AA Is Not Self-Improvement — Sobriety Is Self-Discovery – Chuck C.

I'm not sure you're a Norman Arthur Oliver. Hi. Hi. I get the privilege today of being the kick-off speaker. I have been demoted. I don't know why, because I was at the first one of these things. So I shouldn't be the kick-off speaker, hardly. But I'm glad I am, because from now, from tonight on, I can make fun of all the Christian speakers. I'm home free after tonight. And because of people like you, a pilgrim like Alcoholics Anonymous, and a God of my very own who may have found an Alcoholics Anonymous, it hasn't been necessary for me to take a drink or sedate or criminalize or deprive for something over 34 years. I am one of the really fortunate people that have gotten into this society, because since my first meeting, it hasn't been necessary for me to take a drink. It hasn't been necessary for me to take a drink. It hasn't been necessary for me to take a drink. It hasn't been necessary for me to look back. I've been called a liar with certain sort of descriptive words to go before this. A so-and-so liar, but because I say that I've never had a conscious desire to drink. And so it really is. But it's true. And I say that, but it's true, because I think that I had a conscious desire to drink. I would have gotten drunk. I was it. And so I'm very grateful for the fact that I have more of a conscious desire for a drink. I believe that there's a hard way and an easy way for us to make this program. The hard way is to think we can do it ourselves. And the easy way is to know that we can do it ourselves. So I just started a single As an instant immersed in Justiie in action. All of a sudden my moving grboy new dance, that he suddenly I get in touch. And I'm not tonight, just as I met thirty-four years and a half ago. It's just as new to me tonight as it was then. I cannot successfully do Christian, right now, and right now, I myself, I cannot successfully keep in relation. And for four years I'm able to perceive there's only one reason that I'm not going to meet. Just one. Not two, or half-doubts. There's just one reason that I'm not going to meet. Another reason is that I have the thing. I was not allowed to have the thing. That's what I was looking for in the Bible. I've got the thing that I was looking for in the Bible. Now what is the thing? It's the ability to live comfortably, peacefully, and joyously with myself. Which I believe to be the definition of sobriety. The ability to live comfortably, peacefully, and joyously with me. And having found out how to live comfortably, peacefully, and joyously with myself, I haven't the slightest difficulty living with you. Not the slightest difficulty. I had things backwards for many, many years in my life. I thought that just as soon as I knew enough, everything was going to be all right. Until I was diligently attempting to learn enough that everything would be all right. And I learned what to change. And when I got to the place where I knew everything there was to know, I was able to change. I couldn't even get out of bed and come and tell you what I knew. It took two men and a boy to get me up. So I've come to see that we can live ourselves in the right thinking. That we cannot say, that we cannot think ourselves in the right way. And that's a good thing to know. It's a really good thing to know. I have a little difficulty down in my country now, because we have so many people presently, who are quite young. Teenagers yet, in our program. And many of them seem to have the conviction that Alcoholics Anonymous is a self-improvement society. A self-improvement society. Well, I have not... I don't agree with that at all. Because if you and I could have self-improved, we would not today be members of this leprosy colony. We had a lot of years to improve, didn't we? And we didn't make it. So I do not believe that our great program is a self-improvement society. I go with self-discovery. Self-discovery. Self-discovery. I said I could live comfortably, peacefully and joyously with myself. I don't think so. I think I am not. I am not. Now, that has to mean that some days along the line, I got the line out of the book that says, we cease to fight any, any body. And tonight I think that is when the greatest line is in our book. We cease to fight anything, any body. Because you see, again, if we would have done this thing, we would have done it. We couldn't do it. And we have to have help. We have to have help. And we can't get it up until we recognize the need for it. We can't get it up until we recognize the need for it. So we cease to fight anything, any body. And we do the things the program tells us to do. And something happens. And we get all the help we need. And we get sober. And we get happy. And after a little while, when we get as long as I am in the program, we get goofy again. Because I'm absolutely nuts about this program. I came all the way up here tonight to tell you people that I love you. That's the only thing I want to tell you. I love you. You don't have to change anything about yourself. I mean, you love me. You don't have to change anything. If you're drunk, you don't even have to get sober. If you're a thief, you don't have to get beaten. If you're a liar, you don't have to get a lie-up. Because I love you. Because in the 34 years that I've been with you, I've been with you. I have discovered who you are. So I know who you are now, whether you do or not. You're God's kids. Having walked with you for 34 years, it is very, very clear to me that if one of us is God's kids, we all are. If one of us isn't, none of us are. And I am, so you is. So for that reason, God loves you. And you don't have to change anything. And of course, I can't understand how we can come to too many of these meetings. Without something happening in the area of what we can do personally of ourselves on what we can't do. For instance, you go back to the first line of the second paragraph of chapter 3 in our book. That's two chapters before the program is recovered. How it works. But the first line in the second paragraph of chapter 3 says we learn that we are to fully proceed to our innermost selves that we were alcoholic. This is the first step of this happening. To fully proceed to our innermost selves is not only the admission that we're alcoholic, but it's the acceptance of the fact. We're alcoholic. And when we make this admission, and I think the reason this is back in chapter 3 is because if we'd be alcoholic, we're caught in a trap we can't spray. We can't spray. We have to have help. So that's the real much clear back there in chapter 3. It sort of opens the door a little for getting help. The next condition also comes before step one of the twelve steps. But it is the method of chocolate. It says, if you've decided you want what we have, and are willing to get it only in rate, only in rate to get it, then you have to take those steps. Remember, any list to me means that sobriety's got to be topped on in totem pole. Number one on our hook period. And I am convinced that unless and or until sobriety comes first, we can't have it. And unless it remains first, we can't keep it. Because otherwise, we will not be the things necessary to obtain and maintain it. We won't do it. For instance, I don't believe that any alcoholic, male or female, can walk up to step one and take it cold. We've got to have a little pre-conditioning to take step one. Because step one is a two-fold admission of defeat. The very first step in the book. A two-fold admission of defeat. At Rage, we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, physical, that our lives had become unmanageable, mental. We have lost the battle twice over. And just to get a step. Now, we're not people that go around admitting on the street corners that we've lost the battle of life. We weren't born to surrender. We were born to win. Only Dan there did. We almost made it. But we got just a little bit hog-alley. And that's all, brother. So we walk up to this step one. A two-fold admission of defeat. Powerless over alcohol, physical, unmanageable life, mental. It's a toughie. But as tough as it is, it's not half as tough as step number two. Step number two is a second-hand admission, that we're insane. Now that's going pretty fast for a drunk, isn't it? We lost the battle twice over and won. We're nuts and ready to kill. At Rage, they came to believe that a power of God in ourselves could restore us to sanity. Now, I submit to you that there's an implication here. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Same people, they need to be restored to sanity. And then I need to be restored to sanity in the next. So number one, we've lost the battle twice over. Number two, we're nuts. And if that weren't bad enough, step number three is worse than both of them. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Step number two says we've got to get out of the driver's seat. We've got to move right over. Give up the wheel. Now, as I understand people like me, they're wheelers and dealers. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And it would not have been easy for any of you to take the wheel away from me when I was wheeling and dealing. But this bookie of ours says we've got to move over. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. Because we're in the city. That's number two. We've got to move right out of the driver's seat. Now, why do we have to do that? Well, the O.B.C. sort of tell us, over-the-wall-college, and here in the early Jerry lives, these are probably no human power. Could have been a new dog, a lizard. And if God said, well, if he was with him. So we've been to human help. We've been to the priests and the preacher and the doctor and the psychiatrist. All of them. And they're still drunk. You know. And we've got to have help. And we've already been to human power. So we made the decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understand it. Now, the way we understood it sort of softens this blow a little bit. As we have understood it, does not, in my opinion, have anything to do with understanding God. Has nothing to do with understanding God at all. It has to do with the necessity of individual experience. Individual experience. My God. Your God. You see. You see. I had spent thirty straight years before I got to this program, trying to find God. At thirty-two, I had no other attempt to get saved. Because in my family, half of which is my own family. Half of which is Methodist Church South. And the other half was hard-share Baptist. And my family, they believed that your God was struck out. You are a sinner when you get there. Now, you don't have to sin on your own to go to hell. You have to get saved to keep from going to hell. Because you are a sinner when you get there. And it had to do something with a thing called the original sin. Now, that was always quite a little baffling to me. Because the way I understood and misunderstood the illusion, to that illusion of sin, it had something to do with Adam rearranging Eve's limbs. Now, it was always, it was never explained to me. But it just seemed like that's what they were talking about. So here I am, 13 years old, and I haven't, I'm a farm boy, and I haven't really sinned yet, I don't think. But you have a revival. And I think, well, this way I'm going to get even. I'm going to catch up. So I should be able to call. Now, I'm not selling it short. I'm telling you my own experience. But I went down there and got on my knees and I prayed like that. And nothing happened. And then you see, when the preachers saw that I was spending a lot of time on my knees, so they came over and joined me. And we both prayed like that. And every little bit, he'd say to me, why are you doing not so no good? So it's so over. And finally the old boy got some going out. And he said to me, when you're baptized, it'll happen. And so, when the ice went out, I went in. And the old boy ducked me. This wasn't a sprinkling, this was a ducking. And he brought me up. He says, how you doing? I said, no good. I said, right on right, that's what I am. And he said, when you are formally taken into the church, it'll happen. And I was and it didn't. And for the next thirty years, I got five or six people. I got five. I went through every great religion and philosophy, I think, that there is. That's part of my, more than anything, what there is to know. You know. I wasn't known as a drunken deacon for ten years for nothing. I was just a prophet. And I never did find out. Why? I didn't get saved. And I turned off all this anonymous stuff, taken any, in any terms at all, upon the earth. Or anything else that would add to my own life. Because I had the good fortune, on my last trip out, of going through the great conflagration of death. The book of Acts about going through. But I went through them. And I won't tell you just a little about this. Because this is the only thing that explains to me the fun I've had in my heart of stones. On the Friday before Christmas, 1945, I went down to the office. And I was there. I was there. I was there. I was there. I was there. I was there. And I found a note to see the bus man. Well, I knew what it was about. I knew he was going to kill me. Because of the idea I had of killing. But there was the summons. And so I had to go in, see it. And I went in fully expecting him to just kill me. So that he, then threw me out. But he started talking. They started omen. And he said something like this to me. He says, Charlie... Hi Charlie . He says, you had a lot of trouble this year. Now, he didn't mention booze. But he knew that I knew that he meant when he said, trouble. And he says, no, I got a lot of booze. But he didn't even mention booze. He told me and he went down to the public office. He went back to the office and he went, were there any still people in the home? No, there were no more people. And he goes, I'm talking about Mario tackling bulky passengers, his wife's child. Oh, didimme see Mario Jr. When Apply left to the influence, it was been rare. It is true. He thinksし. And he was a non-alcoholic, so it was all figured out. He says, I think I know. So I did not have to get trouble. He says, I think it's because the pressure you're under. Now he says, I have decided to take even the pressure off of you. I know that next year you won't have to get pressure and you won't have to get trouble. And so instead of feeding me, which I had done, it was a few thousand bucks for a Christmas present. On the Friday before Christmas, 1935, to break the pressure off of me. Now if you don't go through the pressure of me, and you don't go through the pressure of me, you'll be like that. There's one very wish for an alcoholic and a bad fortune, and that's good fortune. See, I got drunk on the way home. Now this was impossible, because 11 years before this time, I had become a periodic drunk, because I wasn't doing well in my drinking. And I had to, I had to beat the rap. I had to learn how to drink well. So in order to get well enough to get back in the ring for much round, I became a periodic. And I was a periodic for the next 11 years. Now periodics don't get drunk in a hurry. Periodics never taper off. We taper on. We have a regular routine. We drink until we turn on. We drink until we turn it down. We can't get it back. Can't live and can't die. And then you have to knock it off. And in my day, there wasn't any place to go when they knocked it off. Today, every hospital down our way has got a show-off for people like me. And they can do something about it. Do something for you that makes it a little easier the more I had to sober up. Because I didn't want to do that stuff. So, we let tough it out. And when you've got feeling of well enough, you're going to help it. You drink a lot of milk, you know. And you will eat good food. It's only a small amount, you know. . And then you got a little bit better. You'll even go on a health check. You take a few exercises. You'll even go on that extreme. . And when you got some good, you will then analyze your last milk. And you'll see where you made a mistake. . And you decide not to go that way anymore. . And then you're out of it, you see. You got it all in mind now. You'll, you're going home. You know. . You're not going to dip that day anymore. You're going to be careful. And so pretty soon you start sampling. And you're sampling the way right on top of the bed. But not in the head. As soon as it took me even 30 to 60 days to get off my feet, you know, after the first slug, after a drashpa. But this time on the way home, I went out. And furthermore, I stayed out. I remember nothing from the Friday before Christmas to opening for the fire. To some pot after the middle of January when I opened the for the six. . . All of that time, I was in a blackout. Now, my good wife, who you some of you know, some of you have even heard me talk, she belongs to a sister organization. I think we call it Allen and I know we're in a hot cha cha. . applications, anything also. . . Seven quarts of whiskey every few days. Now don't go home and say I said that. I didn't. I'm quoting my wife. I said we didn't argue with her because I wasn't there and she was. And for the more I don't think that seven quarts is too much for a few days. If you only do it for a few days or six or a dozen or something like that. But if you do it for between four and five weeks, it's either too much or just enough. And in my case it was just enough. Because sometimes between the Friday before Christmas and the middle of January, everything between me and them. Turned out. All excuses were gone. And all the I wants were gone. And for the first time in my life, I saw me with nothing between me and me. They're amazing here. And I knew that very well. Why? Because I was the first time in my life that I'd lost the battle of life. I was the first time in 42 years that I had ever admitted defeat. Now it wasn't the first time I'd ever lost a battle. But it was the first time I'd ever admitted that I'd lost. I got the hell kicked out of me lots of times when we'd buy accidents. I did it next time. And sometimes I did. And sometimes I got got again. But I never had the admit defeat until that morning. And I knew that I'd lost the battle of life. I knew that my life after 20 years was the worst of me. And I might say, Christian, you're like a ghost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And remember that he picked out for that purpose being open. Played jazz. So, I knew that morning that everything good to me in life was gone and should be gone. And that I wasn't entitled to death. I also accepted death. Because on my most of last trip out, I came awful close to not making it. I remember, I think I do, as when I was there at the Red Grinch's kitchen after Josh Buttermilk. Mrs. Sue and Richard were sitting in the living room and they heard me let out a bell and heard me hit the floor. And they figured that I was going to knock on a combustion, which was my work. And they told me on the way out to see if they could keep me some chow and a mokto. And I was a conductor. I done this and that on my conversion. I was lying there in the kitchen. I was lying there in the kitchen. And the kids in front of us, peaceful as anybody you ever saw. I wasn't doing nothing. They told me I was a peculiar color. I was blue. And they couldn't wake me up. And they got out of exercise. They were called the oxygen squad. The bed of the Reds received me, I said. To see if they'd send a squad down there. To see if they'd wake me up. And I said, well, as serious as this is, it just tickles the hell out of me. My wife and kids have been praying for me to die for at least five years. They get me to prison and find me dead. And they call the oxygen squad. Doesn't it blow your mind? . . I was driving too far from my house. And I determined to go. And I got along all right. And about thirty minutes before the meeting was supposed to start, and I got to thinking. Now that's a cardinal sin for an alcoholic. And I, again, my keen alcoholic mind, told me that I'd lived in Beverly Hills for a long time. And it might not be good for my reputation to be seen with a bunch of butts like you. And I had a little rasslin' to do with myself. But I finally decided to go anyway. But I was going to disguise myself a little bit. So I wouldn't be immediately recognized. Which I did. And I went. And I stood in the doorway of this building. It was right in before the earth hall in Beverly Hills. And I stood in the doorway and looked at about thirty-five or forty people. They were all standing in the middle of the room. And I saw them talking and nobody listening. It doesn't matter where everybody's sitting. And I looked the old man on me that they'd given me the wrong information. Because you didn't look like me, you weren't dressed like me, and you most certainly weren't talking like me. Because while I couldn't understand anything they said, it was all happy talk. So, again, my keen alcoholic mind, my keen alcoholic mind says, look, these are the veterans and their wives that are here for the party. They've given you the wrong night. And you're going to have to leave and come back the night the drinks are here. And I turned to leave. And I'll never be in a more dead than I was when I turned to leave that doorway. At long last they'd come and it was the wrong night. Now here's the miracle of AA in my way of thinking. The next minute, the miracle of all coalition on them. Somebody in the middle of that room had been watching me. And I started to leave. And he came trapping over to the door. And he called after me. He says, Mr. Were you looking for somebody? And I said, no, sir. But he says, what were you looking for then? You're thinking that they were the veterans. And I said, well, if it would interest you, sir. I was looking for sobriety. And everything about that man changed just like that. Everything about him changed. It was just like you had pressed a light switch. He lit up. He was all over. And it was obvious to me that he was glad I was there. Now there's somebody in this room who knows what I'm talking about. Everybody that I knew was glad I was there, but for a different reason. If I was there, I couldn't be there, you see. But not this guy. To him I was a bargain. And it showed on his face. And I was hooked before he opened his mouth again. And when he did, he said, well, take off your hat and coat. You're in the right place. And he took me and brought me to sleep. This is a... Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of inner women who share... who share their experiences of hope, one with another, and love. Caring and sharing is alcoholics anonymous. We're allowed to get sober by the spirit of alcoholics anonymous. We maintain sobriety by the practice of principles. But we don't get sober on principles or profundity. We're allowed to get sober by the spirit. The spirit that made that guy light up. You know. And further, a man rocked me to sleep. Tell me what is wrong with you. Nobody had ever told me. But he did. He told me if I was an alcoholic, one drink was too many and a thousand were enough. I just looked at my watch and I'm out of time. And you're not getting loose that quick. I gotta finish this thing up. But I will hurry. I started 15, 20 minutes late. You know that, don't you? And that wasn't my fault. Because I was on the phone. And that wasn't my fault. Because I was right here. One drink is too many and a thousand were enough. And I thought about it a little while and bought it. Still got it. The next thing he told me was one of the most beautiful things I'll ever hear. He said, today is the day we don't drink. Oh, God. He told me I had to be sober 34 years, I had to drop dead. If he'd only said 34 days, I'd have dropped dead. But he didn't. He said today is the day we don't drink. He said if a day is too long, how about an hour? Can you live an hour without drinking? That's the length of your life. Live an hour without drinking and then do it again. But don't drink today. And before you got through with that, you said something else that I have loved ever since. You said regardless of how long you live in Alcoholics Anonymous, never expand that time more than 24 hours. That's as long as you'll ever live. And I bought that and I still got it. It's the second greatest lesson I've ever learned. This is my day. I have no past. I want no future. The past is nothing in the world but guilt. The future is nothing in the world but fear. If I had to live by what I read in the papers and hear over the TV, the news and all that stuff, if that was my security, I would tell you to hurry out to a phone and call an ambulance because I'm going to have a heart attack. But of course that isn't my security. Today is the day. This is my day. I have no past. I want no future. The next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to have a heart attack. I'm going to have a heart attack. The next thing you told me was, stay close to us. I said you. There is more wisdom in this room about your problem and its answer than any other room on the face of the earth. Except for that room that's like this, where every room is a meeting. So stay close to us. Go to as many meetings as you can. And I bought it. I sold it to a local bank. bought it. And I've remembered it. And I've attended more than five than four meetings a week for 34 years. And I've never attended one too many. How do I know? Because I've never had it forgiven. This is the only good life I've ever known, the only easy life that's ever been mine in my entire life, God. And I'm not about to change a winning formula. I'll be doing this until you pat me in the face with a scoop. And I'll be loving it. The next thing you tell me is why I can't do it because I have a tooth. And this is the only intellectual knowledge we need that we didn't have when we got here. You explain to me. The disease of alcoholism to me. The galaxy of the body and obsession of the mind. My body turns successful. Successful and alcohol. And there's nothing I can do about it. And nobody knows why I can't. There are lots of experts now in alcoholism. Lots of experts. Lots of experts. them. But none of them know why my body can't accept the land of alcohol. Not only women. Many of the great emancipators of drunks believe that alcohol causes alcoholism. Can you imagine that? I have a lot of friends down home. I've got a guy that's running one of the big programs down there. Not an alcoholic, of course. Doctor. And he has me over so he can read to me. An article that has just been written for the American Medical Service. Alcohol causes alcoholism. And he don't know what I'm talking about when I tell him. If alcohol caused alcoholism, not using alcohol would cause sobriety, wouldn't it? But it don't. I was physically dry between every two drinks. . For eleven years. And I always got drunk again. So not drinking does not cause sobriety. Not drinking causes to be dry. And we just dry up. Without a programming, we just dry up. So, alcoholism is a living problem and we have to have a living answer. And that's what we've got in our hearts now. Now quickly, this is what's happened to me. I went to an AA meeting every night for the first six months. Every night of the week. For two reasons. Number one. It was comfortable there. I knew you were drunk and I knew you weren't drunk. But I had no hope of being able to get what you had because I wasn't going to live that long. But it was comfortable and there I was there. And the second reason is I had no place else to go. Now that helps. . So I discovered after six months that I had had a drink with Bill for six months. And I was so tickled that I got busy, busy, busy trying to give this thing away. To drunks. And another six months went by. And I discovered I had a family. And they were living like kids. What a discovery. Now I've just got one comment to make about that. Not having a home. I had their girlfriend. And Bill really helped. She was about 25 years my senior. She was a very busy thing, alcoholic. She lived up above those, you know, back of the hotel. In the big numbers. And she was very, very wealthy. I lived between Wilshire and Olympic down in the flatlands with the poor people. But Louise was very, very wealthy gal. And she goes to any place to meet me. And so sometime between the first six months and the first year she called my house saying, You can give it to me. She got no seat on the line. And Louise says, Who the hell are you? She had a voice. She said, I like you. And another six months, I touched what? Didn't know he had a wife. And another six months, he doesn't either. And I didn't. But a year had gone by and I discovered that I had a family. Living like kittens. And that's quite a discovery. Another six months went by and I discovered that I was still down in the office. Trying to clean up my desk. And business was good. Business was plumb good. And that wasn't a bad discovery. And another year went by. And I discovered that my own state of media. Of being was better than anything I'd ever known. It was just good to breathe in and out. And it was a beautiful thing to discover. Six years go by. And I discovered I was never alone anymore. I had a God of my very own. And wherever I am, he is. This is the great discovery. One would make this. When you make this discovery, the first is over. And life begins. Now if you'd asked me in the first six years what I was doing, why I lived the way I did, I would have told you to rub out a record. If you were to ask me after six years, I would have told you that I did it by going about my father's business. Helping his kids do things they need to have done. Because I wanted to. And I've been doing that ever since. Now, you can't rub out a record thinking I want or don't want or like or don't like. You can rub out a record. You can rub out a record by doing something for somebody without a price tag on it. And that's what I did. That's all I did. And that's all I've done since. My life has been one 12-step call for 34 years and six months. In business, in play, in home, in church. In any way. It's one 12-step call. Trying to add what I send to life. And it's been the most fabulous experience of anybody ever had. In my 11th year of sobriety, I bought the business. Impossible. Totally impossible. And when I sold it, I was a wealthy man. Again, impossible. Because I wasn't trying. Of course. I wasn't trying. I was just helping my people do things they need to have done because I wanted to. There's a number of people in this audience tonight that know that this is right because they were in my office and in my home during this time. And so, when I quit trying to get anything for myself, I got rich. When I quit going anyplace, which I did 34 years ago, I'd been trying to go someplace all my life. And I ended up, I couldn't even get to walk. I couldn't even walk. I couldn't walk. I couldn't walk. I couldn't walk. I couldn't do anything. The watch was right around the corner from my factory. Couldn't even get there. I quit trying to go anyplace. And the last 34 years have been all over the world. Been all over the world. I totally had given up ever finding out anything about how come I didn't get saved. And now what? I think, I realised that I'd just gotten rid of myself. I think I've come a long way. I think I've never been the same. I think I've never been the same. Now, I'm not going to be the same man that I was when I was 15 and 16. I'm not going to be the same man that I was when I was 17 and 18. I'm going to be the same. I'm going to be the same. I'm going to be the same man that I was when I was 28. I totally had given up ever finding out anything about how come I didn't get saved. And I came here and started doing these things. And discovered not only that I had a God of my own, but why I was never able to do it before. Because I couldn't get out of my own way. I could not surrender. Therefore, God himself couldn't help me. Now I'll finish up quick by saying, having lived with you for thirty-four years, I am totally convinced that the first two words the Lord firmly wants to say, Our Father is God. Remember when they said to the carpenter, Man, master, teach us to pray. He says, ask that this man will pray to you. Our Father, his Father, your Father, and mine. And I believe that with everything in me. From the top of my longest hair to my toenails. God my Father, I his gift. Now if that be true, you can let your imagination go crazy. And you can't even get close to the truth of being yourself. It's the most fabulous thing in the world. And it's the truth. Now, the only way that anybody will ever know that the program of Alcoholics is On must work, is to work it. You can't take my word for it. You don't know whether I'm drunk or not. I may be queer for donuts and coffee. That may be the reason I came here. You don't know. So, you can't take my word for it. Anybody else, you work it. And it works. And you don't work it, it don't work. And the only way that anybody will ever know that St. Francis knew what he was talking about, when he said, for it is better to love than to be loved. It's better to understand than to be understood. For it is in giving that we receive. In forgiving that we're forgiven. And in dying to self. Those last two words are more. And in dying to self, that we're raped through eternal life. Now, I figured that I'd better get some authority for that. I changed the Lord's Prayer, and there weren't many that had checked for that off. There's one line in there that I think is coming. Lead us not into temptation. I always knew that couldn't be the way it is. So, I changed that a long time before I even got sober. It's, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Now, that's the direct translation from Aramaic to English. And Aramaic was the term of the carpenter man. So, I got some verification for that a little later on. So, I'm not worried about that. I got the thinking that if you took all the Southerners, and all the Irish Catholics, out of alcohol and synonyms, you could already enter an arsenal of convention on a phone booth. And I said to myself, you'd better get some authority before you change the Lord's Prayer. So, I called up Manresa. Now, Manresa, down the highway, is the Jersey entry truth house. The Debbie, the woman at the top, there she is. And I called that place. I know, I don't happen to be Catholic. But I knew the whole bunch of Padres, and I got Father Turner on the line, and I said, Father, listen to what I did to San Francisco Square. For it is in dying for self that we are waiting to return to life. You know what that man said to me? Put your head in the TV, man. Just like that no one in all his life, you know. He never even thought of it till I mentioned it. And so, when we do these things, we find out that God is sufficient unto all of our needs. The gift of God was made the foundation of the earth. The universe is mine, and it's yours. And God is always knowing it. He has never been confused. Because He gave it to us. He is always knowing it, but you and I have to discover it for ourselves. And this is the greatest formula for sobriety, for obtaining and maintaining sobriety, for the good life, and for self-discovery that I've ever heard about, read about, or seen. Don't be afraid of it. It's all here. It's all here. All we gotta do is to act as if it were true. And prove that it is. God bless you. Thank you very much.