The Freedom of Being a Failure – Chuck C.

Thank you. I'm Chuck C., and I'm an alcoholic. I don't believe it. Allow me a personal word. You know, all through the year for 31 years. I have been coming to your groups, and of course you come to your groups too. But today, and for I guess 25 out of the last 26 Easter's, y'all have come to my group. You see, you didn't have to come here and you made me cry. I just can't believe it. So I have to tell you that I love you very much not only because you're here but because you're you. And I certainly thank you for coming. This does something for me that no other meeting that I attend does, including international conventions. Because I feel that every one of you here because you want to be And of course that's why I'm here. With all those new people, I halfway feel that I have to give a newcomers talk, but today I'm not going to do it. Today if we had a theme I think it would be individual freedom, personal freedom. And it seems to me that that is the pearl of great price. You know there is only one thing in life that you and I as individuals cannot change. Just one thing. We didn't have to come here. We don't have to stay in California, we don't have to say the United States. We don't have to go home, we don't have to go to her business everything about life we can change but one we're stuck with ourselves forever world without end amen now in the past that has been a very bleak prospect that since arriving here it's not a bleak prospect at all. It's an adventure in personal freedom and personal love, the like of which I've never known. It would seem that inasmuch as we are stuck with ourselves forever, that our early education would have been pointed toward some way that we might be friends with ourselves. To be my friend, you know me, be my friends. But that was never even suggested in my youth. Everything was pointed toward trying to get along with your neighbors and out-thinking outmaneuvering and outperforming those in like business so you could beat him to the worm the early bird gets the worm you know so we got to beat them to the draw which indicates or connotes that there isn't enough to go around you know. So we got to get ours, while the getting is good. Telling us that we must so operate, that we will be needed and be loved. Two great needs of the individual according to what they taught me was to be needed to be loved so it seems that we pretty well missed the boat. I was launched with three great handicaps. Number one, that I had to get out here in the world and not think of performing a maneuver in order to get what I thought I was born without. Secondly, that we had the merit be worthy of and earn God's grace. And third, that the two great needs that I would have were to be needed and to be loved. And all of them are backwards. Every one of them is backwards. And I learned that they were backwards since I came here. Now, I had 43 years to run my life, during which time I was the master of ceremonies and the star of the show. And at the ripe old age of 43, I had accomplished failure in every department of life. At the ripe old age of forty-three, I was a failure as a husband, a father, a businessman, a man, and a drunk. Now if I'd have had any more departments, I'd But that's all the departments I had. And I came here totally done in. One of the things that I had been conditioned to believe, I guessed for generations in my family was that you couldn't admit defeat. Surrender was not even in my vocabulary. forty-three years I never admitted defeat one time. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I won every battle in 43 years. I got the bejesus kicked out of it lots of times, but it was by accident. He hit me first. I'd get him next time. There's a guy sitting over here to my right, I wouldn't mention anything about him at all except that he was a very sneaky fighter. He'd get in an argument at the bar, you know, and he'd invite somebody outside, and then he'd take off first. And when he got the guy in the doorframe, he turned and hit him right quick, you know, and the fight was over. That's the way he did it. So he won a lot of them that ordinarily he wouldn't have won, you see. Surrender was not in my vocabulary. And had it been necessary for me to consciously surrender the first time, I would have died without coming to this program. There isn't any question in the world, in my mind, about that. Because i could not surrender the word was not in my vocabulary the strong man wins the weak man surrenders and i couldn't do it and thanks to our politics anonymous and thank god i didn't have to do it the first time the bottle did it for me in January 1946 the bottle killed me beat me to death nearly all of you know that story and I'm not going through it again today but suffice it to say that my last trip out started the Friday before Christmas 1945 and ended up sometime after the middle of January 1946 and the whole business so far as I'm concerned was in a blackout I don't remember any of it I came to sometime after the middle of January 1946 with nothing in my skin but alcohol because I never drank I never ate when I drank so I had nothing in me but alcohol but I came to with the clearest head I've ever known in my life I had a period of I believe total sanity and I saw me with nothing between me and me the bottle had burned it out totally and there was nothing between me and me and I saw me as I was and I accepted the fact that I had lost the battle of life I did not know why because I knew nothing of the disease of alcoholism but I knew that I'd lost the battle of life and that was the first time in my life that I ever admitted defeat I accepted the conditions around me as they were too Mrs. C, after 20 years was in the process of divorcing me and I might quickly say without cause and I knew why and I knew she should have done it ten years before our kids wouldn't even come home when I was around if they could help and I know why and I accepted that my boss man had sent word to the house that if I ever stepped my foot inside the plant again he was going to throw me through the window which wouldn't have been very nice because the window he had picked out don't open it's played glass I had no job no health no sanity no money and no home and I accepted it I accepted the fact that everything due to me in life was gone and should be gone and that I was not entitled to have it back I also accepted death because on the next and last time out I had pretty well accomplished that I had gone to the kitchen in my withdrawal period to get a glass of buttermilk which was my tonic that would stay down when nothing else would so I go to the kitchen to get 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 came running out to see if they could help me keep from swelling my tongue because they expected me to be in a an alcoholic convulsion which was my want but I wasn't I wasn' t convulsing I had already used up all my convulsions and I was just lying there on the kitchen floor as peaceful as anybody you ever saw I wasn't doing nothing they tell me I was a peculiar color I was blue and they got all exercised and called the oxygen squad at the Beverly Hills Receiving Hospital to see if they'd come down and help me out. Now, as serious as this is, it tickled the hell out of me. I'm quite sure that all of them had been praying for me to die for at least five years. Some of you who have listened to my lady have heard her admit that she sought many times to find a way that she could do away with me without being found out. So they've been praying for five years for me to die and they come to the kitchen and find me dead and they get all exercised and call the oxygen squad. And they sent a squad down there, and I have reason to believe they brought me around. I remember what happened after I came to. There was a young doctor with him, and he told me, to all intents and purposes, you were dead. He said, we've had a hell of a time bringing you to, and nobody will ever bring you to again under these circumstances. And then he gave me the finest piece of counsel that I will ever hear, I'm sure. He looked me right in the eye and he said, If I were you, I wouldn't do that anymore. Now I want to pass that on to all your new people this morning. If I was you, I wouldn' t do that any more. But I did it again. And the last time was much worse than the time before. So I knew I was going to die, and it was all right with me, it was alright. But I didn't want to die with a record. I didn' t want Mrs. C and the kids to remember me as nothing but a tongue-truing babbling idiot drunk. And I want to make a statement here that some of you maybe won't even believe. Because there are many here that have lived with people like me, both men and women. And you couldn't possibly believe that we loved you because of our performance. I bet you Mrs. C told me five hundred times, Chuck, if you loved us, you would do these things. And how could I tell her it was because I loved her that I did? This is hard to explain. I never got to the point that I didn't love my wife and my kids. I was a periodic the last ten years. Because, you see, I was going to win this battle. I had to. I had the win, and so I was a periodic for the last ten years. I was physically as sober as I am today between every two drunks for ten years, and on one these dry spells, not one but many over the years, I would go to bed and my bed was just that far away from hers. And it might as well have been in Siberia. And I'd go to bed and I would lie there and listen. And when I determined that she was asleep by her breathing, I'd cry me up a river but that's all I could do see I knew I was crucifying her and the kids and I knew I'd do it again and I couldn't take her in my arms and say honey I love you I'll never do this again I wanted to but I couldn' I'd already done it and all I could do was lie there and cry me up a River And on this particular morning, accepting the fact that everything dear to me in life is gone and also accepting death, I had one thing that I wanted to do before I kicked off in just one, and that was to rub out as much of the record as possible before I died. Now if you can imagine it, I did not even want sobriety for myself because I was going to die. It's no use for me to want sobrietty for me. wasn't going to be here. And it was all right, but I didn't want to die with the record. And I remembered that morning that I'd read Jack Alexander's article in The Post in 1941. Mrs. C had found it and she had read it and thought it might do me some good. So she left it 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 I remembered that morning that I'd read it but I was four sheets in the wind when I read it and I remembered only two things about it, that drunks help drunks and didn't drink and they called it Alcoholics Anonymous. That's all I remembered about it. and I said to myself if I ever live to get out of this bed I'll find an egg and immediately the curtain dropped my sanity was gone I was sick and to death drunk and insane and I had a lot of dying to do but from that second until right now I have never had a drink of alcoholic beverage or a sedating or tranquilizing pill of any kind from that moment till this I had a lot of dying to do when I could get out of bed I sat in that chair that same one day after day and I'd say to myself this too will pass but I was sure I was the monkey that was going to see the passion but eventually I started getting better and I found you people now isn't it strange that from the moment of decision until right now if I ever live to get out of this bed I'll find a egg from that second until right now. I've never had to take a drink or a pill. Such is the great significance of this thing called surrender. Surrender. This is the most misunderstood experience in human life, in my way of thinking. Everybody runs from it. Everybody is afraid of failure. You know, I have a lot of fun with that. Because lots of times I talk with groups—sometimes big ones, much bigger than this—of non-alcoholics, or at least those who haven't admitted yet. And maybe I've got a couple of thousand people in front of me. And now you look at them and I can see that 96% of them are scared to death of failure. You know, you can just tell by looking at them. And I have a little fun out of it because I'm a pixie, sort of. So I tell them, I said, now I've got every one of you monkeys but the short hair. Every one of them. I can look at you and I can tell you're scared to death of failure, every one of you. And I'm not afraid of it at all. I am a failure." And they all drop out of their seats! I'm the guy that's talking to them. And I tell them, I am the failure, you know. I'm never afraid of them. If I live to August the 3rd, I will be seventy-five years old. You insensitive rascals, you know better than that! I'm going to give that to you again, and I want everyone to say, aww. If I live to August the 3rd, I will be 75 years old. Bless you! You know that I don't look like I'm seventy-five. And the greatest single event in my life, the greatest event in seventy- five years of life was when the bottle killed me in January 1946. This is the most amazingly freeing experience that there is. Can you imagine what life would be like if you didn't want nothing, no time for yourself? Now this is a freedom that is absolutely unspeakable. You can't even talk about it intelligently, but it's amazing. I came to this program not even wanting sobriety. And I had three and a half years of total non-expectancy. I didn't want nothing, no time for me. was the greatest period of miracles through which I ever lived. The greatest period of miracles to which I have lived. In that three and a half years, every little piece of the jigsaw puzzle of life fell together. It was fantastic! But a bad thing happened too. I guess some of you started telling me what a good job I was doing, and I started believe in you. And at the end of three and a half years, I had become somebody again. And that's bad, children. When you're somebody, you've got rights. And when you've Got Rights, you're going to defend them. So you're in hell with your hat off again i had rights for 43 years and i got scars to prove it so yeah i've got rights and i had to start surrendering consciously for the first time after three and a half years without a drink or a pill and everything getting better all the time I had to start consciously surrendering and every time I had to consciously surrender for the next thirteen years I got mad as a wet hen oh and it just make me so mad I'd say why why does this damn thing have to come back you know when I was free of it completely free of it for so long But when that happens to you, there's only two things that can happen after that. You either surrender out of it or you get drunk if you're an alcoholic. So I had to keep surrendering. Thirteen years I was surrendering, getting mad every time I did it. And when I was sixteen years and six months sober, sitting there in my big chair and looking out the window. I got an answer to this thing that's totally satisfactory to me, and it hasn't bothered me for all the rest of this time at all, to surrender. It's no chore at all. I do it all the time. And this is the solution that came to me. When you and I take step number three, I mean take it, not read it or talk about it. When we turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand him, which means our very own God, not that we have to understand the infinite but the necessity of an individual experience, our very own God. When we do this, we enter a new dimension of life, a totally new dimension of life. An infinite father, an infinite child, and an infinite journey. An infinite father, an infinite child, and an infinite journey. And on an infinite journey we cannot stop walking. life will not let us stop walking we have to walk because we're on an infinite journey and when we get fat and complacent we get caught in the ringer she's sitting there I'd say it right she told me she said if you ever say that again I'm going to divorce you so I just have to say now we get caught in a ringer. And we either surrender or we get drunk, you see? And it's perfectly all right now. I don't mind it at all because I can see that the time will never come when you and I won't have to continue to surrender because we're on an infinite journey. There no destination. And when you're on an infinite journey, you've got to walk. And it's perfectly all right with me now. As a matter of fact, I like it because you feel so good when you are totally free. We're talking about freedom, you see, individual freedom, personal freedom. And the only possibility to have this personal freedom is to get rid of our obsessions of the mind that cause us to operate as we operate. to get rid of the obsessions of the mind that cause us to drink against our will and cause us to do a lot of other things. And these obsessions in the mind, all of them are children of the ego. I want, I don't want, I like, I do not like, aye-yi-yi. The ego which is conscious separation. This is the best definition of the human ego you will ever hear. It is the feeling of conscious separation from. Now I walked alone for 43 years and I'm sure that if there was ever a group of people on the face of the earth that wanted so badly to be a part of it's the alcoholics of the world we wanted so much to be apart to be part of this life around us and we couldn't make it we were always apart from apart from each other and apart from the living God that made us You know, this is one of the reasons we'd run for the bright lights, trying to get a little bit of fellowship. Well in the end, you know what you do? What I did. I'll tell you what I did—I'd go into a bar and I'd go right down to the last seat and I'd sit down there and drink alone and if somebody came by and spoke to me you know what I'd do I'd hit him right in the mouth he was interfering with my solitude well I'd gone down there in the first place to be with people or I thought I did but we were forever apart from and the only roadblock in my opinion the only roadblock between me and you and me and my God is the human ego it has to go it has to go if you're going to be free the ego rides us just like a Texas cowboy riding a pony makes us do anything it wants us to do the reason you never hear anything about willpower backbone and standing up and being a man in Alcoholics Anonymous is that we know that when the willpower and the imagination or the emotions are in conflict the imagination or the emotion always win there's no contest you see so it's got to go to the boards and that's what our program is all about that's the very essence of the first nine steps of our program to squeeze us out of ourselves to get rid of duality which is conscious separation to get rid of this is the very essence of the result of honestly taking the first nine steps to program it's just like you'd put your head in the box at step one and somebody took a crank on the vice. Step two, they take another one. Step three, they take two. Four and five. Wicked! That's three or four turns. Six and seven are all right because you become willing to give this stuff away and you give it away. you don't work it out you become willing to give it away and you give it away at eight and nine making amends these are two of the most beautiful steps in the whole program the most immediately rewarding steps in the world the whole program right now get that load off your back if we do the first nine steps honestly we are surrendered then we can look deep within ourselves and find us which includes our relationship to each other and to God this is an amazing thing nothing's added it's uncovered and discovered and every bit of it is an inside job now I am saying this in essence that if you've got anything wrong with you at all don't say they did it because you'll keep it if you do that just for the fun of it I drank 25 years and up until my last stroke it was never my fault Now, I look at that and I can't believe it. One drunk in twenty-five years should have been my fault by accident. But it was never my fault. It was your fault. My wife's fault. It was her mother's fault, it was the boss's fault—conditions, circumstances. So I kept getting drunk. During my last time out, I came to see that if there be fault, it's mine. If there be a fault, it is mine. And I've never had to drink anymore. This is what we're talking about. At number ten, we can look deep within ourselves because the wreckage of the past has been cleared away. We have uncovered The thing we've been looking for all our lives. And we find us, which includes our relationship to each other and to God. Now, we say to each another a lot of times that we have to learn how to love ourselves before we can love somebody else. I don't believe it. I have never spent one second trying to learn How To Love Me. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't know how to go about it. In the first place, although I'm sure nobody has noticed it, I am partial to women. It never occurred to me until you people started talking about it that we had to learn how to love ourselves, and I don't believe it at all. And you tell me, and I read it in the grapevine, that we've got to rebuild our self-confidence. I hope that every one of you will hear what I say next. If there's anything I don't want, it's self-confidence. I was born with enough self-Confidence for everybody west of the Mississippi River. And you know what it did to me? It kept me fighting that battle for ten years after I'd lost Ten years after that was done I was still going to win that battle And five years after everybody quit listening to me I was saying, I'll beat this thing if it's the last thing I ever do And it came that close to being the last things I ever did so I don't want any self-confidence at all now you don't need it when you do these steps because if you turn your will and your life over to the sheriff's guy you're not your problem anymore now think about it take it with you because I get my living room full of people that are scared to death scared to death had a guy the other day he was 11 years without a drink he came in there and he was oh he was scared he was scared of everything you know and I said well I think we better look at the steps again what do you mean look at steps he said I've taken all the steps why he says I've been taking them for 11 years you did huh yeah I said did you take one two three he said yes did you take three he said yes many times I said well what the hell are you afraid of if you turn your will and your life over to care of God there's nothing to be afraid of nothing because you're not your problem anymore self-concern has no place in your life. Self-concern is just merely saying, look, Dad, I don't believe you're quite as familiar with this problem as I am. I've got to get you some outside help. Now, there's no sense in turning your will and your life over to the care of a God you can't trust. You know? I can't Trust me. I might as well keep it. As to give it to a God I can' t trust. So this is what this program is all about. And the thing that comes with self-discovery is, again, totally beyond words. There is a feeling of dignity, of value, of worth, that is unspeakably wonderful. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the human ego, but it has everything to do with gratitude, gratitude, and gratitude. I'm so grateful I can't see. I am so grateful I can see. Every day that I have in this program, I am more grateful. You see, I've had more days sober since I died in January 1946 than many, many, people get from the time they were born in the first place. Lots of people died before they get to be 31 years old. And I have had 31 years of velvet, and I'm so grateful again, see? These are days I would not have had but for you, people like you, and the grace of God. And the program of God Because, you see, I can take no credit for the last thirty-one years of my life. I can't take credit for coming here as long as I had the power of choice. My choice was never to come to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I never came until I ran out of the power choice. So I can' t take credit to come in. I can't take credit for living long enough to come. So everything since January 1946, I give thanks for. And I take no credit for it at all. Now again, this is a marvelous freedom to be rid of the necessity to take the credit for the things that turn out well in your life and to be rid of the necessity to have a they to blame for the things that turn out badly is one of the greatest freedoms on the face of the earth you're free and that's what we're talking about now the wonder of wonders is that it comes out of this program of ours if we do it for the purpose that it was put down mind not to have to drink today. I am convinced that both of our problems are the conditions that we put on sobriety, or the tangents we get on when we try and take the steps. And And one of the most, I'm sure, and one of the most natural would be, we get to step three, and it says we made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understood him. And we say to ourselves, uh-oh, I don't understand him. I've got to get me another book. I've got to get me a tutor and we go off on a tangent trying to find God now I can give you a little history on that I was trying to find God for 33 years for 30 years 30 years I was trying to find God I went through just about every great religion and philosophy that there is during that time I walked with and talked with some of the greatest spiritual geniuses of our time and I couldn't find him because I thought he was out yonder someplace I was looking every place but where he is and I came here not looking for him at all I wasn't looking for God I came here to find out a way to live today without taking a drink today And we found each other. I don't know who found who or what, don't make any difference. But there he is, you see. It's a discovery. We uncover and discover the thing we've been looking for all our lives. Freedom. Freedom comes with not having to have somebody's blame. Now, just for a minute more. Sometimes I get something wrong with me, but not often. See, I still lie a too. Now, when I get something wrong with me, what am I going to do? Number one, I cannot blame God because I do not believe in a God of judgment. Now I don't tell you that you mustn't believe in a god of judgment, I don' t. I don''t believe in the God of Judgment so I can't blame God. I don't believe in a God that would try me to see if I loved him, or put some stumbling blocks in my way to see whether I am going to fall. I don' t believe it. As a matter of fact, there is one line in the Lord's Prayer that I've changed. I'll tell you about two of them that I've changed. One line in the Lord's Prayer that I changed when I was a kid, and I didn't know why until much later, it's, Lead us not into temptation. Now when I were that high, I knew that God couldn't lead me into temptation, you know? I didn't know why I believed it, but my insides knew it. That wouldn't leave me in temptation. And it was not too many years ago that I turned over to James and read this. If you are tempted, don't say, I'm tempted by God. God can not be tempted by evil, neither can he tempt any man. If you're tempted, it's because of your own desires. Huh? No, that's what it says. I didn't say that, but I should have. The next one that I changed was in St. Francis' prayer. It says there something about fortune—it's better to love than to be loved, it's better to understand and to be understood, for it is in giving that we receive and for giving that we are forgiven, and in dying that we attain eternal life, come into eternity, eternal life. And I've thought for years, what, I mean, why? Why do we have to wait until we die to find that? And I finally came to see through this program that it meant dying to self, surrender. Now, that's what that means, and so I put it in there, and I say it now. And it is in dying to Self that we attain or come into eternal life. So I thought, well, I shouldn't do that. I'm talking a lot of Catholics dying now and then, and maybe I shouldn't do that. So I called up Manresa. Now, that's a dirty retreat house. Many of you know it. And I got Father Toner on the line, and I said, Father, listen to what I did with St. Francis' prayer. For it is in dying to self that we attain eternal life. And he says, what the hell do you think he meant? Just like he had known it forever, you know. So it's in dying to self that we come into this deal. And that's what today is all about. Today isn't crucifixion. That was last Friday. A lot of people think that that's the one. That's the big deal. That ain't the big deal. Today is the big deal because today is resurrection. Resurrection. And that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is, resurrection from the land of the living dead to the land From the land of the living dead to the land of the living. We are resurrected we are born again we are born out of conscious separation into conscious unity into conscious unity and that's what gives us the freedom that's where freedom comes from that's where freedom come from we find out in this thing that we ain't going no place that we've got nothing to prove and nothing to win. We discover that. And the reason for it is there ain't no place to go. Where are you going? All I did was in a hurry. Where are You going? There ain't No Place to Go. One of the things that I get saddled with so much Is it some of the clerics say to me, many of your people want to go further. They've got to go farther. And many of you come to me about going further, you know. How are you going further? Huh? I said to one of them, as many of us know, I said, is there any way, he had said to me a lot of your People want to Go Further. And I said, is there any way to go further than to dedicate your life to the service of your fellow man? Why, he says, no, that's the ultimate alt. I said that's Alcoholics Anonymous. That's our twelfth step. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. We tried to carry this message to the alcoholic who still suffers. and to practice these principles in all of our affairs. All of our fairs, everything that we do. That's the way we go further. By loving the father's kids, you, more. I've learned much more about him. Much more. That's The Way You Go Further. And I think it's the only way. And the man said that's the ultimate alt. So there's no place to go, nothing to win and nothing to prove. The best that I can get out of this thing called life is that the only thing you can do with it is live it. That's the only things you can do with life. What are you trying to do with? All you can do is live it, and all the time you have is right now. That's the only time you've got. Now is the only thing you and I will ever know. You see one of the reasons that I was detained so long from getting into this fellowship, I was going to straighten up and fly right tomorrow. But tomorrow never came. time I came to, it was now and I was thirsty. So now is the only time we have. So there's nothing to do with life but live it. The only time you'll have is now. The only reason for it is the joy of it. Not for my glory, but for the glory of the Father or the glory of life itself. Now that's all this life is all about. And now's the time. Now just for fun, and I'm going to close up because it said three o'clock and that clock back there says three and mine still is not quite three. And I'm not too concerned anyway because we already passed the hack. You know, I learn more about what to do from the birds and the bees and the animals and the stuff outside there. I learn a lot more about that to-do from them than I do from people. I learn more about what not to do from people than what to do. So do all teachers. But I sit there in my chair and my butterfly goes by, you know? And I sit down trying to figure out what he's thinking about. And you know something? He ain't thinking about nothing. He's busy being a butterfly. Now, I got a pair of blue jays that I feed, they're buggers. And they'll be sitting right there and that old butterfly goes right by them. And I don't hear him say, I wish I was a blue jay. He doesn't even pay any attention to it. Every time he goes by, he's still a butterfly. I got a bunch of malkin' birds on the hill, too. And they think they own it, you know. So, the blue jays, they try to run them off. But neither the malking bird nor the bluejay has ever attempted to change its color. They're perfectly satisfied to be bluejays and malkenbirds. I got an old bush right here that has red roses on it and one right here that has yellow roses on and you know in 20 years this one has never had a yellow rose on it it's right next door why can't we do that you've been trying to be a yellow Rose all your life the yellow Rose of Texas but she's from Alabama Now, freedom is the ability to be us. To be me. To do my thing. To share me with anybody that wants me in love. Just because I want to, for free and for fun. Because I love it. this is freedom. And I don't want to be you. Many of you good-looking youngsters have had me tell you that straight out. You male, chauvinist pigs. I say I hate everybody that's younger and better looking than I am, you see. But I really don't. I don't want to be anybody in the world but me. And I don' t want to do anything in the world but what I'm doing. And ain't going no place. And I'm not trying to improve on God's handiwork. You see, we're the only creatures that he ever made that are dissatisfied with his job. You and I spend a lifetime trying to prove, improve on God's creation of us. Now I'm going to tell you a little bitty thing and sit down because I've taken too much time already. Again, we're the only ones of God's creatures that try to improve his job. Now I have come to the very simple conclusion, very simple solution. Living with you people like you for 31 years, that every one of us are God's children. The first two words of the Lord's Prayer I believe with my toenails and my hair, mean exactly what they say. Our Father, God. God our Father. We his children. And I look at it and I see in our Bible, in the Christian Bible, it says in the beginning God. In the beginning, God, God plus nothing leaves nothing but God. So that's all there is. There's just God. Now I've read lots of other Bibles too If you were reading Brahmanism, it would say the Brahman's all there is. There is no other Nash which says the same thing. Don't make a difference. They all seem to say the same things when we take the lid off of them. But speaking to ours, it says in the beginning God. God plus nothing leaves nothing but God. And then it says God created the heavens and the earth. Why did he create them out of? What did he create him out of? The little boy says, where did God stand when he created the earth? And I think that's a good question. He couldn't have stood on a ball of mud out of the Mississippi River because he hadn't made it to the Mississippi river yet. What did He create him about out of. I think the process of creation is that God thinks and himself becomes the thing he thinks about. Now, that isn't so hard to take when you look at yourself and you see that you think and yourself become what you think about. You see? If a man thinks it isn't hard, so is he. So the process of creation, God thinks and himself becomes the thing he thinks about. And he created the heavens and the earth. And he put the water over yonder and threw a fish in it, and he put a mountain over here and put a tree on it and a bird in the tree and a monkey under it. And he looked at it and then he says, this is great, I like this, it's fine. says here, I'm going to create man in my own image and after my own likeness, which means totally free. Totally free. If we're created in the image and likeness of God, we are totally free, just as God is totally free! Now I submit to you that the only way we could have been created free was to be created with the possibility of hurting ourselves. Hear me? The only way we could be created free, was to be created for the possibility for hurting ourselves if you had been created predestined to the point where you couldn't put your hand on a hot stole. You would not be a free person, you would be a robot or a computer, but you wouldn't be free. You had to be created with the possibility of hurting yourself in order to be free! Now I submit to you that the only way that I can ascertain, what I can do and be comfortable right here and do it, and what I cannot do and be uncomfortable right here, and eliminate it, is by experience and its lesson. Experience and its lessons. Experience and his lesson. And that's what this whole thing is all about. And it's the most fascinating, the most consumingly interesting experience of living that anybody will ever get to teach you. Of all peoples we are the most blessed. We drunks, we alcoholics. Why? Because we have a terminal illness. And because our illness is progressive, and because the time comes when we can no longer survive without an answer. And we come to this program to find out how to live today without drinking. And we find that the formula for sobriety, and the formula of the good life, and a formula for self-discovery are all the same formula, 1 through 12 inclusions. How fortunate can a man be? How fortunate to be returned from the land of the living dead into the land of the living, to come out of the gutter and be able to stand here and talk to you people this morning. And love every one of you so much that I just want to take you in my arms and keep you. It's happening. Only one possibility for a thing like that to happen. That the word grace means a free gift. It's the gift of God. And I'm too grateful I can't see. God bless you. Thank you very much.