Cecil C. on Working the Steps in Sequence and the Danger of Ego

Thank you, Bob. My name is Cease Corgill and I'm an alcoholic. A very good friend of mine by the name of Jack Sennin is speaking at Dana, Saskatchewan Canada tonight. You probably don't know Jack Sennen and you probably don't know where Dana, Saskatchewan, Canada is. And that really doesn't matter. But he promised me that he'd mention my name up there if I'd mention his down here. And I'll tell you that this conference committee has got a lot of faith. They've already paid my expenses. They've already given me my gift, and so I'm home free. Usually they make you talk before they give you your expenses. And first of all, I'd like to say that I'm very grateful to be here, and I appreciate the invitation. I've watched a lot of people roaming around the committee i believe they are you can identify them and i know they're getting along because they seem to be not fighting and that's something for a committee of around them they may have a few resentments and they may not like what the other guy is doing but they seem to be doing all right the ladies I've watched them and I noticed that they they're sort of projecting things that may happen but ladies always do this what if so-and-so doesn't show up what if we don't sell enough ticks for the banquet. You know, ladies are just that way. And it reminds me of a story. It doesn't really. I intended to tell it all along. And this happened in Amarillo, Texas. I was speaking there a few years ago. And the man that was to chair my meeting at the banquet was a young man and he had never chaired a meeting before. And he got up early on Saturday morning and he was in his room and he making his notes and getting everything ready for Saturday night. And his wife walked in and she asked him a question, and the question was this, honey if something was to happen to me would you get married again now at six in the morning that's a little ridiculous question and the guy was all scared about what he was going to do that night and he he answered her like this he said well i'm a young man i guess i would and he continued on doing what he Was doing and she said well would you move her into this house and he was doing what he was doing and he was getting ready for Saturday night and he said well it's paid for she might as well we have to live somewhere and we might as well move her in here she said what about the bedroom he said well she has to sleep somewhere she said what about my jewelry and he said well if you don't will it to somebody else she might as well have it she said what about my car and he said well it's a small car and there's a gas crunch on and she might as well have it. She says, what about my golf clubs? He said, oh no, not your golf clubs. She said, well, what's wrong? You would marry her, move her into my house, into my bedroom, let her wear my jewelry, let er drive my car. What is wrong with my golf clubs. He said, she's left-handed. So sometimes it doesn't pay to project things. And another story I'd like to tell is when I see the committee of any committee at a roundup doing well. There's another story about a golfer that was sitting in a clubhouse and he'd had a bad day and he was out at the golf course and he Was sitting in the clubhouse all by, just all by himself. And he's had a Bad Day and he said, Oh God, right out loud. And a voice came down and said, Yeah, what's the trouble? And he looked up and he Said, Is that you God? And God said, yeah, that's me. What's the trouble? And he said, well, I just can't putt. So God said, well, when you're out tomorrow, move your right hand around a bit and everything will probably be all right. So while he had him on the line, he thought he better ask him some more things. So he said tell me, God, do they have a golf course up in heaven? And God went away and he came back and he said I have some good news and I have some bad news. First of all, he said, for the good news, they have the most beautiful golf course that I've ever seen. So the golfer said, well, what can be the bad news? And he said your tee off time is 10 after eight tomorrow morning. So you see, that's why it pays for any committee or any person, and especially we people in Alcoholics Anonymous to be on good terms with each other because we never know when our tea off time is going to be so i hope that if you're having problems with somebody at this roundup that you will get everything straight and round i'm not going to tell you too much about my drinking tonight because i don't really think it's that important i'll tell you one thing i'm here by mistake i did drink and I caused a lot of people, including myself, a lot of heartache. I didn't set out to be an alcoholic I set out to be an athlete. I became a pretty good athlete but at 16 years of age I decided there was something wrong with me I didn' t know what it was I'd never had a drink in my life but i guess i didn't like the discipline of my home and my school and my church and so i ran away from discipline and to show you that i was a little bit different than teenagers of today a little swifter i ran into the army to get away from discipline and I'd suggest if you're having any trouble with any of your teenagers that maybe you recommend that and I was a very rebellious kid I was something like this guy I heard a story about a fellow that had a Volkswagen repair shop and he had it all laid out the way an alcoholic would have it laid out there was a little line drawn that you drove in there the place was very neat and when you drove your volkswagen in you had to stop at this line and get out and talk to him tell him what you wanted but there was a fella that used to come in every day to see him and he would drive across the line and he'd get out he would tell the guy how to fix the car that he was working on and he used to really upset this little mechanic and one day the little mechanic guy came out from his underneath this hood and he walked out and he said to this big fella he said come here and he took him out and drew a circle in the cement and he says now I want you to stand in that circle and you don't step out of that circle until such time as I tell you to and with that he took a sledgehammer and he started to beat the guy's car and he really went at it and he practically totaled it and he looked over and this guy was laughing and so that made him angry and so he really totaled the car and when he was all finished he said to the fellow he said you know what is wrong with you he said I totaled your car and you stand there he said you're laughing like an idiot and the guy said yeah but you told me not to step out of this circle and while you were doing that i stepped out three times and i i think that most people in alcoholics anonymous identify with that we didn't really care what the consequences were going to be but we did what we wanted to do because we were rebellious and i was one of those types and i can remember that first night i was in the service i had my first drink and i went downtown with the rest of the men in that big uniform on and i when into a beer parlor and we ordered some beer and I had a drink of beer and I had another drink and beautiful things started to happen to me all of a sudden I was a conversationalist all of the sudden I had extra muscles and somebody said something I didn't like, I told him where to head in we went to a dance and my God was it beautiful I was just Canada's own Fred Astaire I just glided across that floor I took this young lady home and I was Charles Boyer and Clark Gable and they were the great lovers of that time I was them all in one and the next morning I woke up down at that armory and I saw a man and I said I was that scared little farm boy that had come to join the army the day before but every night I would go downtown with the rest of the men and I would be what I wanted to be and liquor was an answer to my problem I did very well in the army I became an instructor at the age of 16 got kicked out at the edge of 17 went back home and worked in an aircraft factory and got a little bit of responsibility and rejoined the Army, told them I'd never been in before. Got recommended for my commission when I was 18 years of age, still not old enough to be in the service. However, I got kicked out when I was 18-years-of-age. Went back home and worked for a newspaper in the advertising department, did very well, got too much responsibility, and I joined the Navy. and I know now that I was just running away from responsibility I got recommended for my commission in the Navy I went away for officers training and I'd just love to stand here and tell you that I was an officer in the Canadian Navy but I got kicked out of officers training it seems that there was an officer there that didn't appreciate me telling him what he could do with his ship. And I was in Florida recently, and I looked out at one of those big ships, and it's really a physical impossibility. And I didn't get kicked out of the Navy, I just got kicked out of officer training. I was 19 years of age, I got married to a beautiful young girl from Prince Albert. That's a long time ago and incidentally I'm still married to her and I would love to stand here and tell you that I was a good father and a good husband but I wasn't because I'd become an alcoholic. I stayed in the Navy till the war was over. I went back home and I started celebrating the end of the war, started getting jobs, started losing jobs, celebrated the beginning of the Korean War And I guess I celebrated the end of that. But I know this much, that the last two years that I drank, I became a fighter. I think I had 17 fights and 17 knockouts and I lost them all. I wasn't the best fighter in the world. But I didn't have these fights in any rings or anything. I just had them mostly in bars. For you see, I was an arrogant drunk. I didn't like myself I didn' t like what I was doing to myself and so I became very arrogant I tell you that story because that is how I came to Alcoholics Anonymous one night I was in a poker game and I played a lot of poker and that's a bad combination booze and poker and I did a little something in that poker game that a great big guy who weighed 275 pounds didn't appreciate I did little something like cheating and he was very narrow about that and he and I had a fight or I should say he had a fighting and he hit me and I hit the cement and I got up and he hurt me and he beat me and I hid the cement we did that a whole bunch of times and finally I stayed down there not because I didn't have enough guts to get up but because I couldn't get up and I like to think of that you know that's not the greatest thing in the world to remember but I want to tell you how well I was thought of in my city at that time I lay down there and people just walked right over the top of me and finally one guy came along and he took me and it was in a hotel and he put me to bed and the next day I went to hospital and I went to hospital not because I was an alcoholic I just went to hospital because I'd been beat up. But thanks God that there was a doctor that knew me. I'd be in the service with him, and he came and talked to me. And he said, See, I have done everything I can do for you. I've built you up physically, and there's nothing more I can do to you. He said, I was in the service with you and you were bad then as far as alcohol was concerned. Things haven't improved. As a matter of fact, they're worse since you came home. And he said that he thought that I was an alcoholic. And I said, well, what do I do now? So he said, I would suggest that you join Alcoholics Anonymous. He didn't leave it at that. He went out and he got two people to come and see me, and they came. I knew both of them. And I'll never forget those two guys because one of them was a sloppy, sloppy drunk. But he came to see me and he was dressed up and he was clean and his hair was combed and he looked good. I knew that something would happen to Bill. The other guy was a guy that I'd been in a service with, and he got in trouble when he came back from the service and he got in the penitentiary for five years, and he found Alcoholics Anonymous in the penitentiary. And I knew that something had happened to Earl because he was looking better than I'd ever seen him look. And they both talked to me, and they didn't have to talk because I could see the look in their eyes and that something great had happened to them. And you know, when I go on a 12-step call today, I like to look good because those two men impressed me so much just by the way that they looked. And I knew that something had happened to Bill and to Earl. Bill and Earl aren't with us anymore. Bill died sober. Earl went back to drinking and they found him in the river dead that really doesn't matter but the whole deal is is that they carried the message to me and I had a a lot of time to think in that hospital I think I figured out why I became an alcoholic unlike your speaker of last night I became a alcoholic because I was Protestant and I lived in a Catholic community and there weren't a whole lot of Protestants that lived there and I grew up hating Catholics I don't think too much of them some of them as yet but I knew all about resentment and so when I landed up in hospital guess where they put me in a Catholic hospital and that was the days before Medicare in Saskatchewan and I gave them a bad check to have a private ward and when that little Catholic nun went to cash that check she couldn't seem to find a bank for it and she wouldn't let me out of hospital until such time as I paid the check probably just because I was Protestant and the morning I was getting out of hospital I phoned the only person that I knew my credit was any good with and that was my bootlegger and he came and got me out of hospital. Probably had he known what I was going to do, he would have left me there because I've never had to give him any business since that day. And that was January the 16th, 1952. I was 27 years of age. I didn't think I was old enough to be an alcoholic there weren't a whole bunch of young people in AA at that time as a matter of fact there were a whole bunch of old people in AA at that time there were some people there that were 45 50 years old real old people some of them were even 55 and 60 my God and my immediate reaction was well they should be in AA there's nowhere else for them to go and I can remember that first AA meeting that babe and I went to there was no Al-Anon in our town at that time they came and got us that Saturday night just like this and they took us to a meeting there was perhaps 30 people there there weren't any ladies in AA at that time in our city, just men and their wives. Their wives were, just came along, look after the lunch and things like that. But I remember they had a social that night, and they played games in this social. And I can remember them playing pin the tail on the donkey. And that really wasn't my idea of a Saturday night, I'll tell you. And I can remember a guy standing up and saying he'd been sober a year and a half or one year or something. And I sat in the back and I thought, liar. Can't be much of a drunk if he can stay sober for a year. AndI knew him. He was a traveling man and I figured it out right fast. I know He goes out on the road, he drinks, and he comes back in and tells these donkeys that he's sober. And after the meeting, a couple of the old-timers that were sober about 18 months, they took me in the other room and they said, Cease. There's no musts in Alcoholics Anonymous. But they said tomorrow morning there's a meeting here at 8 o'clock and you must be here. and I'm glad they talk to me like that because I'm still going I just don't miss any meetings our meetings are Tuesdays and Thursdays in my group and they have a meeting on Friday night and I am usually away but Tuesdays or Thursdays are the meetings that I go to and I just do not miss meetings that is over 31 years ago and I will tell you something and I'll share this with you because I hope that it will help somebody that has to make a decision every night of a meeting whether they should go or whether they shouldn't go It became a good habit with me and I don't have to make that stupid decision on Tuesday nights and Thursday nights I just go God, is that a lot easier So if some of you are making the decision every day night or when you go to your meetings, whether you should or whether you shouldn't, just make it a good habit and start going to the meeting. It's a lot easier. And I went to meetings and I had a great time. And God, I stayed sober just by pats on the back. You see, I was the youngest member in the group. I was The Youngest Member in the whole province of Saskatchewan. And that's a big problems. And we used to go to deals like this, not nearly as big. And people used to pat me on the back and they'd say, you're doing a fine job, young fellow. Man, that was great. That's what I've been looking for all of my life. And here they're patting me on the back and telling me I'm doing a find job. And who wouldn't go back? I just kept going back. And I didn't really want to come to Alcoholics Anonymous. because I didn't think that I belonged in alcoholic studies. I was something, and I'm going to tell this joke because somebody said they told my joke and I don't think they can tell it properly. I was someone like the three alcoholic rabbits. Now I know there's guys down here who have been trying to tell these jokes. And I'm gonna show you how it's done properly. Now, I don't mean ordinarily Saturday night drunks. I mean real genuine alcoholic ravels. And there were three of them, and they were called Foot and Foot-Foot and Foot Foot-foot. And Foot Foot used to phone him, Foot Foot Foot, and he'd say, let's pick up old Foot and we'll go down to the bar. So Foot Foot and foot Foot Foot they'd pick up an old Foot and they'd go down to the Bar. One night Foot Foot was sitting talking to Foot Foot foot and Foot foot Foot said to foot foot he said where's foot and foot foot said to foot foot foot he said well he's here just a minute ago but he went outside so foot foot foot and the foot foot that went outside they found poor old foot foot's dead so foot-foot said to Foot-Foot-FOOt what do you think we should do with foot Foot-foot-Foots said to Foot-FooT he said I think we should take him down to the funeral home after the funeral Foot-foots said to Foot Foot Foot he said what do think old foot died from Foot Foot Foots said to Foot Foot he said i think he was an alcoholic and Foot Foot said to foot, foot, he said, do you think we're alcoholics? Foot, foot foot, said the foot foot foot. He said, well, we're drinking quite a bit so foot,foot,foot said to foot, foot foot he said do you think we should join Alcoholics Anonymous? And foot, foot said to the foot, foot foot might as well we got one foot in the grave anyway. and I had a beautiful time in AA I just had a good time and I told you I was getting all these pats on the back and I was enjoying it and then a terrible thing happened in our group some younger members came in and they walked right by me and they start talking to the older members and the older numbers walk right by me and talk to the newer members and I share this with you because this is going to happen to you it doesn't matter whether you're an Alateen or Al-Anon or Alcoholics Anonymous this is going to happen one day you are going to become a middle member and that's a terrible thing because it's just like being a hole in a donut you're nothing and I seriously thought of going out and drinking again and coming back in and getting the treatment but thank God I didn't do that because we had a guy in our group and we had to have discussion meetings in the city I come from this guy's name was Ernie Sear I can break his anonymity because Ernie's gone to the greater roundup. And we asked Ernie to chair our meetings for three months. And Ernie said he would chair, providing we did it the way he wanted to do it. So we said, what is that? And he said, well, instead of talking about the steps, he said we're going to do the steps in sequence as a group. And we're gonna start at step one, and we are not going to stop until such time as we get through to step 12. Up until that time, we'd been going to step 3 or into step 8 or, you know, taking them cafeteria style here, there, and everywhere. And Ernie said, if somebody else comes in, we'll sponsor them properly and we'll look after them until such times as we start through the steps again. So we thought we would humor old Ernie along and we decided to go along with them. And that is the experience that I'm going to share with you tonight, the experience I had since coming to the fellowship. And we took a look at that step one and Ernie took out this big book called Alcoholics Anonymous and he told us all about the first 57 pages. And I remember when he told me when he read this little bit to us in the doctor's opinion and he said men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol the sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious they cannot after a time differentiate the truth from the false to them their alcoholic life seems the only normal one and then he said this they are restless irritable and discontented and he said by doing these steps in sequence we are going to find out how we can become where we are not restless and discontent and so we started going through those steps and I knew I was powerless over alcohol but I hadn't looked at the second part of step one where I had an unmanageable life I even hate talking about this down here because I know all of you people have a lot of money but when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I owed $6,200 and I didn't owe it for anything. I just owed it. You see, I came here by way of a poker game and I owed it to some strange people. And I saw some of you Al-Anons over there last night doing the same thing as I used to do. Betting your money like that in that bar. I just checked it out to see who was going in there. A lot of Al-Alans in there last night and i got in a lot of financial difficulty because of poker and i'll tell you financial problems and i know none of you have them but just in case you ever sponsor somebody that has some financial problems get them to face up to them because it's a bad thing and it'll get you in a Lot of trouble you'll become a bigger liar than you were when you came to Alcoholics Anonymous because you're now sober and that person that you're living with or married to or whatever's happening today they're going to ask you questions about money people are going to phone you and you're going say well I'll be there and you don't go there and it becomes a terrible rat race I can remember one day coming home and my sweet little wife sitting there with those two beautiful little daughters and she said, I thought you said you paid so-and-so. And you know what the big eye specialist said? I said, if I said I paid them, I paid them. And she said well why would they phone me today and say that you haven't paid them? And you knows what the Big Eye did? In front of those two little girls and my wife, I took my food, plate and all, and threw in the sink. I walked to the wall and removed the phone from the wall And I said, they will not be phoning you anymore And I went in the front room and pouted Now that is a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous This is not drunk You see, all that happened to me is when I came to AlcoholicsAnonymous I admitted I was sick and i found out a way to get well and i can remember going into that second step where it says came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity and you see i had insane thoughts about a lot of things but when i was in step one and dealing with these financial problems and I can remember my boss saying to me cease I'm sick and tired of phone calls and you getting phone calls and wasting time and he took me to the bank and he endorsed my note for $6,200 and you know what the bank said before he endorsed the note the bank manager knew me and he said Corrigal I would lend you $6200 even with Alec endorsing your note now Alec was the wealthiest man in our city and he was my boss and I don't know whether he threatened to buy the bank and fire the guy or what but the guy finally gave us some money and they wouldn't even let me pay my own bills they sent the checks terrible way to treat a fellow isn't it But he made me sign a paper that Babe and I would pay cash for everything. And to show you how well I was, three years later, he bailed me out for $7,500 because I had an unmanageable life as far as money is concerned. And I share this with you, and it must be real boring because you people haven't got this problem. But I had that problem, and that's what I'm doing, sharing my experience, strength, and hope. And I can remember finding out that financial problems had nothing to do with money. Had a lot to do it big shot-ism. Not that been a big shot, but big shot ism. Had a lo to do pride. Had a to do ego. For you see, I was the kind of a guy who'd walk in someplace and want to buy something, they'd say, here's a beautiful sofa or whatever it was, $369. The big shot would say, do you have something for about $700? Because I suffered from big shotism, and that made me feel good, and I got in more financial profit. Thank God today I've learned how to handle it. and if anybody here happens to sponsor someone down the line and they have financial problems try to help them face them because it is a bad thing our second step says came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity i found out i had an unmanageable life step two i found a manager just as simple as that. Some of the people I said, I have never been to a mental hospital. How can I be insane? I said how can I come back from somewhere I haven't been? And some of those old-timers said to me, cease. You are a negative thinker. And I was. I was something like the negative barber. A guy slid into the barber's chair one day and he said like a haircut last week for three weeks the barber said why three weeks he said well i'm going on a trip the barber says where are you going he said first of all i'm going to london england barber says you're not going to London England he said i am said you're not said i said i wouldn't go there if i were you says now i've never been there but i heard it's a lousy place to go too many people too many cars the guy said look and just cut my hair if i don't like it there i'm gonna run over to rome or i'm goin over to paris and he said you're not going to Paris I said I am he said it wouldn't go there if I were you he said I don't know I've never been there but I heard that they really fleece the tourists the guy said I don' t care what they do if I don''t like it I'm going to Rome the barber said you'r e not going to Rome I said it wouldnt go there if I was you too many Catholics over there Now he said, I've never been there. He said, but I heard that. Guy said, look it, I'm a Catholic. Yeah, but he said I heard different kind of a Catholic over there. Three weeks later the guy slid into the barber's chair and the barber said, how was your trip? He said it was good. He said wasn't. He said was. He said you didn't go to London. He says I did. He says didn't. He says it did. He said loved to stay there longer but wanted to get on to Paris. He says you didn' t go to Paris He says he did. He says she didn't He says they did. He says loved to stayed there longer But wanted to go on to Rome He says You didn't Go to Rome He says He did He says She didn't He says, I did. And he says, you'll never believe what happened. He says. I got an audience with the Pope. And he said, you didn't. He said, I didn't He says he didn't And he say, you will never believe What happened He says I knelt down To kiss the Pope's ring And you'll NEVER believe What he said And the barber says, what? And he says Where the hell Did you get that lousy haircut? and I was something like that I was negative you know I didn't know but I'd heard and I know none of you people are like that even yelling on people aren't like that but some people I've met in different areas have been speaking to I like that they did don't know the things but they heard and so I came to believe that there's power greater than myself could restore me to sanity step three they told me I had to make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood it. And I don't know about you people, but I still have a difficult time making a decision. I tell you that tonight before coming up here, I was trying to decide whether I should go to the bathroom or not. And right now I don�t know whether I've made the right decision or not. Because we have a difficult time making a decision, whether we're in Al-Anon or Alateen or Alcoholics Anonymous. Did you ever go to a deal like this where they have a buffet deal and you get some Al-Anon in front of you? And she just can't decide what she's going to eat. That's what holds those lineups up, you know. We just are afraid to make the wrong decision. I don't know down here whether you know what a poacher is. Back home we have lots of poachers where they go fishing at the wrong time of the year without a license and go hunting and doing what they want, just breaking the law all the time. And there was this old poacher who used to go fishing all the time and finally there was a new game warden came to town and he wanted to catch him. He went down, he made friends with his old guy, and finally the old fellow at two o'clock in the afternoon, he said, well I'm going fishing. And of course the old game warden was dressed up in old clothes, and he said I'd like to come with you. So the old poacher said come along. So they get out in the middle of the stream, and the old Poacher stops the boat, reaches over, open a box, picked out two sticks of dynamite, lit them, threw them in the drink, boom, a big explosion, up comes the fish, out comes the net fills the old boat up and out comes the badge. And the old game warden said I finally got you and he started giving him a lecture and the old poacher doesn't bat an eye. He just reaches over into the box, picks out two more sticks of dynamite, lift them, hand them over to the old gamewarden. The gamewardens sitting there with two sticks of dynamite and the whole poacher says look at buddy do you want to fish or do you wanna talk? he made a decision in a hell of a hurry i'll tell you but you see we we have a difficult time making decisions and if we'd only take this big book someone says how do you turn your will and your life over to the care of god as you understood it well if you take it out tonight when that beautiful little girl read and god wouldn't could if he were sought and then the next line says being convinced we're at step three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understood him. Just what do we mean by that? And just what do we do? And I'll tell you what, if we read page 60, 61, and 62, and find out what we're turning over, we won't have any problem making decisions. We want to do it because I don't think that there's anybody that would want to live that way. It tells us all about been an actor and been this and been that. And I think the problem is not of how to turn it over, it's what we're turning over that we don't know. But this big book tells us exactly what to do. And if anybody down here thinks that there's some stupid propaganda that I'm bringing down from Canada, I want you to know I bought this book in the United States. And i want to thank you beautiful people for bringing it to us and anything that i'm saying i got out of this book and i'm really grateful that you allowed us in canada to share it with you it's a beautiful thing and so i just did it something like this i said look at god i've made a lousy job of managing my life how about you taking over and i had to keep it that simple because i find out if i complicate things i'm in trouble A friend of mine back home has a ranch. And one day someone said to him, how did you get your name here ranch? And he says, well I wanted to call it the Bar Q, my wife wanted to call it Susie Q, and my son wanted to call it a Bar Susie Kue, and my daughter wanted to call it The Susie Bar Q. So we called it the Bar Q Susie Kue Susie Bar Q Bar Susy Kue. And the guy said, well that's a hell of a name, but where are the cattle? And he said none of them ever survived the branding. and that could happen to us if we don't keep it simple we may not survive the branding and so i did it that simple and i kept it that simply and then we went on and they told us that we had to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and ernie was pretty smart he'd heard a person say that they can't find a pencil and a paper and Earl Ernie came to that meeting and he had pencils and papers for every one of us and he handed them to us and he said now all we have to do is go to this big book called Alcoholics Anonymous page 64 and page 65 and we'll find out how to do this fourth step and he says if any of you have nothing wrong with you he said write it down, nothing right underneath that he says write down that you're a liar and so we took step four we went home and we did step four because everybody in our group was doing step four I didn't want to get left behind and I went home and I did it and it's no big deal it tells us it tells exactly there on the chart exactly how to do it it tells it deals with fear deals with resentment it deals with sex and it tells us on the chart exactly how to do a step four and I don't think there's any possible chance now this is my own opinion but every meeting I've ever been to they read how it works and they say these are the steps we took and as Chuck C from Laguna Beach says I would suggest that you took them it's as simple as that because you see it's a difficult thing to do something about yourself if you don't know what is wrong with yourself and that's the reason for a step four now i'm not going to elaborate on a chest step four because i know that everybody's taken their step four all of you alanons and alatines and good members of aa you haven't gone this far and looking so beautiful today that you haven't taken a step forward sure you've done it but just supposing someone just came in this morning and you haven t done it I'll just talk to you the rest of you can be quiet for a little while I would suggest that tonight if you haven t taken a Step 4 that you get a pencil and a paper and you go to the book and you take a a step forward. And if you can't do it, I'll give you an easy way. Figure out the person that you dislike most in the world. Now there's got to be somebody out there. Could be the sister that inherited all the money, could be the brother that got the farm, could by the sponsor that ran away with your wife you know could be somebody and take their inventory and don't be easy write it down with a real vengeance and all the hate that you can muster up at that time and when you're all finished put your own name up top because usually what you dislike about me is what is wrong with you or what i dislike about you is what's wrong with me and i hope you don't have to do it that way because i don't think you have to because it tells you in the book exactly how to do it and i did it and when i was finished all i had to do was go and talk to another human being that's what a lot of people says but that's not what the big book says it says admit it to god to ourselves and to anotherhuman being which meant that i had to talk it over with God, and then I had to talk it over myself. And then I have to go to another human being. And I did that. And I shared this with them, my step four, with him in taking my step five. And when I was all finished, they told me exactly what to do. They told me to take this big book down from the shelf. They told to go over the first five proposals. And they told to read them and study them and to see if I'd left anything undone. For they said I was building a deal through which I could walk a free man, something that I'd been looking for. And they told me to read Step 6 and 7. And I don't think there is any time in my life that I've been more ready to be entirely willing to have God remove all these defects of character and to humbly ask him to remove my shortcomings in Step 7. and you know i told you i came in here by way of a poker game i didn't stop gambling because i came to alcoholics anonymous as a matter of fact i thought i'd be a little better now that i was sober but i'll let you in on a little secret you little al-anons that were down there gambling last night you can lose money sober I found that out and so I realized that it was a defect of character with me and so I asked God for help in step 6 and 7 and today I no longer have to gamble I can gamble if I want to but I no long have to and that was a great relief because i used to find the games and if i couldn't find them i would make them step seven talks about humility and i realized that i couldn t be really humble unless i could get down on my knees and i was having a difficult time doing that and i w as in new york and i heard a fellow by the name of shy walker and shy walk er was talking about how he came out of prison and Shy Walker was telling us about how he wanted so much to stay out of prison and to stay sober and he couldn't get down on his knees and he said that one night he came home and quite by accident he had high-top boots on and he kicked those high-top boots underneath the bed and he says the next morning he got down on these knees to get his high-toe boots from under the bed and he decided, seeing I'm down here I think I'll say a few words and every night he used to boot his boots under the beds so that the next morning he'd get down and say a few words. I don't know whether it works with high-top boots, because I never had high-tub boots at that time. But I do know that it works with ordinary shoes, because I tried it. I don' t have to kick my boots under the bed anymore. I get down on my knees in the morning and in the night and in between. And I'm probably about to pray on this member of Alcoholics Anonymous and i'm not one that leaps down in the floor in front of everybody it's a very personal thing with me but i tell you they taught me in step seven that that's what i had to do to get what was coming to me and you know we have a little guy in our group that says and he said this and he's had a lot of trouble with alcoholics anonymous but that doesn't matter he taught me something that is so great and i'm going to share it with you he said don't jip yourself he said get what is coming to you and all of these things are coming to us so let's not jip ourselves and i learned a little bit about humility i don't know anything about it i learned little bit about it i would say if there's any definition for it it would be to me would be the ability to stand and the willingness to kneel to stand up and talk about what i believe in and to kneEL down and thank god for what has happened to me step eight told me that i had to make that list again of all the people i'd harmed i'd done some of that in step four but i'd hurt people after i'd come to alcoholics anonymous and i did a step eight i put my own name up top because i'd lost my self-respect i was having a difficult time to forgive myself when i came to step nine where it said made direct amends to such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others i went and made those amends and you know why I made those amends is because Ernie every meeting that we had used to do something that was so great he used to read page 83 in page 84 and I know you all know what they are but I'm going to tell you what Ernie did he would read them the promises of Alcoholics Anonymous if we're painstaking about this phase of our development we will be amazed before we're halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us we will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us we would suddenly realize that god is doing for us what he could not do for ourselves and we are entitled to those promises so let's not jip ourselves let's get those promises every one of us are entitled of those promises and i did that and i did those first nine steps to the best of my ability with the balance of the group and thank god for ernie and thank god that ernie taught us that and we could see the rest of the group grow and we could see the benefits of doing the steps that way the way that they're supposed to be done the way that the book tells us to do them and then it went into step 10 where it said we had to continue to take a personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted and each and every night when I go to bed no matter where I am I take an inventory of all seats and it is really easy because one time I had to take an inventory of a whole bunch of people and now I only have to take an inventory one person and it so much easier believe me never mind what jane or sally or joe or bob are doing worry about old seats that's what i have to do and i i like talking about step 10 because when i was in alcoholics anonymous for about 10 years i forgot who i was and what i was or where i'd come from and i stopped taking a step 10 at night I stopped doing a lot of things I went to meetings and it wasn't what I was doing it's what I wasn't doing in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I became a big shot in AA I'd been a delegate and I'd done a lot and I had a good job I had one of the finest jobs in the city of Prince Albert and I was working for this fellow as I told you he was the wealthiest man in Prince Albert I was managing the largest ladies wear store in the province of Saskatchewan And I was looking after the furs for five stores, and I had a car and an expense account, and I want you to know that I was big. And one day my boss called me in the office, and it seemed that the store wasn't quite big enough for the two of us. And it seemed he wasn't about to leave. And he fired the great Cease Corrigal. walked out of the store with an attitude something like this they weren't last long now i want you to know they're still there they're doing well they're millionaires but a little gal came to see me who was my cousin she was in alcoholics anonymous and i know that god sent her to see me she was an a8 west coast of canada little fern and she came to see me and i went downtown one day and i bought myself some new clothes and i went down to fern and i stood up in front of her in my big egotistical way and i said well kid how do i look and first said these simple words and i'm going to share them with you and i hope that maybe they'll help somebody as much as they help me she said you look real good on the outside sees but how are you really on the inside and i was going to a roundup something like this up in flinflon manitoba that weekend with dear old dave murray who's now passed away and dave didn't say anything to me all the way up there i was driving the car and he just let me think and i went into winnipeg i spent a couple of days in a hotel room talking to god i went back to prince albert deciding to go into business for myself that's not important i had to do something but the big thing was is i went back to Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I had never been away from meetings, but I went back to AlcoholicsAnonymous and I started doing this program once again the way it was supposed to be done, just because that little gal said that to me. And you see, when you're wrong, promptly admit it. I don't like admitting that I'm wrong. So I find out by practicing this program that I don't have to be wrong a whole bunch of times but when i have to admit that i'm wrong i can do it and we went into step 11 which says sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with god as we understood him praying only for the knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out as sybil said this afternoon the step is longer than any other step and it has so much meaning and i can tell you each and every morning no matter where i am i take this book called alcoholics anonymous and i read page 86 87 and 88 and i read the prayer on page 63 the third step prayer i read the seventh step prayer on page 76 and i'll read the last part of a vision for you on page 164. why do i do that i do that because i don't think they're only maintenance steps i think they are growth steps and i want everything that is coming to me from alcoholics anonymous and i know there's still a lot more than what i've got today i read other things i read stuff by vincent peel i read stuffed by emmett fox i even read the bible i know it's not conference approved literature but i take a chance and i gain a lot from doing it and it's just an absolute beautiful way to start a day and i'll tell you why i started one day i found myself going to work having an argument with a man that was 1300 miles away that i was going to meet 2200 miles away and by the time I got to my store or uptown I was arguing out loud and this is hard to do because you've got to figure out what he's saying and he's not there and I came to a stop sign and I'm really giving it to him and there's people and you know I live in a small town 35,000 people looking at me and they're saying old C's really spun out you know I got into my store and I hadn't finished with him and I drove around the block a couple of times tell him some more things I got to my store quarter to nine in the morning completely exhausted that's not necessary each and every morning when I do my reading I get up because I never know who is out there to get me there's always somebody out there that will aggravate my disease they don't know that I'm a sensitive person and they'll say unkind things to me I'll have a an irate customer come in and say you know what do you have this lousy fur coat and she'll say bad things about my fur coats and and I'll have a wife that she always has to have a discussion at seven in the morning and I I've done my reading and I'm ready for her and I smile and if you start to get into a little argument because sometimes they lead you and you get into a little argument, just start to smile and say I'm sorry. They don't know what to do. They just stand there and you kiss them goodbye and you go and jump in your car and you go to work. That's why I do my reading. And I want to share a little something with you that happened while I was doing my reading, I have this little room that I go into where I do my prayer and meditation, and our oldest daughter, who we gave everything to. We gave her love and material things, and she could have had an education — whatever she wanted. And you'll never believe what she did to us. She married a Catholic, an Italian one. They're the worst kind. And they have two beautiful little daughters. One is Anna Maria, and the other is Chela Luisa. And they go to a French Catholic school. That's not bad, but sometimes they ask me to drive them. This program is beautiful. You can live and let live and have an open mind, believe me. The sisters say, good morning, Mr. Corrigal. And they wave to me and I wave back and say, Good morning, sister, and pray that they look after my granddaughter as well. But one time this little girl came home with me when she was only three years old, our oldest granddaughter. And the next morning I was in doing my prayer and meditation and she knocked on the door. And babe said, Honey, you can't go in there. Grandpa's doing his reading. and she said i have something to tell him and she came in i took her up on my knee i told her what i was doing and when i was finished i said what did you want to tell me honey and she said i wanted to tell you that i love you i don't know whether that means anything to anybody out there but to this old hard rock that came to alcoholics anonymous unable to give love but unable to receive it all of a sudden i can say to that little catholic granddaughter honey i love you too and i know what it means her little sister just leaps up on my knee anytime she wants and says that she loves me and i tell her that i love her too the other daughter she got her first marriage was to a protestant and she has a fine young son protestant son little jason he was at the international conference with me many people saw him he and i spend a lot of time together and we go a lot of places together and i'll tell you that one day he was we were having a car washed and he looked up at Kentucky Fried Chicken sign and he said, Grandpa let's buy some chicken for Grandma for supper and I said okay Jason and he says while we're at it maybe we should buy some for ourselves I don't know about this one and we got home and they have their own tables and chairs there and Jason asked me to sit at the little table with him and Jason said you know what I want to be when I grow up Grandpa and I asked him what he wanted to be Jason and he said I want to be a grandpa he said I want have a store and I want to be the boss the greatest compliment that I've ever received because here's a little guy that wants to be like me his mother got divorced from his dad and she too married an irish or not an iris catholic we had enough of those an italian catholic but i think that kid's going to be all right because he comes to a lot of a deals with me and he just loves alcoholics anonymous and you're nobody unless you're in aa i'll tell you i introduce him to people and i say this is a pal of mine so that he'll know they're in aaa if i introduce them to somebody he'll pull my head down he said don't they belong i said no and he said let's go you know he doesn't want any of those mediocres atop but all of this happened because of a program called alcoholics anonymous and step 12 said that having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs people say to me how do you get a spiritual awakening it tells me in the book having had a spiritual awaking as the result of these steps i can assure you that i know no other way as far as i am concerned to have that spiritual awakening than to go through those steps in sequence and not talk about them but do them and i had that spiritual awakening or a personality change and a personality change is simply something that you know when I was coming to you know, when you get a phone call like this it happens maybe six months ago and you look at your calendar and you say sure I can be there but then that morning comes when you have to get up and you have drive to Saskatoon which is 90 miles to catch a plane that leaves probably a quarter after eight in the morning so it's five in the morning you're getting up and you know you're having a shave and you're looking in the mirror and if I was to say holy hell I have to go to Jamestown North Dakota today you know I'd be tired before I finish shaving and what I've learned to do is I've learned to do it like this I'm having a shave and I'll say boy this is the day I'm going to Jametown North Dakota aren't I a lucky guy to be invited and i drive off to saskatoon and i catch that plane and i fall asleep and all of a sudden i'm here and i'm with all you beautiful people that is a personality change to me i know how to treat people and i know what to do and i don't know what i'm going to do how to accept love and i knew how to do a whole lot of things because of alcoholics anonymous and what i learned by doing those steps in sequence and then it says we tried to carry the message to the alcoholic, it still suffers. That's all I can do is try. But I mentioned it a little bit this afternoon. You know, tonight I can guarantee that right in this room there is somebody that's got a football in their stomach. It may be an Alateen, an Al-Anon are a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and they are hurting. And we are probably thinking that maybe we should go down to the bar and get somebody down there and bring them to this meeting. You know, the first night I went to my meeting of Alcoholic Anonymous little Bobby Motherwell put his arm around me and he said, Cease, we want you and we need you and we love you. So tonight why don't you say that to somebody if you see somebody standing and they're all alone and they look lonely and they've got that look of sadness in their eyes and you can tell that they're hurting and you can tell if they didn't do any prayer and meditation this morning and that they didn t get ready for this day put your arm around them and say we love you and we want you and we need you because that's what kept me coming to alcoholics anonymous because somebody said that practicing the principles we know what the principles are they're the principles that we learned as we went through these beautiful steps in secret I once heard a story about an Al-Anon gal she must have been from this area because she had a lot of money and she couldn't get her old boy sobered up no how and she decided to take him on a trip and she took him overseas and he was drunk when he got in the plane he got drunk around the plane and he got drunker when he get over there and they went out for a walk and they came to one of these big wishing wells those have you been in Europe you've seen them and they stood up on there and made their wish and that poor old drunk he fell in the well and drowned and you know what that sweet little Al-Anon gal said she said holy hell this thing really works. I don't think that that's practicing the principle. There's another Al-Anon gal, she was over in Minneapolis and she got on a bus. And she's sitting there and the lady sat down beside her and all of a sudden she leaped up and she says, oh my goodness, I forgot to pay the bus driver. So her newfound friend said, well if the bus driver's not worried about it, what are you worried about for? She said, look, I just join the program that demands rigorous honesty and i have to pay him and the lady said oh buy yourself a halo she said no this program demands rigorous honestly and i'm not cheating anybody and she went and paid the bus driver and she come back and she sat down and she said i told you honesty paid off she says i give them a dollar and they give me change for five I don't think that that's what they mean but we all know what they mean don't we and it's just beautiful we have a program that we can practice and we can share with other people and not only people who are in a NAA we can share it with the whole world because we know how to walk in unity with our fellow man because we've learned it in alcoholics anonymous i want to thank the committee for just giving me this pleasurable privilege of being with you tonight to share myself with you i want thank you the audience because you've been beautiful and you've been a beautiful audience because you listened and you make it so much easier on a speaker if you listen believe me and you've made me feel good i felt the warmth and the love from you people last but not least i want to thank god for giving me one more beautiful day to allow me to do what probably he wants me to do maybe it is a purpose that he's given me in life because i believe it is a god-given gift to be able to communicate with people and i don't believe that i have the right to say no when somebody asks me and there's a story when we talk about unity and i know we're all interested in walking hand in hand with each other there's this story about a young couple that had a little boy and they took this little boy out into their great wheat field and the little boy crawled away and he became lost. And the two parents, they roamed off in all different directions trying to find his little boy. They called the neighbors in and the neighbors did the same thing. They roamed up in all different directions and they couldn't find the little boy finally they called the army in and the next morning this army sergeant said let's join hands and walk across the wheat field and that way we will not miss the little Boy and they did that they walked across the Wheatfield and they found a little boy he had died during the night from exposure and his daddy picked him up in his arms and he said why didn't we join hands before aren't we blessed people we know how to join hands and we know to walk hand in hand in unity with each other and a loving god as we understand isn't that beautiful that is what we have and that is what we should get down on our knees tonight and thank god because we have it and ask god if we can keep it and i'm going to close this talk by saying this that each and every one of you look real good on the outside tonight how are you really on the inside thank you and god bless you