The First Line of the Second Paragraph of Chapter 3 – Chuck C.

Well, I'm Chuck C., and I'm an alcoholic. Hi. I get the privilege tonight of being the kickoff speaker. I have been demoted. I don't know why, because I was at the first one of these things, so I shouldn't be the kickoff speaker hardly. But I'm glad I am, because from now, from tonight on, I can make fun of all the rest the speakers. I'm home free after tonight. Because of people like you, a program like Alcoholics Anonymous, and a God of my very own whom I have found in Alcoholics anonymous. It hasn't been necessary for me to take a drink or a sedating or tranquilizing bill for something over 34 years I am one of the really fortunate peoples that has gotten into this society because since my first meeting it hasn't been necessary for me to look back. I've been called a liar with certain sort of descriptive words to go before this, a so-and-so liar, because I say that I've never had a conscious desire to drink in 34 years. But it's true. and I thank God that it's true because I think had I had a conscious desire to drink I would have gotten drunk I always did and so I'm very grateful for the fact that I haven't had a conscious desire for a drink I believe that there's a hard way and an easy way for us to make this program. The hard way is to think we can do it ourselves. And the easy way is to know that we can't. And I think that was my good fortune because I got here knowing that I couldn't successfully drink whiskey, and I got her knowing that of myself I could not successfully keep from drinking whiskey. I got here knowing that, and I know it tonight just as I knew it 34 years and a half ago. It's just as real to me tonight as was then. I cannot successfully drink whiskey right now, and right now of myself I cannot successfully keep from drinking. Insofar as I am able to perceive there's only one reason that I'm not drunk tonight. Just one. There's not two or a half doesn't. There's just one reason that I'm not drunk tonight, and that reason is that I have the thing I was looking for in the bottle. I've got the thing that I was looking in the bottom. Now what is the thing? It's the ability to live comfortably, peacefully and joyously with myself, which I believe to be the definition of sobriety. The ability to live comfortably, peaceably and joylessly with me and having found out how to live comfortable, peacefully, and joyfully with myself I haven't the slightest difficulty living with you. Not the slightest difficulty. I had things backwards for many, many years in my life. I thought that just as soon as I knew enough everything was going to be all right. And And so I was diligently attempting to learn enough that everything would be all right. And I learned lots of things. And when I got to the place where I knew everything there was to know, I couldn't even get out of bed and come and tell you what I knew it took too many the boy to get me up so I've come to see that we can live ourselves in the right thinking, but we cannot think ourselves into right living. And that's a good thing to know. It's a real good thing to know! I have a little difficulty down in my country now because we have so many people presently who are quite young teenagers yet you know in our program and many of them seem to have the conviction that Alcoholics Anonymous is a self-improvement society. A self- improvement society. Well I have not, I don't agree with that at all because if you and I could have self improved we would not today be members of this leper colony. We had a lot of years to improve, didn't we? And we didn't make it. So I do not believe that our great program is a self-improvement society. I think it's self-discovery, self- discovery. Self-discovering. I said I could live comfortably, peacefully and joyously with myself. Now that has to mean that someplace along the line I got the line out of the book that says we cease to fight anything or anybody and tonight I think that's when the greatest lines in our book we cease to fight anything or anybody because you see again if we could have done this thing we would have done it we couldn't do it and we have to have help we have to have help and we can't get help until we recognize the need for it we can't get help until we recognize the need for it so we cease to fight anything or anybody and we do the things program tells us to do, and something happens. And we get all the help we need, and we get sober, and we got happy, and after a little while when you get as long as I am in the program you get goofy again. Because I'm absolutely nuts about this program. I came all the way up here tonight to tell your people that I love you. That's the only thing I want to tell you. I love ya! You don't have to change anything about yourself for me to love you, you don't change anything. If you're drunk, you won't even have to get sober. If you're a thief, you don't have to quit thieving. If you're a liar, you don't have to go and lie it. Because I love you. Because in the 34 years that I've been with you, I have discovered who you are. So know who you are now whether you do or not. You're God's kids. Having walked with you for 34 years, it is very, very clear to me that if one of us is God's kid we all are. If one of us isn't, none of us are. And I am so you is. So for that reason I love you and you don't have to change anything. And of course I can't understand how we can come to too many of these meetings without something happening in the area of what we can do personally, of ourselves, and what we didn't do. For instance, you go clear back into the first line of the second paragraph of chapter 3 in our book that's two chapters before the program of recovery how it works but the first line in the second paragraph of chapter 3 says we learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholic. This is the first step in recovery. To fully concede to our innermost selves is not only the admission that we're alcoholics, but it's with the acceptance of the fact. We're alcoholics. And when we make this admission, and I think the reason this is back in chapter 3 is because if we be alcoholic, we're caught in a trap we can't spring. We can't spray, we have to have help. So that's the reason that's clear back there in chapter 3. It sort of opens the door a little for getting help. The next condition also comes before step one of the twelve steps, but it is in the fifth chapter. It says if you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length, any length to get it, then you're ready to take certain steps. Well, now any link to me means that sobriety has got to be top down on the totem pole. Number one on a hit parade and I am convinced that unless and or until sobriete comes first we can't have it and unless it remains first. We can't keep it, because otherwise we will not do the things necessary to obtain and maintain it. We won't do it. For instance, I don't believe that any alcoholic, male or female, can walk up to step one and take it cold. We've got to have a little preconditioning to take step one. Because step one is a two-fold admission of defeat. The very first step in the book, a two-fold admission of defeat. It reads, we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol, physical, that our lives had become unmanageable, mental. We have lost the battle twice over and this is just the first step. Now we're not people that go around admitting on the street corners that we've lost the battle of life. We weren't born to surrender, we were born to win! And we damn near did. We almost made it, but we got just a little bit alcoholic. And that's all, brother. So we walk up to the step one. A two-fold admission of defeat. Powerless over alcohol physical, unmanageable life mental. It's a toughie, but as tough as it is, it's not half as tough as step number two. Step number two is a secondhand admission that we're insane. Now, that's going pretty fast for a drunk, isn't it? We lost the battle twice over in one. We're nuts in two. It reads, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Now, I submit to you that there's an implication here. Sane people don't need to be restored to sanity! If you and I need to restore to sanity, we're nuts. number one, we've lost the battle twice over. Number two, we're nuts. And if that weren't bad enough, step number three is worse than both of them. Step number three says we got to get out of the driver's seat. We got to move right over, give up the wheel. Now as I understand people like me, they're wheelers and dealers. And it would not have been easy for any of you to take the wheel away from me when I was wheeling and dealing. But this bookie of ours says we got to move over. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him. That's number three. We've got to MOVE right out of the driver's seat. Now why do we have to do that? Well, the ABCs sort of tell us, A, that we're alcoholic and can't manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism, and that God can and will if we work with him. So we've been to human help. We've been the priests and the preacher and the doctor and the psychiatrist, all of them! And we're still drunk you know and we got to have help and we've already been to human power so we make a decision to turn our will in your lives over the care of God as we understand it now dear as we understood him sort of softens this blow a little bit as we understood him does not in my opinion have anything to do with understanding God has nothing to do with understanding God at all it has to do with the necessity of individual experience individual experience my God your God. You see, I had spent 30 straight years before I got to this program trying to find God. At 13, I had made every attempt to get saved because in my family half of which was Methodist to itself and the other half was hardshell Baptist in our family, and they believed that you got here struck out. You're a sinner when you get here. Now, you don't have to sin on your own to go to hell. You have to get saved to keep from going to hell because you're a sinner when you get there. And it had to do something with a thing called the original sin. Now that was always quite a little baffling to me because the way I understood or misunderstood the illusion to that original sin, it had something to do with Adam rearranging Eve's leaves now there's always it was never explained to me but it just seemed like that's what they were talking about So here I am, 13 years old, and I haven't, I'm a farm boy, and I haven t really sinned yet, I don't think. But we have a revival. And I think, well, here's where I'm going to get even. I'm gonna catch up. So I answered the altar call. Now I'm not selling it short. I'm telling you my own experience. But I went down there and got on my knees, and I prayed like hell. And nothing happened. And pretty soon the preacher saw that I was spending a lot of time on my knee, so he came over and joined me. And we both prayed like half. and every little bit he'd say to me how you doing i'd say no good so we'd start over and finally the old boy got plumb worn out and he said to me when you're baptized it'll happen and so when the ice went out i went in and the old boy ducked me this wasn't a sprinkling this was a ducking and he brought me up he says how you doing I said no good I said I'm all wet that's what I am and he says when you are formally taken into the church it'll happened. And I was, and it didn't. And for the next 30 years, I got, I went through every great religion and philosophy I think that there is. That's part of my knowing everything that there was to know, you know. I wasn't, no, there's a drunken deacon for 10 years for nothing, I think it had. And I never did find out why I didn't get saved. And I came to Alcoholics Anonymous not thinking in any terms at all of finding God or anything else that would add to my own life. Because I had the good fortune on my last trip out of going through the gates of insanity and death. The book he talks about going to, but I went through them. And I want to tell you just a little about this because this is the only thing that explains to me the fun I've had in Alcoholics Anonymous. On the Friday before Christmas 1945, I went down to the office and I I found a note to see the boss man. Well, I knew what it was about. I knew he was going to can me. Because, you see, I knew I had it coming. But there was the summons and so I had to go in and see him. And I went in fully expecting him to just throw me out. But he started talking, which was sort of a good omen. And he said something like this to me. He says, Charlie, I was Charlie in business. He said, you've had a lot of trouble this year. Now, he didn't mention booze, but he knew that I knew what he meant when he said trouble. And he was a non-alcoholic, so he had it all figured out. He says, I think I know why you've had so much trouble. He says I think it's because of the pressure you're under. Now he says I have decided to take a little of the pressure off of you. And maybe next year you won't have so much pressure and you won' t have so much trouble. And so instead of shooting me, which I had come in, he gave me 3,000 bucks for a Christmas present on the Friday before Christmas, 1945, to take the pressure off of me. Now if you don't think he took the pressure off me, you're nuts. There's one thing worse for an alcoholic than bad fortune, and that's good fortune. So I got drunk on way home. Now this was impossible because 11 years before this time I had become a periodic drunk, because I wasn't doing well in my drinking and I had to beat to rap. I had to learn how to drink well. So in order to get well enough to get back in the ring for the next round, I became a periodic and I was a periodic for the next 11 years. Now, periodics don't get drunk in a hurry. Periodics never taper off. We taper on. We have a regular routine. We drink until we can't get it down, can't get it up, can't live and can't die. And then we have to knock it off. And in my day there wasn't any place to go when you knocked it off today every hospital down our way has got a floor for people like me. And they can do something for you that makes it a little easier than the way I had to sober up because I didn't have any of that stuff. So we would tough it out and when we got feeling well enough we'd go on a health kick we'd drink a lot of milk you know and we'd eat good food when we could swallow it you know and when we got a little bit better we'd even go on a health stick we'd take a few exercises we'd even go to that extreme and when we got plumb good we would then analyze our last joke and we'd see where we made our mistakes and we decided not to do it that way anymore And there you had it, you see. You got it all in line now. You're going home. You know that you've got it in line. You are not gonna do it that way anymore. You gonna be careful. And so pretty soon you start sampling. And you sample your way right on back to bed, but not in a hurry. It usually took me from 30 to 60 days to get off my feet, you know, after the first slug, after a dry spell. But this time, on the way home, I went out. And, furthermore, I stayed out. I remember nothing from the Friday before Christmas of 1945 to somewhat after the middle of January 1946. All of that time I was in a blackout. of my good wife, whom some of you know. Some of you have even heard her talk. She belongs to a sister organization. I think they call it ala-nani-nana and a hachacha. If my lady was talking right now, she would tell me, tell you that during that whole period I was blacked out. I was destroying seven quarts of whiskey every three days. Now don't go home and say I said that, I didn't. I'm quoting my wife. I can't even argue with her because I wasn't there and she was. And furthermore I don't think that seven quarts is too much for three days. If you only do it for three days or six or a dozen or something like that, but if you do it between four and five weeks, it's either too much or just enough. And in my case it was just enough because sometime between the Friday before Christmas in the middle of January, everything between me and me burned out. All the excuses were gone and all the I wants were gone. And for the first time in my life I saw me with nothing between me and me. There wasn't anything there. And I knew without knowing why that I'd lost the battle of life, and it was the first time in 43 years that I had ever admitted defeat. Now it wasn't the first I might ever lost a battle, but it was the first time I'd ever admitted that I'd lost. I got to hell kicked out of me lots of times, but it was by accident. I'd get him next time, and sometimes I did, and sometimes I got God again. But I had never had to admit defeat until that morning, and I knew that I had lost the battle of life. I knew why my wife, after 20 years, was divorcing me. And I might say quickly, without cause, had I given her 20 of the best years of my life. And I knew that morning why she was divorcing me, and I knew she should have done it ten years before. I knew why our kids wouldn't come home when I was around. And I know why that bossman had sent word to the house that if I ever stepped foot in that plant again he was going to throw me through the window. the window that he'd picked out for that purpose don't open. Played glass. So I knew that morning that everything dear to me in life was gone and should be gone, and that I wasn't entitled have it back. I also accepted death because on my next to the last trip out, I came awful close to not making it. I remember, I think I do, of in my withdrawal period going to the kitchen after a glass of buttermilk. Mrs. C and Richard were sitting in the living room, and they heard me let out a beller and heard me hit the floor. And they figured that I was in an alcoholic convulsion, which was my want. And, they came running out to see if they couldn't keep me from swallowing my tongue. Then, I wasn't convulsing. I done used up all my convulsions. I was just lying there on the kitchen floor as peaceful as anybody Europe saw. I wasn't doing nothing. They tell me I was a peculiar color. I was blue. And they couldn't wake me up. And they got all exercised and called the oxygen squad at the Beverly Hills Receiving Hospital to see if they'd send a squad down there to see see if they can wake me up. Now as serious as this is, it just tickles the hell out of me. My wife and kids have been praying for me to die for at least five years. They come to the kitchen and find me dead and they call the oxygen squad. Doesn't blow your mind well I remember what happened after I came to there's a young doctor with this crew and he told me says he to me he says to all intents and purposes you were dead he says we've had a hell of a time bringing you to and and nobody will ever bring you to again under these circumstances. And then he gave me the finest piece of counsel I will ever hear. He looked me right in the eye, and he said, if I were you, I wouldn't do that anymore. Now I'm going to pass that on tonight. if I were you I wouldn't do that anymore but I did it again and the last time was worse than the next of the last times so I knew I was going to die but I didn't want to die with the record the one thing that I had that I wanted to do if I could was to rub out as much of the record as I could before I kicked off I never got to the point in all my drinking years why I didn't love my wife and my kids. I always did. They knew I didn t. My wife has told me not less than 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 them that I did? No, you can't sell that bill of goods you can't sell that but see I was a periodic for that whole last 11 years and I could look at my wife and my kids between drunks when I was physically as dry as them tonight and I knew I was crucifying him and I wanted to take him in my arms and say look I love you I'll never do this again. I love you, but I couldn't. You see I'd already done that and I knew I was going to get drunk again because I didn't know how not to get drunken again and I'd get the hurtin' so bad right here I'd have to go out and get a new supply and get drunk all over again. But that morning I still loved my wife and my kids, and it was very necessary that I be sober till I died so I could rub out as much of the record as I could because I didn't want them to remember me as nothing but a tongue-chewing babbling idiot and at that time I remembered that Mrs. C had found Jack Alexander's article in the Saturday Evening Post in March 1941 five years before and she'd read it and she thought it might be of some value to me. Surrender! Surrender. Would to God there was some way that we could explain to each other what it means to surrender. I'd rather be able to explain to one audience what it means to surrender than to be president of the universe, but it cannot be done. It cannot be done. This is something we have to experience to know anything about. In this so-called civilization that we live in, surrender is a dirty word. In my own life I could not surrender, because everything in me was that surrender was for the weak. The strong man wins, the weak man surrenders, and I could not surrender. And had I had to surrender consciously the first time, I would have died without coming to this program. And I know it. I didn't spend five seconds in hell that wasn't absolutely necessary in my case, because the bottle did it for me. And the only credit I can take for it is I drank the whiskey, and I don't even know that for sure, because I don't even remember drinking it. I must have, because i was out for a long time. And the greatest single event that's ever happened to me in all my years, and I'm coming up now, pretty close, to my 78th birthday. Thank you. I feel that way about it too, because Because the alternative is not acceptable to me. But I am convinced that the greatest single event in my life in 70, almost 78 years was when the bottle killed me. I take all the credit for the first 40, 43 years of my life. The first 43 years of my life, I was the master of ceremonies and the star of the show. And for that, I take credit. And at the ripe old age of 43, I failed as a husband, father, businessman, man, and drunk. And that's all the departments I had. had any more departments, I'd have failed in them too. But that's all I had. And I started trying to rub out a record 34 years ago, and I take absolutely no credit for anything that's happened to me in 34 years. Because I didn't start in to get anything for myself, not even sobriety. I didn' t care about sobriete for me because you see I had accepted death. I knew I was going to die. You can't live when you're in conditions I was in. So, I didn't want anything for me. I just wanted to not drink today so I could use the time to rub out a record. I had as nice a bunch of related disorders as you can rack up in 43 years. I had no home, no job, no health, no sanity and no money. Now I don't believe you can beat that for related disorders. And I never spent five seconds on any one of them. Not five seconds. When I could talk after that little experience that I told you about, I called my wife in and I said, honey, she was divorced from me and I wasn't trying to make bounty points because I knew she should. But I called her in and said, honey it's no longer of any consequence for me whether I live under this roof, 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 your life, let me give it to you." And we closed the book. I called the boys in. I said, boys are no farther than household any longer. You don't need to love me, you don't respect me, they don't 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 that will add your life let me give it to you." And we closed the book and it's never been reopened. And I went down to the office knowing that the old boy was going to throw me through the window because he'd send word to the house that if I ever stepped foot in the plant again, that's what he was going to do. And I went down there before I found you people because I knew where the office was but I didn't know where you were. My keen alcoholic mind told me you wouldn't be in the phone book. You were anonymous, weren't you? They don't anonymous in the phone book. So knowing you weren't there I never looked, which is a story of my life. I knew so damn much that wasn't true I couldn't learn anything that was. So I went down to the office before I'd ever found the But I didn't meet him. And the boss saw my old car in the car, in the parking lot and he came hunting for me. He knew I was on the premises and he knew I wasn't going to stay. So he busted into my office like a bull in the china closet. And I couldn't have defended myself with a shotgun because I I didn't have the shakes. I had the leaps. And all I could do was sit there and 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 I didn' t do. And as soon as I get even with it, I'll get the hell out of here on my own power. And 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 with you." And he stopped in his tracks and he says, what the hell's happened to you Charlie? And I says don't know. And I didn't. But he knew something had happened because he didn't throw me through the window. My wife knew something had happened because things change there too. But I didn't know. I found out in the next six years. When I started looking for you guys, I had to call people and ask them if they knew anybody that knew anybody in AA. And I got a guy's name, number. He was a picture man. I called him up and we talked a little while and he said have you had a drink today? And I said no. He says don't take one. He said I have to work tonight and I can't take you to meet, but call me tomorrow. Maybe I won't be working tomorrow night, but I can take you the meeting tomorrow night." So he called me tomorrow, so tomorrow I called him. We talked a little bit. He says, if you had a drink today? And I said no. He said don't take one, I'm still working. Call me tomorrow. And the third day I called him, and we started talking, and I says, I know you're still working. He said yes. I says you don't have to take me to meeting. Where is there a meeting I can go to? And he told me. It wasn't too far from my house, and I determined to go. And I got along all right until about 30 minutes before the meeting was supposed to start and I got to thinking. Now that's a cardinal sin for an alcoholic. My, again my keen alcoholic mind told me that I'd lived in Beverly Hills for a long time and it might not be good for for my reputation to be seen with a bunch of butts like you. And I had a little wrestling to do with myself, but I finally decided to go anyway. But I was going to disguise myself a little bit so I wouldn't be immediately recognized, Which I did, and then I went. And I stood in the doorway of this building, it was the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall in Beverly Hills, and I stood the doorway and looked at about 35 or 40 people. They're all standing in the middle of the room, every one of them talking and nobody listening. It's been that way ever since. And I looked you over, and I knew that they'd given me the wrong information. Because you didn't look like me, you weren't dressed like me and you most certainly weren't talking like me. Because while I couldn't understand anything that was said, it was all happy talk. So, again, my keen alcoholic mind says, Look, these are the veterans and their wives and they're here for a party. they've given you the wrong night and you're going to have to leave and come back the night the drunks are here and I turned to leave and I'll never be any nearer dead than I was when I turned to leave that doorway at long last I'd come and it was the wrong night now here's the miracle of AA in my way of thinking the next minute the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous somebody in the middle of that room had been watching me and I started to leave and he came trotting over to the door and he called after me he says mister were you looking for somebody and I said no sir but he says what were you looking for then and thinking that he was a veteran, I said, what if it would interest you, sir? I was looking for sobriety. And everything about that man changed just like that. Everything about him changed. It was just like he had pressed a light switch. He lit up all over. And it was obvious to me that he was glad I was there. Now, there's somebody in this room who knows what I'm talking about. Everybody that I knew was glad I was there, but for a different reason. If I was there, I couldn't be there, you see. But not this guy. To him, I was a bargain. And it showed on his face. And I was hooked before he opened his mouth again. And when he did, he said, white, take off your hat and coat. You're in the right place." And he took me and rocked me asleep. This is a... Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share, who share their experience, strength, and hope one with another in love. Caring and sharing is our calling synonymous. We're allowed to get sober by the spirit of our calling synonymous we maintain sobriety by the practice of the principles but we don't get sober on principles or profundities. We're allowed to get sober by the Spirit. The Spirit that made that guy light up, you know, and carry me in there and rock me to sleep. Tell me what was wrong with me. Nobody had ever told me, but he did. He He told me if I was an alcoholic, one drink was too many and a thousand weren't enough. I just looked at my watch and I'm out of time. And you're not getting loose that quick. I got to finish this thing up. But I will hurry. I started fifteen, twenty minutes late. You know that, don't you? And that wasn't my fault because I was right here. One drink's too many and a thousand aren't enough. And I thought about it a little while and bought it. Still got it. The next thing you told me is one of the most beautiful things I'll ever hear. You said, today's the day we don't drink. Oh God, if he had told me I had to be sober 34 years, I'd have dropped dead. If he'd just said 34 days, I would have dropped death. But he didn't. He said, Today's the Day We Don't Drink. Says if a day is too long, how about an hour? Can you live an hour without drinking? Make that the length of your life. Live an hour without drinking, and then do it again. But don't drink today." And before you got through with that, you said something else that I have loved ever since. You said regardless of how long you live in Alcoholics Anonymous, never expand that time more than 24 hours. That's as long as you'll ever live, it ain't. And I bought that and I still got it. It's the second greatest lesson I've ever learned. This is my day, I have no past, I want no future. The past is nothing in the world but guilt, the future is nothing in the word but fear. If I had to live by what I read in the papers and hear over the TV, the news, and all that stuff, if that was my security, I would tell you to hurry out to a phone and call an ambulance because I'm going to have a heart attack. But, of course, that isn't my security. Today is the day. This is my day. I have no past. I want no future. The next thing you told me was stay close to us. Said you, there is more wisdom in this room about your problem and its answer than any other room on the face of the earth, except in other rooms just like this where any member is a meeting. So stay close to us. Get into as many meetings as you can. And I bought it. And I've remembered it. And I have attended more nearly five than four meetings a week for 34 years. and I've never attended one too many. How do I know? Because I never had it so good. This is the only good life I've ever known, the only easy life that's ever been mine in my entire lifetime. And I'm not about to change a winning formula. I'll be doing this until you pat me in the face with a scoop. and I'll be loving it the next thing you told me is why can't drink like other people and this is the only intellectual knowledge we need that we didn't have when we got here you explained the disease of alcoholism to me theology of the body and obsession in the mind my body can't successfully handle alcohol. And there's nothing I can do about it. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. And nobody knows why it can't. There are lots of experts now in alcoholism. Lots of them. But none of them know why my body can't successfully handle alcohol. Not any one of them. Many of the great emancipators of drunks believe that alcohol causes alcoholism. Can you imagine that? I have a lot of fun down home because I got a guy that's running one of the big programs down there, non-alcoholic of course, doctor, and he has me over to so he can read to me. An article that is just written for the American Medical Association. Alcohol causes alcoholism. And he don't know what I'm talking about when I tell him. If alcohol caused alcoholism, not using alcohol would cause sobriety, wouldn't it? But it don't. I was physically dry between every two drunks for 11 years and always got drunk again. So not Not drinking does not cause sobriety. Not drinking causes us to be dry, and we just dry up. Without a programing, we just dried up. So alcoholism is a living problem and we have to have a living answer. that's what we've got in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now quickly, this is what's happened to me. I went to an AA meeting every night for the first six months, every night of the week, for two reasons. Number one, it was comfortable there. I knew you were drunks and I knew you weren't drunk. But I had no hope of being able to get what you had, because I wasn't going to live that long. But it was comfortable, and I was there. And the second reason was I had no place else to go. Now that helps. So I discovered after six months that I hadn't had a drink or pill for six months, and I was so tickled I got busy, busy, busy trying to give this thing away to drunks. And another six months went by And I discovered they had a family, and they were living like kittens. What a discovery! Now I just got one comment to make about that. Not having a home, I had me a girlfriend in Beverly milk. She was about 25 years my senior. She's a little bitty thing, alcoholic. She lived up above the, you know, back of the hotel in the big numbers. And she was very, very wealthy. I lived between Wilshire and Olympic down on the flatlands with the poor people. but Louise was very very wealthy gal and she'd go with me any place to meet and so sometime between the first six months and the first year she called my house thinking get me she got Mrs. C on the line and Louise said who the hell are you she had a voice just about like that and Mrs. C says well I'm Chuck's wife didn't know he had a wife. That makes it seem as though he doesn't either. And I didn't. But the years gone by, and I discovered that I had a family living like kittens, and that's quite a discovery. Another six months went by, and I discovered that I was still down in the office trying to clean up my desk. And business was good. Business was plum good, and that wasn't a bad discovery. And another year went by, and I had discovered that my own state of being was better than anything I'd ever known. It was just good to breathe in and out. And it was a beautiful thing to discover. Six years go by and I discovered I was never alone anymore. I had a God of my very own and wherever I am, He is. This is the great discovery. When we make this discovery, the search is over. life begins. Now if you had asked me in the first six years what I was doing, why I lived the way I did, I would have told you to rub out a record. If you asked me after six years, I would have told you that I did it by going about my father's business. Helping his kids do things they need to have done because I wanted to. And I've been doing that ever since. Now you can't rub out a record thinking I want or don't want, or like and don't like. You can rub out a record by doing something for somebody without a price tag on it. And that's what I did. That's all I did, and that's all I've done since. My life has been one 12-step call for 34 years and six months. In business, in play, in home, in church, in AA. Just one 12-step call. Trying to add what I can to life. And it's been the most fabulous experience that anybody ever had. In my eleventh year of sobriety, I bought the business. Impossible. Totally impossible. And when I sold it, I was a wealthy man. Again, impossible because I wasn't trying at all. Wasn't trying. I was just helping my people do things they needed to have done because I wanted to. There are a number of people in this audience tonight that know that this is right, because they were in my office and in my home during this time. And so when I quit trying to get anything for myself, I got rich. When I quit going anyplace, which I did 34 years ago, I'd been trying to go someplace all my life. And I ended up, I couldn't even get to Watts. Watts was right around the corner from my factory. Couldn't even get there. I quit trying to go anyplace and the last 34 years have been all over the world. Been all over the world! I totally had given up ever finding out anything about how come I didn't get saved. And I came here and started doing these things, and discovered not only that I had a God of my own but why? I was never able to do it before because I couldn't get out of my way. I could not surrender. Therefore, God himself couldn't help me. Now I'll finish up quick by saying, having lived with you for 34 years, I am totally convinced that the first two words of the Lord's Prayer mean what to say. Our Father God. Remember when they said the carpenter man master teaches to pray? He says after this manner pray ye, our Father, his Father, your Father, and mine." And I believe that with everything in me from the top of my longest hair to my toenails. God my Father, I his kid. Now if that be true you can let your imagination go crazy and you can't even get close to the truth of being itself. It's the most fabulous thing in the world and it's the truth. Now, the only way that anybody will ever know that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous works is to work it. You can't take my word for it. You don't know whether I'm a drunk or not. I may be queer for donuts and coffee that may be the reason I came here you don't know so you can't take my word for it anybody is up you work it and it works and you don t work it don't work And the only way that anybody will ever know that St. Francis knew what he was talking about, when he said, for it is better to love than to be loved, it's better to understand than to be understood. For it is in giving that we receive, in forgiving that we're forgiven, and in dying to self. Those last two words are mine. And in dying to self that we wait to eternal life. Now I figured that I better get some authority for that. I changed the Lord's Prayer, and there wasn't anybody checked with that on. There's one line in there that I can't stomach, lead us not into temptation. I always knew that couldn't be the way it is so I changed that a long time before I even got sober. It's thou leadeth us not in the temptation but delivereth us from evil. Now that's the direct translation from Aramaic to English and Aramaica was the tongue of the carpenter man so i got some verification for that a little later on so i'm not worried about that i got to thinking that if you took all the southerners and all the irish catholics out of alcoholics anonymous you could hold your international convention in a phone booth And I said to myself, you better get some authority before you change St. Francis' prayer. So I called up Manresa. Now Manresas down our way is the Jesuit retreat house, the Jebbies that are going to the top. And I called a place I know out there, I don't happen to be Catholic, but I knew the whole bunch of Padres and I got Father Toner on the line. And I said, Father, listen to what I did to St. Francis' prayer. For it is in dying to self that we awake to eternal life. You know what that monkey said to me? What the heck do you think he meant? Just like ignoring it on his life, you know. He never even thought of it until I mentioned it. And so, when we do these things, we find out that God is sufficient unto all of our needs. The gift of God was made to the foundations of the earth. The universe is mine and it's yours. And God has always known it. has never been confused because he gave it to us. He has always known it, but you and I have to discover it for ourselves. And this is the greatest formula for sobriety, for obtaining and maintaining sobriete, for the good life, and for self-discovery that I've ever heard about, read about her seed. Don't be afraid of it. It's all here, it's all in here. All we got to do is to act as if it were true and prove that it is. God bless you. Thank you very much.