“I Am a Failure and It Makes Absolutely No Ripple in My Serenity” – Chuck C.

Experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contribution. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, does does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. My name is John, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. By the grace of God and with the help of a lot of people just like you, and by attempting to practice the principles of this program to the best of my ability one day at a time, I haven't had to have a drink since the 9th of May of 1971, and for this I'm truly grateful. I give my sobriety date because I came to this program in Dallas, and in Texas they say if you don't give your sobriery date, you don' t have one. So I've been giving it ever since. It's really an honor to be here today, and especially an honor to be able to introduce the man that I'm going to introduce to you. When I first came to AA in Dallas a little over four years ago, I met my sponsor, Bill, who most of you know. And he used to take me out to this couple's house, Billy and Ray. And we'd listen to these tapes of Chuck. And for a long time I thought it was just punishment for being in this thing, you know. Because, you now, he'd just say, sit there. But I noticed that he was listening too. and as some of the fog began to lift I was able to hear some of the things he was saying and I remember in one of his tapes he said that he used to live in a fantasy world and he used to dream about saving the Pope in an earthquake and I want to tell you today introducing him I feel like I'm almost saving the Pope in an Earthquake Anyway, there's no way that I can express my gratitude to this man for the help that he's given me over the years. And just knowing him and being with him is an honor, but it's a special honor to present to you today Chuck See from Laguna Beach, California. Thank you, John. I am Chuck C., and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Chuck. Hi. We have a rather rough act to follow up here this morning. The leader of the first half of this meeting, the chairman, was much prettier than John. and the speaker to first have the meeting was much better than me. But I believe that John and I are much smarter than they were. So I'll prove that I'm a liar right now. I'm happy to be here, very happy indeed. because amongst you are some of the people that I love most in the world. Texas, I suspect, I have covered better than any place else but Southern California. And, of course, Oklahoma is just an outlying part of Texas. If you could outlie Texas that would be right, wouldn't it? I would like to know just for my own information and if you don't mind doing it I'd like for the military personnel to stand up so I'll know who you are Thanks a million. You're in, you're not really very safe because we outnumber you about ten to one. We'll take over the military by again. If I were talking really just to the military, I would apologize to start with for having to tell them that if you happen to be an alcoholic, surrender is victory. Isn't that a hell of a thing to tell a bunch of military people? Marines and stuff like that there, there, you know. Surrender is victory. And that's all I can talk about because I'm an alcoholic, which means to me that I can't drink and live, and that I can't, of myself, keep from drinking. That's my dilemma. I can't drink and live, and of myself I can' t keep from drinkin'. So something has to happen. There has to be a change wrought in me in order that I might not have to drink. And that change, as far as I'm able to perceive, is almost totally built on surrender. There's a hard way and an easy way to do this program. The hard way is to try to do it yourself and the easy way is to know that you can't. To know that you can. It is my opinion that there's not enough intellect in the universe to get one alcoholic sober and keep him sober. There is not enough intellect in the universe to get one alcoholic sober and keep him sober. So self-knowledge, knowledge of the program, and knowledge of spiritual things will not do it. Knowledge can't do it! We who are alcoholic are very, very fortunate in that alcoholics sort of love alcoholics. And that's a good thing because an alcoholic who is practicing is not very easy to love. it's pretty tough to love a practicing drunk but we do and that's what makes our program work you just heard read here a minute ago Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share who share their experience, strength and hope one with another other. Caring and sharing is AA. And without that, there'd be no recoveries. We are allowed to get sober by the spirit of Alcoholics Anonymous. We maintain sobriety by the practice Nobody ever got sober on principles, nobody ever got sober on profundities. We get sober by the Spirit. And the spirit of Alcoholics Anonymous is spelled L-O-V-E, love. and they say that God is love and so that's just about the way it is that's the pipeline from God through you to me that's a beautiful thing and it's that compassion that love of one alcoholic for another that makes this thing possible For instance, I used to drink with a very good friend of mine, 45 years, pretty close to 50 years ago. He and I were amongst those that started the first Lions Club in Beverly Hills. California. And he was an automobile painter, and he had his place right there in Beverly Hills, and so we used to drink a little together, but only at noon, because our club meeting was at noon. And we'd have a cocktail or two before the meeting and I used to say to myself sure wish I could drink like old Jack you know because he did it good and he used to say to himself I sure wish I could drank like old Chuck because you see we weren't drinking together at night but when I finally ran out of time 30 years ago and came to the program. Jack had already been here for a year. He'd done drunk up all his paint thinner and was out of business, so he beat me a year, and Jack, when he got sober, became, I guess, one of the finest dressers in Beverly Hills, and Beverly Hills was noted for dressers. We had a lot of movie people out there, An old Jack, he had a wardrobe. It didn't do him that much good because he wasn't as pretty as I am. But he sure was a dresser. And not too long after he had come to the program, gotten sober, he was called on a 12-step call. So he went home and cleaned up, you know, real good and put on his good clothes and sallied for it. And this was a chap who was holed up in a three-bag hotel and Zach went down there in his finery and walked in and the place was just like all rooms. Alcoholics had drunk in for a month or two It was full of empties, had that sticky sweet smell that goes with that kind of life. And the old boy was laying on a cot over against the wall and Jack walks in in his splendor and starts talking to him. The old boy listened a while and then he came up on his elbow and looked at Jack and he He says, why don't you go home? He says you ain't impressing me a bit. And he says besides I don't think you ever had a drink in your life. Jack says well maybe I didn't. But he says I've come a long way and I'm not ready to leave. And noticing a picture on the wall of a donkey with a load of wood on his back and a Mexican leading him off down the road. Old Jack said to this old boy The old boy says, by the way, he says, how long has it been since that mule winked at you? And the old boy put their fellow out of bed. And he says to Jack, how do you know that moule winked me? Jack says, hell, if it had been me, they'd have been in bed with me for three days. the old boy says sit down sit down now that wasn't too profound I don't think was it you didn't have to crack the book and read a while to get that one it was just sharing you see it was identity Identity. That established identity with this drunk. And he knew that Jack was just like he was. And the old boy got sober and stayed sober. You know, that's what we're talking about. Identity, sometimes the simplest little thing on earth is the thing that opens the door. But it isn't profundity. it's caring and sharing. You see, we won't even tell you whether you're an alcoholic or not. I don't know about old Bill. He may tell these people up here you're a damn alcoholic to get him in his program. He's got to have people come in the program with a canny. But we don't we won' t tell anybody. A person comes up to me and says you think I'm an alcoholic? I say, you don't know. I don't know. I'm an alcoholic. That I know, but I don't know who else is. If you say you are, I'll believe you. But I can't tell you whether you're an alcoholic or not. And furthermore, I wouldn't if I could. You see? Because we don't tell. We share. And that's the only reason I'm here. That's the only reason I am here, or to share me with anybody that wants me in love. That's the only reason I ever get up here. I'm not an expert in anything. I'm a doctor, a psychiatrist. I'm no doctor of medicine. I'm just a doctor. I want you to treat me with respect. You get a tongue-chewing, babbling idiot drunk who could, if he wanted to, put doctor before his name. Isn't that something? But it isn't academic, thank God I started to say, because if it was, I wouldn't have it. I'm not a doctor, I'm no a psychiatrist, I am not an expert on alcoholism. I am a drunk who by the grace of God through the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous and being being able to walk with people like you, has not had a drink or a sedating or tranquilizing pill for over 10,800 days. And that's 10, 800 days that I wouldn't have had, had it not been for this program. So I'm so grateful I can't see. You know, a lot of people are born and die without 10,800 days of life. And I've had 10, 800 days of lanyap. I don't know, maybe you're too far north to know what lanyab means. Lanyap is a Louisiana Cajun word that means velvet. it's free it's something for nothing when you pay your grocery bill they'll give you a little bag of hard candies now that's lanyard but I got a little bag that has 10,800 days in of lanyards free and that's good on the 30th of this month I just had my 73rd birthday and many people think that that's awful I think it's absolutely fantastic because the alternative is lousy so I'm very impressed that I'm 73 years old now if I didn't have 29 years and better than 6 months of sobriety, I wouldn't be 73 years old. I'd be dead because again I can't live and drink and I myself can't keep from drinking. Now that's the reason that it's so necessary for us to come to see that we need help. Now just for fun let me run through a few of my friends who are alcoholic. My immediate circle. My barber's an alcoholic. You might have thought so when you saw me walk in. He's an alcoholic. I put him top of the list because he's the most intelligent of the bunch that I'm We keep those barbers pretty well informed. Us alcoholics, you know. so they're pretty smart barbers are so I put him first my barber's an alcoholic my dentist is an alcoholic both of whom are practicing members of Alcoholics Anonymous my doctor is alcoholic member of Alcoholic Anonymous my wife's doctor is an alcoholic member of alcoholics anonymous My attorney is an alcoholic, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And my banker until two years ago was an alcoholic and a member of Alcoholic Anonymous, and he was an internationally known banker. I have a very good friend, many of you know his wife, who is known as a world scholar. Where's the Phi Beta Kappa key? He has a few doctorates himself. And he's a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know. So alcoholism is not a respecter of persons. Alcoholism cuts right across the whole fabric of society. Some of the best ministers and priests that I know are alcoholics, members of Alcoholics Anonymous. So anybody might be an alcoholic, but he's not going to be an alcoholic unless he is. Now you figure that out for yourself. If alcohol alone caused alcoholics, every excessive drinker would be an alcoholic. But that isn't the case. Many, many, many good old Saturday night drunks are not alcoholics at all. And many of them do things I never did do. I've drunk with men who would get just as drunk as I did, come home and clean house. The furniture would go out the window and the kids and the wife on top of it. I never did that in my life. I'd never even hit my wife in my life, either under the influence or not under the influence. It was the other way around in my family. her arms were blue why I didn't haul off and you know I don't know she certainly deserved it but this old boy will get up in the morning and shake his head and say uh oh got drunk last night didn't I and he goes on about his business he never gets any better and he never gets any worse now if alcohol alone caused this illness that we have he certainly would be an alcoholic but he isn't it takes something else it takes alcohol plus a certain combination of characteristics with which we come into this world I am convinced that only a few things can happen to us from the day we're born into this so-called civilization if we be alcoholics. We're either going to be priests or preachers or nuns or hopheads or alcoholics and that's from the Day We're Born because we have a combination of characteristics that will not allow us to integrate ourselves into the society around us. We can't do it. We are rebels from our date of birth, not by choice. People think we're rebels by choice, we're not. There isn't a person on the face of the earth that would so much like to be a part of life as an alcoholic. We want so much to be apart of, and we walk alone, apart from, not again by choice. but because we have to now I've been able to live with people like you for almost 30 years and I'm totally convinced from the top of my longest hair to my toenails that every human being on the face of the earth is God's child I believe that with everything in me the first two words of the Lord's prayer says our Father and you'll remember that when that was said first time that we have any record of they said Master teach us to pray and the man says after this manner pray ye our Father his father, your father and mine. Now if that be true it's absolutely beyond our imagination and I'm totally convinced that it's true. Every one of us are God's kids whether we believe it or not, whether we like it or or not. Even if we deny it, we can't change it. We're God's kids. And as such, every one of us has the characteristics that I'm going to mention. But only the alcoholic gets them in the combination that we do. For instance, I have met alcoholics practically all over this world. I might have met as many of them as anybody, I don't know, but I've met them by that tens of thousands all over the world. And I never met an alcoholic regardless of race, creed or color, regardless of education or the lack of it. Which side of the tracks were borne up to the contrary makes no no difference. I have never met an alcoholic that wasn't a perfectionist, an idealist with that terrific drive for excellence that provided this cliché that we've heard all our lives. This is the best soldier we ever had in a regiment, but But, best mechanic we ever had in the shop. But, best doctor that ever hit this part of the country. I was going to say judge, but I can't do that. We heard about a judge a while ago. He's got enough publicity in this field. best doctor that ever hit this part of the country but best stenographer we ever had in the office but she can't make it down there until about other Tuesday or Wednesday terrific drive for excellence now perfectionism is a beautiful thing when we learn to live with it but until we do it's a killer it'll kill us because it makes us demand more of ourselves than we can put out and we are forever disappointed in our own performance and it makes us demand more of the people around us than they can put out and that makes it necessary for us to make them over over. You Al-Anons never noticed that, did you? I spent 30 years trying to make the world over so it would be a fit place for me to live in. And I got news for you, it ain't ready. Don't waste your time. It further makes it impossible for us to integrate ourselves into the society around us because we don't like it. It's not up to our pattern. We don't like it. It's one of the biggest problems I had. I have been a rebel since I can remember, and not by choice. Secondly, every one of us come here with the interior awareness that life is a good, a big, and a beautiful thing. I knew when I was six years old that life should be like it is now. But I looked at it and it was dirty, and it was cheap, and ugly, and I didn't like it. People lied to each other. People stepped on each other's necks to get ahead. It just didn't fit with the the picture I had of life, and so I couldn't integrate myself in it. As I said, I haven't had a drink for almost thirty years, and every time I think of the little scene in The Days of Wine and Roses where this gal had come back to the apartment of her ex-husband, trying to talk him into rejoining her in the drinking life. And he's trying to coax her to join him in AA. And she's standing there looking out the window, and he's talking to her, begging her to join him. And she finally says, I can't, I don't know, I'm not going to do it. I can' t, I ca' n't. She says, When I look out of this window sober, it's cheap and it's dirty and it is ugly. And when I look drunk, it is beautiful. That just tears the heart out of me, and I haven't had a drink for thirty years. For twenty-five years of my life, the only way I could stand what I looked at was to to be half in the bag. And it wasn't the way I wanted it to be. I wanted to belong, and I couldn't. And the next thing, and I don't want you to tell anybody, and I hope there are no psychiatrists in the crowd, because the next thing I'm going to say is the most most incongruous thing that you'll ever hear coming out of the mouth of a tongue-chewing, babbling, idiot drunkard. We are a highly sensitive people. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. When there we lay in the gutter and the pig got up and slowly walked away. Now the world around us thinks we belong there or think we like it there. They don't know that we hate that gutter worse than anybody that ever lived. Because we know that gutters. Whoever that is, tell them to shut up. And time them because I don't want this against my time. We're a highly sensitive people. This is the reason that the psychiatrists of the world label us as emotionally immature. It sort of curls my hair when people are talking about emotional immaturity, emotional immaturity. I don't think it's emotional imm maturity. For instance, I've got a beautiful window to look out at now. I looked down on the town of Laguna Beach and out over the ocean, the islands, and clear to China. It's a beautiful spot. Now, if I were lying there on my living room floor so drunk I couldn't even raise my head, cried my eyes out over a beautiful sunset, a psychiatrist would walk in and he'd say emotional immaturity. pretty. He don't know it's so damn pretty he can't stand it. He doesn't know that, you see, because that's not the way with him. A couple of years ago I was sitting on the knobs above the Ohio River right out of Durville and it was in October and the leaves had all chains. And I was all by myself, and I sat there for an hour just blubbering like a damn baby. All alone. I don't think it's emotional immaturity. It's so beautiful. It hurts, you know. Now, I've talked to more people than this in Folsom prison. And you can't get in Folson prison for murder if it's the first time. You've got to be an habitual criminal To get fulsome You've gotta be a four-time loser Those monkeys up there tell me that the Swallows that build in those walls up there Used to build in Capistrana But they're four-times losers losers. So now they build up there in the wall. And I stood up there talking to those guys who are supposed to be hardened criminals, and watched them boil right along with me and the tears bouncing off their bellies, and no one of them trying to conceal it. And it wasn't because they were emotionally immature. It was because they felt right here exactly like I do. They felt inside just like I did and they cried and they weren't ashamed and it wasn't because they were emotionally immature. This is one of our biggest problems. Long before you ever had a drink, if you'd be alcoholic, you started building walls to keep things from hurting you and people from hurting it. to keep from getting hurt anymore. I checked off places and things and jobs and country clubs and everything that you can think of. I chipped off going down this drinking path because they hurt me. They hurt me I chipped off everything as time went on but my wife and my kids and I loved my wife and my kid but I couldn't tell them anymore because you see I told them before and I was still crucified and I didn't want to chip them off I wanted to keep them you know something they chipped me off and finally I was all alone with nobody but me now that's the plight of an alcoholic now just for fun I used to lie there in a bed just that far from my wife's and I would wait until she was asleep and I knew by her breathing that she was asleep and then I'd cry me up a river because I was crucified and I knew it and the kids I was crucifying and I know it but I couldn't do anything about it I wanted to take her in my arms and say honey I love you I'll never do this again but I'd already done it a hundred times and I couldn' t do it anymore more. And there is nothing left but to cry up a river, which I did on many occasions. You see, alcoholism is a living problem. And you and I have to have a living answer. A living answer! For instance, why am I not drunk right now? Now, it's Sunday, you know, and I'm quite a ways from home. Miss C isn't with me. And I'm sure there's nobody in this audience that'd tell on me. Oh, Bill, he'd get it on tape and send it all over the world. Why am I not drunk right now? There's only one reason, just one. There are not two. There is just one reason that I'm not drunk, right now. And that is because there is nothing There is nothing in a bottle, or in a needle, or a pill, or any funny cigarette, or an acid that can do anything to me but tear me down. There is NOTHING that can add to my state of being in the way of chemicals. The only thing they can do is tear me up. up. Because you see, I've got the thing I was looking for in the bottle. I've got it. Now what's the thing? I don't hurt in here anymore. That king-size hurt is gone. I'm not fighting me or you or life or God or the devil. I am at peace with me and with you and with my very own God. And that's the only reason I'm I'm not drunk. That's the only reason. Because when an alcoholic gets to feeling a certain way right here, he wakes up drunk. I've heard many people who have been sober a while, and we have to watch many people who have benched over quite a long time who forget and are drunk again. I've heard many people say, but you've got to think to drink if you've been sober a while. You've simply got to think to drinking. You don't have to do anything of the kind. All you have to do is to quit doing the things that keep you comfortable right here. That's all you have to do. Just quit doing the things that keep me comfortable. And you'll wake up drunk Because, you see, we have to be comfortable. And we couldn't get comfortable up until now, up until AA. We are a peculiar breed of cats. We can't hear till we can hear and we can't see till we can see. we have another peculiarity that pretty nearly we have almost a monopoly on and that is we have very little respect for authority you tell us don't do this and we say why they flip open the book and they say it says right here and we said who wrote it so we can't hear and we can hear and we can't see that we can see and how long it takes it takes and what it takes it takes this for instance on my next last drunk I traveled some 6,000 miles in blackout in my own car and I was driving. Now that's not recommended for longevity. But I was lucky. I came through here pretty close, you know, because I drove from Beverly Hills to Louisville, Kentucky to North Michigan and back to the coast. And I don't remember 5% of it. And the 5% is pretty juicy and if I had time I'd tell you but I'll get it the next time. I finally got home and I went to bed to finish my drunk. I finished all my drunks in the last 10 years in bed drinking the clock around. out. And I never quit drinking until I could no longer move, when I couldn't even roll out of bed to see if I had a bottle under to go look and see where it hid was. And incidentally, just for the fun of it, there is nothing on the face of the earth that's so frustrating to a keen alcoholic mind than to know he's got a bottle in the house and can't find it. And he's the guy that hid it. That's the most frustrating thing on the face of the earth. So anyway, the time came when I had to quit drinking and I did. And maybe 24 hours after the last drink I was able to go to the kitchen for a glass of buttermilk, which I did. And Dick and Mrs. C were sitting in the living room. They heard me let out a beller and heard me hit the floor. And they came trotting out to the kitchen to see what they could do to keep me from swallowing my tongue because they figured I was in an alcoholic convulsion, which was my want. But I wasn't. I'd done run out of convulsions. And I was lying there on the kitchen floor just as peaceful as anybody you ever saw. I wasn' t doing nothing. They say that I was a peculiar color. I was blue. And they couldn' t wake me up. So they got exercised and called the oxygen squad at the Beverly Hills Receiving Hospital and told them to get down there and wake me up. And I have reason to believe that they did. But after I came to, I remember what happened. There was a young doctor with him, and he told me that to all intents and purposes I had been dead, that they'd had a hell of a time waking me up, that nobody would ever wake me again under those circumstances. And he looked me right in the eye and he said, He said, if I were you, I wouldn't do that anymore. Now for you who are brand new in this program, I'm going to repeat that beautiful counsel. If I were your, I would not do that any more. I did it again, but that's a different thing. Probably another 24 hours had gone by, and I was able to get the old dirty bathrobe on and start walking up and down the living room floor. You see, in my day, there weren't any drying-out houses. I think there were two things, Keely Cure and Good Samaritan, that they talked about a good deal, that the fellow I told you about, you know, Jack. They threw him out of the Good Samaritan because they said they were ruining his business. He was a repeater. So, the only way I knew to sober up was to die until I could get well. And I did. It made me walkie. and here I am walking up and down the living room floor sweating, freezing shaking, dying and walking and Mrs. C is standing over the fireplace and I'm walking away from her and she says Chuck don't you think you might get a little help if you'd read the book Alcoholics Anonymous and she might as well have hit me with a ball bat I turned on her like a lion and I said you my very own wife suggesting that that I read a book written by a bunch of drunks. I who have read all the good books for the good office, and you want me why, says you wound me deeply. And I'd just been dead 48 hours before. And she wounded me deeply and I polished her off completely by saying, and besides, I can write a better book than that myself. Now, the point to this story is this. That was just ninety days before I came crawling into this fellowship of ours, just ninety days. I had been drinking twenty-five years. I had spent ten years in hell by this time, the last ten of a twenty- five year drinking career. And she wounded me deeply by even suggesting that I read the book Alcoholics Enough. We can't hear until we can hear, and we can't see until we see, and it don't make a bit of difference who's talking. And those of us who are working with alcoholics must remember this forever, otherwise they'll kill us. Because we can go and spoon feed somebody back to health and talk to them and love them and listen to them and they listen to us and they cry with us and we think that well this one will never have to drink again. And we get home and the phone's ringing and it's the guy's wife and she says There's a son of a bitch who's gone again before we even get home. And we've got to remember that we can't hear till we can hear, and we can see till we can see. And this is the reason that the military regulations now won't let them discharge a man for for alcoholism, until they've given him a chance at rehabilitation. But if he won't do it, they can discharge him and do because they have to. You see, we can't hear till we can hear and we can see till we see. Now my last trip out, the bottle killed me, thank God. I can tell you without fear of successful contradiction that the greatest single event that has ever happened to me in seventy-three years of life was when the bottle killed me in January 1946. It beat me into total and absolute nothingness. And in that process, it surrendered me simply by burning up the human ego. It was burned out, totally burned out. The best I can figure of that one, it was four weeks of total blackout. I don't remember the time. I got drunk on the Friday before Christmas, 1945, and came to after the middle of January, 1946. And I don't remember that it had been. Now, if Mrs. C was telling you this story, and Al-Anon do not lie much, much. She'd tell you that when I went to bed to drink, I destroyed seven quarts of whiskey every three days. That sounds like a lot to me, but I don't know. I wasn't there. She was. So I suppose she's right. And I don' t think seven quarks is too much for three days. If you only do it for three days. But if you do it for four weeks, boy, you've destroyed a lot of whiskey as you've been destroyed. So that's what happened to me. Burned me up. And I came to sometime after the middle of January 1946 with the clearest head I've ever known in my entire lifetime. I had a period of sanity, like which I've never had before said. And I saw me with nothing between me and need, and I didn't look at a very pretty sight. I knew however without knowing why because I knew nothing of the disease of alcoholism. I had made it my business not to know, but I knew that I'd lost the battle of life. And that was the first time in 43 years of life that I had ever admitted defeat. I had never one time admitted defeat in 43 years. But that morning I knew that I lost the Battle of Life. I knew why my wife, after 20 years, was devoting me. And I knew she should have done it 10 years before. I knew why our kids wouldn't come home when I was around. I know why the same boss that had, on the Friday before Christmas 1945, given me $3,000 as a Christmas present to take the pressure off of me so I wouldn't have to have so much trouble the next year. And he just took the pressure off of him. I got drunk on the way home. And I didn't show up until towards the end of January and he'd missed me. And he said word to the house that if I ever stepped foot in a plant again and he was going to throw me through the window. And I knew why. So I accepted myself that morning as I was. A total failure in every department of life. I also accepted death because this was worse than the next or the last time out, and I'd come that close to dying the next to the last times out. So I knew I was going to die and didn't care. But I didn't want to die with the record. I didn'T want the little tassel of people that I had loved up until the last to remember me as nothing but a tongue-chewing, babbling idiot drunk. So I must be sober till I died in order to rub out as much of the record as I could before that event. then. And I remembered that morning that I'd read Jack Alexander's article in the Post in 1941. I was four sheets of the wind when I read it. Mr. Seed found it and read it and put it on my chair, the same one I sit in right now. Opened at the right page, and I sat down and read it. And I remember two things about it, that drunks help drunks and didn't drink. and that they called it Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said to myself, if I ever live to get out of this bed, I'll find AlcoholicsAnonymous. And immediately the curtain dropped. I was again sickened to death, drunk and insane. And I had a hell of a lot of dying to do. But from the second of commitment until right now, Now, I have never had a drink or a sedating or tranquilizing pill. This is why I holler so much about surrender. Now quickly, if I'd have had to surrender the first time consciously, I'd ha' died without coming here. So I can take absolutely no credit for it. As long as I had the power of choice, my choice was never to come here. And I didn't. so I had to lose it all including the power of choice to come and that happened in January 1946 now that first surrender lasted three and a half years and again I didn't do it the bottle did I had three and half of the most fabulous years you can imagine I lived for three and a half years in total non-expectancy. I asked nothing from nobody, no time. I never even had a sponsor. In the first place, I didn't know what a sponsor was. And when I found out, I knew that I wasn't entitled to take up anybody's time. I didn't even ask questions I became an eavesdropper I was in a meeting every night of the week for six months with a great fear upon me that I couldn't have this thing didn't have enough physically or mentally to get it but I was there every night and I'd go in after I got so I could hold a cup of coffee without spilling it all over me. And I'd get me a cup of coffee and I'd pick out somebody that seemed to be talking pretty good AA and I sidled up to them backwards, you know get my ear into the conversation and if they caught me and said something I'd take off and sidle up to somebody else and if they caught мне and included me in It just pulverized me. I couldn't believe it, and I'd go out under the pepper trees and bawl like a damn baby. I couldn' t believe that people cared that much. So I became probably one of the best eavesdroppers in the world. And after six months of a meeting every night, I discovered that I was sober and had been been for six months, not a drink or a pill. And that was the first discovery in this infinite series of discoveries that is Alcoholics Anonymous. When I discovered that I hadn't had a drink or a pillow for six weeks, I immediately lost myself trying to give it back to drunks because they are the ones who gave it to me. And I just got lost doing it. And another six months went by, and I discovered that something had happened in the household. Seemed like the war was over. They quit chasing me with a blue paper. And the household was living like a bunch of kittens. and that was a pretty good discovery that was the second one the third one might have been a year later I discovered that I was still trying to clean up my desk because I'd gone down to that office before I found you because I knew where the office was and I didn't know where you were you see my keen alcoholic mind told me that you wouldn't be in the phone book. You were anonymous, weren't you? They don't anonymous in the phone book so knowing so much I never even looked so I had to call people and ask them if they knew anybody that knew anybody and so I was at the office before I got here and that boss man came in to throw me through the window But he didn't. He recognized that something had happened to me. And he said to me, what the hell's happened to you, Charlie? And I says, don't know. But he knew something had happen to me and so he didn' t throw me through the window. And a couple of years later, I discovered I was still trying to clean up my desk. And business was good. And that was a good discovery. Another year went by, and I discovered that my state of being was better than anything I had ever known. And life was good! And that was a beautiful discovery. And maybe another year is gone, maybe it's five years now, maybe six, I don't know. No, I made the great discovery that I was never alone anymore. That I had a God of my very own and wherever I am, he is. Now this is the great recovery. When we make this discovery, the search is over and life begins. This is just the beginning of life. When we discover who and what we are and our relationship to each other and to God. This is the beginning of life. And it's fantastic. It's absolutely fantastic. And the discoveries have continued up until now. And I'll just tell you a couple of those and I'll have to quit before I'm ready. I'm never ready to quit talking. And it isn't because I think I'm God's gift to alcoholics and Al-Anon. I used to think so, but not now. But it's because if you've been around here for well nigh 30 years, there's so much to say that you can't say it. I could stand here till Christmas and still be talking about what I've experienced living with people like you. Now, a long time has passed and on the 29th day of June, Mrs. C., the lady that was divorced from me 30 years ago, and myself celebrated a 50th wedding anniversary. Our proper date was the 24th, but Sunday following that was the 29th. And some friends of ours threw a bit of a bash for us. And our kids were there. And our grandchildren were there. And maybe 2,500 or 3,000 other people were there from all over the country. All over Canada. New Zealand. Name it. People from every place. And we got calls and telegrams from far and wide. England, Ireland. Australia. Canada. It's absolutely impossible, it's absolutely impossible. But there they were. Now my, our youngest son was working in England, he's making a picture now called, it is a musical version of Cinderella and he's going to sing and dance and stuff like that there in that thing, and it'll be interesting to see what he does with it. And he flew from England to us, spent five hours with us, and then flew back to England. Eight years ago he wouldn't have come if he'd been in town because, you see, it took me all that time to realize that I was sharing with everybody else in life and telling Dick. And every time we got together, we put another row of bricks in the wall. And eight years ago, I went to England to get acquainted with my own son. son. And I confessed my ignorance and asked his forgiveness, and the dam went out. And here the monkey flies twenty-five hours to spend five hours with us. It can't happen, but it did and one of your favorites and mine Jack B he's very anonymous he was the head man in Queen for a Day for many years they had little microphones set up and old Jack was the master of ceremony and people got up people that you know, old Willard from North Carolina. And he had with him Uncle Dick. That beautiful man, Uncle Dick and they were telling what they thought of us you know and Canadians and people from the business world people that know me in bad times and good in the business world. We're down there talking about us. Now this can't happen to a drunken bum. But it did. So you see, the miracles never cease. They never cease." Now what is the answer? I said we had to have a living answer to a living problem. Insofar as I am able to perceive, there is only one answer to this thing called life. I thought for quite a little while after I had sobered up that really it was just for us, just for us drunks, that we had suffered enough to deserve it. But the damn Al-Anons, they couldn't have it, you know. The earth people, they couldn'T have it. So I had to live a while and learn that we're all God's kids. And for God's children, they're just one answer. Whether you're an alcoholic or not, don't make any difference. It's a personally acceptable conscious partnership with the living God that made us in the entire business of living. That's the only answer there is, a personally accessible conscious partnership of God. My own God, your own God. The words, as we understood him in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, refer to the necessity of individual experience, not to understanding God. Thank God. If an understanding of the infinite had been a condition for sobriety, I'd have died 30 years ago. But thank God it isn't. That refers to the necessary of individual experiences. I have to find my God, and you find yours. Now, in my opinion, the finest formula under heaven for people like us, I don't know about other people, but for alcoholics, the finest formulary that's ever been conceived in the mind of man through the grace of God for self-discovery is the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And my message, if I had one this morning, is just this. If we do these things with no conditions on them at all, just that we might stay sober one day at a time to go about our father's business, which is carrying the message of the alcoholic and practicing these principles in all of their affairs. If we do these things with no condition to talk, something has to happen to us. And that something is self-discovery. And it's an inside job. The whole business is an inside Job. I don't think there's anything added at all. I think it's uncovered and discovered because the thing that we've been looking for all our lives is implied in the first two words of the Lord's Prayer, our Father. I am convinced that everybody in this room and everybody out of this room, as I said said a while ago, are God's children. And I am convinced that the gift of God was made at the foundations of the earth. I don't think he has anything to give us. Not because he hasn't got anything, but because he already did. and I'm convinced clear through that the great cosmic joke is that he hid himself in the last place we ever looked and that's right here. I spent 30 years trying to find him in all the great religions and philosophies of the world 30 years trying to find and I didn't I learned a lot about but I didn' t learn anything because you see I had it located some place else and I came to this program with all the related disorders that you can have for instance my wife was divorced me after 20 years. I'd given her 20 of the best years of my life, and she was divorcing me without cause. My kids wouldn't even come home when I was around. Now, I think those are related disorders. My boss said if I ever stepped foot in a plant again, he was going and throw me through the window and the windows don't open. It's a plate glass affair. I think that's a related disorder. I had no health, no sanity, no money, no job and no home. Now I think those are related disorders. But I never spent five seconds on any one of them. And I want to tell you this and I'll quit. Now, when I could talk after that little experience, I called my wife in and I says, Honey, it's no longer of any consequence to me whether or not I live under this roof. It is of absolutely no importance to me at all. I'll never ask a thing of you as long as the two of us live but one. If I can ever add anything to your life, let me give it to you. And we closed the book. and it's never been reopened. I called the boys in and I said, Boys, there's no father in the household any longer. You don't need to respect me. You don' t need to love me. You don''t need to obey me. I'll never ask a thing of you as long as we live but one. If I ever have anything, be it money, counsel or blood, it will add to your life. Let me give it to you. And we closed the book and it has never been re-opened. I went down to the office and the old boy came in and threw me through the window. And I couldn't have defended myself with a shotgun because I wasn't shaking. I had the leaks. No way could I have defended myself. And all I could do is say, Victor, leave me alone. I don't work for you anymore. I'm down here to clean up this desk. I'm here to do the things you paid me for last year that didn't do. And as soon as I get even with you, I'll get out of here on my own power. You'll never owe me a penny as long as you live, but for God's sake, leave me alone. I've got to get even within you. And he stopped his tracks. And that's when he said to me, what the hell's happened to you, Charlie? And I said, don't know. And I didn't. But he didn't throw me through the window. now that's the way I started this thing my life for 29 years and a little over 6 months has been nothing but one 12 step call that's all it's been in business, in play in home, in AA in church, in life. It's been nothing but one 12-step call. Just trying to help people do things they needed to have done because of wanted to. Now that's the only way I knew to rub out a record. To try to do something for people that I'd injured. And that's what I did in business. Now let me just tell you this for fun because it's not too well known or accepted. I hated my business. On the Thursday before Christmas, 1945, I hated the whole setup. I hated me boss. It was obvious to me that I had more brains than anybody else in the organization, including him. and he had all the money. And this was a very unfair situation. So I hated everybody who worked with him, because they were dummies, you know. In the first place, the business was beneath my dignity. A man with my ability should at least have been a senator, if not president. so I was in the wrong place I hated the whole setup I went down there the last of January 1946 which was less than a month just about a month later and I started trying to rub out a record and in 11 years I bought the business they were throwing me out of and four years ago or so so I sold it. And that bunch of monkeys that worked for me, and had worked with me for years, for years. Forty years, some of them. Guys with an eighth of an inch of skin on the inside of their heads. They were mechanics. They were machine men. They were cabinet makers. They were metal men. They were painters. Installation men. Rough. And I sold a business and every one of them bawled like a baby. So did I. Because, you see, I'd learned to love that business and the people in it. And it was just because the motivation had changed from getting to adding to. Now this is my message. If you didn't do anything else but get this, it's worth a lifetime for those of you who haven't done it. To quit trying to get and start trying to add. Not as a do-gooder, but just because you want to. Add to life. And that's all I did in business. Now, 30 years I was in that business prior to my death in January 1946. And I ended up in the bottom of the snake pit doing the best I could according to the rules that I'd been taught. And in the next 25 years in the same business trying to rub out a record I got rich and I wasn't even thinking about it. Never even occurred to me now don't get me wrong I didn't get rich like General Motors I got rich like a Kentucky hillbilly if I don't live too long I'll never get hungry that's what I'm talking about and that's good enough for me now that's the same business and I loved it and I gave it my entire interest, attention and love because I wanted to starting out I had to but then it was just because I want it to my home I never spent five seconds trying to make that thing happen either. Not five seconds, and it turned over. My health. I fell on my face for three and one-half years after my last drink. If I was walking down the street with you and this thing hit me, I'd have to grab you around the neck, lean up against a building or grab a telephone pole or fall flat on my feet. And I never even went to a doctor. I thought it was par for the course. I thought anybody that had treated themselves like I did fell on their face. And I just fell on my face until I could walk. And I don't fall on my faith anymore. I've done that for a long time. And there's another thing that makes me rather grateful. I haven't been in jail for 30 years. Now, this thing to me was almost impossible for me to fathom because I never got to the place that was comfortable in jail. I don't like it in jail, and my family thought I loved it because I spent so much time there. Well, I've been in jail for 30 years, and that's good. Now, I was a guy that never ate. I never ate when I drank. I'd go for long periods without a solid meal in my body. And you're looking at a guy that spent two weeks trying to get to a chili joint at the exact second when I could swallow. And it had to be a dead heat. If you got there half a block too soon, you kept going. and if you overshot you came back tomorrow you had to be there at the exact second when you could swallow and now I can smell eat, taste and enjoy food ain't nothing wrong with that it's good living what about sleeping ah people say you get tired of sleeping you go to sleep I know people that didn't just lay on the floor and go to bed they go to see got a couple of them are with me here they had to because I had to bed to be able to lie down and go to sleep boy this is absolutely beautiful what people say all you have to do is go to bed and go sleep well what about going to bed and getting up and gettingup and going tobed and goingtobed andgettingup andgettenup andgoingtobed dead. And never going to sleep. And you're coming unglued at every joint. You're dying and you yell out, God please, let me sleep for 30 minutes, just 30 minutes. And no sleep. What's wrong with laying down and going to bed? I think that's the good life. And I rather others suspect it's spiritual. Maybe some of you think it's physical. I don't. I think it's spiritual. And what about people? I came here fresh out of people. I didn't have any people. I had me and I hated my guts. And now I got the biggest family ever saw. You're mine whether you like it or not. And I'm yours whether you you like it or not. And I got people all over the world just like me. People whom I love and who love me and who share with me and I share with them. Now what's wrong with that? People are the difference between an empty and a full life. And this becomes especially beautiful when you come to see that God is people. That is people and so this is a most rewarding living experience don't be afraid of it it's bigger than all outdoors don't settle short don't saddle short this is as big as God just as big as God and I have lately been playing with a little thing that tickled me to death and it's so So simple, and I've known it forever, but it's really become a thing with me. It's a fetish right now because it's so simple. It says God is love, and he who abideth in love abidETH in God, and God abidTH in him. what a deal God bless you thank you very much