The Obsession of the Mind and the Allergy of the Body – 1963 – Chuck C.

I'm Chuck Snead and I'm an alcoholic. AA is pretty special every place, but insofar as I am concerned there is no place that I receive so much love as when I come to Texas. You people just do me in. You are so good to me, and you share so much love with me that it makes it almost impossible for me to get up here and talk with you this morning. All I want to do is bawl and tell you I love you and go home. I said, I'm Chuck C., and I'm an alcoholic. I am neither proud of it nor am I ashamed of it. That's the way it is with me. I am an alcoholic." I think it's a pretty wonderful thing when you and I can accept ourselves exactly as we are and go from there. I find it not necessary to even blush about this alcoholism thing. We heard last night that some amongst us think that we might have gotten cheated because we didn't find this thing earlier. I don't think so. I don' t think I could have found it three days before I got here. I' m quite sure that if the entire 50,000 membership of Alcoholics Anonymous had have called on me 30 days before II got to AA, I would have thanked them for coming. I would have told them I was real glad that they had found a way to handle their problems and I would agree with them that I was worth saving but I would have told them I will handle my problem myself and I would have thought even then that I would I kept telling myself for three 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, I'll tell you that. I was having dinner with our beloved Bernie Smith, who was then chairman of the Board of Trustees in Little Rock, Arkansas many years back. And Bernie was an non-alcoholic, as you all know, and he loved this thing and gave much to it over the years. And Bernie said to me, Chuck, if a board of unquestioned authorities had examined you in your twenties and had told you that if you continued to drink these things would happen to you, would you have quit drinking? And I said, why no, Bernie, I wouldn't. And he says, remember I told you a board of unquestioned authorities. And I asked, Bernie by whose authority. You see, I always knew that alcohol could get people like you, but it couldn't get me. I knew too much. And so I don't think that I spent ten minutes in hell. That was not necessary in my case. And I spent ten of the hottest years in hell that we can spend, and every bit of it was necessary. I don't even look at it as a bad experience. I look at it as a good experience, because, you see, out of the worst possible life came the best. And without everything that went before, I could never have fulfilled the conditions for sobriety. Share a little story with you. Now, about ten years ago, I went to Folsom Prison as a guest. I could leave after the meeting was over. Now, Folsom prison is for habituals. You can't even get there for murder if it's the first time. And once a year we have a conference up there, and I went up, and I was billed as the headliner for this conference. And it's a long deal, and there are many talks by both inmates and outmates. And when the time finally came for me, there was only 15 minutes left. And Warden Hinesy got up and took two minutes apologizing, but telling us that there just wasn't any more time because we had to get out of there before the changing of guards. And so when I got up, there was just thirteen minutes left. And I got and said something. I don't know what it was, but it sort of turned the prison over. They have it on tape up there and I still hear from them, but I never heard it. So I don' t know what is was. But it was quite a thing. And we didn't get out of there on time, because that bunch of prisoners were practically fighting to get to come over and touch me and talk to me. And it was one of the most fabulous experiences that I shall ever live through in my lifetime. The next day I was going home in an airplane, and I was sitting up about 15,000 feet in the air, and by myself. And I was looking at this experience and trying to read its lesson. And the first thing that hit me was that the only possibility I had for identity with that group of men was because of the life I had led, because of the life I had led. And you know, the only reason I am here this morning is because of the life that I led. And my value to you this morning, is not in what I say, but in what you see. Because, You see, I had forty-three years to run my life. And I ran it for forty- three years. I was the director of activities and I was the primary actor in the show. And I run my for 43 years. And at the end of 43 years, I was a total failure in every department of life. I not only failed as a drunk, I failed as a husband, a father, a businessman, a man and a drunk. Now, I take the credit for that. That I did. And at 43, I had used up all of my own resources. I had no resources left at all. And I came here. Now, I had to use up all my resources before I could come here, because as long as I had choice, I would not come here. My choice was not to come because, you see, I didn't like people. I didn' t even like the good people and the drunks I hated because I was a drunk and I hated me and I hated all of you. And the very idea of me coming to a bunch of drunks for help was obnoxious to say the least. And so I had to use up every resource that I had before I could come. And when I had no further choice, I came here. And something happened. And I haven't had to drink anymore. And so out of the most hopeless and helpless condition, a hopeless, helpless, tongue-chewing, babbling idiot drunk, as miserable, I guess, as a man can be and live, something happened, and this morning I am at peace. I'm at peace with me and with you and with my God. Now, this is the sermon. Whereas I was a hopeless, helpless drunk today, I'm sober. And whereas I was one of the most miserable amongst men, today I'm reasonably happy, and this is my value. And this is the reason that I am here. Because, you see, I'm alive because a drunk had time, had time to share his experience, strength, and hope with me. And I am here because it is necessary for me to share my experience, strength, strength and hope with anybody that wants to share it, anybody. And I would say before I get lost that for those amongst us who are not alcoholics, who might be Al-Anons or might not even be Al Anons, there is not one answer for me, a drunk, and another answer for you, a non-alcoholic. It's all the same answer. And whatever is true in my life Is true in yours And so the things that I say Are applicable, I think To everybody in the room My good wife tells me That the only thing that she misses That I get from this great program Is the terrific joy At knowing what day it is Now, I know it's Sunday, and to me this is a fabulous thing, because I have lived for long periods when I didn't even know what month it was. Now, this joy she will never know, because she never missed a day. But everything else, she gets just as much out of the program as I. And incidentally, she's just as busy and I think a great deal more effective in her work as I am in mine. I think in many ways Al-Anon is doing a better job with our program than we are because the Al-Ansons come to our program without the excuse of the bottle. They come here to find a living answer for, right from the start. And they start applying our program to their own lives to find a living answer, and so many of us come with the bottle as the head man who drove us in. And we get sober, and we say to ourselves, well, I came for sobriety, and I've got it. And we forget that just to get rid of the bottle is not our answer, that we have to get rid of alcoholism. No matter how drunk we've been in from three to seven or eight days, we can get sober physically. if we'd be alcoholic and we want to be rid of the bottle permanently, this is a lifetime job. Because as soon as we're rid of the bottle, then we have to start working on alcoholism. And this is a lifetime deal. Now I think that we'll spend just a couple of minutes on the nature of our problem. There may be some here who are new, and there may be some of the town folk here I don't know. But I think it's absolutely necessary that we as alcoholics either come to see the nature of our problems or drink the last dregs out of the bottom of the cup, one or the other. because, you see, the very first condition for sobriety is surrender. This is the very first condition. And an alcoholic can't surrender. We were not built to surrender. We were built to win. and we came awful close to doing it. We almost took everything we wanted out of life on our own terms. But we got just a little bit alcoholic. And that's all, brother. But by the very nature of us, we can't surrender. and so it is necessary that we burn up or come to see the nature of our problem when we come to say that there's nothing ahead of us but an alcoholic death or a permanent insanity when we've come to do that we can get off of the merry-go-round any place from the first compulsive drink to the snake pit but we've either got to come to sea it or else we've got to drink the last dregs out of the bottom of the cup. Otherwise, we can't surrender. You know, the longer I'm sober, the more I think of the ordinary citizens, the non-alcoholic world. I am amazed now with 17 years and five months and some days to look back over to think that they put up with it as long as they did. We didn't give them a very good picture to look at. And why they did, why they put us in trouble and why they would put up with it as long as they did I'll never know. But see we are a complex of paradoxes. We couldn't explain ourselves to them, because we didn't show what we were ourselves. Now there are a few little common traits that we all have, and all of them you have to laugh when you think about them, porque these are not the things we showed to the world around us. We alcoholics are idealists, perfectionists, every one of us. Terrific drive for excellence. The drive that has given rise to the little cliché, this is the best mechanic we've ever had in the shop, but . This is the best doctor that ever hit this part of the country, but, you know, best stenographer we ever had in the office, but you can't make it until about of a Tuesday. Terrific drive for excellence because of our perfectionism. We are people who were born with an interior awareness that life is a big and a beautiful and a good thing. It came with us. And we're people who have a very highly emotional nature. We are very sensitive people. Now, how can you expect the world to believe this when we show them the picture we do? How many of you have cried your eyes out over a beautiful sunset when you were so drunk You couldn't even get up off the floor. It's just a pudding, you can't stand it. Well, try to explain that to the arresting officer. My wife used to say to me Chuck If you loved me You wouldn't do these things Now how in the hell Could I tell her It was because I loved her That I did them Try to explain that And yet some of the worst Drunks there was ever On my life was because I was crucifying my wife and my kids, and I knew it. And it hurt because I loved them. And I couldn't stand the hurt, and I had to get drunk again to get rid of it and crucify them all over again. Now, hollies don't like dirt. We hate dirt. But try to explain that to the normal mind when there you lay in the gutter And the pig got up and slowly walked away Reminds me of a little story about the two Irishmen They were going home one night And there lay their friend Pat in the gutter Drunk as a lord, you know All messed up They stopped And were looking at their poor friend there in the cutter Commiserating with each other about this disgrace of this guy. I was disgracing the town and his church and his family. After a few minutes of this, one of them looked at the other and he said, just think, tomorrow's payday and we've got to go through this ourselves! We don't like dirt, and how dirty can you get? Don't tell me because I know. How many times have you come off the drunk and the first place you'd get to when you could walk was the shower? You get in there and wear out two cakes of soap trying to get clean. And as soon as you get yourself as clean as you can, you go to the barbershop and get the hair cut off your head and the beard scraped off your face, and get the best duds you got left and get them on your back. We don't like dirty, but how dirty can a man get? And we hate weakness. We hate weakness in everybody, and much more so do we hate weakness in ourselves. And we can't surrender because, you see, we think that weakness and surrender are synonymous. The strong man wins his battle and the weak man surrenders. And we can't surrender. And we fight for ten years after we lost the battle, because we can' t surrender. We've got to win. And this is the reason we have to see the nature of our problem, or we have to go all the way, the last dreary mile. Now why can't I drink liquor successfully? I'm a big guy, 6'1", if you stand up straight, 190 pounds, about 65% brain and a balanced brawn, you know. Ha-ha! Smart as a whip. Ha-Ha-Ha! Why can't I drink liquor? Now this is something I never knew until I got to Alcoholics Numb. Nobody ever told me why I couldn't successfully drink until I got here. And I went to many places where they should have been able to tell me. I went doctors, to men of the cloth, to people who knew more psychiatry than there is. And nobody ever told my the nature of my problem until I came here. They all talked to me about willpower and backbone, and standing up and being a man. And I didn't think I was weak in those departments. So they didn't know the nature of my problem, and they couldn't help me. Thank God many, many doctors, priests, preachers, psychiatrists, and laypeople have made it their business to find out the nature our problem. And they know it now, and can tell us. But in my day, they didn' t know. they couldn't tell me, and they couldn' t help me. And I couldn't help myself, because I didn't know. People were forever saying to me, Chuck, you can't drink. You've got to quit. In most cases, these people could drink. And in most cases they weren't my equals, physically or mentally, in my opinion. And I'd look at the fifth squeak and I'd say, why in the hell can't I drink? He does. And my answer to me was, you can, and you've got to prove it. And I went right on trying to prove it for ten years after it lost, not knowing what I was up against. Why can't I drink successfully? Because I'm an alcoholic. What is an alcoholic? An alcoholic is a person who suffers with the disease of alcoholism. The disease of alcoholism, never heard that till I got to A. Nobody ever had mentioned the disease of alcoholismo to me till I get to A, and yet I remain to find that this is one of the worst diseases there is. It is medically classified as the third worst killer in the country, alcoholism The only thing that's supposed to kill more people than alcohol is heart and cancer. It is second only to one of our social diseases, the cause for insanity, permanent insanity. And medically speaking it's incurable, and that's what I got, I am now called. It's pretty roustable. is not like German measles. It's a matter of life and death, and that's what I got. I'm an alcoholic. I am an alcoholic, you see. Now the medical definition of the disease of alcoholism is that it's a disease of twofold nature, an allergy of the body coupled with an obsession of the mind. It is both physical and mental. I'm different both physically and mentally than that guy that was saying to me, Chuck, you can't drink, you've got to quit. I didn't know that. This is a very wonderful thing to know. The allergy of the body means simply this, that my body cannot successfully handle alcohol. I can't oxidize it, burn it up, and get rid of it. I take one slug of liquor, I retain it. It goes into the bloodstream of the brain. and it triggers a physical demand that makes me keep drinking until my cycle is run. This is not true with over 90% of those who drink liquor. It's only true of people like me, I'll call it. We're different. And what a good thing it is to know. Now, a couple of the things that are good to know about this physical difference is this, or these. Number one, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Once an alcoholic always an alcoholic, that's good to know. The next thing is that the disease gets worse, the physical part of the disease, gets worse with the passage of time, even when we're not drinking. Now there are so many amongst us, so very many of us. We get sober and get the wrinkles out of our bellies and a little muddy in our pockets and a little time behind us and we get to thinking. It's been a month or six months or a year since I built me up a little good drinking time. You know, a little light wine and beer won't hurt. But this is not true because the physical part of the disease of alcoholism gets worse with the passage of time, even when we're not drinking. This is the only disease I ever heard of that gets worse when you ain't doing it. Now, the greatest argument in favor of staying close to and active in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is that if you stay close to and active in this program, you can never forget that the physical part of the disease gets worse with the passage of time, because your friends are forever proving it for you. One of the worst things that any of us are ever called upon to do, one of the greatest heartbreaks is to sit in the dark room of that man or that woman who's had ten, fifteen, twenty years of total abstinence, who forgot and tried it over. This is a heartbreak. But it does one thing for us. It makes it absolutely unnecessary for us ever to think that we have built up any good drink at the time. It makes an unnecessary forus to challenge the fact that the physical part of the disease gets worse with the passage of time, even when we're not drinking. I'm actually 17 years and a half worse off so far as successfully drinking is concerned than it was when I got here. When I got here, I was a mess. You ought to know it. Lastly, there's no cure for the disease of alcoholism, the physical part of the disease. We had all the money in the state. It's not enough to send me someplace and get a cure for my body. There isn't any such thing. So what are we going to do about the physical side of the disease? I accept the fact that that's the way it is with me. I have no more good drinking time left, period. I never will have any more good drinkin' time, period." Now, if seeing the physical part of the disease, we could decide to quit drinkin', and quit, we wouldn't have a problem. It's not difficult for an alcoholic to see that it's the first drink that starts the drunk after it's explained to us. This never occurred to me until I got to AA. I didn't think it was the first thing. I thought it was the last gallon. I thought if I could just cut off this thing before the trouble started, I was going to be all right. And you told me that it was the first drink and I could see it. And if seeing this we could decide to quit drinking and quit, we wouldn't have a problem in the world. We would just say, okay, It's not doing the thing for them it used to do. I can't get there from here anymore. And besides, it's getting so it hurts too bad to sober up. I'll just cork up the bottle and put it on the shelf and that's it. But this is impossible. Why? Because the other half of the disease, the obsessions of the mind cause us to drink it. Now, if you and I are being alcoholics, we are going to be rid of the bottle. We have to be red of the obsession with the mind that causes us to drink. The reason you never hear anything about willpower, backbone, standing up and being a man in an alcoholic's anonymous is because we know that it's just as silly for an alcoholic to decide to quit drinking, as it is for a tubercular to decide to quit coffee. Just as silly. If the tubercular is going to be rid of the coffee, he has to be rid of The Cause of the Coffee. And if you and I being alcoholics are going to be rid Of The Bottle, we have to be rid Of The Cause of the drink. The obsessions of the mind which are greater than the willpower. Now, if you don't think that's true, I'll ask you very very embarrassing question. How often, how many times have you quit drinking? Don't answer that one either. Now, how are we going to get rid of the obsessions of the mind? That's what this program of ours is all about. We accept the physical side of the disease and then get to work on the mental obsessions. Our book tells us all the way through. Not only the nature of our problem. Not only does it give us a program of recovery, but it tells us why we couldn't do it ourselves. The book says we lack the power. Lack of power was our dilemma, says the book, and it was obvious if we lacked the power we had to find one. And it was just as obvious that it had to be a power greater than itself. This, I believe, is a belief that I'm here. for just a simple reason. If I could have remained sober, I wouldn't believe it. I could not remain sober, therefore I believe it, I lacked the power. What was the power when I was waking up in jail? Tell you something, I never got to the place in my life where I was comfortable in jail. I did not like it in jail and yet many people thought I must have liked it real good because I was there so often. Where was the power? Where was the power when I was lying on the floor chewing my tongue full of holes and babbling like an idiot in an alcoholic compulsion? Where was the power between drunks? Because, you see, I was periodic for the last ten years. And I was just as sober between every two drunks physically as I am right now. And yet I got drunk again? Where was the power between drunks? I lack the power. Therefore, I believe the book when it says that under certain conditions, certain circumstances, there seems to be only one defense against that first slug. The drink I must not take, and that is help from a power greater than yourself. I believe this. Now we're going to get to power. Where's it coming from? We've got a formula. And all we've got to do is fulfill the conditions of the formula. It's that simple. Now, what are the conditions of the formula? The first condition is found in chapter 3. It says we learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery. We have to accept the fact that we are alcoholics, fully conceived to our innermost selves, identified with both the physical and the mental. That's condition number one. Condition number two we find in the preamble of the Twelve Steps. 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. When it becomes more necessary for you and for me to be sober than it is to live, we neither have to drink or die. There is a miracle here. And for those who are new amongst us, if you should happen this morning to decide that If you want what we have and become willing to go to any length to get it, you can start a lifetime of total sobriety this morning, one day at a time. Because when we are willing to do anything, we are going to go through any length together. That makes it number one. Top man on the totem pole. And sobriete becomes easy when it's number one then we're ready to take certain steps here are the steps we took we're sober that's the line just before the twelve steps here are the steps we took which I suggested as a program of recovery now if you want sobriety take these steps this does not say here are the steps we read. It doesn't say, here are the steps we talked about. It doesn' t say, here are the steps we memorized. It says, here are the steps we took. And the first third of the twelve steps is having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. And it don't say it's the result of these steps and this and that and the other thing. It don't says it. There is an implication here. Some place between step one and step twelve, something has happened. The power has been added, and we don't have to drink anymore if we take the steps. And if we don' t take them, nothing happens. Oh, we get drunk. How many times have you heard a guy or a gal say, I tried Alcoholics Anonymous. It didn't work for me. Of course it didn't. AlcoholicsAnonymous never worked for anybody, and it never will. I'm one who believes that there isn't a program, an individual, or a God that can get me sober and keep me sober until I am willing to and do fulfill these conditions to the best of my ability one day at a time. Now, you know, we hear a lot about the keen alcoholic mind in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. We don't hear much about it out yonder. But in here we tell each other about our keen alcoholic minds, you know. And we with our keen alcoholics minds look at this thing and we say to ourselves, it can't be that simple. There must be a harder way than this and I'm going to find it. Oh, man. The only thing wrong with this program is that it is that simple. We can't believe it. But all we've got to do is to do it and find out. Here are the steps we took. down in the very taking of these steps something happens to us powers happen and nobody is going to know what that is until you do it I can't tell you you can see that something happened to me because I'm not drunk yet today I haven't had to take a drink or sit eating or tranquilizing pill for 17 years and five months and something. That's 6,000 about 400 and some odd days, one day at a time. No drinking. And something happened. Now, I'd like to go ahead and talk about the 12 steps, the 12 traditions, a lot of other things, but I'm not going to do it. I'm going to look with you for a few minutes at the miracle itself. and tell you what I think it is, and you're perfectly, you have my permission to disagree with everything I say. But this is the way it seems to me. I used to be a very avid reader of books. I went through all, practically all the systems of religion before I got here because I had to have an answer. And I looked and I looked And I thought when I didn't find it in one system, that it might be found in another. And I went from system to system. And I learned a lot about, but I didn' t learn anything. I didn''t know anything until I got here. And now I don' t read books much anymore. I read I.A. books and the grapevine And I read a lot of things that come from people like you Called letters and letter tapes But mainly I sit up there in that house of mine In Laguna Beach When I get a chance And we're about 500 feet above the ocean And we'RE about a mile back And our big window there looks right out on top of the town And that beautiful coastline And the ocean And the islands And right out of my window I have everything that God ever created Out at the right are the mountains Down below is the flat There's the ocean Over yonder is Catalina Island And up there is the heavens And I've got me a little desert about that big right in the middle of my window to complete the whole creative scheme. And there it is, right in front of my windows. And I like to sit there and look out that window and look at this miracle and look AT the things that have happened to me and look At the things THAT HAVE HAPPENED TO YOU and try to fit them into the scheme of life. And that's what I read. I try to read life anymore. And these things seem to me to be conclusively proven by your experience and mine in this great fellowship of ours. I agree with the doctor about the physical allergy and obsession of the mind. I agree. There's no question in my mind about that. I have it. I am condemned by the obsessions of the mind to drink liquor, and I am condemnable by the allergy of the body to die for dear. This I know. But there is another element to the disease of alcoholism. Alcoholism is a total living problem. A total living problems. And you and I must have a total leaving answer, lest we drink again. Now, you will agree with me that as rough as was the physical torture and as devastating as was mental anguish when we were practicing alcoholics, there was a hurt that far exceeded both of us and arrived in the middle of our being. We were losing the battle of life, and we didn't know why. was passing us up. We were going backwards, and we didn't know why. And the hurt, the big hurt, was right here. I am sure that back of, and maybe farther too, both the obsessions of the mind and the allergy of the body, is a basic spiritual unrest. The great impossibility of peoples with the combination of characteristics with which we were born to settle for the life that we see around us, a great spiritual unrest, this thing called perfectionism is both good and bad. It's good because it won't let us settle for the so-called normal, but it's bad because it makes us demand perfection out of everything around us, including ourselves. And so we can't live in the society in which we find ourselves. We can't integrate. We're trying to make it over according to our pattern. And this great capacity for feeling that came with it, the sensitivity, we get hurt so easy. Everything hurts us. Life itself hurts us because it isn't like we think it ought to be. and early in life we start building a wall because we don't like to hurt and we start shutting out the things that hurt chipping off you know the root you get hurt in Chicago so you chip off Chicago you can get along without it you get heard at the country club So you chip it off to hell with them. We won't go back. We don't need it. You get hurt at the office, so you chip that off. We tell them what they can do with their job. Walter says it's a physical impossibility, but we kill them anyway. And we chip it out. and we go through life chipping off things that hurt us and building that wall tighter and tighter and tighten because we can't integrate ourselves. We can't find that answer. And finally, there's just a few things left in this little circle of ours and they're things we want to keep like our wives and our kids. and what happens it's a buzz off and then we haven't got anything but us and we can't stand it because we can we can stand ourselves and we have to have an answer we have to have an answer now this is what happened to me I got drunk Friday before Christmas 1945 45. I won't take much time on it because I want to hurry. It was a puny thing, because I got drunk in one night. I never did that in the last ten years of drinking, because I was careful. I sampled my way back to bed in all those ten years. But this time I got drunk. I'd had a little good fortune. And the only thing that's worse for an alcoholic and bad fortune is good fortune. So I celebrated and got drunk, and I was drunk from the Friday before Christmas through the middle of January. And I didn't do anything but empty bottles. I spent the whole time in bed drinking the clock around. My wife was here, she tells you, I poured down seven quarts of whiskey every three days. I don't know, I wasn't there, but she was. And at the middle to January sometime I woke up And on this particular morning, I had the clearest head that I've ever had in my life. And for about fifteen minutes, I was completely sane and I saw me with nothing between me and me. There wasn't an excuse left in the world. And I saw Me, and I knew that I'd lost the battle of life. For the first time in my Life, I HAD to admit defeat to myself. I didn't know why, but I knew I'd lost. And I knew why that woman of mine was divorcing me after 20 years. And I know she should have divorced me 10 years before. And I new why our sons wouldn't come home when I was around. And I now it wasn't their fault. And I knoow why that boss of mine who had been very kind to me on the Friday before Christmas had sent word to the house that if I ever stepped foot in the plant again he was going to throw me through the window. And the window to which he referred does not open. And I fully accepted the fact that morning that everything dear to me in life was gone and that I was not entitled to have it back. And it suddenly became very necessary for me to be sober to die. Not because I wanted sobriety for me, because I didn't. My life was over. But I did not want to die with the record. I didn't want those kids and their mother to remember me as nothing but a tongue-chewing, babbling idiot drunk. And the last thing that popped through my mind before the curtain came down, and I was again drunk, sick, and to death, and insane. I remembered that I'd read Jack Alexander's article in the Post in 1941. And I said to myself, if I ever live to get out of this bed, I will find alcoholics in honor. And down came the curtain. And from that moment until this right now, I have never had to take another drink or a sedating or tranquilizing pill of any kind. This is the reason I've talked about nothing but surrender for 17 years. Now, I didn't know that anything had happened to me. I didn' t know it. And it took me many days to get well enough to even look for alcoholics and owners. But I never took a drink. It was the only time in the last ten years of my drinking that I ever sobered up with liquor in the house, and I knew where it was. But I had it, and I know where it went. And everything in me was screaming for liquor. Every nerve center in my body was yelling. And everything inside of me was saying, Don't take that drink. And I'd put myself on a ten-minute basis long before I ever got to an AA meeting or talked to any of you about alcoholism. And after dying for many days, I started to get well. And I didn't even have sense enough to look in the phone book for the listing. I thought it was anonymous. And incidentally, I still think it's anonymous. and so I called people and asked them if they knew anybody that knew anybody in AA and I finally got a telephone number and I called the guy and he says have you had a drink and I said no and he said don't take one I'm working he's a picture man he says I'm workin' nights now maybe tomorrow I can take you to meet and I call him tomorrow he says you had drink and I says no he says don't takin' one I'm still workin nights And about the third day, I says, Listen, Mutt, you go ahead and work nights if you want to. But where's there a meeting that I can go to? And he told me, and I went. And I ran a sponsor. And in my case, I'm glad. Now don't get me wrong because I think that the greatest privilege that you and I will ever have, is the privilege of carrying a message of sponsorship. But I never had a sponsor, and I'm glad. Because, you see, nobody had ever told me if I came to this program and got sober, I might get my wife back, or I might give back the love of my kids, or I may get my job back, or I make it healthy. And nobody ever told me about peace of mind and serenity of purpose. And I came here for one thing, just one, to find a way to live without taking that next step, hoping against hope that I might find it. And then I would have settled for the meanest old unhappy sobriety on the face of the earth, just as long as it didn't include life. I'd had it. And so not knowing anything about this society, I put on the only good garment I had, which was a camel's hair coat with a belt around the middle and a big collar on. I put that thing on, tied it around the metal, put that collar up around my head, put on my hat and pulled it down over my face and sallied forth. See, I didn't know where I was going. And I wasn't sure that it was a place where I should be seen, you know. and I disguised myself as best I could and I trotted over there and I got there before the meeting started and there were quite a few people there about 30 and they were all talking every one of them yak, yak, Yak nobody listening I've wondered for 17 years Here's how we can learn so much, when everybody talks and nobody listens! But we do. And I stood in the door looking at that bunch of people, and I says, The boy gave me the wrong dope, because you didn't look like me, and you didn' t feel like me and you didn't talk like me. You weren't dressed like me." And I said, These are the veterans and their wives, and they're here for a party, because in the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall. And I says, I'm going to have to leave and come back tonight at the drunkard here. And I was dying because I'd been waiting all this time to get to a meeting and here I was supposed to be at one and it wasn't. And my heart was down in the depths and I turned to leave and a guy had been watching me and he came up quickly And he says, Mr., were you looking for somebody? And I said, no, sir. But he said, what were you looking for? And thinking he was better than I, I said well if it would interest you, sir I was looking for sobriety. And the guy lit up like a Christmas tree. His whole being changed. And I was hooked before he ever opened his mouth. Here was a man that I'd never seen. I didn't know him from Adam's old box. And he was glad I was there. And I knew he was glad because his whole being changed. And he said to me, why take off your hat and coat, you're in the right place. And I will never hear words like that. If I live to be a thousand, I'll never hear words like this. He didn't say to me well have you got a record? Are you hot as a two-bit pistol? Have you decided to quit? Are you going to turn over a new leaf? I shouldn't think of this, but I think of Joe Lee. Jim, stop! I think that thing. He's the only guy he ever knew that had any luck turning over leaves was Adam. Nothing. Nothing. The guy says, why, take off your hat and coat. You're in the right place. And he took me in, and together you rocked me to sleep. Now this is the miracle we're talking about. This is the thing we're going to look at a little bit. What happened? what happened to me what happens to you well number one there is a old saying it was a catholic priest incidentally back in Germany many many years ago he was a Dominican and he said this he says you have heard the nature of horse vacuum I tell you that God abhors a vacuum. Cannot abide a vacuum any place under heaven, however small. Now it says here all you've got to do is move out. Get empty of self in surrender and automatically you're full of God. Automatically. Get empty of self and automatically you're fully God. Now this comes nearer explaining what happened to me in that bed 17 years and a half ago than anything I've ever heard. The surrender. Now, as I told you, I didn't know that anything had happened. So I attended meetings every night for six months with a great fear upon me that I couldn't have this thing because my mind and my body were burned up. It took me three and a halve years to get over falling on my face after my last drunk. Never even went to doctor because I thought it was par for the course. Took me over six months to put the serenity prayer together in English, not spiritually, in English. But something happened. And after six months of attending a meeting every night, I woke up to the fact that I was sober and had been from the beginning. That's 17 years ago. and my life has been for 17 years nothing in the world but awakenings and discarding awakenings and discard awakenings and discard that's all my life is an awakening that this has happened and then discarding the things that don't fit you see and then go in a while and awakening that this is happening and then distorting the things that don' t fit and this has been 17 years of fabulous life. Now, what do I read? The first thing is that the first two words of the prayer we're going to use in a few minutes to close this book, close this meeting, are true. Our Father. Our Father, I have come to believe from the top of my longest hair to the soles of my feet that we are our Father's kids, every one of us. We are our father's children. And I have come to believe that he loved us just as much when we're in the gutter as he does this morning. He has always known that we were his children, but you and I individually have to find it out. And so many people say to me, but Chuck, if there's a loving God, as you seem to think there is, how come he let you burn for ten years in hell? And my answer is simply this. God loved me enough to allow me to make my own mistakes that I might the sooner run out of my own resources and come back home where I belong. Oh, this is terrific. This is fabulous You know, I don't believe that this is even something added I think it's something uncovered I think it's something uncovered You know another Catholic gentleman I don' t happen to be Catholic but I've learned much from him and I love him as I do all people But another chap his name was Brother Lawrence He says if you would find God. Look deep within yourself because you're in the place you're ever going to find him. Now, for the likes of you and me, if we're going to look deep within ourselves, we've got some cleanup work to do first. We've got to wash a few windows. We've gotta clear away the wreckage of the past. And how do we do it? By the application of these steps to our own lives, to our personal lives. and we clean up the surrender. And temporarily we are without the demands of the ego because we have abandoned ourselves and we don't have it for a while. And without the ego, we don' t need its children. And what are the children of the ego? Self-pity. Resentment, judgment, lies, deceits, hate These things we peel off like peeling a banana By the application of these twelve steps To our own livingness To our old thinking and action path And we dig out and pretty soon we can look deep within ourselves and find us and each other and the living God that made us, our very own God. It's fabulous. This is the most fascinating thing that any man or any woman ever got their teeth into because you see the thing that we've always looked for we've been looking with. But always we were looking yonder, yonder and yonder in many books, in many systems, in many places but not until the very last thing had failed us did we come home and uncover the thing that we've been looking for forever. We are the most fortunate people on the face of the earth You and I. Alcoholics. Why? Because we have an incurable disease, and because the disease is fatal, and because the disease is progressive, and because the time comes when we can no longer live without the true answer. And we come here. And we don't come here for the answer to the riddle of life. We don't' come here to get the wife back or the kids, or the job, or peace of mind. We come here find a way to live without liquor. We can't drink any more." And they say to us here the steps we took. And we see that thing in their eyes and we feel that thing in the room, and we decide we want it more than anything else on earth. And they say, well, just do these things. Here's the things we did. We just did these things one day at a time to the best of our ability. And we do them. We're not looking for God. They tell us a little about God, but we say to ourselves, I have no right to that. Even Hope, a guy that's lived like I do, he don't like me any more than I do and I hate me. I wouldn't have taken myself with a large dowry, I can tell you that. And I didn't think I even had any right to expect. But they said, do it, do it. See what happens. Do it." And I did it. And I woke up to the fact that they were sober. And then I woke to the fact that something had happened in the family. They weren't chasing me with any blue papers now, something had quieted down there. And then I woke that I was still down in the office trying to clean up my desk. And And then I woke up to the fact that I was at peace with me and that I wasn't fighting with you. And finally it occurred to me that I had the thing, that I have my very own God and that I was sharing with him just like a kid sharing with his mother, sharing everything, everything in life, the good and the bad. And here's the answer that you and I have had to ask since the day we were born. It's not normal to walk alone. It's normal for us to walk as we walk now, with our arms around each other, helping each other over the hurdles of life. This is normal. It's abnormal for us be away from the Father's house. It's normal to become like little children, totally dependent, totally dependent. Now, everything is good with me, my health is good, my family was put back together. We've had a marvelous living experience. I today own the place they threw me out of 20 years ago. Feel a little sinful when I say that. Because it's a big place. It's impossible. But there it is. Got a big family. Big family. You, people like you all over the world. And they got me at God's door. How fortunate can we be? And now what puts this thing all together, and I'm going to do this and sit down. What puts it all together? You see, we are living today exactly as our pattern as a kid. We were born knowing that this was the way. This was the life we wanted when we were kids. is the thing we dreamed of, and this is the thing we couldn't find. And this is the reason we had to do some drinking. Because when we got to a certain place without drinking for a while, it was our answer. It was our answer because it put us in this world for a little bit, you know. And then the answer turned into the problem, beat us to death, and made Just find the right answer. And here it is. Here is the complete and total answer to me, and I love it so much, and many of you have heard me do it so many times, but I'm going to do it again. Because it explains me to me and it explains you to me. And it explains our Father to me so beautifully. It goes like this. A certain wealthy man had two sons. and the youngest one of them came to his father and he says, Father, I've got a lot of ideas I'm going to go out to California I've gotten me some big plans lots of opportunities out there give me my inheritance now the father didn't say wait a minute, big boy we're rich we've got everything you need right here now if you get away from home out there someplace you're liable to run into trouble you might run into a blonde with a bottle of muskadoodle and get into a lot of trouble stay home he didn't tell him that the kid says give me my inheritance and without an argument the father gave it to him and the kid went into a far country away from home away from God and wasted his substance on riotous living Now, maybe you didn't do that, but it sounds suspiciously like me. And after it's spent all, there arose a mighty famine in the land. And as serious and as beautiful as this thing is, I have to laugh about this. There arose a might famine in this land. If there's anybody on earth that should be able to understand the famine, it's you and me. They don't make famines like that no more. And there rose a mighty famine in the land. So what did the kid do? Come back home? No. He did just what you did, just what I did. He went to a man in that country. We went to the psychiatrist, the priest, the preacher, Timbuktu, the hospital, a thousand bottles we went to. He went to a man in that country, and of all the things that the guy might have put him to do, he didn't. He put him to tendin' to pigs. Now this has great significance, because you see, the guy that was tellin' this story was a Jew boy, and Jews don't like pigs! They just don't' like pigs. there is nothing that would be quite so humiliating for a Jew than to tap ten pigs. So he's trying to tell us how far this guy had gone, how far down he was. We have a word for it in the egg. We call it a low bottom. And he was down there tending the pigs. And while he was in the pig pen, he got hungry, and he failed what eat the husks that the pigs did eat. And the next line is fabulous. And no man gave unto him. He was beyond human help. We have a line like that. It says, Probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. Same thing. And here was the kid in the pig pen and he's hungry. And he fain would eat the husks that the pigs did eat. And no man gave unto him. But as beautiful as that line is, the next one's better. Because it says the kid came to himself. At long last, the kid came and he took a look at himself. And he says, look at me. I've lost the battle of life. Here I am in a pigpen with the pigs. I've sinned, I'm a bad boy, I've lost. And while he was thinking this way, he remembered that in his father's house was plenty to spend. But even as you and I, he said, oh, I can't go back. I can' t go back and say, look, Dad, I'm your boy. Don't you remember? I've come home. No. Self-condemnation. He says, I can't go back and tell him that I want to come home, but, says he, the servants back there have more than I do. I'm going back and ask him to put me on as a hired servant. And so he made a decision. He says, I will arise and go to my Father. And we've got a life like that. It says we made a decision to turn our wilderness lives over to the care of God. And so the kid got up and started home. And here's the miracle of AA. Here it is. The father saw him a long ways off and came to meet him. Oh, this is fabulous. the father saw me a long ways off too and the man said what are you looking for and I said surprise and he says take off your hat and coat you're in the right place and I'd come back home and so the father says, the father came to meet him. And the kid tried to tell him what he'd done, what a life he'd led. And again, the Father didn't hear him. Again, he didn't say, yes, I know. I've got the books on you here, boy. I know where you've been and know what you've done. And you sure are a stinker. Now, you get to Grubbin' Hole and get back here on the back forty. Get to work on those sass-fresh bushes and persimmon sprouts. And maybe in twenty-five years, if you've done a good job, I'll invite you in for lunch. No. He didn't hear him. He fell on his neck and kissed him. And he put a ring on his finger, the symbol of eternal life. No beginning and no end. And he called to the servants, and he says, kill the fatted calf. Let's have a party. The boy was lost, and he's come back home. That God could and would if so. How fortunate can we be, the likes of us to be returned from the land of the living dead into the land of the livid and have the privilege on a morning like this to walk with each other and share with each another and thank God with each others. God bless you all. Thank you. Thank you.