never alone anymore. I, to God, am my very own. And where I am, he is. I'm often by myself, but never alone. And this has been the way it's been ever since the discovery and as as the way it was before the discovery, because I hadn't been alone since my first meeting. Now, I believe that this program of ours, the Alcoholics Anonymous program, is a program of uncovering, discovering and discarding. That's the program to me. Uncovering, discovering and discarding. The first nine steps of the program are the uncovering steps, clearing away the wreckage of the past, squeezing us out of ourselves ego-wise to get rid of the human ego temporarily, because we never get rid of it totally, in my opinion. I am convinced that nobody can honestly take the first nine steps in this program without making the discovery that something has happened. And it's very, very terrific because when we honestly apply the first nine steps of this program. To me, I apply it to me. At number ten, the ego is temporarily gone. Now, I am convinced in my own mind, totally and completely convinced from the toenails to the top of my longest hair that there's only one problem in this life. One problem that includes all problems and one answer that includes all answers. Now, that's oversimplification, isn't it? One problem that includes all problems and one answer that includes all answers. I am totally convinced that the only roadblock between me and you and me and my God is the human ego. The only one brought the risk. I firmly believe that the best definition you'll ever hear of the human and ego, is the feeling of conscious separation from. The feeling of conscious separation form. From what? From God. I like to use three words, life, good, God, which to me are synonymous words. Conscious separation. from God, from each other, and eventually from ourselves. That is the thing that says to me, here am I, big me, little me, smart me, dumb me, rich me, poor me, against the whole world. I've got to outthink, outperform, and outmaneuver in order to eat out a miserable living out of an unfriendly universe. verse. That's what they laid on me as a kid. The very creatures of life, the little bird gets the worm, the devil takes the hindermost, you've got to be there firstest of the mostest, builds on that premise. Then am I against the whole world. Got to outthink, outperform and outmaneuver, consciously separated from each other and from God. Now I think that's the greatest roadblock there is. The only one, as a matter of fact. The only roadblock that there is between me, you, and me and my God. And that's being legal. the seat of all the obsessions of the mind. That's where we come from. Now, it is also my total conviction that there is no possibility under heaven to satisfy the human ego. It is a divine impossibility humility. I like to sit up there in my big chair, many of you have seen it. Some of you sat in it for a minute, but I won't let you sit in it much longer. And I love down on the channel right straight in front of my car at Avalon on Catalina Island. It's about, or maybe it's from where I live, but it might be 34, 35 miles to the island. And I looked down at that water, that channel, and that 35 miles there at the top of it It's deep, too. And I say to myself, suppose that entire channel was bourbon whiskey. Now, that's quite a few drinks. Would that satisfy my obsession for whiskey? And I have to say no. the whole damn thing could not satisfy my obsession with drinking because when I get started drinking before long I'm flat on my back in bed drinking the clock around and every time I open my eyes I drink and there's no way to satisfy that obsession no way now suppose my obsession had been for money instead of drinking how about that totally impossible to satisfy an obsession for dope now I had a client for many years lived in Phoenix, he was a Syrian and the Syrians taught the Jews and the Armenians about business Syrian consarved an Armenian to death. And I had this chap, and he'd gone from one head of lettuce to 35 million bucks. And he was one of the poorest men I ever saw. Because unfortunately Unfortunately, he had a partner in one of his business enterprises, which happened to be oil. And this old boy was worth $150 million. That's sweet, the Jonathan Club. Most beautiful thing you ever looked at in your life. All paneled with the finest wood in the world. gun racks, elephant cussing all over it and feet and gazelles and everything else you know and when I'd be sitting there with the two of them Eddie was trying to get under the diving force one thing he had only 35 million his whole studio was 150 million poor man Eddie used to say to me Charlie, I was Charlie in business How can I be like you? And I said, Eddie, you can't And he said, why? I said Eddie, who needs God if he's got 35 million bucks? Don't be silly You can buy anything you want Including women And you do And that's one of the Syrians' great Allusions They think, oh, it's just a woman And maybe they are, I don't know own. Not being a woman. But anyhow, who needs God when he's got 35 million bucks? And I said, you go ahead and make 150 million and it will if you live. Because everything that old boy touched turned to gold. And when you've made 150 million, you will have been found that it won't do for you what you have to have done right here. Then you come to me in and says, Charlie, how can I be like you? And I'll tell you and you can do it. But not until. And he'd say, well, talk to me about it anyway. And we'd drive all over the state of Arizona, talking just like we'd be talking here, you know. But poor Eddie didn't make his hundred and fifty. He got so many things in his head that it exploded. He was ten years younger than I. And he's been gone, what, five, six years? he died it's impossible to satisfy an obsession for money suppose my obsession would have been for power how about that no possibility witness Watergate there was a nice power struggle troubles. You know? It's absolutely impossible to satisfy an obsession for power. If you were president of the United States, no good, because every dictator in the world has more power than our president. Oh, Genghis Khan had more than all of them. So, no way. What What about women? She tried to say sex, but that brings up a bad connotation. I've been getting invitations lately to go up and talk to the deviants. And God bless me, I can hardly make it So, so far I've been able to To sort of have some other thing to do Or get something else So Let's say women Suppose my obsession has been for women And supposing that I had been the greatest Lothario of all time. And suppusing I had captured every tick-tick I set out to catch, but one. Not my ego. Don't put yourself on me, don't you? Would they satisfy my obsession for women? Uh-uh. This one kills me. The one I can't get kills me dead. So, if you can't beat him, join him. We've got to get rid of the obsessions of the mind. And in order to get out of that, in order for us to get away from the obsesses of the mind, we have to be rid of ego. Because that's where they come from. I want, I don't want, I like, I don't like, aye-yi-yi. That's it. Now that's the reason that the wording in this book is like it is. There are 452 pictures in the first page and two paragraphs in our chapter 5 Boy, there's a lot of things said in the Deedee. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed their path. Now I hear people get up here and say that they've heard Bill Wilson say that there's one word in the book that he would change if he was doing it again. in. And that would be to take out the rarely and put in never have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Well, Bill didn't say that to anybody because he knew I put rarely in there. As he had us said, never have you seen a a person fail who has fairly followed their path. I see about four people here at the front table looking out at me that would have said, oh, they've never seen a phaser. Oh, by God, now someone! Yeah. That's the reason that's rarely. And Bill did tell me that himself. I happen to know him pretty good. where have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed their path now I heard that read one time which I think maybe is even better than it shouldn't some guy got up here and he read where have you seen a man person fail who has certainly enjoyed our path I think that's terrific I put in the tranks in that page you know it's very good But those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to the simple program. Usually, men and women who are constitutionally incapable are being rigorously honest with themselves. Being honest with themself. Honesty. And falling fast. There's two pitches. Right there. Be honest and follow the path. Serve to follow the pathway. They're naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Now, there's a pitch. Grasping and Developing. You see, we're people who never were able to settle for status quo. Never in our lives, long before we ever had a drink, we were unable to settle for status qua. Nothing that was normal ever merited our attention for more than a split second. If it wasn't better than normal, we didn't like it. and that's before we're ready to drink so we had better jolly well grasp and develop because a happy sobriety will turn into a drunk unless we develop we've got to walk we've got to keep going all we need to do is get fat and complacent and quit walking and we're in trouble so grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty is a whole weekend there are such infortunes they're not at fault they seem to have been born that way that's a line that I'd get the hell out of there I don't like that line because in 29 years I have had I don' t know probably 500 people tell me that they are sure that they're naturally incapable of being honest with themselves naturally well I'm sure that if you're still breathing there's and you don't have a two or three of those wheels missing entirely. There's no way that you can hide behind that, but it's sort of a thing that we use once in a while. There are chances of less than average that those two suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders. But many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. I've got to tell you a little story. it. Many of you have heard it, I'm sure. But in the early days in Los Angeles, we didn't have any body out here that ever attended an AA meeting. And a Jewish gentleman came out here with a book. He didn't know I had it. He came to in Palm Springs and he started looking through his luggage for some whiskey, and he found this book. that's the first edition I read and he didn't know how it got into his suitcase but he didn'y have any whiskey until he read it and he just kept reading it and he liked it he liked what he read and he came in to Los Angeles with this book and he got a hold of some people and they started to meet. And they didn't know how to start a meeting. And so the custom that has spread pretty well all over the world was established right here in Los Angeles. First meeting. That's reading the portion in chapter 5. This Jewish boy says, I don't know why I started meeting. But he says there's a chapter in this book Entitled How It Works And it gives us a thing And let's read it And they read this portion in chapter 5 And you'd be surprised How much of the world that's covered Up until now They do it in Australia They do in New Zealand They do if in Canada They do If in Texas Bad for them down there there. We were at a conference in Oklahoma City, and there's a lot of Texans up there, you know, and one of these Texans says Oklahoma is just an outlying portion of Texas. He says Without lying, hell, you think you're the worst liar in the world. So, they read this all over and it's beautiful. Every time I read it, it reminds me that my survival depends on this thing right here. Now, a little bit later, this bunch, maybe there are half a dozen of them at this time, night. Got a hold of an old boy off Skid Row. His name was Whitey. And Whitey had been a little bit too close and too long with Dino. And he babbled all through the meeting. He just sit there and babble. And then he was bothering. So they decided they ought to take him to the doctor and see what was the matter with him. So, they did. They took Whitey to your doctor. And this doctor took a few quick passes at him and he says, boys, give him up. This one you can't help. Spend your time on somebody that's got a chance. But he has such bad brain damage that you're just wasting your time. And so the next meeting, of course, they had a discussion about Whitey. And the whole gang of them wanted to dump Whitey, keep him from interrupting the procedure with his babbling. And of course there was one guy there that read something in the book. And he said, wait a minute boys. He says, it says right here that the only requirement for sobriety is a desire to stop drinking. And Whitey wants to get sober. And we can kick him out. And they said, that's right, that's what it says. And he didn't kick Whitey out. And it's a matter of medical record and a record that one year later Whitey was accepted in the United States Marines dreams. There's a miracle here. There, those two suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of these do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our story has disclosed in a general way what we used to be like or happened and what we're like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, any length to get it. Then you're ready to take certain steps. Why are those phrases in there? Why do we go clear back here in the first line of the second paragraph chapter three and we read a line that says, we learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves, that we were alcoholic. This is the first step in recovery. Why? Why is that through back here? First word of the second paragraph, step three. Program of recovery is over here in five. It's there because if we be alcoholic, we are caught in a trap and we cannot spring. We have to have help and we can't get help until we recognize the need for it. It's impossible possible. We're a peculiar breed of cats. We can't hear what we can hear, and we can't see what we see. And don't make a better difference who's talking. For instance, a number of years back in the state of Virginia. I spent a good deal of time with a great celebrity, films and TV, and he and his wife were both outies. And I was very fond of them, and I was I was very hopeful that something was going to happen. And we slept for almost all day in Richmond, Virginia. Yes. And this guy's wife, everything I said, she said, why? That's the way it is. I've known that forever. And I talked a little while longer. She says, that's the ways we raised our kids. This is not new to us. We know the whole thing. And they went that way all morning. Well, they didn't know that I knew that they'd just gotten out of menagers for both of them. Managers, for those of you who don't know, is a booby hatch. They need this all backwards and forwards and through the middle. But you never heard it. And they didn't hear it when I said it either. And you're going to hear a lot of things that you think you know this weekend. Maybe you do. You may hear a whole lot of different things. You may get a lot Of things that You disagree with. That's all right with me too. If you disagree with them and know why you disagree With them, maybe you should be up Here and be back there. But that's the way it's going to be. The second condition, of course, is that sobriety has to come first. If you've decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, let's cop man on the totem pole. and I'm one who believes that unless and or until sobriety comes first we can't have it and unless it remains first we cannot keep it that's what it says here this is very, very positive stuff and I'd be willing to go to any length to get it in your ready-to-take some of these we bought we thought we could find an easier, softer way could not. With all the earnestness of our command, we beg of you to be serious and thorough from the very start. This isn't a headache that we're talking about. We're talking about a terminal illness. These are terminal illnesses. That's why he did this. Because because we can't help it. We've got to recognize the need for it before we can get it, and it's got to be tops, top man on a totem pole. Somehow let's just try to hold on to our old ideas and results wouldn't help until we let go absolutely. It doesn't say half a major is available to 50%. 10% of majors is available at 10%. It says half-mays of the veil is nothing, not a thing. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection and care. We let go absolutely. To live here without help is too much for us. If there is one who had all power, that one is God. May you find him now. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. Now, this is our problem. We're caught in a trap we cannot spring. We've already been to human help. The first time I heard these steps, one and two were a cinch. I knew that I'd lost the battle of life. I didn't know anything about alphalism, but I knew I'd lose the battle for life. And I knew my life was unmanageable by me, and I still know it. and it's never changed. It's still unmanageable by me. No problem, too. Two-fold admission of defeat in the first one and admission that we're nuts in the second. There are two big steps for Alki. The first two Lost a lot of life, number one. You're nuts, number two. So you need help and you need it back. And if you're like me, you've been the preacher, the priest, the doctor, the guy who knows more psychiatry than the rich before you ever got to that place. Two, step three. And so you know you need health. and you can't get it from human power so we make a decision to turn the world into a land of those who have died now this is one of the things that we're going to be spending time on this is the most fantastic thing on the face of the earth there's nothing that will compare with this the thing that happens to us when we do this not when we read it but when we do it to abandon ourselves completely with this simple program. Throw him out. Welcome, gentlemen. we made a decision to turn their will and lives over to the care of guns. Now, I don't suppose that there's a man in this room that analyzed himself and decided to turn himself into Alcoholics Anonymous. I don' t believe there's one of you, no bunch, that did that. if there had been any way under heaven for me to remain in left field, I'd still be out there. We're not the kind of people that run around surrendering on every other street corner. That isn't our way of doing things. and here we've lost the battle of life and we're nuts and we have to have help now I told you a little bit ago that the greatest single event in my life up until now and I'm 72 years old was when the bottle killed me on January 41 40 January 46 I was 46. I was 43. I had read that elderly journalist's article in the Post. In March of 41, Mrs. Seed found it, read it, opened it to the right place and put it on the arm of the chair I sit in right now. And when I got home, I read it. I was four sheets in the wind when I read it. And I suspect I thought that was real good for you people that need it. I imagine I did. But five years later, when I came to after a four-week blackout, my last drunk started on the Friday before Christmas in 1945. and I came to sometime after the middle of January 46 and I don't remember that time was but the calendar said it had been and during that four weeks the thing that had stopped me was burned out and I accepted the fact that everything dear to me in life was gone, and should be gone. And that I was not entitled to have it back. That was including my wife, and my kids, and my home, and job, and health, and sanity, and money. It was all gone. And I wasn't entitled to have it back. I knew it was going to die because I'd come within an eighth of it the next to the last time out. I'd fallen over on my face in the floor in the kitchen, turned blue, and they'd had to get the oxygen squad to wake me up. And the doctor that was with him and told me after I came to that for all intents and purposes I was dead. That they'd had a hell of a time bringing me back. And that they would, nobody would ever be able to bring me back again under those circumstances. And says he, if I were you, I wouldn't do that anymore. Said that right to me. But I heard it again. So I knew he was going to die And I accepted that too But I didn't want to die with the records Now I want you to listen to this Because this is a little bit different Than a lot of things that happened I didn' t even want sobriety for myself Because I knew I was goingto die I didn''t want nothing for me But I did'nt want to Die with the record I didn ''t want Mr. C and the kids To remember me as nothing nothing but a tongue-chewing, babbling idiot drunk. And in the depth of this thing, I remembered that I'd read the article in the Saturday News Post. And the only two things I remembered about it was that drunks helped drunks and didn't drink. And they called it Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said to myself, if I ever live to get out of this bed, I will find alcoholics anonymous and immediately the curtain drops just like that bang it drops there was no more sanity I was sick to death drunk and insane and I had a lot of dying to do but from the moment of commitment until right now I never had a drink or pill Now, this is one of the reasons that I believe so completely and totally that there's only one roadblock between me and you and me and God. That's the human ego. The only roadblock there is. because, you see, I sit in the same chair today that I sat in for ten years in hell. The same chair. And I sat in it for twenty-nine years in heaven. Nothing happened to the chair. Nothing happened to my wife. Nothing happened to the kids. Something happened to me. And it proves that heaven was always in that chair. I was in hell. But heaven was always in the chair. Quite nothing happened to the chair and I'm still in it. Still in heaven. So, that's the reason these statements are so very, very, very positive to abandon ourselves completely. To let go absolutely, it says. And to turn our will and lives over to the care of God. Now this is the problem. Something has to to happen. That we get rid of the obsessions of mind. And that's what this program of ours is all about. The American Medical Society, we have some of the most illumined members right here. American Medical Society says alcoholism is a disease. It has symptoms. It is treatable but not curable. And the only way an alcoholic can successfully live is is not to take the next slug. But they cannot tell us how not to do that. the next slug They can't tell us how That's what this book is all about To tell us how to get rid of the obsessions of the mind that cause us to drink That's what this whole program is all about to rid it of the obsession of the mind that causes grief. Now, why am I not drunk tonight? It's a good question. I'm a tongue-tune babbling idiot drunk. Why am I now drunk tonight, Mr. Friday? Thursday night's kickoff night, right? right? You start around the machine on Thursday. You get in high gear on Friday, you pay it Saturday. Sober up Sunday, taper off so you can go to work Monday. Some Sunday you taper off so you can go to work some Monday. Why am I not drunk tonight? Because I have the thing I was looking for in the bottle, and that's the only reason I'm not drunk. That's the only reasons I'm no drunk. I had the thing I I was looking for in the bottle. Now, what is the thing? That king-size hurt is gone. You know the king-sized hurt. The kids call it that hole in their guts when they're standing on the street corner and the wind's blowing through. That's what the kids call moment. When I first heard him say that, I said, they don't, they've been to a meeting somewhere. He said, I heard that. They stole it from somebody that knew what he was talking about. But that ain't right. I learned that ain'T right. They're the guys that coined it. Standing on the street corner with a big hole in their guts and a wind blowing going through. Big hurt that's gone. I'm not fighting me or you or life or God or the devil. I am at peace with me and with you and with my very own God, and that's the only reason I'm out drunk. When I say I am an alcoholic, it means this, that I cannot live and drink, and of myself I cannot keep from drinking. And that's just as true right now as it was 30 years ago. That step one says we admitted we were following this over alcohol that allows it to become unmanageable by us. And I've looked all the way through this and through the manuscript from which this was written and through, through the most recent book that was printed. And there's nothing in any one of them that says that if I'm sober 10 or 12 or 29 years my life will become manageable by me. They don't say that. I look, not in there. And furthermore, there's nothing in my experience for 29 years that would indicate that my life will ever be manageable by me again. But thank God it is no problem to me because I have Step 11. I have lived by Step 11 for 29 days. 29 years. So to prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him. Praying only for knowledge of his will for us is hard to carry out. I have lived in total expectancy of guidance and direction for 29 years. And I did it. And you might say, how do you know? I've got the simplest room in the world. I never had it so good. This is the only good life I've ever known. The only easy life that's ever been mine in my entire lifetime. And I've had 29 years to look over sober without a drink or pill. twenty-five years drunk or drinking, or nineteen years before that. And this is the only good life I've ever known, the only easy life that's ever been mine. So I highly recommend it. This is the way to get rid of the obsessions of mind. Here are the steps we took. We're sober. Now don't say here are the footsteps we read or heard read or learned by heart. Don't say that. Don't say here the steps we interpreted. You can't find that in here. Don't say that! Don't say here the steps we conned God into taking for us. There have been a few people around this neck of the woods that were experts on interpreting the steps. There's one guy out in the valley there for a while there was selling interpretations of the steps and teaching interpretations of steps until he got drunk. His business went down the rattle. Don't say that. It says here are the steps we took. And the reason we have to take them is because we're caught in a trap we can't scream. We have to have help and can't get help until we recognize the need for it. Now, going on down to Step 9, and I've just got time, Mr., I won't mention his name, but he's National Director Johnny Cream, Sr. He said he was sleepy when he came in, And if I thought a second after 9.30 that he was going to sleep right on the table there and start snoring, so I got to quit. But very quickly, the first three steps are defeated. The fourth and fifth are action steps. We made a searching, fearless, moral inventory of ourselves. We write the books as very, very specifically that it's good to write. Write the thing down. We're more apt to do it by it if we write it. Takes a little longer. It's good for us. So we write it. That's a moral inventory, so we don't have to write every time we turn left when we should have turned right. It don't mean that we have to put down everything we ever stole or every lie we ever told or every time I ever got drunk. That does not work for me. It means to write down enough that we can see the motivation for what we have done up until now. Now, the motivating force in our lives, and of course, if we want to get real simple, the whole thing will boil down to obsessions of the mind, which is ego. Every one of them will boil Down to trying to satisfy the human ego, which cannot be done. So we write it down and then we share it. Share it with God, ourselves, and another human being. Another human being is the thing that really sets us up for the kill. I can admit to God and to myself hitting the privy, you know. Nobody knows but me and God. But if I have to spread this dirty linen out before another human being Man, if you've got any ego left after that You ain't done it That's an ego buster And so we've written it and shared it And now we've become willing to give it away And we give it a way Again We've got two action steps in there These next two are not action steps there are again decisions now I find people all over the world beating their brains out trying to get rid of their obsessions of mind their defects of character I bet you there have been a million hours spent in arguing over why step six has As we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character, and step seven says humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. And there's been a million hours spent on what's the difference between shortcomings and defects of characters. You know? There's supposed to be a difference. I asked Bill. He says, I don't know. He says I think I didn't want to end two lines right next to each other with the same words. It doesn't mean the same thing. So that's going to knock a lot of arguments out, isn't it? But the main thing is that we become willing to give them away and we give them way. We don't do these things. If we could have done away with our defects of character, we would have done it before we came here. I wasn't just jumping up up and kicking my heels together saying, goody, goodie, I get to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm sure my mother didn't raise me to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous? She's 96 and she don't believe it yet. She's going around. I say I've had 29 years without a a drink, and she said, that night it was a juice. How about that? So, we become willing to give them away and we give them way. And then we've got two more in the first ten. Two of the greatest ones left yet. The most immediately effective steps in the whole program are eight and nine. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends for them all. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except one to do so would injure them or others. If you haven't done that, do it. Do it, do it, quick. The way of the world is removed from your shoulders when you honestly take care of eight and nine, and I'm going to tell you this little story, and it won't take that long. I'll still get down. One time, many of you have heard it, but it curls my hair. Yes. About ten years ago, I got a call on a Friday night just like this from a guy in a wheelchair. And he says, Chuck, I'm sitting here with six guns in my lap and I'm going to blow my brains out. But he says Jim, don't shoot yourself until you've dropped Chuck C. And he gave me your number And I'm called and I'm ready to talk So what do you got to say? And I said, you called on a bad night I said I'm talking tonight, tomorrow night and Sunday night But Monday night's open So if you want to see me come down Monday night And if you don't, blow your brains out And that's exactly what I told him and at 7 30 monday evening the doorbell rang and then came my boy now let me tell you a little story here within a story this jim was jim willis and jim wallace was cybil's husband for many years cybil was 14 years in the central office and Jim was a compulsive gambler and Jim started the Gamblers Anonymous thing and wrote their books and he'd already done that and then he became an alcoholic and he called me one time and said, come get me and I said, where are you? And he was in his office on Pico. No one got him. And he got sober. Now Jim is losing his eyesight right? He's shrewd. And he's sort of a sick man, but he's sober. And I talked with him on the phone just the other day. And it's pretty happy. But anyway, it was this Jim that told this guy because he not only was an alcoholic, but even a compulsive gambler. And Jim had told him to talk to me before he blew his brains out. Well, here he was. us. And we started talking. Now at 2.30 in the morning, we were right where we are now, at 8 and 9. And I was telling this monkey, now here's what you got to do. See, he lost a lot of money that he didn't have. And he had lost it to professional gamblers. And that ain't a very healthy situation. They don't that don't do much for longevity. So here he sits, and I said, now listen, here's what you've got to do. And you've gotta go to these people and say, look, I am not the big shot I would have had you believe. I'm an alcoholic. And I found a way to live that might let me live one day at a time without a drink for the rest of my life. And one of its conditions is we've got make amends, and that's why I'm here. Now, Susie, I admit the debt. I said to Donnie, you know, this is what he had to do. You go to him and say to him, I admit to debt. I'll give you the money. And I'll pay you as soon as I can. But I ain't got no money now. Why, Sus, you can't do that. They'll kill me. And I said, so what? You won't have suicide on your mind. and the old boy started to laugh and he's still laughing and he was walking the streets free man ever since he was laughing right over the hill you know and he left me and he never quit and he paid them off nobody killed him so one of these things so if you haven't done eight and nine do them the weight of the world goes right off your back when you do them now finish up Alcoholism cuts across our society from the highest to lowest. We are peoples of all professions, all states of poverty and riches, priests and preachers from all denominations. We have world scholars amongst us, bankers, no one of whom would have come here if they could have stayed out. So we have a problem that you and I cannot solve. We have to have help. and those first nine steps will roll away the stone because those are the surrender steps. The surrender steps Surrender is the thing that opens the door that allows us to get the help because God himself cannot help us until we will allow it. The recognition of the need for help, and the turning of our will and the lives owed to the care of God, and clearing away of the wreckage of the past is the beginning of the victory. It's fantastic. Don't be afraid of it. Now I'm convinced that you and I have to do this without getting too serious about it. We get too serious, and it doesn't happen. If we look too hard, we'll never find. I looked for this thing for thirty years before I got here, and I couldn't find it. I came here not looking for it and it found me or we found each other or something. Wasn't even looking for anything but a way to live one day at a time without drinking so I could rub out as much of the record as I could. So I want us to have a lot of fun this weekend. Don't be too serious. You know, rule 62. some people put it on their license plate rule 62 it's a good rule there's a little book about that tall and about that wide and it reads the covers and on the front cover it says rule 62 and you open it up and you look and every page in the book is vacant except the double truck in the middle and it says don't take yourself so god damn seriously and that's what we want to do here this weekend have a lot of fun not get too serious but realize Realize the problem that we have that we cannot handle on our own. And to come to see totally before this weekend is over that what I can't do, we can do. By the grace of God. God bless you. Thank you very much.