The Spiritual Awakening Dr. Carl J. Prescribed for Roland – Chuck C.

...meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, which has become traditional on Easter Sunday in Orange County. Chuck C. I'm Chuck C., and I'm an alcoholic. Hi. Unfortunately, you old-timers have just been cut off at the pocket. you had an opportunity this morning of hearing probably the most profound discussion that you've ever listened to and here we've got 15 newcomers and we've just changed to a beginner's meeting Uh, maybe you'll like that, but I don't. I had it all figured out. My, my. Fifteen of them. And that's just the ones that stood up. Want to wish you a happy Easter? Well, to me, I don't look at this season, as many do, as being a sad period. I look at it as being very happy period, starting last Friday, as a matter of fact. because I believe that the great teacher could have ducked this thing if he didn't want to do I think that it was necessary to finish his ministry that he proved the final thing that he had ever told us and that was that life is eternal he had proven everything else that he'd ever talked about and it came time for him to prove that life is real life is earnest and the grave is not its goal dust thou art to dust returneth was not spoken of the soul so he had to go through this little exercise I think that, like many of us, he almost chickened out there in the last. When he got time to perform, you know, he was a little bit like me. I say every once in a while I look forward to the transition. But not today. I remember a few years ago we were listening to a chap down in Midland, Texas and he gave quite a spiritual talk and when he got through I went over and spoke to another Harold from Texas, a chap that many of you know. And I says, Harold, old Dave gave a beautiful talk, didn't he? And he says, yes, but he scared the hell out of me. He says, I thought he was getting up a load to leave tonight. So when it gets to that time, I think it's pretty easy to maybe think we'd like to miss it. And I believe that was the way with Carpenter. When he was out there on the hill, he was saying, it would be possible to let this cup pass, but nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. Now, he didn't have to go through with that. he had disappeared. He was good at that. I mean, there was no trick with him. But he had to prove what he told us. He said, if you destroy this body of mine, I'll rebuild it in three days. And he did. And he showed up, proving that life is eternal. Now just another little comment and we'll get to the beginner's maiden. I happen to be right fortunate in this regard. I have a very good friend in Canada, a nun by the name of Sister Mary. I don't know what her real name is. I mean, she's got a lot of names after that. But Sister Mary is good enough. She is a professor in psychology at the University of Ottawa, and she is one beautiful, beautiful woman. And the reason I love her so much is that she talks just like I do. And she gets up there and talks, and Mrs. C says that if she couldn't see her, she'd think I was talking. So I think that she's pretty smart. And I'd met her about nine years ago, and I didn't have a chance to talk with her. And I needed to talk to her. with her, and about three years later I met her again. And it was very important to me that I get to spend a little time with her but there's no time until this happened to be at Niagara Falls Canada, the flower festival up there in May. Once about every five years they have a flower festival the rest of the time spring don't come that early this time it didn't but we had a good time anyway and sister mary was seated by me at the banquet table i was talking at noon on sunday and the banquet was at noon and And we sat down there and instead of talking, I mean eating, we talked. Just brr, brr all through. Finally Sister Mary said to me, Chuck what do you think about the year after? And I immediately, being the kind of a guy I am, thought about the old Lover's Lane thinking on the hereafter. You remember it went like this. If you're not hereafter what I'm hereafter, you'll be hereafter I'm gone. But it was too early in our acquaintance for me to pull that on Sister Mary. So I said, well Sister, I don't think much about it because I think I know that life is eternal. I don't believe it. I think I know that life is eternal. So I have no qualms about that at all. And I believe that if everything's all right with me right now where I am, it will be all right with me tomorrow wherever I am. And this good sister almost jumped off the platform. She said, magnificent, magnificent! And then she said something that one wouldn't ordinarily expect to hear from the mouth of none. She says, Chuck there's gonna be a lot of people that are surprised some of these days because they think there'll only be a few of us up there. But she says we'll all be there. Isn't that beautiful? And, of course, we will. We'll all be there. I think one of the reasons that you and I, being alcoholics, have such a difficult time accepting what we have is because it's so natural. It's so very, very natural. We can't believe that this is it, you know. It's the most natural thing in the world, this program of ours, to live simply and honestly, to share our experience, strength, and hope one with another in love. This is as normal as breathing. But it's absolutely contrary to our thinking and action pattern for years and years and year. We walked alone. In my own case, 43 years I walked alone Now that is the unnatural this is the natural this natural is breathing It's not normal to walk alone it's normal for us to walk down the high road of life with our arms around each other as we do now helping each other over the hurdles of life this is normal and natural this is it it's not normal to be away from home we're like kids lost in the woods we're just lost it's not normal to be away from the father's house it's normal to become his little children totally dependent on this great thing called God now do just think with you a moment about the finger of God in our society a number of years before Alcoholics Anonymous was born there was a chap by the name of Roland who was having a little bit of trouble drinking normally he got puny every once in a while and he had to go to a doctor now his doctor was Dr. Carl Jung if I had any authority I would like to say that in my opinion Dr. Carl Jung might have been the greatest psychological mind that the world has ever produced but it don't make any difference whether I believe that or not because I can't back it up but that's what I believe not only was he a psychiatrist but he had personal answers. He had an answer that was sufficient to him for this thing called life, and so this guy Roland was doctoring with him. And every time he came to see Dr. Jung, he was worse than he was the last time. And he eventually came, and Dr. Young told him, He says, Roland, medical science has done everything in its power for you and it can do no more. Psychiatry has done Everything in Its Power for You and It Can Do No More. And now it is my duty to tell you that the only possibility for you to live your life out is to have a transcendent spiritual experience, a spiritual awakening. Now this was some years before Alcoholics Anonymous was born. Now this is the little chain of events. Roland went to the Oxford movement and got sober Roland talked to Ebby Ebby Thatcher who was a drinking friend of Bill's and Ebby got sober and Ebbe went and talked to Bill and that was the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous isn't that beautiful starting with Dr. Carl Jung and coming down to Bill now after Bill and the rest of the early folks in our society had discovered the principles by which we live NAA and had proven that they work for everybody who works them and had written this thing down in book form and given it to us so that we might find our way. Bill heard this story about Roland and Dr. Jung and he wrote to Dr.ung. he lived at that time in Zurich, Switzerland and he was getting pretty old and Bill wrote him and he asked him how come he had known enough to counsel Roland in the way that he did how come he'd have the insight to tell Roland that his only chance was a spiritual awakening and Dr. Jung wrote back in these terms he told Bill that he had always known that the alcoholic's great problem was his search for unity his search for unity he even quoted one of my favorite verses in scripture as the heart, H-A-R-T meaning dear of course as the heart panteth after the water brook so panteth my soul after thee O God now said Dr. Young when the alcoholic found alcohol it was the nearest thing to unity that he'd ever known it allowed the alcoholic to become a part of the life around him and it seemed to be a unity and of course the alcoholic latched on to it because it was the nearest things to unity he'd never known and of course it was the wrong thing but after a period of time our answer our chemical unity turned into the whip that made it absolutely necessary for us to find the right answer so we can't fault it We can't fault it. It made it absolutely necessary for us to find an answer in order to survive, and we came here and found our answer, you see? So this is a fantastic thing. The finger of God, the way it works, it's beautiful. And the entire history of Alcoholics Anonymous is just like that. Just like that, There's nothing as fascinating to me as our early history because we'd erect this thing a thousand times left to our own devices. A thousand times we'd erect it. But something happened that wouldn't let us. For instance, just a little thing called money. The boys that worked this thing out in the first place were like most of us. they were wheelers and dealers they were promoters I don't think you ever heard of an alcoholic that was a promoter, did you Eddie? so they got to dreaming and they dreamed about big things they were going to start a series of hospitals a chain of hospitals that would cover the world. And they were going to sober up every alcoholic in the world and they were going to head up this great organization the early boys that got sober and, of course, they had to have money. So they got to thinking about where they were gonna get it. And as is always the case, someone of the bunch knew how to get the John D. Rockefeller. Isn't that wonderful? No way can you stop a bunch of alcoholics. They had an entree to John D., and they went. John D.'s set up a dinner in New York, and he had all the money in the world at that dinner. all the big shots were at that dinner a few billion dollars were there and these drunks got up and told their stories one after another and while one of them would be talking the rest of them at all look at the crowd and they could see that they were making a tremendous impression on these bunkers. And they were sure they had it made, you know. Until the latter part of the deal, John D.'s secretary got up and read a little note from him. He had had to miss the meeting because of prior engagements and so he wanted to give him a little message that nothing had crossed his path in years that had made such an impression on him as the budding society of Alcoholics Anonymous he said this was a fantastic thing and he was wholeheartedly for it and he says the wonderful part of it is they don't need any money Since this is just one alcoholic talking to another, whereupon the few billion dollars got up and went home. Talk about the finger of God in the person of John D. Rockefeller. I've loved a guy ever since I heard that story. It's absolutely beautiful. And that's the way it's been from the beginning. So our thing is just as natural as breathing. It's a living answer that we've had to have forever, because our problem is a search for unity, and the bottle is its symbol. Now, let's think a minute in terms of what our problem is according to medical science. Medical science says alcoholism is the second worst killer in the country today. They used to say in the top four. They now say second and some of these days they're going to become honest enough to put the cause of death on death certificates and they'll find that it's number one and has been for years as a killer. It is second only to one of our social diseases a cause for permanent insanity and medically speaking it isn't curable. Medical science also gave us our definition of the disease of alcoholism. They say it is a disease of a two-fold nature, an allergy of the body coupled with an obsession of the mind. It's both physical and mental according to the doctor. The allergy ofthe body meaning simply this, that for some reason unknown to medical science or anybody else, a certain percentage of us cannot successfully drink alcohol. We have a physical allergy that makes it impossible for us to oxidize, burn up and get rid of alcohol in the normal manner. So, we can't drink it successfully. And the funny part of it is we can keep from drinking it. We can't keep from drinking it, so my problem is that I am condemned by the obsessions of the mind to drink whiskey. And I am condemned by the allergy of the body to die if I do. Now that's a problem. Somehow or another I have to find a way to live without drinking liquor. Now, I found that out after a series of experimentations. And my series of implementations almost lasted longer than I did. I had a little session with me ten years before I came to this program because I wasn't drinking according to my code. I had a code for drinking. I had code for everything. And I wasn' t drinking according to my codes. And I didn' t like it. And so I had session with me and I came up with the profound conclusion that this was a personal weakness. Something I had to overcome to get rid of it. Total abstinence was not something that even occurred to me, because I felt at that time that any weakling could quit drinking. But it took a pretty good man to meet this thing head-on and beat it. And this is what I had to do in order to get rid of it. and I started working on my problem ten years before coming here and I worked on it diligently for ten years and the harder I worked the worse it got and the worse it got the harder I worked and the farther backwards I went the more obsessed I became with the idea that I had to beat this rat I was saying to myself five years after everybody quit listening to me I'll beat this thing if it's the last thing I ever do and it came that close to being the last thing I ever did now the wonder of this deal is that I became periodic ten years before coming here because I was going to fight the battle and you can't fight a very good battle when you're down on your back so I became periodic in order to get well enough to get back in the ring for the next round and so in my case I was physically as sober as I am this morning between every two drunks for ten years And this is the thing that makes it so difficult for me to reconcile myself with my conduct. It's almost impossible. For instance, I drank 25 years and up until my last drunk, it was never my fault that I drank. Now that's something. It would appear to me that one time in 25 years it had been my fault. It never was my fault, it was the boss's fault. It was obvious to me that I had all the brains in the organization and he had all money. the very injustice of the situation would drive anybody to drink if he's sensitive my wife caused me to drink she didn't love me enough so that was a pretty good reason but I had a far better reason her, and that was her mother. Her mother had only one kid, and I was married to her. And she lived with us the last five years she lived. She lived with me five years before I found myself. Let me say this right. And she had a grandstand seat watching me crucify her only daughter, and she didn't like me very good. And I didn't like her that good because if she hadn't been living with us, I wouldn't have had to crucify our daughter. It's all her fault. We had a mutual hating society that was a beautiful thing to behold, believe me. But the funny part of it is she lived with us five years also after I sobered up and it was absolutely astounding what this program did for her. I got to tell you this again because it's gone through my mind and I can't get rid of it without telling you. She used to just embarrass me to death because she would not believe that I'd had any help in this thing. She'd come up and put her arms around me and she'd say, Oh son, I knew you had it in you. She'd always known, you know. But she knew something I didn't know, I'm telling you. And she never, until she died, she never would admit that she thought that I'd gotten any help from you or from God or anybody else. I had done it myself. I'd pulled me up by my bootstraps and I didn' t even have any boots. But she was a king-size reason for drinking. Up until my last drunk, it was never my fault. And in my last drink to date, I came to see that if there be fault, it's mine. If there be falt, it is mine. And from that time until now, I've never had to have a drink. from the second I became willing to come to Alcoholics Anonymous until right now I have not had a drink or sedating or tranquilizing pill now for you people who are brand new all 16 of you I want to tell you that the program of AlcoholicsAnonymous is awful good but it don't solve all problems I have had 10,350 days roughly without a drink or pill and Friday night of if this is the last day of the week of this week if it's the first day of next week it's last week but it was the last Friday that went by I was subjected to the indignity of a drunk driving test and you won't believe when I tell you where it was most of you never even heard of the place it was La Puente I don't think there are more than two cops in the whole town. And they both had me. Now, I agree that I have been driving erratically because I was hunting a street that I was pretty well convinced didn't exist. There's a guy in this room that gave me the map. And he too confesses that he is an alcoholic. And he says after you turn off of this street, which happened to be Azusa, onto this street which happened to be Amar. You go about six blocks, and you'll find Del Valle. Well, I went about six miles, and I couldn't find Del Valley. And I was thinking, well, I've gone too far, and then I come by a street that dead-ended in this Amar, but it was coming from down that-a-way, and I was going that-away. And there wasn't any sign on my side of the street. And I had a premonition that that might be Del Valle. And so I sort of aced out in the traffic to where I could look back and read the sign on the other side of street. And when I looked back, I saw a familiar . There they were! And I had to go through all the deal. The guy got me out of the car and took me back to his partner now he says I can't smell any liquor on this guy but there's something definitely wrong I finally made a confession I told him that they better get along with this examination because I had to talk at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting And you know what that monkey said to me? He says the last guy that said he was going to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting tested 5.9. So step two says we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity but it doesn't say when so it's necessary that we come to see that if there be fault it's mine that's the reason the first condition for sobriety as in chapter three of our book. We heard it read a while ago by a Swede. Now, for those who are new, if Swedes can make this thing, anybody can make it. Ha ha! Yeah. So, The first condition for sobriety is we learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholic. We learned that if we had the ability to concede to our inner most selves that we're alcoholic, this is the first step in recovery. Now for you people that are new, the very fact that you're here is an admission that you've got a problem And the very fact that you were able to stand up and say that you have a problem may be the thing that's going to start you on a lifetime of sobriety starting right now. This is a great thing, to get in here on your own power, even if a judge sent you or even if your wife ran you in. Thank you. live your life out one day at a time without drinking. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, it means that sobriety is first on your hit parade. Top man on the totem pole. And I'm one who believes that's absolutely necessary to us if we'd be alcoholic. we either have to come to see that there's nothing ahead of us but permanent insanity or an alcoholic death or we have to drink the last dregs out of the bottom of the cup or we can't do what the program tells us to do anything that is more important to us than sobriety will keep us from getting sober the last excuse has to go by the boards reminds me of a little story I stole from a guy from Dallas God rest his soul, he left this last year he had about six months more of sobriety than I did and he was quite a guy he was a beautiful storyteller and I stole his story from him he said these two drunks met on the street and one of them says to the other house things oh he says not good well he says that's bad oh he said not so bad I got married well he said that's good he said it's not so good I got my mother-in-law too well he say that's so bad he says it's no so bad she's got money well he says that's good he say not so good she wants to boss everything well he seys that'a bad he say it's na so bad she bought us a house well he see that'as good he say na so goode the house burned down but he says that sure is bad he says not bad brother he says she burned too and so it is with that last excuse it's got to burn up if we have one excuse left that's still acceptable to us we've got another drunk left and that's the reason those two conditions come before step one in our program. Because an alcoholic cannot walk up cold to step one and take it. We have some getting ready to do. To accept ourselves exactly as we are, where we are this morning is the first condition, sobriety. First condition. because, you see, we're a cuter breed of cats. We can't hear what we can hear and we can't see what we can see. And this is the thing that makes this thing so baffling to everybody. The normal world looks at us and can see nothing but just don't care. You know, lack of backbone, lack of morals cancer on the social body they see us in the gutter and think we like it there yeah they do they don't know that we know that gutter and we hate it worse than anybody on the face of the earth we know we know we know that gutter. And we don't want to be there, but we can't help it. You see, the obsessions of the mind are greater than the willpower. We drink against our own will. How many times have I quit drinking? How many, many times have I stopped drinking? As serious as anybody could be, and as sincere, and be back the same day drunk as two skunks. The obsessions of the mind are greater than the willpower, and if we, being alcoholic, are going to live without drinking, we have to be rid of the obsessions of the mind. And that's what our book is all about. That's what our program is all about. The American Medical Association says alcoholism is a disease. It has symptoms. It is treatable but not curable. And the only way any alcoholic can live successfully is not to take the next drink, not to takethe next drink. But they can't tell us how not to take the next drink. But our book does. It tells us exactly how. Here are the steps we took. Here are the steps we took when we were sober. And there are twelve steps. And we apply these twelve steps to our very own lives as honestly as we know how. And something happens and we don't have to drink. And we don' apply these steps to ourselves as honestly as we now how and we have to drink it. Now I'm going tell you a couple of little things that I don't like to talk about because this is a happy day. And I wouldn't have talked about them if we didn't have so many new ones. The last few months, I have had a few experiences that were just as rough as they can come. because some of my dearest, dearest friends had to leave. One of them many, many of you know and one of them some of you don't. This was a gal that came to the program the same time I did, 28 years ago. And she was close, very close to the problem. She worked hard for years and loved it. She was almost single-handed for a long time in carrying the message into the women's federal prison on Terminal Island. Beautiful, beautiful program she had for years. And a few months ago, she allowed something to get important enough to get between her and her program, and her God. And she found it necessary to commit suicide. After 28 years here. I loved the gal like better than they do me. The next one was even a little worse. was a chap in San Francisco. He was 47 years old, almost the same age as my oldest son. He came to the program when he was 22 and I was in on it. And he had 25 years of sobriety. I used to go up every two or three years and talk at his birthday. He was one of the great guys in my experience. He was in the stock-and-bond business, securities, in San Francisco. And strangely enough, his employer was a man that was in my wedding party forty-nine years ago. And I went up not well within the year and the three of us had lunch and had a nice day together. Well, sometime after that, Ray got an offer from another firm that he thought was going to be much better for him. And he changed jobs. And he hadn't any more than changed when he knew that he'd made a bad deal. And so he went back to George and asked him if he could come back. And he, for some reason, told him no. And he got to brooding about this thing. And here his image was going to be destroyed in the financial world in San Francisco. He was thinking about bankruptcy, losing his home and his family and everything. And he couldn't sleep. and he started calling me and asking me if he could take some Librium to get a little sleep. He had to have some sleep and I said to him, I'm not a doctor, Ray, so I can't prescribe anything for you. I can only tell you that my book says we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God and it does not say we made the decision to turn out will and lives over to care of god and Librium. So I can't okay it. You'll have to do what you have to do. And I went up shortly to see him. And we had a session, and I was pretty sure that nothing had happened. And then I came back home, and nothing had happened, and a month or two later I went up again. And this time I thought that something had happened. I talked with him for hours about priorities, about priorities in this program, and about the necessity of keeping our priorities where they belong. I talk with him about his life, his business, his home, his money, his automobile, everything that he had being temporary. Temporary, dependent on his spiritual condition, his spiritual fitness. And that depended on his own relationship with his own God. And he must not allow this thing, this image, to get between him and his program and his God. Or everything was going to the boards. And I thought this time he had heard. And I came back. And he had to leave too. Now that's two. The third one just happened. And this chap never had had any lengthy sobriety. He'd been trying to get in this program for 19 years. You remember, all of you that know the history, that Ebby had 18 years on the Bowery after he'd talked to Bill. Eighteen years that guy had on the Bowery after he carried the message to Bill and this chap had been 19 years and I had gone to the hospital the Tustin community hospital down here to see Andy all of you know Andy if Andy lives to August he left 34 years with us one of the very first to get sober on the coast in AA and I'd gone to see Andy, and this chap had seen me go in, and he's been much with me. He's been down at my house, and I'm with him time after time. And we talked for maybe 45 minutes in his office, in the hospital. And I said, Jack, is this the time? How do you feel? Do Do you think that this is the time for you to stay with us and do these things honestly? And he says, Chuck, I think so. He says, I feel different about this. He says I think I'm going to make it this time by the help of you people and God. And that was on a Wednesday. Thursday I went to Honolulu. We had a little meeting over there. I came back Monday and Tuesday Jack's wife called me and she says Sunday Jack started drinking and he went to Las Vegas and Tuesday they found him dead in his room he was a young man so what are we talking about we're talking about getting our priorities where they belong now for you new people we suggest that it's the first drink that we mustn't take we can't get sober drinking we cannot get sober drinking so it's necessary that we don't take the next drink. But we don' t tell you that you have to be sober twenty-eight years as it's been my good fortune to be. Not even twenty- eight days. We tell you today is the day you don't drink. Today. Now if a day is too long, put your life on the basis of how long you can live without a drink. Live that long and don't drink, and then do it again, but don't drink today." And they told me my first meeting, no matter how long you live in Alcoholics Anonymous, never expand that time more than 24 hours. And I took it and I've kept it all this time. They told me to get into lots of meetings than I tell you to get into lots of meetings. Because there is more wisdom about your problem and its answer in this room than in any other room on the face of the earth, except another room just like this where Alcoholics Anonymous members are meeting. We know the problem and the answer because we have lived the problem and the question. And the answer. So stay close to us. Get into as many meetings as you can. Next, apply the steps to your own life as honestly as you can one day at a time. And let the chips fall where they may. And something will happen to you and you won't have to drink again. Now I want to just run through three of the steps and then I'm going to give you my thinking of this answer and let you go home and fight with your kids and your wives and your husbands? You see, that's the trouble with us. We come to the meeting and we have lots of good A in the meeting and we are just friendly and nice and we share. And we go home and we hang up our program with our coat and start telling. Some of these days we're going to learn to share at home share with the kids you know something there's no there's not there's a no gap generation gap in sharing the only generation gap is in telling you know when we think that our great experience and our great learning entitles us to tell them off but they can understand this sharing as well as anybody because you see the language of the heart has no age and that's what they want they want sharing they don't tell it they don' t even care too much about telling them about our successes they want us to share our failures how we felt you know what happened under this kind of a situation and that and they want to share so let's take it home at least this Easter keep it one day anyway our first step is a two-fold admission of defeat and one of the things that I am so very, very grateful for is that I beat myself to death before I ever came to my first AA meeting I was a failure in every department of life before I ever came to investigate. So, I've had no problem in thinking that I can run my life or yours or my business or anything else in this whole 28 years. I know better. I had 43 years to run my wife and I ended up in the bottom of the snake pit. So, I am powerless over alcohol and my life is unmanageable by me and I know it. the second step says came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity and of course we need to be restored to sanity because our conduct our conduct the conduct particularly of a periodic drunk who would keep drinking for ten years after he lost the battle can only be explained by one word in the English language and that's insanity that's the insanity of our disease it isn't that we do insane things whilst drunk a non-alcoholic does insane things whilst drunk but an alcoholic does insane things whilst sober like looking at his last venture seeing where he made his mistakes and deciding not to do it that way anymore. Getting everything all lined up and then sampling his way back to bed. Drinking. So, I needed very badly to be restored to sanity. I needed help God how I needed help I'd used every resource I had and the next step says we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God now if we do that we can't sit around feeling sorry for ourselves from now on personal anxiety has no place in our lives if we turn our will and our lives over to the care of God that's his business from now on not mine there's no sense in turning your will and your life over to the care of a god you can't trust i might as well keep it as to turn it over to a god that i can't trust i can trust me so i might well keep it and anxiety is nothing in the world but saying look dad i don't believe that you're quite as familiar with this situation as I am. You see, if I turn my will and my life over to the care of God, I am no longer dependent on men. Do you hear me? I am no longer dependent on men. Now, people don't go out of my life. They become infinitely more in my life than they ever were. But I'm not dependent upon them. I'm dependent only upon my very own God. The only security there is in this life is my own relationship with my own God, and it's an inside job. It's an inside job! Now I got to use a little thing that my friend told me to use this morning. It fit in very good with my first talk, the one I intended to lay on on you. And this is the way I like to think about it. I knew I was going to do that, so So I had to keep trying until I did. I was so pretty, too. Eddie! I got henchmen all over the house. I like to think of this this way. Inasmuch as I can't run my life, can't runs yours, can't running anything, inasmuchas I need help, inasmucha it's necessary that I turn my will and my life over to the care of God, I like to think like this. Either God is sufficient unto all of my needs, or he is not. Either he is or he has not. Both of these things are not true. One of them is. Now, if God is not sufficient unto al of my need, there's nothing for us to worry about. Nothing. because if he is not sufficient unto all of my needs life is a cosmic mistake it's not worth the effort there is no possible excuse for living if God is not sufficient unto all my needs so if he's not there's nothing to worry about you and I might as well go down and load the car up with a a few cases of liquor and shack up and drink till we die. Because the sooner it's over, the better. If God is not sufficient into all my needs, so there's nothing to worry about. Now if he is sufficient into all of my needs there's nothing to be worried about. Gotcha. because you see all I gotta do is to act like he is and prove that he is I act like his kid and prove that I am act as though I am and I will be saith the Lord so there's nothing to worry about the only security there is is my own relationship with my own God Now I'm going to finish this little tirade. I believe with the doctor, of course, in the disease of alcoholism. I believed that it is an allergy of the body and obsession of mind. I have them and I know it. But I believe that there's another factor here, maybe something that is prior to, maybe even the father of both the allergy of the body and the obsession of the mind. And that is a basic spiritual unrest. Inasmuch as there has been nothing in my experience that has ever returned an alcoholic to a peaceful and joyous state of life, except a basic spiritual rest. Then it's kindergarten to me that the problem behind the problem is a basic spiritual unrest. So I like better than pertinently anything that I ever heard to explain me to me the story of the prodigal son in the good book. It's a fantastic thing and it's my story. Right down to the last word in it, it's My Story. You remember, it starts out, a certain wealthy man had two sons, you and I. And the youngest one came to his dad And he says, Dad, give me my inheritance. He says, I've got a lot of ideas. I'm going to do some things. I'm gonna go out to California and cut me a big swath out there. A lot of opportunities out there and so give me my inheritance Now the father didn't say to him, wait a minute son we've got everything you need here at home Stay home. He didn't say, now you're liable to get out there away from home and run into trouble. You might run into a redhead out there that's got a bottle of muskadoodle. And you might get into a lot of trouble. Stay home! He didn' t say that. The kid says to him, give me my inheritance. And he never said a word. He gave it to him. he didn't argue so the kid took his inheritance and went into a far country and wasted his substance on riotous living he's away from home away from God you see and he wasted his substance on riotious living now maybe you didn't do that but it sounds suspiciously like me and after it spread all there arose a mighty famine in the land and if anybody ever should be able to understand a famine it's you and I how many of those famines have I gone through you come off a protracted drunk and you find everybody in town that knows he's looking for you ninety percent of them just tell you they never want to see you again and the other ten percent of them are trying to bank one of your checks with a tennis racket so he went into the far country and spent his substance on riotous living and there arose a mighty famine in the land so what did he do come back to his dad no He did just like you did. He went to a man in that country. We went to the doctor, to the psychiatrist, to Timbuktu, every place we went. Just like him. He wentto a manin that country and asked him for a job. And the guy put him to work. Out of all things, he put him tending the pigs. Now this is a very meaningful thing in this story because it so happens that the chap that was telling this story was a Jew. And Jews don't care very much for pigs. There ain't anything in the world that would be more obnoxious to a Jew than tending pigs. So he's telling us something about this old boy. He's down. We've got a word for it in our program, we call it a low bottom. And this old boy had gotten pretty low. And there he is in the pig pen tending the pigs. And he got hungry. And a fain would eat the husks that the pigs did eat, and no man gave unto him. He was beyond human help. We've got a line like that too. It says probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. Beyond human help, and while he's in the pig pen there, and he's hungry, and No Man Gave Unto Him. I understand that pretty good I spent a lot of time in that pig pen and he got to thinking about his life and he thought I've wrecked everything I'm a failure in everything that I've ever done I'm no good I've sinned against God and man while he was sort of taking his inventory there, he remembered that in his father's house was plenty to spare. His father was wealthy and he thought of going back home but he said to himself I can't go back there and say looked at. I'm your son, don't you remember? He couldn't do it. And I remember so well when I left at step three, there was no way I could take step three. Not because I didn't want to, because I wanted to. But I did not believe that it was even cricket to think that I could turn this mess over to anybody, let alone to God. I hated my guts, and I figured the Father did too. So I sort of let it lay for a while, and latched on to the last thirty-twelve, and then come to see a little later on that I'd already gone through step three before I ever got here in the total abandonment of self to nothing which is the same thing so he said to himself I can't go back there and say look dad take me on I'm your son but the servants back there have more than I do now what I'm going to do I'm gonna go back home and I'm gonna ask him to put me on as a hired servant so he made a decision he says I will arise and go to my father we made a decision to turn our world and our lives over to care of God and so the old boy got up and started home and something very miraculous happened his father saw him a long ways off and came to meet him ah this is the essence of Alcoholics Anonymous I started to leave my first meeting because I didn't think that I was in the right place. I thought they'd given me the wrong information. The people in my first meeting didn't look like me and they didn't feel like me and they weren't talking like me. And so I thought, in as much as it was the veterans of Foreign Wars Hall, that these were the veterans and their wives and they were there for a party. And I said to myself, I'm going to have to leave and come back tonight. The drunks are there. and I was a living dead man when I turned to go I was as near dead as I'll ever be but somebody in that room had been watching me and he saw me start to leave and he got up and ran over to the door and he called to me he says mister where are you looking for somebody and I said no sir well he says what were you looking for thinking he was a veteran I said well if it would interest you sir I was looking for sobriety and everything about that man changed in the twinkling of an eye he lit up like a Christmas tree he was glad I was there and God came to meet me through one of you who had already found his way so the boy gets up and starts home and the father sees him a long ways off and he comes to meet him and the boy starts trying to tell him what a bad job he's done with this thing called life how he's failed every way and his dad didn't say yes I know I know son I've got the books on you boy I know exactly what you did you certainly did make a mess of everything now I suggest that you get to Grubbing Hole and get back here on the back 40 and grub up a few of these sassafras bushes and persimmon sprouts and maybe in 25 years I'll invite you in for lunch. He didn't say that. He didn' t argue with him again just like it was when he left. He didn''t argue and when he came back he didn' d argue with them at all. He fell on his neck and kissed him and he put a ring on his finger the symbol of eternal life and he called to the servants and he says kill the fatted calf the boy was dead and he's now alive he was lost and he has come back home let's have a party that God could and would if sought God bless you thank you