The 11,700 Days He Lived One Day at a Time – Chuck C.

Thank you very much. I am Chuck C., and I'm an alcoholic. Hi. So jewel how much I love her, I'm going to give this back to her. I told her last night there wasn't any possibility of me lousing this thing up because we've already, after last night's meeting, had had a perfectly beautiful 27th Kentucky State Conference. M started us out and Winnie and Mary and John the Indian. And there's no way that anybody needs to add or subtract from that. That was beautiful, and I think we ought to give them all a real good hand. Because of people like you, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the God of my very own, I haven't had to have a drink of liquor or sedating a tranquilizing pill for something over 11,700 days. one day at a time. Now, lest you all get caught up in arithmetic and miss my profound message, that's a little over 32 years. And that's 32 years that I would not have had had it not been for y'all and the program and our own God. And I'm so grateful I can't speak. I think the reason I've been so slap-happy over the years in this program is because I can take any credit for it. I can tell you that I can never take any credit for coming to my first meeting. As long as I had the power of choice, my choice was never to come here. And I never came until I ran out of not only the power of choice but everything else. So I can't take any credit for living long enough to come or for coming. And I am so grateful I can see. everything in Alcoholics Anonymous has been good as far as I'm concerned because when I got here I knew that I could not successfully drink liquor and I knew that I was that I would not successfully keep from drinking liquor And I came to y'all To find out how to live today Just today Without having to drink So that I could rub out A little of the record That I'd established Before I kicked off That's all I wanted I just wanted a little time to rub out as much of the record as I could. Many of you people in this room, men and women, I guess, have lived with people like me. And you have known that we didn't love you. I suspect that my wife told me 500 times, Chuck, if you loved us, you wouldn't do these things. And how in the hell could I tell her it was because I loved her that I did him? Now, you can't do that. You can't explain that. But some of the worst drunks there was ever on in my life was during a dry spell, because I was a periodic the last ten years, and in the middle of a totally dry period, it, not sober but dry. I would look at what I was doing to my family. And I loved them. I always loved them and I knew I was crucifying them. And there was nothing I could do about and I'd get to hurting so bad right here that I'd have to go get a bottle and crucify them all over again. In the last ten years, my bed was only that far from hers and it might as well have been in Siberia and during a dry spell many times Sometimes, I've lain there and listened until I knew by her breathing that she was asleep. And then I'd cry me up a river. It's all I could do. Fill that pillow full of tears. Because I wanted to take her in my arms and say, honey, honey, I love you. I'll never do this again. But I couldn't. I'd already done it a hundred times, you see. So all I could do was cry me up a river. I never got to the point that I didn't love my wife and my kids. and the morning that I came to in January 1946 I loved them I guess the greatest single event that has ever happened in my 75 years of life I don't like your damn reaction to that you know very well I don' t look like I was 75 years old the greatest single event that has ever happened in my 75 years was when the bottle killed me in January 1946. My last trip out had beaten me to death. And when I came through that morning, I knew that I'd lost a battle of life. I didn't know why because this was prior to 32 years ago and I knew nothing about alcoholism. but I knew that I'd lost the battle of life and I accepted it and it was the first time in 43 years that I had ever admitted defeat in my entire lifetime don't think that I'm saying that I won all my battles because I didn't I got the hell beat out of me many times better was by accident that so and so hit me first but I'd get him next time sometimes I did and sometimes I got God again but nobody ever made me admit that I was whipped until January the middle 1946 and I knew it and as I said I didn't know why And I accepted it. I accepted the fact that everything dear to me in life was gone and should be gone, and that I was not entitled to have it back. My wife, after 20 years, was divorcing me. I might say quickly without cause and our children wouldn't even come home when I was around if they could help it and my boss man would send word to the house that if I ever step foot in the plant again he's going to throw me through the window and the window to which he referred does not open so I accepted that all of it everything dear to me in life is gone and should be gone and that I wasn't entitled to have it back and it suddenly became very necessary for me to be sober to die simply because I didn't want my wife and the kids and the few people that had loved me so much to remember me as nothing but a tongue-chewing, babbling idiot drunk. And in the depth of despair, I remembered that Mrs. C had found Jack Alexander's article in the Post in March 1941. And she had read it. And she had decided that this sounded like it might be good for me. And she put the post open at the right page on the left arm of the chair I sit in right now. And when I came in, I read it. And that morning I remembered that I had read it, but I only remember two things about it because I was four seats in the wind when I read it I remembered that drunks helped drunks and didn't drink and they called it Alcoholics Anonymous and I said to myself if I ever live to get out of this bed I'll find AlcoholicsAnonymous and immediately the curtain dropped and my little period of sanity was over and I was sickened to death drunk and insane but from the very second of commitment until right now I have never had a drink of alcoholic beverage of any kind or a sedating or tranquilizing pill of any type such is the great significance of this thing called surrender surrender surrender is victory for us and that's why we have such a hell of a job because alcoholics are not people who are used to surrendering on every other street corner we're not surrendering kind there's ever a bunch of people that had little or no respect for authority it's us they tell us do this and we say who said so they whip out the book and they read it to us and when they get to reading we say who wrote it I call us the almost people almost was I president of the United States almost but I got just a little bit alcoholic a holly. And that's all, brother. So this is the big reason that we can't we have a lot of trouble coming to this program and getting it. Now my ten years prior to coming to the program would compare favorably to many who had their first ten years in the program. Because my fight was over before I got here. I had done lost, and I knew it. Ten years before I came to the program, I had a little session with me I think it was just about the same time that Ebi was having his first session with Bill I had had a cold for everything in life including drinking and my first 15 years of drinking I had rather stayed pretty close to the cold But after 15 years, I wasn't. And I didn't like the way I was drinking. So I had a session with me. And I decided this was a personal weakness, something I had to overcome to get rid of. Now, alcoholics don't like personal weakness in anybody, and much more so in ourselves. So I figured the only way to get rid of this was to beat it at its own game. And I started working on my problem ten years before I got here. And I worked very diligently and very hard. The harder I worked, the worse it got. And the worse I got, the harder I work. and the farther backwards I went the greater was the obsession to win and I was saying to me at least five years after everybody quit listening to me I'll beat this thing if it's the last thing I ever do and it came that close to being the last thing I never did so I had my bad time in the ten years before I got here I'm going to tell you a little about my first meeting and then try to talk about something else for a little while you see when at the same time when I got well enough to look for you I didn't know where to find you my keen alcoholic mind told me that you would not be in the phone book you were anonymous weren't you well they don't anonymous in the phone book so knowing you weren't there I never looked and that's the story of my life I knew so damn much that wasn't true I didn't learn anything that was So I had to call people and ask them if they knew anybody that knew anybody in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I finally found a number from a doctor in Beverly Hills. We live in Beverly. And I called this guy, the emotion picture man. We talked a little while, and he said, have you had a drink today? And I said, no. But he said, don't take one. He says, I'm working nights right now and I can't take you to meetings. But call me again tomorrow. Maybe I can take you tomorrow night. So I called him tomorrow and we talked a little while and he said if you had a drink today. And I says, no, but he said don't take one, I am still working. Call me tomorrow. tomorrow. So I called him tomorrow and we started again, and I said, I know, you're still working. And he says, yeah. I says, you don't need to take me to a meeting. Where is there a meeting I can go to? And he told me. And I went. By myself alone. Now that That monkey might have been my sponsor, but he was worse at night. So he missed. Now, at my first meeting, I met a guy. His name was Rusty Thomas, God rest his soul. He died sober, so he made the program. Rusty had more freckles than any three people I ever saw in my life he had freckled on freckle you know it was sort of piled up that's the reason they called him Rusty there were red ones and blue ones and green ones so I met Rusty and he invited me to come to his house he lived over the mountain on Riverside Drive in the valley and go with him the next night to his meeting. And I told him I would. And I went over the hill and I found his house but he had forgotten that I was coming and he'd already gone to the meeting so I had to find it by myself alone. Now Rusty might have been my sponsor but he forgot and as a result of those two omissions I've never had a sponsor oh lord Well, now that it's about time for me to go to the first meeting I got worried It occurred to me that maybe I shouldn't be seeing people like you Now this becomes funnier every year that goes by Because in the last ten years I've spent more time in the Beverly Hills jail than the jailer and here I begin thinking maybe I shouldn't be seen as your people so I disguised myself a little and took off to the meeting and when I got there it was on the ground floor it was in the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall in Beverly Hills and And I stood in the door and looked at about maybe 30, maybe 40 people. All of them standing in the middle of the room. And all of them talking and nobody listening. And I looked you all over and I said to myself, they've given me the wrong information. This is the wrong night. because you didn't look like me and you weren't dressed like me and you most certainly wasn't talking like me because it was all happy talk, you know. I couldn't hear a word but it was always all happy talking. I knew that. So I said to me these are the veterans and their wives and they're here for a party and I'm going to have to leave and come back tonight to Drunkster here. And I turned to leave. at long last I'd come and it was the wrong night and I was as near dead as I'll ever be when I turned to leave that meeting but here is the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous this is it some man in the middle of that room had been watching me when I started to leave he came trotting over at the door and he yelled at me he says mister where are you looking for somebody and I said no sir but he says what were you looking for then and thinking it was a veteran I said well if it would interest you sir I was looking for sobriety and everything about that man changed in the twinkling of an eye he lit up just like a Christmas tree and it was obvious to me that he was glad I was there now I was no bargain I'd just come off a four week blackout but to him I was a bargain so much so that he lit up like a Christmas tree and I was hooked before he ever opened his mouth again because you see the people that I loved would have nothing to do with me. And this was a stranger to me. And when he spoke again, this is what he said. Why take off your hat and coat? You're in the right place. And he took me and rocked me to sleep. This is Alcoholics Anonymous. This is the only reason that this thing of ours works. We don't get sober by profundities, in my opinion. We don'T get sober by principles, in MY opinion. We are allowed to get sober by the spirit of Alcoholics Anonymous. We maintain sobriety by the practice of principles. But without the spirit, no recovery is at all. the spirit being the thing that made that guy light up like a Christmas tree. The spirit being the thing that makes you get up at two o'clock in the morning and go clear across town or across the country to sit with a guy that's in trouble. You know? This is the thing that allows us to get sober. and the spirit is spelled L-O-V-E, love. Did it ever occur to you how fortunate we are that we love each other? You know, a wet drunk is not easy to love. It just about takes one to love one, doesn't it? It's a fabulous thing. Gets more so all the time. You know, not thinking in terms of criticism at all. Because I can look at my last ten years, 32 years away from it, my last 10 years of drinking, And I cannot believe that I could have performed as I performed. I can't even understand it. So I do not criticize anybody who is not alcoholic for not understanding us, you know, because we can't understand ourselves. but non-alcoholic sees one of us in the gutter and this isn't criticism he gives us a wide berth you know probably many of them think we should be there some of them maybe even think that we enjoy it and most of them know that we deserve it but they don't know as we do that that guy hates that gutter worse than anybody that ever looks at him because he's been there before we hate the gutter we're not there because we want to be we're there because we have to be and you and I know that and we can go get the guy and pick him up and take him home with us. This is the most fortunate thing in our entire program that we love each other. What a beautiful thing it is. I think that Alcoholics Anonymous is the greatest screen of light that the world has to look at today. Because here we are. All kinds of people. All colors, all creeds. All nationalities. And we don't know it. Because we're color blind, race blind, creed blind, religion blind. And we're drunks together. And we help each other while we care, that's what it's all about. Without the Spirit, no recovery in my opinion. and that spirit is love and somebody said God is love I didn't intend to do this but I'm going to when I was in business my plant was on Alameda Street in Los Angeles and every time I went downtown if it is if I had time to do so I went to the head of the 5th street and turned west 5th Street in Los Angeles at Skid Row and it drew me like a magnet if I have time always I went to the end of 5th Street and went west and then every time I turned my car into that street the black Mariah was either just in front of me or just behind me and I knew her inside out I'd ridden in her in chains and the boys on the street knew her too and they knew the rag pickers were sitting right there you know and they'd start trying to scurry out of the way. And here's a little old wino. He's got his bottle of muskadoodle in a brown paper bag. Soon nobody will know what he's got. If there's anything that, if there's ever anything that looks like a bottle of muskadoodle in a Brown Paper Bag, it's a bottle of muskedoodle in a ground paper bag! And there's a little old monkey, and he starts trying to make it to the alley, you know. Get away from the rag pickers. And he goes down three times. But does he break that bottle? Uh-uh. He don't break that one. And he gets into the alley. And I say, thank God. Because, you see, that's me. That was the grace of God. That's me. I haven't seen a drunk in 25 years. Not one drunk in 25 years I've seen me, but with the gracious God Now go on down that street and here sits the old boy in the doorway And it's July And he's got his black overcoat on Sometimes two of them and he's got his bottle right out in the open and it's half full sitting right there by him and he is sitting there having a picnic he is laughing talking having a good time with his friends and his friends aren't there and I can't hardly drive by I want to leave that car of mine right in the middle of 50 whiskey and go over and pick him up and put him on my lap. Say, look, brother, there's a better way. Because, you see, I used to wear my overcoat in July. I used to meet my friends and talk with them and have a good time with them. And they weren't there either. I think the toughest thing my family had to put up with, many times we'd all be in the same living room and I'd have company and they wouldn't have any. So I never see a drunkard. I say me, but with the grace of God. Now I want to tell you about that first meeting a little bit. When they got me inside, they said to me, if you're an alcoholic, one drink is too many and a thousand aren't enough. And you know, I'd been drinking for 25 years and nobody had ever said that to me. And I had never thought about it. Never occurred to me that was the first drink. A periodic would never think it was the first drink Periodics never taper off they taper on So all that last ten years I thought it was the last gallon Not the first slug you know What I was trying to do was find a way to knock it off before the trouble started. For instance, I'd get in a pokey on Wednesday and I'd say to myself when I was getting sobered up, well, they threw me in the slammer on Wednesday. Now if I'd have quit Tuesday, they wouldn't have gotten me. So I'd decide to quit Tuesday the next time. but I forget to mention which Tuesday and here the first night they said it's the first drink one drink is too many in a thousand on and off so don't take the first thing and I played with it a while and bought it and I've still got it because I could see that it was just a question of time from the first slug after a dry spell when I was flat on my back drinking the clock around. So I bought that one. The next thing they told me was today is the day we don't drink. Now, that is a sneaky way of keeping us coming back. They'd have told me I had to stick around here for 32 years. I'd have dropped dead. They'd said 32 days I'd drop dead. But they didn't. They said, today is the day we don't drink. You know. Now, they said to me, if a day's too long, how long can you live without a drink? Can you live an hour? Make that the length of your life. Live an hour and don't break it, and then do it again. But today, regardless of how long you live in Alcoholics Anonymous, never expand that time more than 24 hours. That's as long as you'll ever live in Alcoholic Anonymous. And I bought that and I've still got it. And it's the second greatest lesson I've ever learned in my entire lifetime. This is my day, I have no past, I want no future. You know, the past is nothing in the world but guilt. Nothing in the word but guilt and the future is nothing in the worl but fear. That's all it is. All you got to do is look down the road a piece and get scared to death. You know? Now if you live today you ain't got either one of them. Simple You can't even starve to death in 24 hours If you try What a life One day at a time I have no past I want no future Fantastic way to live And you know It took me quite a little while to realize that we didn't set up that deal. I thought for a long time after I got here that we had discovered the one day at a time, you know. And after I'd been around long enough to hear you people say the Lord's Prayer for a while, it occurred to me that there was a line in there that says, give us this day our daily bread and I don't say a word about two crusts to wake up on tomorrow morning. So I had to see that somebody a long time ago knew about that one day at a time. But we forget it. We forget it it's pretty easy to remember when the last drunk is new in our minds. But we go along a little while and we forget. And we get to projecting. And then we get caught in the ringer. I got dead of this little story too. How much time have I got? He says because I've got plenty, and he just made his first mistake there. He told you he still had time to mess this convention up, but he just did it. A long time ago, I was talking in Glendale, and there was a gal there that I knew and she was a nurse. And after the meeting, I said to her, Sue, let's go get a hot fudge sundae or something. She says, no, I can't. She says I've got a babysitter at home and I can afford to pay her any more than I have to so I've gotta go home. Well, I says we'll get some ice cream and take it home. Which we did. And we got to her place, and she had a little old baby there. And you know something? She only had one spoon in the house, the spoon she fed the baby with. That's the only spoon she had in the home. We sat there eating ice cream with the same spoon, you know. Seven years went by, and she was then working in a hospital in Long Beach, and she called me up, and said she's dying. She's dying. She's crying, and oh, she's in a hell of a shape. And I was still in business at that time, so I made a date to see her on Saturday morning at 10 o'clock, and she came down to the house, and she started telling me a problem. And it was big. I mean, it was no little thing. It was big, just zooning it. and this was her problem it just occurred to her that she was going to have to raise that boy hers and put him through college without any help no husband and she had to do that by herself and it was just too much it was too much to carry and I let her cry for a while and I said Sue don't you think we ought to to wait for about two weeks before we matriculate him in college. He's only seven years old. And she started laughing and she's been laughing ever since. The future is nothing but fear. Get into as many meetings as you can because that day there's more wisdom in this room about your problem and its answer than in any other room on the face of the earth but another Alcoholics Anonymous meeting just like this. And I bought that, and I've still got it. I've attended near five and four meetings a week for 32 years, and I'm never attended one too many. You might say, how do you know? No, got the simplest yardstick in the world. I never had it so good. This is the only good life I've ever known, the only easy life that has ever been mine in my entire lifetime. And I'm not about to change the formula. Fortunately for me, it's no chore to come to any meeting because I love this program and I love its people. I just love itspeople. so it's no big deal people say to me when are you going to slow down I tell them when you pat me in the face with a scoop the reason I can't successfully drink is that I am different I'm different from the non-alcoholic. I'm different both physically and mentally. You people, the first night gave me the definition of the disease of alcoholism. You said it's an allergy of the body coupled with an obsession of the mind. The allergy of the Body meaning nothing but this. For some reason unknown to anybody, body. My body cannot successfully unlock alcohol. I can't oxidize it, burn it up and get rid of it. I take a slug of liquor, it goes into the bloodstream of the brain, and it triggers a physical demand that makes me keep on drinking until my cycle is run. This is not true with 90% of those who drink liquor. And this is the, I believe, the biggest hurdle we have have to cross because we cannot understand why people of our great ability and great knowledge and physical prowess up to a point can't drink that flip. And you're somebody that's not half our big and not even half our smart, can drink this This definitely don't bother them, you know. So it's good to know. It's good to know that there is nothing that we can do for the outage of the body. This is good to known. Now there are a lot of people that don't know anything about it that are trying to tell us that they can make successful drinkers out of us alcoholics. You know? They're going to kill a lot of us. But they ain't going to kill me, I'll tell you that. Not me. One of the things that I cannot understand is how so many people in the field of alcoholism think that Drew and I are sitting around pining our hearts out because we can't drink. They look at me in pity Look at those monkeys. They just know that I'm just drooling for a drink. If there's anything that is more pleasant for me to thank God for, it's that I don't have to drink today, you know. And I'll tell you something that you won't believe many of you. But I have lived 32 years. Without one conscious desire for a drink. From the morning I told you about it until right now, I have never had one conscious desire for drink. Now, the physical body beat me to death for probably ten days after I made that decision. But everything in me was how long can I live without a drink? And I never had to take it. And I've never had a conscious desire for a drinking. And I'm very, very grateful for that. Because I think if I had have had, I would have gotten drunk. I always did get drunk when I had a conscious desire for a drink. And I thank God that I haven't had one. The allergy to the body we can do nothing about. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. So we recognize that fact and turn to the other half of the disease. our program is designed to rid us of the obsession to drink to get rid of the obsession of the mind that makes us drink against our will that's what our program is all about to rid us of the necessity to drink now why am I not drunk this morning I'm a couple of thousand miles away from home I don't think there's anybody in this audience that would tell on me if I drank a little if I'd stand up here and take a drink they'd empty this auditorium in two minutes you'd have to get out to tell somebody you know old Chuck just had a drink why am I not drunk right now there's only one reason I've got the thing I was looking for in the bottle I've gotta drink I've that the thing what's the thing I'm not fighting you You, or me, or life, or God, or the devil. I'm at peace with me and you. And with my very own God. And that's the only reason I'm not drunk. If I felt right here like I used to feel, I'd be just as drunk as I was then. And I know it. But it's no big deal. Because I also know how not to have that feeling there because I've got the formula I got the recipe one through twelve inclusive chapter five the man said when I got here I think that 97% of us thought if we haven't had a drink today, we're sober. We heard that so much. Put the plug in the jug. Put the bug in the jar. Now, I never had any trouble putting the plug into the jug I was a periodic for the last 10 years. After every drunk, I put the plug and the jug I had no problem putting the plug in the jug. My problem was cooking the plug out of the jug I think 97% of us now know that sobriety is built on not drinking today that's the foundation I cannot drink and live and of myself I can't keep from drinking so it is absolutely necessary if I'm going to stick around that I don't drink today but that's merely the foundation sobriety is fourfold it is physical mental, emotional and spiritual and it adds up to the ability to live comfortably, peacefully and joyously with me. With me! That's sobriety and in my opinion anything short of it is partial sobrietry. Now when I have the ability to live confidently, peacefully and joyously with myself I haven't the slightest problem living with you. This is a fantastic discovery for me. Because I spent 30 years of my life trying to make this old world over so it would be a fit place for me to live in. I got news for you, it ain't ready. So now I don't have to. One of the greatest lines in our book is we cease to fight anything or anybody. body. Greatest lines in the book. We gave up the fight and won the battle. Fantastic. Fantastic. I can tell you all right now, and this is a wonderful thing for me to be able to say. I can say to every one of you that you don't have to change nothing for me to love you. I love you! If you're drunk, you don't have to get sober. I love it! If you are a thief, you don' t have to quit thieving. I love ya! If you' re a liar, you don''t have to quit lying. I love u! That's something for me because I had to make the over for the best part of my, biggest part of ma life. You see, I know who you are, whether you do or not. And for that reason, I love you. If one of us is God's kid, all of us are. If oneofusain't, noneofusis. And Iissoyouam. You're God's kids. And it's the discovery of this, by the simple application of the formula of sobriety to our very own lives one day at a time, that this happens to us. We discover that the first two words of the Lord's Prayer mean what they say. and then we don't have to drink because we find that there's nothing in a bottle or a needle or a pill or pot or acid that can do anything to us but tear us down that's why we don' t drink it can do nothing but tear up tear us out because the way of life we find in Alcoholics Anonymous by applying these principles for sobriety only you hear me not for related disorders but sobriety we got so many experts on related disorders in our country out there that it's hard to get a guy to go get a drunk and make a 12 step call you gotta have a deeper seated problem than alcoholism them. Yeah, related disorders. I had a few pretty good related disorders I listed them a little bit ago but I'm going to do it again. My wife after 20 years was is divorcing me. Now, I think that's a related disorder. Sort of king size, I think. My kids wouldn't even come home when I was around. Now, I believe that to be a related disability. There's no way to treat your dear old father. You know? And that boss of mine was going to throw me right through the window. Played glass window. I think that's a related disorder. I had no home, no job, no health, no sanity and no money. Now where'd you get a nicer bunch of related disorders than that? And I never spent five seconds on any one of those related disorders. Not five seconds. Not five second. And I came to this program not for solutions to those problems. but so that I might be able to live today without a drink, so I could rub out as much of the record as I could before I died. This is my great good fortune. Because you see, the formula for sobriety and the formula for the good life and the form of life and the same formula for self-discovery is the same formula 1 through 12. I think that our greatest difficulty is that we get conditions on our sobriety. We get conditions on our subriety, like Sue. Here she was killing herself over the fact that years in the future, Sue's going to have to put that boy through college with nobody to help her. You know? You know, we get conditions on our sobriety. And one of the great principles of our society goes to the boards right there. Because we got a thing that says it's impossible to be grateful and unhappy at the same time. It's impossible. Now if you're unhappy, you can just put it down on your little book. I am not grateful. And if you're grateful you can start laughing because you ain't got no problem. But we forget it and we get to live in the future you know to get rid of all the conditions on sobriety just do these things one day at a time For sobriety only. And everything straightens out. All my related disorders disappeared, along with the obsession to drink. Now I'm going to tell you what I... We didn't start to... I haven't changed my watch. But, according to me, it's only 20 minutes to 9. Just for the fun of it. It took me three and a half years to get over falling on my face. after my last stroke. That's the kind of a body I brought. I'd burned it up. And you know something? I never even went to a doctor. I never went to a Doctor because I wasn't going to live. What the hell? You didn't need to go to a Dr. When you were going to die anyway, you know. So I never went to the Doctor. It took me three and a half years. If I was walking down the sidewalk with you and this thing hit hit me, I'd have to grab you around the neck, grab a telephone pole, lean up against the building or go flat on my face. But after three and a half years, I quit falling on my face. No big deal. You see? When I could talk after this little experience that I told you about, accepting myself as I was and the conditions that there were, I called my lady in and I don't think this was magnanimous because she's devoting me and I knew it and I said 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 ever have anything that will add to your life let me give it to you and we close 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 love me you don' t need to respect me you don''t need to obey me I'll never ask a thing of you as long as we live but once if I ever have anything be it money, counsel or blood that will add to your life let me give it to you and we closed the book and it has never been re-opened and I went to the office and incidentally I went there before I found you because I knew where the office was. But I didn't know where to find you. And I also knew that the monkey was going to throw me through the window. But you see, it done me a great favor the Friday before Christmas 1945, the day my last drunk started today, the last one today. He called me in and he said to me, See, Charlie, you've had a lot of trouble this year. He never mentioned alcohol. But he knew that I knew what he meant when he said trouble. And he was non-alcoholic, so he had it all figured out. He says, I think it's because of the pressure you're under. And I'm going to take a little pressure off of you. And maybe next year you won't have so much pressure and you won' t have so much trouble. and instead of shooting me as he had every right to do he gave me three thousand bucks for a Christmas present to take the pressure off of me and if you don't think he took the pressure off of you you're nuts the one thing that's worse for an alcoholic than good fortune or bad fortune is good fortune so I got drunk on the way home and so I had to go down there to get even with him and he saw my old car in the parking lot and he knew I was on the premises and he didn't know and he thought I wasn't going to stay so he came into the office like a bull in the china closet and here I am I couldn't have defended myself with a shotgun because you see See, I didn't have the shakes. I had the leaves. All I can 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 it didn't do. And as soon as I get even with you, I'll get the hell out of here on my own power. And you'll never owe me a penny you as long as you live, but for God's sake, leave me alone. I've got to get even with you. And he stopped in his tracks and he says, what the hell's happened to you, Charlie? And I said, I don't know. And I didn't. But he didn't show me through the window. Now By the time he was five years old, I think, in the program. It took me 11 years to be president of my country. After 11 years of sobriety, I bought the place that they were throwing me out of. so the related disorders forget them it's like defects of character forget them oh lord I run all over the world you know and I catch people all over the world working on their defects of character. Pulling the chestnuts out of the fire and working on it. After years in this program, I don't see how they live at all. If you and I could have gotten rid of our defects of characters, we would have done it a long time ago. We wouldn't be members of this leper colony. We'd have done that. We'd done it. we couldn't done it then and we can't done it now and that's not what our book tells us our book says we took our written inventory and we shared it and it turned up all this junk and then we became willing to give it away and we gave it away that's what my book says I never spent I spent five seconds on my defects of character. I looked at him, and I was thumb willing to give him away. And I did it, and he did it. That's the easy way. Why do you want to beat your brains out? I know some people that take fourth and fifth steps about every month you know I've read in the grapevine I got a very good friend that advocates taking these steps all the time just keep on taking the steps well I don't think that's too bad if you don't make a tore out of it. If you're working with wet drunks, you're taking all twelve of the steps all the time. Particularly are you taking four and five and you don't even know it. You can't live, You can't be any older in Alcoholics Anonymous than your last session with a wet drunk. That's as long as your life is in Alcoholic Anonymous. Because every session with the wet drunk is a total renewal of your own program of Alcoholics Anonymous, because all of them are a little bit different, and all of em remind you of of a different experience that you had. And you share it with him as you go along. And you're in a continuous fourth and fifth step. Now, I don't know what people have to do. They ain't doing that. Maybe you have to take fourth and sixth steps every week because I haven't gotten to that point yet. As I said, I'm not a drunk. I sort of like to work with wet drunks because they remind me of me. You see, this ain't no big deal. 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. can't. Now I'm going to quit. I said a minute ago, the program, the formula for sobriety and the formula for the good life and the formula for self-discovery is all the same formula. I am totally and completely convinced that nothing has to be added to our lives. Everybody in this room right now is a total, complete, going knowing concern within yourself. Not because you're so hot, because you ain't. But because of the implication in the first two words of the Lord's Prayer. You know they said to the carpenter man, Master teaches us to pray. And he says, after this manner pray, our Father, that's his Father, Your Father and mine. Our Father, God. Now if that be true, you can let your imagination go absolutely crazy and you can't get close to the truth of being itself. You can't even get close. This thing of ours is bigger than all outdoors. doors. Our Father, God. If God's my father, I'm his kid. And that's something. Now the carpenter man said something else. He says who by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature? Which means you can't change the fact that you're God's kid. you cannot change the reality of your own being that's what that says who by taking thought can add one cubit to his statue can't change it you can't be good enough to earn it and you can' t be bad enough to destroy it you can''t change the the reality of your own being, you can only change your experience in reality. For instance, I sit in the same chair that I sat in for ten years in hell and I'm 32 years in it now in heaven. Nothing happened to the chair. Nothing happened to the living room. Nothing happened to the wife. Nothing happened to the kid. Something happened to me when I moved out of hell into heaven. Now what does that say? That says heaven was always in that chair. I was in hell. You hear me? Father Ed Dowling said something to me that is one of the most beautiful things that I've ever heard in my life. I happen to know him pretty good. Don't happen to be Catholic but we were very close. Spent a lot of time with him. we were talking one day and he says Jeff he says your cross was alcoholism he says my cross was lack of faith he says I went to school 18 years and was ordained a Jesuit priest and I didn't believe nothing and then he said something that makes me cry yet many many years ago go. He says, I came to believe watching what happens to you people in Alcoholics Anonymous. And Father Ed was not even an alcoholic. He was a non-alcoholic. And he said to me on a different occasion, he said, you know something Chuck? And I said, what Father? He says sometimes I have to believe that heaven is just a new pair of glasses sometimes I have to believe that heaven is just a new pair of glasses and I said to my wife where's the difference that's what this program is for me it's a new pair of classes it's an old it's new motivation it's a new action pattern and it's the different between hell and heaven it's fantastic nothing happens to be added it has to be uncovered and discovered I'm totally convinced that the gift of God was made at the foundation of the earth some of you I'm sure saw oh god the motion picture that thing just ripped me up you know they stole all that whole thing out of our program. This guy, this guy Denver says to God, you know, he says, when are you going to come down here and straighten us out? He says, we're in an awful mess down here. He says I ain't. God said that to him. He says why? Well he says I gave you everything except for you what to do with it. it's what I think. The gift of God was made at the foundation of the earth. God's always known that he was yours. God has always known that he gave you the universe. He's always known that. He's never been confused. But you and I have to discover it for ourselves. and it's a process of uncovering and discovering and discarding this is Alcoholics Unknown uncovering discovering and discard we uncover the thing we've been looking for all our lives we have to find it where it is and that's the meaning of the words as we understood him in our book thank God as we understood him has no reference to me understanding God. If understanding God had been a condition for sobriety, I would have died 32 years ago because 32 years it was a king-sized project for me to tie my own shoes. It has no preference to understanding God It has reference to the necessity for individual experience. My God, your God. I left for your God for 30 years and I couldn't find him. And I came here not even looking for mine. And we found each other. We found each others. It's uncovering, discovering, and discarding. It's the most fascinating experience in life, in living, that you and I will ever get or teach you. And it gets more and more fascinating as the years go by. It's absolutely terrific. Terrific, the miracles of life that it has been my privilege and pleasure to enjoy over the last thirty-two years. Yours as well as mine, not just mine, but yours too. No way could I be here, no way, but for the grace of God and the help of God. people like you. No way! And I know it. And again, I'm so grateful against you. Don't sell this program short. Don't set it short. There is sobriety here, sure. Total sobrietry. The ability to live comfortably, peacefully and joyously with ourselves. But there is also the fellowship of alcoholics and non-alcoholics. How wonderful it is to walk into a place like Louisville. I was here, I think it was in 63, at this very same function a long time ago. And here I am again and to run into people that I've known since that time and before. Some of them I would rather duck. But he did come clear up there and get me. It's so good because, you see, it's only been a little while until my own sons wouldn't even come home when I was around. don't be afraid of this thing it's the completion of the living experience that we walk with each other and with God God bless you thank you very, very much