Chuck C. - AA Speaker - The Prodical Son and the Twelve Steps of Recovery - THE M2 THE ROCK SHOW - Michael Molthan

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm glad to be here, and I want to thank
the committee for allowing misspet and I to share this
evening with you this entire weekend. As a matter of fact,
I don't wanna thank you all for coming. It's nice

(00:23):
when you come a thousand or two miles to jack
a little if somebody comes, isn't it. Buttermill said, I
hope to have you thought up something putty to say,
because I came a long way to introduce you. But

(00:46):
I don't guarantee anything so happens. That I love this
program and I love its people, and that's the only
reason I'm here. That is the only reason I'm here
to share my experienced strength and hope, such as it

(01:08):
is with anybody that wants it. The only reason I
ever get up at the podium and Alcoholics Anonymous, I
have now some nine thousand, four hundred and fifty days
that I would not have had were it not to

(01:30):
the grace of God, to the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous,
and I am most grateful. I have no doubt that
the reason that I have been so slap happy for
twenty five years and six months is because I didn't
get here too early as long as I had choice,

(01:57):
I couldn't come to alcoholics anonymous, and I didn't come
as long as I had choice. My choice was never
to come do alcoholics anonymous, and I didn't come as
long as I could keep from it. But in January

(02:19):
nineteen hundred and forty six, I ran out of everything
and there was no place ouse for me to come.
But yeah, what he pointing that at me? For? So

(02:46):
I'd have one uh little con a piece of counselor
for all of you who might be a little bit
alcoholic and who might be spelled pegging a few sniffs,

(03:08):
uh be not discouraged the time I'll come. And there
ain't no place help to go at that time. Happened
to me in January nineteen hundred and forty six. I

(03:34):
couldn't even investigate this deal. I didn't wanna know anything
about it. May have you heard this, but I'll tell
you a then. My next to the last drug was
a little geographic. I'd six thousand miles in a blackout.

(04:00):
I drove from Beverly Hills to Logo, Kentucky, to North
Michigan back to the coast, and I don't remember five
percent of it. I finally got back home and went
to bed to finish my drunk, which was the place
I finished tomorrow. In the last ten years that I

(04:20):
drank fly on my back in bed, drinking the clock around,
and so there I was finishing my drunk. I never
quit as long as I could get up and get
another supply one I couldn't even lift my head off

(04:41):
of the pillow. I had to quit because my family
did not understand me. They wouldn't bring me in anything
to drink. They insisted that I get it myself if
I was gonna drink it. Well, this time came and
I had sober up. Now I never knew how to

(05:05):
sober up any any other way than to die until
I could start living again. In my day, I knew
nothing of any easy way to get sober. I never
heard of a drying our place, uh going to the
hospital or anything like that to get sober. I just

(05:29):
died until I could live. And uh So the time
came when I had to show up, and maybe it
was twenty four or thirty six hours after my last
drink that I was able to go to the kitchen
and little glass of buttermilk or me sir, And now

(06:00):
I did well, missus See and Dick were sitting in
the living room and they hurt me let out a
beller and hurt me hit the floor, and they came
clotting out there expecting to find me in a convulsion,
which was my wont But I wasn't convulsing. I had

(06:22):
used up all of my convulsion at this time. I
was just lying there doing nothing. They tell me I
was a very peculiar color. I was blue, and they
couldn't wake me up, so they got all exercise and

(06:47):
called for the oxygen squad from the very Beverly Hills
Receiving Hospital to come down and wake me up. Well,
I got to that is something that I think is funny. Now,
you know, the many many times that I've come true,

(07:15):
I have to say, just a loudly little old thirty
day drunk to find all the people in town looking
for me, ninety percent of them just tell me they
never want to see me again. Now, isn't that something
they've dogged you down? Just you didn't never want to

(07:37):
see you yet? Why now I don't believe you in
the first place, But now they got to tell it.
And I'm pretty sure my wife and kids had been
praying for me to die for at least five years.
And they come out and Sey didn't find me dead,
and they get all exercised, bought it at the office,

(07:58):
and squad to wake me up. Well, they finally did.
I think I'm pretty from the time I came to
I remember what happened. It was a young doctor with him,
and he was telling me that, to all intents and purposes,

(08:21):
I've been dead, that they'd had a hell of a
time waking me up, that they were quite sure that
nobody would ever wake me up under those conditions again.
And they told me if they were me, they wouldn't
do that anymore. I got the impression they were again.

(08:44):
It Well, it might have been another twenty four to
thirty six hours when I was able to get the
old dirty bathrobe on and start walking up and down
the living room floor sweating, treason, shaking, dying and walking.
That's the only way I knew how to show brepha

(09:08):
And I was doing just that and missus C was
standing over to the fireplace. We had a corner fireplace
in the living room there, and she was standing over
there watching me. And as I was walking away from her,
she said, chuck don't you think you might get a
little help if you'd read the book Alcoholics Anonymous? And

(09:32):
I turned on her like a lion, and I said, you,
my very own wife suggested that I read a book
written by a bunch of gumps, I who have read
all the good books for the good authors. And you
want me to why, I says, you wound me deeply. Mind,

(09:55):
God has been dead forty eight hours before, and she
wounds me deeply. And I probably threw off completely by then.
And besides, I can write a better book than that myself. Now,
that was just ninety days before I came calling into

(10:17):
alcoholics Anonymous. Now isn't it strange that a guy like
me could drink for twenty five years and up until

(10:38):
the very last drunk, always have a perfectly legitimate reason
for every drunk I was ever on And it was
never my fault, up until my very last drunk. It
was never my fault. It is your fault, you stupid,

(11:03):
mean people. If you markets had lived like I knew
you should, and like I knew, I told you how,
I wouldn't have had to drink, but you wouldn't do it.
So I got drunk at you. My wife was a

(11:25):
real good reason for me to get drunk. She got
me drunk up many times. But her mother was a
much better one. Her mother lasted for five years after

(11:47):
all his excuses had burned up. He was a king
size excuse or reason. See, she only had one kid,
and I was married to her, and she was living
with us, and she had a grandstand feet watching me

(12:09):
crucifier only daughter. And she didn't like me very good.
And I didn't like her that good because you see,
if she hadn't have been there, I went to had
to crucify her daughter. But that's been passing. She lived

(12:31):
with us for five years after I came to program,
and it is remarkably astonishing what this program did for her.
I'm quite sure that she had come in the year

(12:54):
that she passed away and had found me slapping her
daughter on the living room, she would have turned to
Missis and she would have said, why else, of what
have you done? Because by that time I could do
no wrong in her sight. God ressed her soul to

(13:22):
have been able to drink for twenty five years and
never to be able to see if there be fault,
it's mine, you know now? That happened to me on
my last drunk, I came to see that if there

(13:43):
be fault, it's mine. And you know something, I've never
had to have a drink since then. Since I said
to myself, if there be fault, it's mine, I have
never had to take a drink. So I'm very much
in accord with our book when it says the first

(14:06):
condition for sobriety is to accept ourselves exactly as we
are where we are right now. This is the first condition.
You'll find it the first sentence in the second paragraph

(14:26):
of chapter three. We learned that we had to fully
concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholic. This
is the first step in recovery. We learned that we
had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we
were alcoholic. This is the first step in recovery. Now,

(14:52):
why is that so necessary? Because we have gotten ourselves
caught in a trap that we can spring alone. We
have to have help, and it is impossible for the
likes of us to get help until we recognize the

(15:14):
need for help. There's no way that even God can
help us when we won't let him. And so the
first condition for sobriety is that we accept ourselves exactly
as we are where we are right now. The second

(15:37):
condition is that sobriety must come first. Now this is
not only difficult for the alcoholic to come to see,
but it's almost impossible for the nonalcoholic to come to
see that sobriety must come first. And I am one

(15:58):
who believes that unless I am more, until sobriety comes first,
we can't have it, and unless it remains first, we
cannot keep it. The book says that like this, if
you have decided you want what we have and are

(16:22):
willing to go to any link to get it, then
you're ready to take certain steps any link at the
top top man on the totem pole, because unless and

(16:45):
or until it comes first, you and I are not
going to do the things necessary to obtain and maintain
our sobriety.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
We're not gonna do it is necessary, in my opinion,
that if we be alcoholic, we either drink the last.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Drags out of the bottom of the cop as I did,
or we must come to see that the only thing
that I was as permanent insanity or an alcoholic death,
or we will not do the things necessary to bring

(17:28):
it about and to maintain it. I remember, let's speechful
with this today. I attended meetings every night for six
months with the great care plemn that I couldn't have
this thing. I didn't think I had enough left, either

(17:52):
mentally or physically to get it, but I wanted it
more than life, and so I was in the meeting
every night. I never talked to Miss Sea about this
tall and she said this afternoon because I wasn't talking

(18:15):
to her about much of anything. We were not at
that time communicating sei getting rid of me is legally well.
After six months of a meeting every night, I woke

(18:38):
up to the fact that I was sober and had
been for six months. And it was then I started talking.
And I haven't set up yet twenty years ago, twenty
five years ago, and I haven't shut up yet. So
when I discovered this, I came home and I talked

(18:59):
to Miss see about the couldn't help it, and then
she said I learned that she'd already read the book
to E three times, and she asked me if i'd
take her to a meeting, and I told her would
then I did. She's been coming with me ever since, well,

(19:24):
it might have been three months after that. I supposed
that I was nine or ten months sober when I
was asked to do the ten minute spot before the
regular speaker at the Beverly Hills group that was my
home group for my first eleven years. And I got
up there and talk a little, and I ended up

(19:47):
this deal by saying, if it were necessary tonight for
me to go to Tibet in order to maintain what
I cheer, I would go home, pack my little grip,
come to the living room, cass my wife, and say, honey,
it's too bad, I've gotta go now. I didn't think

(20:11):
that was bad, but it wasn't long after we got
home until the house was dronking. I know, I look
over and this lady is practically in convuls and I
didn't want honey, what's the matter with you? She said,
oh what you said? She said, for the first time

(20:35):
in our lives, we have an opportunity for a little
happiness and little peace and little joy in this household.
And you would go to Tubec. She said, don't I
mean anything to you, don't the kids mean anything to you.
Don't go home anything mean anything to your boohoo. So

(20:57):
I let her cry a little bit, and when she
came down a little. I said, well, honey, do I
mean anything to you drunk? And she says no. Do
I mean anything to the kid that's drunk and she
says no. Do I mean anything to the home drunk?
And she says no. And I said, well, can't you
see that this has to be first? And she couldn't.

(21:19):
She couldn't. But if you would ask her now or
anytime in the last many years, she would tell you
whatever I have to do to maintain myself in this way,

(21:40):
she is all for it. And of course an am I.
Now there's a little verse. And I use some verses
once in a while, not because I'm too much of
a verse bad, but simply because they explain that's what
I'm thinking, more than I can, better than I can

(22:02):
say myself. But there's a little verse in a good
book that I was very much opposed to for thirty
years before I got here. I would have wagered that
the folk in the room and all the college of
cardinals that this was either a mis translation or delivered

(22:28):
an attempt to deceive, because the verse wasn't like this.
It says, lets the man be willing to leave his mother,
and he's father, and his wife and his kids fell
all he hasn't give it before, and take up his
cross and follow me. He's not worthy of me. And
it was a tributed to the carpenter, and I knew

(22:51):
he didn't say it, because you see, he was a
good man and I was an evil man, and I
couldn't say it myself, so I knew he he couldn't
have said it. But I wasn't so very long until
I knew that if he didn't say that, they should have,

(23:17):
because there's a word in that that I had never
conjured with. It says, let the man be willing, and
if he's willing, you don't have to. You see, I've
been willing to go to TBET for twenty five years
and six months and I never even had to go
to watch. So it's necessary. I believe that. Sobriety, I'm

(24:00):
first and remain first. Now, the reason for this, I presume,
is because we do have to have help, and our
book tells us that maybe it's got to be helpful

(24:21):
in pararegrated than we are. The book says lack of
power was our dilemma, and if we like the power,
we have to find find it and it has to
be a power greater than we are, obviously, says the book.
Obviously I believe that, totally do. I believe that the

(24:47):
book says, under certain conditions, certain circumstances, it seems that
there's only one defense against the first flood, the drink
I must not take, and that's help from power grad
than we are. And I believe that, just as I
believe I'm standing here for just a simple reason. If
I could have remained sober, I would not believe that

(25:10):
I could not remain sober. Therefore, I believe it because
something happened to me twenty five years and six months ago,
and I haven't had to have a drink or sedating
or tranquilizing field since, and I didn't do it. So
I'm quite sure that it's necessary that we get help

(25:32):
from power greater than ourselves. I am just as sure
that perhaps one of the greatest roadblocks we have is
that we get mixed up in why we are here,

(25:58):
why we are here. I think some of us get
sidetracked into trying to get help from a fire grader
than ourselves instead of following the directions on the formula.
You know, they might be that third step or hear

(26:25):
somebody talk about a little says we made a decision
to turn our world alives old care of God as
we understood him. And we say, oh, don't understand him.
I gotta get me another book. I gotta get me
a tutor. So we get on a tangent trying to

(26:49):
get some help from my firegrader than we are instead
of doing the things the book tells us to do.
Because that second condition says, if you've decided you want
what we have and are willing to go to any length,
any link to get it, then you're ready to take

(27:09):
certain steps. And then it says, here are the steps
we took. Here are the steps we took which are
suggested as a program of recovery. We're sobers. The implication is,
we're suber. Here are the things we did. If you
want this thing, do these things. And of course the

(27:33):
first condition is a twofold admission of defeat. And we're
not gonna twofold admit that we're defeated unless we have
taken the first two conditions, unless we've come to see
and to accept ourselves as we are where we are
right now, and unless sobriety is number one on our

(27:59):
hit parade, because it is not alcoholic thinking to admit
that we are powerless over alcohol, that our lives have
become unmanageable. This is not alcoholic thinking, powerless over alcohol, physical,

(28:22):
unmanageable life, mental. So it's necessary that we come up
to this step having already taken the first two accepted.
The first two conditions we admitted to were powerless over alcohol,

(28:47):
that our lives had become unmanageable. That's about as different
from our former thinking and action patterns as you can get.
I don't believe there's anybody in this room that ever
ran in the boar and says, look, Joe, I'm PILs

(29:09):
over our home. My life's unmanageable. Give me a double quick.
Joe's the last guy that best know we're powers over alcohol.
We gotta keep him buttered up a little, you know.
We gotta tell him about the merger we just put

(29:31):
two the railroad we just sold because after three or
four drinks, we gotta discovery we forgot a pocketbook. We
gotta have him be cheap. We admitted we were poles
over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Two fold

(29:53):
admission of the teeth. And I don't say unmanageable, what's drunk?
Many of us read it that way, but that's not
what it says. It says that our eyes had become unmanageable.
Period stopped right there now the second step towards and

(30:23):
first cause the second step is a left handed admission
that we're insane. It says, we came to believe that

(30:44):
a power greater reserves could restore us to sanity. Well,
you don't need to restore a sane person to sanity,
right there is an implication here were not even the

(31:09):
fruit take and I don't say wife's drunk? Now after
another one, we're not gonna s admit to Joe, are
we look Joe at nuts? No? And the third worse

(31:35):
than all three of 'em, all two of 'em, I mean,
because the third one you ever got to give up
the keys and then kills me, because the only way
anybody ever got my keys was to wait till a
pass out. I ain't jump out of a poor but

(31:56):
trac hack in the morning with my wife are yours?
Then you get over to the parking lot and she says, honey,
give me the key, I'll ride, and you say whose car.
That says my car. You're going with me? Get in,

(32:17):
I'm driving, But it might be that daylight. You ain't
gone no place, but you still got the keys that
place that you gotta give up the keys. You gotta
get a new driver. We made a decision to turn

(32:42):
our will and our lives old the care of God.
That says not alcoholic thinking. It's just exactly like I
had walked straight north for forty three years, maybe a
one hundred and eighty degree turn, and won't south for
twenty five. Life is just that different, and something hot

(33:08):
to happen to anarchy before these things are possible. Strange
thing when you look at us, probably two of the
things that we dislike the most are dirt and weakness.

(33:34):
And how dirty can you get? And how weak can
you get? Don't answer those because I know exactly. One
of the most vital memories I have of my drinking
past is how hard I tried to get clean after

(33:56):
the Oh, God, quick as you can walk, you're getting
a shower, and you went out two cakes of soap
trying to get clean, trying to get rid of that stench.

(34:16):
Then you go to the barber shop and you get
your ears set out and your beard scraped dog. Then
you put on the nicest clothes you got. We hate dirt,
and how dirty can you get? And the next thing
is weakness, God, how we hate weakness. We hate weakness

(34:39):
in anybody that much voice on ourselves. And again, something
has to happen before we can admit defeat, before we
can surrender. Something has to happen to us. If anyone

(35:01):
i' hered have called me an alcoholic thirty years ago,
and I could have gotten up off the floor, I
had to kick you out in the teeth if I
could have seen you. This is something nobody must know,
not even me. You see, something hats to happen before

(35:28):
these things are possible. Fourth and fifth steps are worse
than all threes that have just preceded to me. The
fourth steps that we made a searching and furious moral

(35:48):
inventory of ourselves. Now this is a switch. I'm the
kind of a guy that had inventoried everybody I ever
knew in my entire life, and many people that were
just walking by. One of my great accomplishments in this

(36:15):
thing called life prior to coming here was the fact
that we knew exactly what was wrong with everybody around us,
and we didn't mind telling them, and that's what endeared
us to a non alcoholic world. Yeah, I've got to

(36:38):
take a searching and feel the moral inventory means. And
if you think that an ego builder, get a thick
pad and a long pencil and start writing. And I
wanna think that it's real good to write it. Write

(37:01):
it down. We made a searching and fairless moral inventory
of ourselves, and having made it, then we have to
share it. And if it had just that we admitted
to God and to ourselves, the exact nature of our
arms would have been pretty It has been a pretty

(37:24):
easy deal. But they flipped in a sleeper. There. We
admitted to our God and to ourselves and to another
human being. Probably the toughest thing you and I will
ever have to do in ear entire life time is

(37:46):
that to another human being. We gotta spread this dirty
linen out before a flesh and blood person. Somebody's gonna
be walking the streets doing what the inside. To me,
this is a killer, an ego killer, and that's why
it's there to surrender us at depth to surrenders at depth. Now,

(38:19):
having written this down and shared it, we become willing
to give it away, and we give it away. Miss
Seat touched on that little afternoon. And it's something I
love to spend just a minute, all because many of
my people continuously try to pull these old chestnuts out

(38:43):
of the fire and beat themselves to death with it.
And I don't find that my book even suggests a
thing like that. My book says, we write it down,
we share it, then we become willing to give it away,
and we give it away. We were entirely ready to

(39:05):
have God remove all these detective characters, humbly ask him
to remove our shorts. I tried everyone in the world
to stay out of here. If I got it done there,
if I wouldn't have had to come, I couldn't do it.
And so I'm delighted to become willing to give it

(39:29):
away and give it away. And I'm a I'm a
simple man. How do I know whether or not I
gave it away? If I haven't got it and gave
it away, Now that Philly isn't that silly, But that's
the way it is with me. If I still got it,
I didn't give it away. So I get busy on

(39:50):
that one again. Now there two more sets in the
first nine line, and there are two of the most
beautiful things that will ever happen to anybody in their
entire lifetime. If you haven't taken these steps, take ricum.

(40:16):
We made a list of all persons we had harm
and became willing to make amends to Tomorrow. We made
direct amends tocit world possible, accept contro doucal with injure
them or others. If you take these steps and you
feel like you've had an inside shower, you feel clean,
clear through, don't delay it. Do them. I got that

(40:43):
that little thing probably set it around here before. But
some years back I got a call on Friday night
from a guy whit Her and he said, Chuck, I'm
sitting here with the fitch gun in my lap and
I'm gonna blow my brains out. But Jim said for

(41:06):
me not to shoot myself until I talked to you. Now,
I said, what did he got to say? And I said, well,
you called me on a bad night. I said, I'm
talking to night Tomorrow night and Sunday night, but Monday
night's open. Have you on to see why he come

(41:29):
down here Monday night? And if you don't go ahead
and blow your brains out. And Monday night, about seven
point thirty, the overall rag and there was this guy
and he came in and at ten thirty in the morning,
we're right where we are right now. We made a

(41:51):
left the wall person who had harm and became willing
to make amends to the wall. Made direct commends to
such people wherever possible, except wouldn't do so with into
them or other. Now, this chap was also a gambler.
He lost a bunch of money he didn't have had

(42:15):
he had lost it to professional gamblers. And I was
sitting there telling.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
The guy, Now, you got to go to these people,
and you gotta tell him that you're not the big
shot that you would have had them believe.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
That you're not a hoody, that you've found a way
to live that might let you live the rest of
your life one day at a time without drinking. And
one of the conditions of the program is that you
make amends. And that's why you're here. Now, you gotta
tell these people, I admit the debt, it's mine and

(42:54):
I'll pay you when I can, but I ain't got
no money. And he says, oh, he's know, I can't
do that. Why. He says it kill me, And I said,
so what, you don't have suicide on your behind? I

(43:16):
didn't want started laughing, and he's still laughing, and he's
walking the streets a free man, and he don't owe
anybody anything what ada it is to get rid of
that burden. With eight and nine, I only have three

(43:42):
more steps, but they have I think a little different functions.
The first nine steps are the surrender steps. Those steps
are designed to squeeze us right out of herself, to
get rids of that ego that has ridden this like

(44:07):
a Simon legree for a lifetime in total and abject surrender.
And I one who believes that if you and I
honestly take these first nine steps to the best of
our ability, we will at number ten be surrendered. I

(44:36):
don't think it's possible for us to go through this
honestly and not be surrendered. And we stay surrendered. With ten,
we continue to take personal inventory, and when we're all
about admitted this does not mean that we go back

(44:57):
and redo five. In my book, how many people tell me, Look,
when I took step four and set five in the
first place, there was much that I couldn't admit that
I didn't even remember, and so I gotta do it over.

(45:18):
I don't believe this. I think that anybody who's takes
Step five twice is wagging now. If you and I
are working with what drunks, we are continuously sharing these things.

(45:49):
Every twice step call we go on brings up something
that we've forgotten about, and we share it with this
new guy. We're continuing dumping garbage if we're busy doing
the things that our program calls us to do, which
is carrying the message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

(46:12):
I want more. Let them trade in passage them, guy
said to me, not too long ago. It's been in
programs longer, A little longer than I have. He says chuck.
He says, I quit working with what drinks. He said,
I got tired of them kiking on me. We heard

(46:33):
that word last night, or wouldn't they used it? I
think it's a lie they work, but it sure is expressive.
And I said, you're equipment how and he said yeah. Well,
I said I'm not. I wanna keep on going, just
like him going, because I'd much rather it be the

(46:55):
pukies than the puke guard. Then everyone from a while
some guy tells me, he says, you've been Ober twenty

(47:18):
five years. How do you know how drunk feels You've
lost touch? How is that so you can't lose touch
when you're working with what Drunks. You're just as old

(47:39):
in this program as your last go around with what Drunks,
because you see yourself always HM when you're out there
doing that work. And that's the wonderful thing about carrying
the message. You can't get old in the program, and

(48:00):
you can't forget. Step ten says, I look at my
day and see how nearly I lived according to my
qunciples of recovery, and write myself two things that Step

(48:21):
ten has done for me that are beautiful. The first
one I can now say I don't know. In all
my drinking career, I could not say I don't know.
You could have asked me anything, and I would have
told you. Einstein's theory was very simple to me. You

(48:51):
could have asked me I got created ears, and I
would have told you, and I very liked me would
have said. And now on the third day we did
best and show it. I could not say I don't know,

(49:13):
And now I can say I don't know, and now
I last twenty five years in business, I can say
I don't know, but if it is important, I would
say to my people I'll find out tomorrow. I know,
but today I don't know. And it's beautiful. How easy

(49:36):
did sir? I don't know? And the next thing is
I was wrong? God, this is a switch. You saw
that lady up here talking this afternoon. She mentioned the
fact I believe that we've been working in double harness
for forty six years, and I catch myself saying to her, honey,

(50:00):
I was wrong. Now that is a is a down
right shame to your own wife. After forty six peers,
you say I'm wrong? I I I thought, I thought
sure I was right, but you were you? You was
right all the time. I was wrong? And how easy
this makes life the finch if I mom, I'm wrong,

(50:28):
and I don't mind telligence. So that summer telling them
now we got eleven. If it weren't for eleven, I
wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't be anyplace else where,
free men assembly. I would be dead long long ago.
I would have been pushing up daisies because you see,

(50:51):
I can't run my left I can't run my wife,
my kids, my business, me or anything else. I had
forty six years to run my life, and I ran
it right into the bottom of the snake pitch, and
I gave it one hell of a good college trick.

(51:15):
I gave it my wife, our kids, our home, my job,
my help, my sanity, and my money. And if I'd
had anything else, I'd put it in and I lost.
So there's nothing in me that even wants to believe

(51:37):
that I can run anything. And thank God I don't
have to, because I got several livings, sought to prayer
meditation to improve my conscious awareness of the living presence
of the Almighty the way I like it. The VIC
book says, stop through prayer and meditation to improve our

(52:04):
conscious contact with God as we understood, pulling only for
knowledge of His wilforce and paraty carried out. Now I've
lived letther step for twenty five years and six months.
I totally depend on guidance and directions. Without that I

(52:27):
could not live. And how easy it is when we
depend on guidance and directions. How easy it is. And
I have a little simple deal on this too. I
get up in the morning and I say, look bad

(52:48):
I'm reporting for duty. Now, I'm gonna move it around. Now,
I'm gonna do the best to care of is the
one it got today. And all I want out of
he is lettle guidance and directions partly carried out, sure,
and to go about in the business doing what's indicated

(53:08):
totally by ear. You play everything by ear, because you
can't build a roof over your head and get guidance
and directions. Though you play it by ear expecting guidance
and directions. I get it, you might say, hide at all.

(53:32):
I got the best reason that I can imagine. I
never had it for good, pretty good, and never had
it for good. This is the only easy life I
ever knew, the only good life that's ever been mine
in sixty nine years life. And that's a pretty good indicator.

(54:02):
Aleven Steve eleven and I lived by it. Now we
got one more. I ain't had a spiritual awakening as
the result of these steps, and there's an impotens here too.

(54:23):
I don't believe that it's quite cricket to believe that
I can have a spiritual awakening as the result of
eleven steps of a cook. And I further believe that

(54:45):
it's impossible to take the first eleven and not have
a spiritual awakening, because this is a way to get
a spiritual awakening in my way of thinking. Now, many
time we have a spiritual awakening and we don't know
what it is. For instance, many years ago, I was

(55:08):
reacting at a noon meeting on South Broadway in loth Enans.
I remembered very well, it was raining, very hard, and
we had a nice little group in there lunch and
meeting or a noon meeting, and uh, as the thing
was over, man came up to me just about my

(55:32):
own age, beautifully dressed, man looked good, and he says
to me, chuck, when in the hell am I gonna
have this spiritual awakening? The people keeps fing, keep coming back,
keep coming back, keep coming back, And it happened. But
he's as a dreamer. And I said, r how long

(55:55):
can keep coming back? And he says, eight years. I
ain't loved real good to know. And I said to him, uh, well,
I've had you in trouble drinking and then they years
He said, no, I haven't had a drink since my

(56:17):
first meeting. Oh, I said, you haven't had a drink
since I was ridden, and he said, no, I'm thinking
how good he was looking and how well he was dressed.
I said, well, what else has happened to you? And
he just started reeling the more and everything doing has
happened that old boy. The only thing he hadn't done,

(56:40):
he hadn't shot a horse. And by inside, I'm laughing
like I had enough, and ain't got very mad at him,
cause then it was very serious for them. And he

(57:05):
started to tell me about it, and I said, man,
wake up, because you stay over before you came here.
And he says no, he said Oden would come, but
you came. Man. You haven't had to have a drink
since your first meeting. And he said this, And I said,
did all these things happen to you? These good things
happened to you before you came in. No, but you

(57:27):
came here and all see good things have happened in
your life. He says yes. I said, the man, you've
had it for eight years. On you got to do
is to see where from whence it came now and
start thanking God that ever breath the drunk, and you'll
be home free. See so many others think of spirits

(57:48):
are awakening. There's something mysterious, sir, etherial, or something that
might had on us or might miss it, you know.
And then I'm a very simple guy. I think spiritual

(58:15):
things are good things. What about eating? How many of
you say, oh, that's that's a very physical thing. You
get hungry and eat, And I say, oh, you get
hungry and eat. Well, I'm not a guy that don't eat.

(58:38):
You're looking at a guy at a guy that has
gone for two weeks trying to get to a chili
joint at the exact second when I could swallow. And
it has to be a dead heat. If you get

(59:00):
there a half block too soon, you don't stop, and
he overshoots you come back tomorrow. One of the great
experiences of my life. And I went to talk in
Sant Monanda, little old town out in the north into
the San Bannanda Valley many years back. And the old

(59:20):
boy got up here. He I think was one of
Buttermilk's relatives. And they got up here at this podium
and he said, I came here. The person he said
his name, and he said, I came here in a

(59:43):
fourteen dollar suit with thirty five dollars an of chili
down in front of it. And I almost jumped a resisted.

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
His brother.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
You know, now, I've been eating for twenty five years,
and I believe that I have the same experience every
time I smell, eat, taste and enjoy food that they
devout have when they take thee Blessed Sact. This is

(01:00:23):
a tremendous thing for me because I've gone long periods
of time without as solid me on my body. What
about sleeping? Why you say that's physical. You get to

(01:00:44):
sleep and you go to sleep. That's so Now about
going to.

Speaker 4 (01:00:53):
Bed and getting up and getting up and going to bed,
and going to bed and getting out and getting nothing,
going to bed and never sleeping at every joint coming around.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Glued, you're dying, and you yell out in total despair. God, Pa,
let me sleep for twenty minutes, just twenty minutes and
there's no sleep. Oh, why it deal to lie down

(01:01:27):
and go to sleep. This is very spiritual to me
because it's good living. It's good living. What about people
I came here with? Out of people in the world,

(01:01:52):
I was first out of people, including my own block.
Nobody left but me, and I hated my insides, and
now I got one of the biggest families on the
face the earth. I got people all over this globe

(01:02:16):
who loved me and share with me, and people whom
I loved and with whom I share. And this is
the difference between a full and an empty life. And particular, listen,
is that beautiful when you come to see that God
is people? What a thing that is? And how richly

(01:02:42):
blessed am I who came here with nobody and have
all of you. It's beautiful. So to me the spiritual
life of the good life. And again, I think it's

(01:03:03):
impossible for you and me to honestly take the first
eleven steps and not have a spiritual awakening, even though
we don't know what to call it. Having had a
spiritual awakening as the results of these steps, we tried
to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these

(01:03:27):
principles and all of our pairs. Now, this gives me
a lifetime job. I've got it spelled out for a
lifetime to carry this message to other alcoholics and to
practice these principles in all of my pairs. And this

(01:03:47):
is all I've done for twenty five years and six months.
This has been my life for twenty five years and
six months and it's fantastic. Yeah, what an amazingly wonderful thing.
It is that by doing the things we learned that

(01:04:14):
Saint Francis knew what he was talking about when he said,
poet is.

Speaker 5 (01:04:18):
In giving that we received. Pot is in giving that
we received, and we never know it until we do it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
Now, how long have I been? Nothing happened? How long
is that? You really do it? A? Huh? What don
he twen do? Nine twenty nine? Oh? I what? Oh?
I got all evening to start. I'm just getting on

(01:04:53):
the way. Is that ja a live to me? Oh? Okay,
try recorded or something or quarter? Yeah, well, I want
to talk to a cook now. I want to tell

(01:05:18):
you what I mean by that last remark. January nineteen
hundred and forty six. I totally and completely accepted the
fact that everything dear to me in life was gone

(01:05:40):
and that I was not entitled to have it back.
Now I'm gonna say that again because it's most important
to me, and it's most meaningful to me. I totally
and completely accepted the fact that everything dear to me
in life was gone and that I was not entitled

(01:06:03):
to have it back, including my own wife and our
own kids. And my job and my health and everything else.
And it became very necessary that i'd be sober to die,
not because I wanted sobriety for me, because I didn't
want anything for me. My life was over. I knew

(01:06:27):
I was gonna die. I'd come that close to it
the time before when the oxygen squad brought me back,
so I knew I was gonna die. I didn't care,
but I didn't want to die with the record. I
didn't want my wife and the kids to remember me.
There's nothing but a tongue chewing, babbling idiot drunk. And

(01:06:52):
I said to myself that morning, having just come to
by a four week black house, they in dead drunk,
drinking the cock around, And I, having seen myself as

(01:07:13):
I was, I said to myself, if I ever lived
to get out of this bed, I would find alcoholics numbers.
Yea strange as it might seem. From that moment of
commitment until right now, I've never had a drink or
pel now again, I had a lot of dying to do.

(01:07:38):
Everyone out of here who have done a lot of
drinking knows that every nerve center in my body was
yelling for food. They say there are a few benion
of 'em, but everything in me was how long can
I live without a drink? And for some reason I

(01:08:04):
didn't have to take one, although I had to die
and die and die many times in the past. My
mind had come and gone in a withdrawal period like
turned the light on the law. Yes, but this time
it went and it didn't come, and I would sit
there for days, seemingly knowing that the cord was broken.

(01:08:30):
This time I'll never be seen again. I was just
gonna remain insane until I died. But again, for some reason,
I didn't have to drink, and I eventually started getting better,
and I went out and found this program, and I've

(01:08:51):
been here ever soon now knowing that I my wife
and children were gone and should be gone, and that
I wasn't entitled having back, I never made any attempt
to get them back. But in trying to rub out

(01:09:11):
the record, I had to do things for them that
I could do just because I wanted to, for free
and for fun, no strings at all, just doing things.
Because you can't rub out training, you're rubout doing things

(01:09:32):
without a price tag on. And that's what I did
so at home without even knowing it I started right
in fulfilling one of the greatest conditions in life, trying
to do something for somebody without a price tag on

(01:09:56):
the same thing was true in business. My boss that
sent word to the house that if I ever stepped
foot in the planet again, he was gonna throw me
through the window. Because you see, on the Friday before
Christmas nineteen forty five, he had done a very fine
thing for me. Instead of shooting me he had every
right to do. He gave me three thousand bucks for

(01:10:19):
Christmas presents, telling me first that he was going to
take a little pressure off of me and maybe I
wouldn't have so much trouble next year. And of course
I got drunk on the way home. The one thing
that's worse for an alcoholic than bad fortune is good fortune.

(01:10:44):
And I never showed up the last of January, and
the old boy missed me and I had to go
back there because he had paid for paid me for
something I didn't do. And I went down there knowing
that he was gonna tell me said the window, but

(01:11:06):
I had to go and he came in to do it.
I got bulled in the china close it, and he
could have done it because I wasn't healthy. I was
right tuning, And when he started after me, I said, VIC,

(01:11:31):
leave me alone. I don't work for you anymore. I'm
not here to clean up this desk. I'm here to
do the things that you paid me for last year
that it didn't do. And as soon as I get
even with you, I'll get the hell out of your
own own power. You'll never only penny as long as
you live. But for God's sake, leave me alone. I

(01:11:51):
got to get even with you. He stopped in his tracks.
He said, what the hellse happened to you, Charlie, And
I said, don't know. And because I hadn't even been
the media yet, what I had done to make up
my mind that I was gonna do it, but I
had to get well enough before I could even find

(01:12:13):
the place. I didn't even know what to look for it.
So I had the same job on hands in my
business that I had at home, and I started trying
to do things for people that they needed to have
done because they wanted to. And that's all I did

(01:12:36):
in business. My business and my twelve step work was
one and the same. For twenty five years, I spent
just about equal time and one in the other, and
I never made any difference in it, because you see,
without sobriety, I would have no business, and without the business,

(01:12:57):
I couldn't do the things I was doing an alcoholics anonymous,
and so things were that way with me for twenty
five years. Nine my eleventh year, I bought the business

(01:13:17):
that he came in to throw me out of and
I owned it for the last thirteen years that I
was in business. And that's impossible. It's totally impossible because
I didn't try to do that. I didn't do anything
for twenty five years for any reason but just to

(01:13:43):
do something for somebody because I wanted to. It was
an amazing thing because things happened to me that can't happen.
Businessmen has seld across the desk from me, looking right now,
I'd say, jump, you're a damn liar. Business cannot be

(01:14:04):
done this way, and I just laughed. But I didn't
know it. Now. A year ago last October, I showed out.

(01:14:29):
And if I don't live too long, I'll never be
hungry again. And that's impossible, but it's the way it
is now. Enclosing, I am totally convinced. After twenty five

(01:14:50):
years and six months that the first two words of
the Lord's prayer mean exactly what they say, from the
top of my longest hair the soles of my feet.
I believe that the first two words of the Lord's

(01:15:11):
prayer mean exactly what they say, our father. You remember
one they said to the carpenter, Master teaches to pray.
He didn't say, well, I'll get yourself a red rub
and pointed east and say I have a diabber a
few times, and my father and I might help you

(01:15:31):
a little, They said, Master teaches to pray. And he says,
after this miner, pray ye our father, his father, your
father and mine. Yeah, now i've God is our father

(01:15:51):
where his kids? And this is the This is the
most meaningful thing that could happen to anybody if it
be true. And I totally believe that it's true. Now

(01:16:16):
there's a little verse some place that sayes fear knock,
little flock. It's the Father's good pleasure to give us
the kingdom. And I believe this just as I believe
I'm standing here. But there's a catch in it. It's
not on my terms, it's on his. And again, his

(01:16:39):
terms are so simple that the world don't know anything
about us. His terms are that I go back as
a business, that I act like his kid, that I
help his children do things they need to have done
because of walk to you. That's the terms. How do

(01:17:03):
I know, because that's all I've done for twenty five
years and six months. And again, I never had it
for good. I never had it for good. I didn't
come here to find all these things. I came here
for sobriety. The first discovery was after six months that

(01:17:31):
I was sober and had been for six months. The
second was that something had happened in the household. Now
these are discoveries and discoveries all way, discoveries, and medically speaking,
it's incurable. Now that's that's pretty rough. And that's what

(01:17:53):
I got. I'm not calling now many doctores do you
act there country? In Canada, it was their private opinion
that if the brain explosions and heart failures, it should
be a credit to alcoholism work right now, alcoholism would

(01:18:14):
be first as a killer in the United States. I
don't think that's too important during the first three anyhow,
you know, we get show money even at the worst,

(01:18:39):
and I figure it's very significant because we would have
to have one of the worst diseases. See, everything's gotta
be big in an alcoholics life. Before I got the A,
I was always gonna do something big. I never quite
got around to it, but I was going to one

(01:19:05):
of my great dreams when I was lying back there
in that bed of mine and an alcoholic stupor. Was
of the big things I was gonna do to get
back into good graces of my family in society. I
remember one of 'em. Thatt recurred often. I was gonna

(01:19:25):
save the Pope in an earthquake. Now I'm not even
a Catholic, and I all of it. I'd be telling
him anyway. But Dad's gonna take some doing because I'm

(01:19:55):
drunk at Beverly Well. He's over in room. See. But
it is very necessary for us to do something big
because we never did the little things. You see that,
we never did the little things. And this is one
of the wonderful things about our program. There's nothing big
to do anymore. They're just little things, and the big

(01:20:20):
things take care of themselves, and it's wonderful. And when
we as alcoholics come to see the nature of our
problem and fulfill the conditions laid down in our program,
something happens to us. But I have one who believes

(01:20:41):
that either we have to drink the last dregs out
of the bottom of the cup, or we have to
come and see the nature of our program lest we
will not fulfill the conditions for sobriety. We are peculiar,
breedy cats with alchies. We have the ability to hear

(01:21:04):
what we wanna hear, and see what we want see,
and interpret both that which we hear and see the
way we won't interpret it cloud and we can't hear
you until we can't. I got a great charge out
of a little thing that happened on art Link Letters

(01:21:25):
program sometime back. He had a bunch of kids up
there talking to and he asked him about the definition
their definition of a mirror. And he got to this
little not headed boy and he says, what your definition
of miracle? And he says, a miracle is something that

(01:21:48):
can't happen until it does. And that's the way with us.
The miracle of a can't happen with us until it does. Right.
I've heard several people say since I've been here, I
wish I could have found this thing ten years sooner.

(01:22:13):
Or twenty years sooner or something, And I just laugh.
I just laugh because we couldn't have found it ten
years sooner. We couldn't have find it ten days sooner.
Then on, an alcoholic just don't make up his mind
that he's got a problem, and UH decide to come

(01:22:34):
to alcoholics anonymous and surrender and get sober. There's a
little preparation to go through. We gotta get ready, and
how long it takes it takes, and what it takes

(01:22:57):
it takes help and until we can hear, we can't
here now. I agree with the medical definition the disease bipholism,
that it is a d disease of a twofold nature,

(01:23:17):
an allergy of the body coupled obsession of mind. I
go along with this. I am condemned by the obsessions
of mind to drink liquor, and I am condemned by
the allergy of the body to die if I do.
I know this because I spent ten hot years in

(01:23:42):
hell trying to prove that wasn't true, and I proved,
to my complete and total satisfaction that it is. So
I agree. I also agree that once an alcoholic, always
an alcoholic. I medical science says that there's never been

(01:24:07):
a case in history where anybody like me ever went
back to normal drinking. I agree with this without shouts
and stout with it. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.
I agree that the physical part of the disease gets
worse with the passage of time, even during long extended

(01:24:29):
periods of total absence. I know that I'm eighteen years
and seven months worse all so far as successfully drinking
liquors concerned, than it was when I got here. Oh yeah,
and that's between us. I wasn't in what would be
diagnosed as robust health when I got here. I know

(01:24:55):
this is true, and I don't have to take a
drink to prove it because I have been close to
and active in this program for eighteen years and seven months.
And when you're close to and active, then you don't
have to take the drink to see if the physical
part of the disease gets worse, because your friends are

(01:25:17):
forever doing it for you. You know, I had a
twin in this program almost chapter ten to the program
the same month I did, January nineteen hundred and forty six,
and for fifteen straight years he did a tremendous job

(01:25:39):
in this program. Hopgo. He's one of the greatest speakers
that ever came out of southern California. Oh, many of
you have heard him or heard his tapes. Two years
ago last Christmas, he got messing around with a little
in a cough syrup business codeine and alcohol. Oh lxt

(01:26:00):
thing you know, he was drinking a little and the
next thing you knew, we had to buried. It didn't
last sixty days after his first drink, after fifteen straight
years of totals, so you see. Yeah, the physical side
of the disease gets worse for the passage of time,
even during long, extended periods of total and to date,

(01:26:25):
there is nothing that can be done about the physical
part of the disease. We had all the money in
the state of Colorado, it wouldn't be enough to send
me some place to have my body made over so
I could successfully drink all of this I am fully

(01:26:47):
aware of now. If seeing the physical side of the disease,
you and I could decide to quit drinking and could
do it, we wouldn't have a proper We simply wouldn't
have a problem. It's easy for us to see the

(01:27:08):
physical side of the disease, that one drink's too many
in thousands, not enough at church explained to us. Oh, now,
this never occurred to me until I got the alcoholics anonymous.
I never thought it was a first drink that was
killed me. I thought it was the last gallon for

(01:27:30):
ten years. I was trying to find a way to
shut it off before the trouble started. You see, my
last drink. If I had trouble started on Wednesday. Now,
if I had just quit Tuesday, everything had been alright,
And so I'd decided to quit Tuesday next time, but
I'd forget to specify which Tuesday. But when I got

(01:27:54):
here and you told me it was first slove, I
could see it very plainly. It's not that we our
keyes get drunk every time you take a drink. Why
was particularly this is not true? Aye? With the periodic?

(01:28:15):
How's the large down? We don't get drunk every time
we take a drink. We get real cute about this thing.
We come off of drunk. And if you were like
me and didn't know there was an easy way to sober,
oun ob, you just died until you get left, come,

(01:28:38):
shook your liver out, walked up and down the living
room floor, sweating, shaking, freezing, and dying well until you
could get well d and then you'd go into a
real good uh uh build up process. You'd eat a
lot of vitamins, sh sleep well, drink a lot of milk, exercise,

(01:29:06):
get real strong, and then you start to analyze. You
take that last drink apart, see where you made your mistakes,
decide not to do it that way anymore. And then
you start sampling, and you simple your way right on
the back of beds in it, but not quickly got right,

(01:29:32):
take quite a little time, because we you we we
got rid cute about it. We'd experiment for a few weeks.
Oh very So it isn't that we got drunk every
time we take uh drink. It's it we get drunk
every time we take uh drink before we quit taking

(01:29:55):
uh drink. You see always why if there's a question
of time between the first slug and the drunk, and
if seeing this, we could decide to quit drink and quit,
we wouldn't have a problem in the world. We just
say to ourselves, all right, why the stuff isn't doing

(01:30:16):
for me what it used to do. I can't get
there anymore. I can get close by either go through
or fall back. And so I'm not getting any fun
out of it. There's nothing in it but trouble. And
besides getting so it hurts too bad, sobered up. So

(01:30:36):
I've just cark got the bottle and put it on
the shelf and leave it. Now. If we could do that,
we wouldn't have a problem in the world. We'd do it.
But we can't. Why because the other half of the disease,
the obsessions of the mind, Oh you litt that causes

(01:30:56):
to drink. Why the obsessions of the mind that cause
us to drink. The reason you never heard anything about
willpower or backbone or standing up and being a man
in alcoholics anonymous, is that we know it's just as
silly for an alko its decide to quit drinking as

(01:31:20):
it is for a tubercular to decide to quit coffin.
The Only way a tubercular can get rid of the
cough is to get rid of its cause, tuberculosis. And
the only way a guy like me can get rid
of the bottle is to get rid of the mental
obsessions that cause him to drink. You see, there is

(01:31:42):
no physical demand for liquor when the body is dry.
Is the wise I be in the middle of a
bad predicament this morning because I haven't had a drink
or a tranquilizing or sedating pill for eighteen years and seven,
so I would really be hurting. But I'm now all.

(01:32:08):
I feel pretty good, thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:32:11):
There is no physical demand.

Speaker 1 (01:32:13):
For liquor when the body's dry. It's only after the
first love that the physical takes over. The first drink
is mental, The second drink and the five hundred and
forty second drink are physical, but the first one is mental.
And if you and I want to live without that bottle, yeah,

(01:32:35):
we have to be rid of its cause, the obsessions
of the month. And that's what our program is all about.
We recognize the physical part of the disease and recognize
that we have no more good drinking time left period

(01:32:57):
and never will have any more period. And then we
turn to the other half of the disease, the cause,
And this is what our program relieves us of the
obsessions of the money. Now, due to our very nature,
we either have to come to see that there's nothing

(01:33:20):
ahead of us that permanent insanity or death, or we
have to drink the last dregs out of the bottom
of the cup, because otherwise we will not do the
things necessary to obtain and maintain sobriety. We won't do

(01:33:42):
it because the first condition for sobriety is surrendered. This
is the very first condition for sobriety. Okay, this is
a bottle. We win by the recognition that we can't
win by the admission to ourselves, our total defeat, and

(01:34:08):
the abandonment ourself to the simple problem. And we will
not do it unless we see that it's absolutely necessary,
or that it is absolutely necessary. How are we going
to get rid of the obsessions of the mind. We

(01:34:30):
have a formula that is food proof, and all we
gotta is fulfill the conditions the formula. And the first
condition is that we accept ourselves as we are where
we are. Oh, this is first condition. Oh, we find

(01:34:52):
it in chapter three. It says we learned that we
add to fully concede to our innermost self that we
were alcoholic. This is the first step in recovery. Now,
that's why these meetings are so very necessary, because before

(01:35:13):
we can identify with both hives of the disease of
our polism, we have to identify with an alcoholic. We
help it. This is our first identity with somebody like us,
and the place to find somebody like us is in

(01:35:34):
an alcoholics anonymous meeting. And that's why these n meetings
are so necessary and so vital to us. If we
be our part, that we might be able to accept
ourselves exactly as we are where we are. You know,

(01:35:58):
until I completely and totally run out of everything, including
sh choice. It was never my fault that I drink.
It was your fault. If you're stupid people, I'd have

(01:36:20):
lived like I knew you should, and like I told
you how, because I knew how you should live, and
I told you And if you just had performed like
I thought you ought to, I wouldn't have had to drink,

(01:36:41):
but you wouldn't do it.

Speaker 6 (01:36:42):
And so I got drunk at you, and I got
drunk in a lot of you blieve me, that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:02):
Guy that you heard talking some of 'em yestery afternoon,
I used to get drunk at her an awful lot
because she didn't perform like I knew she should. My
boss here, something was perfectly clear to me that I
had all the brains in the organization, and he had

(01:37:23):
all the money, and he was trying to tell me
what to do. I got drunk at him. But my
last and best excuse was my wife's mother got a dog.

(01:37:44):
There was a king's size excuse. Believe me. We had
a new mutual hating society that was beautiful to behold.
You see, she old me I had one kid, and
I was married to her, and she was living with us,
and she had a grand standing seat watching me curcifier

(01:38:06):
only daughter, and she.

Speaker 6 (01:38:10):
Didn't like me very good, and I didn't like her
that good.

Speaker 1 (01:38:28):
You see, if she hadn't been there, I went and
I had to curse the fire daughter. It was never
my fault until I ran out of town. And from
the day that I came to see that if there
be fault, it is mine. From that moment until right now,

(01:38:53):
I have never had to take a drink of liquor
or sedating or tranquilizing fall. And it happened to me
in the middle of the worst drug, oh God, that
I've ever been on, and I had nothing in my
body but liquor. Nothing. But I woke up for the
little period of sanity, and I saw me as I
watch and accepted me as I was. Yeah, And although

(01:39:19):
I had a lot of dying to do after that
what I haven't had any more drinking to do or
pilling to do well. One of the greatest days in
the life of any individual when he can and dies
accept himself as he is all and starts going from

(01:39:41):
there all. The second condition we find in chapter three,
Chapter five. It says, if you have decided you want
what we have and are willing to go to any
link you all any link right to get it, then

(01:40:04):
you're ready to take certain steps. Now this means to
me that sobriety has to be number one. If we
be our party, it has to be tops on our
hit parade. And I am convinced clear through from top
to bott w at the very minute that anything, anything

(01:40:24):
gets more important to an alcoholic than his sobriety, he
is on thin ice. I don't think the time can
ever come with us when anything gets between us and
our program and our God. Lest we be on thin ice.

(01:40:50):
It's awful hard for some of us to come to
see You, and particularly is it hard for some of
our mates to come to see God. In my early days, yeah,
my good wife was in the process of getting rid
of me legally. She hadn't had me for quite a
spell anyway, but she didn't want me around the house.

(01:41:16):
I was k cluttering up the place. And I had
accepted the fact that she was gone and should be gone,
and that I wasn't entitled to have a back, and
so I never talked to her about this program. I
never said anything to her about it for six months

(01:41:38):
because I had decided the first night that I got
to a meeting that I wanted what you had, and
I became willing to go to any length to get it.
But I had a great fear upon me, the fear
that it didn't have enough left to get it. And
for six months I was in a meeting every night
with this great fear upon me because I didn't bring

(01:42:00):
a body or a mind to my first meeting. Follow
you and after you have heard me say it took
me three and a half years to get over falling
on my face after my last co And it took
me over six months to put the surrender to prayer,
this beautiful little showing prayer together in English, not spiritually
in English. So I brought neither he mind her body,

(01:42:23):
and I was so burdened with this fear that it
couldn't happen that it didn't have enough left to get it,
and so I never discussed anything about this program with
my wife until six months had gone by and I
had awakened to the fact that I was sober and

(01:42:45):
had been from the very first meeting. And then I
started talking with her body Well, unbeknownst to me, she
had read my book Oh, and she wanted to go
with me, and I took her, and she's been with

(01:43:08):
me everything. But after three or four months, I was
asked to, uh, let me Kis say a few words
in my own group h and I got up and
talked a little, and I said, now, if it was
necessary tonight for me to go to Tibet to maintain

(01:43:30):
what I found here, I would go home, pack my grip,
come to the living room, kiss my wife and say, Honey,
it's too bad, but I've got to go. Well, we
got home pretty soon I had noticed that the house

(01:43:50):
was shaken, nothing nice. And I look over and she's
bawling her eyes out, And I said, well, honey, what's
the matter. And she says, oh, what you said, do
you ward? She says, for the first time in her lives,
we have a little chance for some happiness. Remember, one

(01:44:12):
around for a little joy and a little peace around
this house, and you'd go to Tibet. She just don't
mean anything to you today. Don't the kids mean anything
to you? Don't go home mean anything to you, don't
have a house. And I just let her cry and

(01:44:34):
he it slowed down, and I says, honey, do I
mean anything to you drunk? Were you're out? Kid? Boy?
And she says no, Do I mean anything to these
kids drunk? Ye? And she says no, yah, no, Do
I mean anything to me or to life? Drunk? No? Yeah? You?
And I said, well, can't you see that this has

(01:44:54):
to be number one? About happened? And she couldn't around that.
You heard to say yesterday that if it were necessary
for us to go through this ten years of hell
oh to find what we had found that she was

(01:45:19):
glad that it happened. Yeah, and she's no alcoholic. Tell
me down here, and she would tell you if you
ask her that anything that I feel that's necessary to
maintain myself in this way, she okays, regardless of what
it did, we must come to see that this is

(01:45:44):
number one and must remain so if you have decided
you want what we have, and are willing to go
to any link to get it. Then you're ready to
take certain steps, and then it says, she'll here are
the steps we took. And this is the one of

(01:46:05):
the most significant programs in our book. I mean, one
of the most significant lines in our book. Here are
the steps we took t w lo K took well sober?
Why now, if you happen to be an alcoholic and

(01:46:27):
if you want to get rid of that flick took 'em?
Took 'em because when you took him, something happens, and
when they don't took 'em, nothing happens. Why did I
you know what, firemer? Here are the steps we took.

(01:46:49):
Now that doesn't say here the steps we heard read,
or here the steps we read, or here the steps
we discussed in last night's discussion need come on bo?
Or here are the steps we interpret that ha ha,
that interpreter desires me nuts you favor. You know what

(01:47:14):
that first step to me, M step meant to me?
Eighteen years and seven months ago, we admitted we were
powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Do
you know what it means to me this morning? Eighteen
years and seven months later. Oh, we admitted that we
were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become un management.

(01:47:36):
That's all. I'd like to hear some bride boy girl
jump up and interpret that. Thank God, I got here
too late to d to interpret that and say it interpreted.

(01:48:01):
This is truck. Neither does it say here are this
steps we can God into taking for us. God has
everything to do with our program. He is the author
of it and the father of our miracle. But this

(01:48:22):
isn't one of the things. Yea, Here are the steps
I take myself personally, applying to my very own life,
and I haven't had to drink anymore. Now, this is
the formula. This is the simplicity of our program. And

(01:48:45):
this is the only thing that's wrong with our program.
It is that simple. It is that simple. But you
and I are not that simple. Yeah, we looked at
this thing and we say, uh uh, it can't be
that simple. There's bound to be a tougher way than this,
and I'm going to find it. M

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Chuck C. - AA Speaker - The Prodical Son and the Twelve Steps of Recovery

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Chuck C. - AA Speaker - The Prodical Son and the Twelve Steps of Recovery