Transcript

Now, I have never asked God one time in twenty-nine years to keep me sober. Never asked him once. I've thanked him a million times, but I've never asked him once to keep me sober because that's not the way I read my book. The way I read my book, it says here the steps we took. When we took them, something happens. When we don't took them, nothing happens. So I told Father Bonney, I said, "I've never asked God to keep me sober." He says, "Why not?" I said, "I think that's not his business. I think it's my business to do these things and his business to tell me, and he's done it. I don't have to

tell him what to do about his business, and you guys told me what to do about mine, and I do it. Here are the steps I take. I'm sober, and many, many good things have happened in my life, including the disappearance of the related disorders." Which I didn't spend five seconds on. Not five seconds did I spend trying to get my wife back or the kids or my job or my health or my sanity. And somehow or another, it sort of all fell together. So God's will for you and for me is fulfillment, peace, and joy. The gift of God was made at the foundations of the earth. What you came here looking for, you

came looking with. But we have to find it where it is, and it's right here, and it's an inside job. It's an inside job. Uncovering, discovering, and discalling is Alcoholics Anonymous. It's a fascinating way of life, and it gets better for twenty-nine years to my certain knowledge. And I suspect it's going to get better forever. World without end. Amen. God bless you all. That's it. We have talked about the fact that everything that we were conditioned to believe was true about life in home, school, and church has had to be reversed since we grew up a little bit. And of course, this includes, uh, getting out of our own way. Self-discovery. It includes surrender when

we were conditioned to believe that surrender was for the weak. Strong man wins, weak man surrenders. So we had to run our own lives. We had to win the battle. In this new way of life, we have nothing to, to win, nothing to prove, and we're not going anyplace. Nothing to win, nothing to prove, and we're not going anyplace. Now, I'm either going to run my life and take the consequences thereof, or I'm not going to run it and take the consequences thereof. One or the other of those things I must do. We cannot do both. Again, it's written that you can't serve two masters. Either you cling to the one and despise the other

or vice versa. A house divided against itself can't stand. So either I'm going to run my life to take the consequences thereof, or I'm not going to run it and take the consequences thereof. They don't mix. And I can't run mine. As we have said, we had forty-three years to run the show, during which time I was the star of the show and the master of ceremonies. And after forty-three years, I had accomplished failure in every department of life. So I can't run my life. I can't run nothing. Can't run my business, can't run my wife, can't run my kids, can't run anything, and I knew it. I knew it when I got here. I

came here knowing that I had lost the battle of life, and I'd given up everything I had. I gave it my wife, my kids, our home. I started doing my money, and I lost. So I can't run my life. It's no, it's no big deal as far as I'm concerned, however, because I don't need to. Because I've lived for twenty-nine years in total expectancy of guidance and direction. So I don't need to run my life. It isn't necessary. And I can't, and I accept it. Now, the next premise is that God is either sufficient unto all of my needs, or He is not sufficient unto all of my needs. One or the other. If He

is not sufficient unto all my needs, there's nothing to worry about. Because in that case, life is not worth a candle. The sooner it's over, the better. We might as well knock this thing off and go down with the bus and fill it full of liquor and shack up. And drink till we die. If God is not sufficient unto all our needs, sooner it's over, the better. There's nothing to recommend life. So if He is not sufficient, there's nothing to worry about. And if He is sufficient unto all my needs, there's nothing to worry about. So I got you both ways. Got you both ways. Because if He is, all I have to do is

act like His kid and prove that I am. And that's written like this: "Act as though I am, and I will be," says the Lord. "Act as though I am, and I will be." So that's all I have to do. To act as if it were true and prove that it, it is true. And that's what we do in this program of ours. There's nothing else to do. There's nothing else to do because we've already lost. We've already been to human power. The best I went to, the priest, the preacher, the doctor, and as we said, to the guy who knew more psychiatry than there is. And every one of them talked to me about

willpower, backbone, stand up and be the man. Every one of them. Because you see, prior to twenty-nine years ago, almost nobody knew anything about alcoholism. The people I went to see, the authorities, did not know anything about alcoholism. And they couldn't help me. And I didn't know anything about alcoholism, and I couldn't help myself. So I had to keep right on drinking until it about killed me before I could even come here to investigate. Now, I knew that my job and my problem was not the lack of willpower or the lack of backbone or the lack of being able to stand up and be a man. I knew that. I was born with a pitchfork

in my hand. I can't remember when I wasn't working. I always worked. And I was a pretty good athlete in my day. And I can say that without fear of successful contradiction because there's nobody here old enough to remember. And my backbone has never given me the slightest trouble. And you know something? It hasn't yet. My backbone done a hell of a job for me. If everything I have worked as well as my backbone, I'd be in top shape. If you want to make a question on that, talk to me tomorrow about it. So it isn't backbone. It most certainly isn't willpower. If there is ever a group of people on the face of the

earth who has willpower, it's the drunkard world. Boy, we got willpower to burn. I could get whiskey in Kansas on Election Day if it fell on Sunday. It depended only on how high I was walking across the sidewalk, how long it took. Any place in the country, if the need was great, it didn't take very long to get a jug. Every time I hear these earth people talking about backbone, willpower, I want to ask them one question It's par for the course. We're drunk, you know? We got a whip-eyed bird. And in the standing up and being a man department, we can give them cards and spades. If there's ever a bunch of philosophers on

the face of the earth, it's the drunks of the world. We have all the answers for everybody but us. One of our great assets, one of the things that really endeared us to the non-alcoholic world, we have always known exactly what is wrong with them, and we didn't mind telling them. And that's not a good way to win friends and influence people either. We're a great bunch of philosophers. You could go right now into any bar in this part of the country and ask the first drunk that you bump into any question that popped in your head, and he'd tell you. He wouldn't stammer and stutter. He didn't– he wouldn't say, "I don't know." He'd

tell you. We're a great bunch of philosophers. So I knew all the time that my problem was not willpower, backbone, standing up, and being a man. But I didn't know what it was. So I had to keep right on drinking until I died before I could come here and find out. Now, this isn't any criticism of doctors or the preachers or the priests or the psychiatrists because they didn't know. And back in those days, they did not know. It's a comparatively recent thing that doctors and priests and preachers and psychiatrists, a great percentage of them, have made it their business to find out something about the disease of alcoholism. And they can pre- presently tell

us, and tell us where we can go for help. But in my day, this was not true. Thank God there's so much more known about it today than there was then, that many people can find out and come without having to destroy themselves as some of us did. However, Mr. C. says to me quite often, "Supposing I had have known something about Al-Anon back in the days when you were drinking. Supposing Al-Anon would have– had, had been here, and I was in it, and I was to know a little bit more about how to handle you or how to treat you," not handle me, but how to treat me. "Do you think that it would

hasten you into the society before you came?" And I say, "I don't, I don't really believe it would have." In my case, I don't really believe it would have because I am one who certainly could not hear till I could hear and could not see until I could see. As I told you the other day, I read Jack Alexander's article in the Post in forty-one, and five years later, I remembered that I'd read it. I was four sheets in the wind when I read it. And I remembered only two things about it, that drunks help drunks and didn't drink, and they called it Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's why I said to myself, "If I ever

live to get out of this bed, I'll find AA." And from the decision until now, I haven't had a drink. So I don't know. In my own case, up until my last drunk, it was never my fault that I drank. Up until my last drunk, and I got drunk for twenty-five years, and I was a periodic for the last ten. And I was physically sober damn near tonight between every two drunks for ten years. And I could look at my record with physically sober eyes for that whole ten years. And right until my last drunk, it was never my fault that I drank. It was your fault. It was my wife's fault. It was her

mother's fault. Now, there was a king-sized reason for getting drunk, that mother-in-law of mine. Reminds me of a little story I picked up from Al Badger in Dallas. Al's gone to the big meeting. He's a hell of a guy. He was about three or four months before me in the program. He soberly died a year or so ago. And he was a great storyteller, and he told this story. He said there's two drunks who met on the street, and one of them says to the other, "How's things?" "Oh," he says, "not good." "Well," he says, "that's bad." He says, "Not so bad." He says, uh, "I got married." "Well," he says, "that's good." He says,

"Not so good." He says, "I got my mother-in-law, too." "Well," he says, "that's bad." He says, "Not so bad. Uh, she's got money." He says, "That's good." He says, "Not so good. She wants to boss everything." He says, "That's bad." He says, "Not so bad. She bought us a house." He says, "That's good." He says, "Not so good. The house burned down." "Well," he says, "that sure is bad." He says, "Not bad, brother." He says, "She burned, too." Until that last excuse has got to go over the boards. It's got to burn up. If you and I have– If you and I have one excuse left that is still acceptable to us, we have another

drunk left. Nobody is going to do the things necessary to obtain and maintain sobriety. If there is any way to pin this onto anybody else, your mother-in-law or your boss or anybody else, we're not gonna do it. In my own case- I don't remember if I told you this down here or not. I've told it many, many times. Right on my next to last drunk, when I went to the kitchen after a glass of buttermilk, Dick and Miss C were sitting in the living room. They heard me let out a bellow and heard me hit the floor. Came running out thinking that I was in an alcoholic convulsion, but I wasn't. I was just lying

there on the kitchen floor as peaceful as anybody ever saw, doing nothing, but they couldn't wake me up. And they told me I was a, a peculiar color. I was blue. They got all exercised and called the oxygen squad, and they came down. And after a while, they woke me up. And, uh, they told me that to all intents and purposes, I'd been dead, that they'd had a hell of a time bringing me to, and nobody'd ever bring me to again under those circumstances. And they told me if they were me, they wouldn't do that anymore. I remember I told you that. But I did it again. But the thing I want to tell about

this time is this, that about twenty-four, thirty-six hours after they had brought me to, I was able to get the old dirty bathrobe on and start walking off this drunk. Now, that's the way I had to sober up. I never heard of an easy way to sober up until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. The only way I could sober up was to die until I could live. And I did it mainly walking. And I've got the old bathrobe on, and I'm walking up and down the living room floor, back and forth, sweating, freezing, shaking, dying, and walking. Miss C was standing over the fireplace. And I was walking away from her. And she said, "Chuck,

don't you think you might get a little help if you'd read the book Alcoholics Anonymous?" And I turned on her like a lion. I says, "You, my very own wife, suggesting that I read a book written by a bunch of drunks. I, who have read all the good books by the good authors, and you want me?" Wife says, "You wound me deeply." Now, I'd just been dead forty-eight hours before, and she wounded me deeply. And I polished her off completely by saying, "And besides, I can write a better book than that myself." Now, that was just ninety days before I came crawling into this program. Just ninety days. I'd been getting drunk for twenty-five years,

and she wounded me deeply by suggesting that I read this book. So I doubt very much that there was any way that I could have gotten here except the way I came. And that was to totally burn up, which happened to me on my last time out. Now, many times people hearing a guy like me or some of you, who have everything happen to them that can happen to anybody, and they say, "Well, those things didn't happen to me. I've never been to jail. I've never had, uh, DTs. I've never had convulsions. I never had trouble with elephants." You know, I had a lot of trouble with elephants. I may be one of the few

people that ever lived in Beverly Hills that were charged by a herd of elephants. That almost never happens in Beverly Hills. They were running me right out of the town. No convulsions. I've had them all. And they say, "Well, those things haven't hap-happened to me, therefore I'm not an alcoholic." Now, we think, we think that there's no degrees of alcoholism. You can either drink well or you can't. One or the other. Alcoholism is a degree like pregnancy. A gal don't get any more pregnant in eight and a half months than she was fifteen seconds after conception. It just shows more. Same thing's true with us. I don't think we get more alcoholic. I think it

just shows more as time goes on. And it don't make any difference how many of those things you've missed. You know whether or not you can drink well. And if you can't drink well, you might be an alcoholic. We say in this belief of ours, if alcohol interferes with your personal life, your business life, or your social life, any one of these three, maybe, any two, perhaps, and the three of them, you're a cinch. But there's an other little question that I like better than all three of those. And it's very, very simple. Is it necessary for you to wonder whether or not you're an alcoholic? If you are, sign up with the secretary before

you leave. I have never caught a non-alcoholic You're an al-alcoholic in twenty-nine years. It's always been an alcoholic that's trying to figure out some way to beat this racket. So it isn't how much or where or when. It's what it does for you. I'm mindful of a number of years back, we had a doctor in San Francisco, quite a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He was a gynecologist. Matter of fact, he was five times, uh, a doctor. He was a doctor, a surgeon, a obstetrician, a gynecologist, and a psychiatrist. He was qualified in all those fields. And he told us a little story. He said he was operating a lady who was getting pretty well along

in years, past sixty. And he had determined in her examination that her arterial tree was very weak. And, uh, he had also determined that she'd never had a drink of liquor in her life. And for post-operative care, he prescribed a little brandy. And they started giving this lady a little brandy. And he said on the third day after the operation, she stole the keys from the nurse and got into the brandy. And she'd never had a drink in her life up until that time. So it's not how much or how long, it's what it does to us, you know. And you can either drink well or you can't. And if you can't, this program is

for you. And the quicker you embrace it, and the quicker you do something about it, the better because alcoholism gets worse, never better, in its manifestation. I'm actually twenty-nine years worse off so far as successfully drinking liquor is concerned than I was when I got here, and I know it. I know it, and I don't have to take a drink to prove it. But I've– because I have been close to and active in this program for the whole time I've been here. And when you're close to and active, then all you gotta do is keep your eyes open. Your friends are forever taking that drink for you, so you don't have to take it. They

do your experimenting for you if you keep your eyes open. Now, there are two or three little things that I want to add to this before I take off. When I first got here, I was quite sure that people who had not suffered as much as I had suffered couldn't possibly love this thing as much as I did. And I felt a little bit sorry for those who came and hadn't had some of the things happen to them that I had happen to me because I knew that they didn't, you know, they couldn't feel this thing like I did. Until I got to working with a Jesuit priest. Never been kicked out of anything. Was

still serving the altar. But he was a priest, a Jesuit at that. And it gradually dawned on me that I was a drunken nobody. Nobody gave a damn whether I drank or didn't. Half a dozen people. But a Jesuit priest, how much they mu-must suffer in doing a bad job. And I got to working with my banker. That is one of the biggest bankers in the country. He was an internationally known banker. He taught banking. He was dollar-a-year man with the United States government for quite a while. And he'd never been kicked out of anything. He belonged to everything in town. Never been kicked out of his home. He lived in Fremont Place. You can

only get in there and out one way. No cross streets, no out to the other end. You go in and out the same way. It's private. There's where he lived, and he'd never been kicked out of home. Never been kicked out of anything. But he couldn't drink well, and he wasn't doing his job well. And he came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And when the time came, when he felt that, that he had to start trying to give this thing away, he went to his committee. He was chairman of the executive committee of one of the biggest banks in the city. And he went to the committee and he says, "Look, I have an alcoholic problem, and

I have found a way that might let me live for the rest of my life without drinking." And one of the things we must do is to work with alcoholics. And he says, "I'm gonna have to start working a bit with alcoholics because they worked with me, and I'm sober. And I'm gonna have to talk a bit and people might know, and it might be damaging to this bank. And so I'm submitting my resignation to this committee right now for your action." And they says, "Go to your office." And he went out, and he was almost to his office when they opened the door and called him back. And they says, "Whatever you feel that

is necessary for you to do, do, and we're with you a thousand percent." Isn't that beautiful? And this was one of the most humble men I've ever known in my entire life, up until the time he died. He's the guy that allowed me to buy my business. Beautiful, beautiful man. And we used to sit between Christmas and New Year's every year and have lunch in the California Club, which he belonged to. I didn't. But he did. He belonged to everything. And he'd sit there and tell me that, uh, that lunch with me between Christmas and New Year's every year was the high point in his year. And I'd sit there and bawl like a baby.

Fabulous man. Never got kicked out of anything. But how he must have hurt. How he must have hurt. So I had to come to see that it's not possible for you and for me to decide how much somebody else is hurting. We don't know what's going on inside of somebody else. And they might have hurt ten times, a hundred times worse than I. And here I was sort of pitying him because he couldn't love this thing as much as I did. Also, I knew very well that when people didn't practice these principles like I thought they should, they couldn't stay sober. Our book tells us we cease to fight anything and anybody or everything and

everybody. We cease to fight. We had an old boy in our group in Beverly Hills that fought everything and everybody. He was a year and a half sober when I got here. And he's a year older than I am in the program right now. And he never did quit fighting. He still fights, and he's practically a dead man. Now, back in the old days, I used to try to make him speak to me, and he wouldn't do it. Maybe a whole year would go by. We were in the same group. And I couldn't make him speak to me. And I'd do sort of stuff like this. I'd walk up to him in the middle of

a c– uh, a, a sentence, talking to one man, because he, he had to, you know, had to do something. Well, he did. He turned his heel and walked off without even finishing the sentence. I couldn't make him talk to me. And when I got my twenty-first birthday, he gave it to me. And this roughneck kissed me on the neck when he handed me my birthday cake. He may be one of the guys that loves me the most in this town now. So we have to come to see that it isn't where you are, it's where you came from. Now, he just might have grown ten times more than I did in this program. But

he didn't start even with me. He started down the ladder a ways. And so we have to come and see these things, and it makes for a much, much, much more beautiful living experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, there's a little verse in the book which I won't quote because doctor don't want me to. But it says this. It says, "Blessed is he who condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth. Blessed is he who condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth." What does that mean? I believe it means that if you can do a thing without condemning yourself, it's not so bad. But if you condemn yourself for it, you better jolly well quit

it. It'll kill you. And I think this is one of the greatest difference between a, a good old Saturday night drunk and an alcoholic. Because you and I condemned ourselves from the beginning. Now, if we were raised in a religion that did not condemn us for moderate drinking, maybe we didn't condemn ourselves for moderate drinking, but we condemned ourselves for a bad performance. So from the beginning, we condemned ourselves. I'd have rathered a drink before I ever took my first drink. I condemned myself from the first drink. And as time went on, the condemnation became hatred, and we end up hating our guts. We can hardly look in the mirror to shave because of self-loathing.

"Blessed is he who condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth." Now, again, this tells us this, that there's no particular way that you can classify So-called sin amongst those people around you. Many people can do things that I can't do and don't, don't condemn themselves at all. Personally, I could do things, many things five years ago that today I cannot do. And so it depends on where we are, what we can do, and what we have to get rid of. And it's a continuous process because the higher we go, the more we have to discard, and the more we discard, the freer we become. It's amazing. There's no such thing as the meaning of

a word. Now, this blows my mind and the way it came about. I got to thinking sometime back that the first two and a half pages in chapter five, which add up the end of C to about four hundred and fifty or sixty words. That's all there is in there. I never counted them, but I think that's about it. And I have gone through that not less than twenty-five and probably nearer thirty thousand times in twenty-nine years. About them, they're new. The words remain the same, but we don't. And it depends entirely where we are, what they mean. And they will always be more meaningful. They always take a new meaning depending on where we

are. And we'll be walking up this ladder forever, world without end, amen. Now, here's another thing I like to think about sitting up there on my hill. I believe that I'm right in this, and if I'm not, one of you sailors can correct me. I think that when you're sitting in a boat at water level, on a clear day, the horizon is seven miles. I think that's as far as you can see when you're, when you're at water level. Now, I'm up maybe a thousand feet above the water level. And on a clear day, my horizon is almost limitless. A hundred and fifty miles I can see. Sometimes Catalina Island, San Clemente Island, and Point

Fermin are all close enough that I could– seem like I could skip a rock to them, you know. Just that little bit of elevation changes the horizon from seven to maybe a hundred and fifty miles. And we'll be walking up these stairs forever. Now, the only thing we can't change about our lives, the only thing that cannot be changed by us is that we're stuck with ourselves forever, world without end, amen. Now, this is a bleak prospect, isn't it? It gets to thinking about committing suicide, you know. You can't make it. You're stuck with you forever. Everything else in life you can change. You don't even have to go home from here if you don't

want to. You can go someplace else. You don't ever have to see your wife again if you don't want to. You never have to see your kids again if you don't want to. You don't have to stay in California. You don't have to stay in the United States. You can change everything in life but one. You can't get away from you. You're stuck with you forever. I'm stuck with me forever. Now, it would appear that when we get here, they would try to teach us how to be friends with ourselves. But they don't. They teach us how we have to work with other people. Be sure that we make a good impression on the neighbors

and the people around us. You know? We have to show respect to our elders, particularly the priests and preachers and mother-in-law. But they don't tell us- Become friends with ourselves. Now, in my opinion, sobriety, the definition of sobriety is the ability to live comfortably, peacefully, and joyously with me. This is sobriety. Staying short of it is partial sobriety. When I got here, we didn't think of these things. When I got to the program, all of us thought if we hadn't had a drink today, we were sober. And we talked much about putting the plug in the jug, putting the plug in the jug, putting the plug in the jug. I never had any problem putting

the plug in the jug. I was periodic for ten years, and after every drink, I put the plug in the jug. Periodics have to get sober. No way a periodic can keep from getting sober because we're pigs. We drink everything there is that suits and chews. And we drink it all. The time comes when you can't get it down, you can't get it up, and you can't live, and you can't die. So we have to get sober. So I never had any problem putting the plug in the jug. I quit forever, with and without a thalamo. Put the plug in the jug. My problem was not putting the plug in the jug. It was taking

the plug out of the jug. Because when my time came, I took the plug out of the jug, and I was off again. So physical sobriety is absolutely important. To me, it's, uh, it's synonymous with life. I cannot live and drink, and of myself, I can't keep from drinking. So I have to be physically sober, lest I die. So I am not selling physical sobriety short. It's a foundation under sobriety, but sobriety is physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Four parts of the same thing, and it adds up to the ability to live comfortably, peacefully, and joyously with me. This is sobriety. Now, this program is more important to me today than it was twenty-nine years

ago. Because twenty-nine years ago, if I could just have died and had it over, it'd have been the greatest thing in the world. I was born knowing that suicide wasn't an answer. But it never occurred to me that drinking yourself to death was suicide until I was sober five years. So I tried my damnedest to drink myself to death, but I couldn't make it. You can't drink yourself to death if you want to die. The guys that die with alcoholism don't want to die. If we want to drink ourselves to death, we just go nuts and stay nuts, but we can't get over the bridge. I want to make this point. One of the great

big insurance companies in the country was built by a man whose son got sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. He was an attorney, and he was never going in the insurance business. He was going to stay an attorney, and it was a beautiful empire. And I don't know how much effect I had on him, but I talked with him for a long, long time about getting on in that business and taking over because his dad was way long in years, and he eventually did. And he was the man that built his empire, and he was pretty old, and he was doing a bit of drinking. And his son talked to him a little about it, and he

said, "I'd drink myself dead if I want to." And his son said, "No, you can't." "Well," he said, "so-and-so did," mentioning another big man in the insurance business who had drunk himself to death. And the lad says, "Yes, but he didn't want to." And it hit me like a ton of brick because that's what I was trying to do, but I couldn't make it. The thing that hastened me into Alcoholics Anonymous after twenty-five years was I knew I wasn't going to die. I was going to stay insane. And I'd sit there in that chair of mine, thinking about boys, my boys. When the kid's in the box, they say, "Where's your dad?" And they say,

uh, "He died." And they turn and walk off because they've been traumatized and battered. With just enough left to know how to tie my shoes and why I was there. You know? That kind of dreaming drives you nuts. It drives you nuts. So it helped to drive me in here. We can't make it if we try. And it never occurred to me until I was five years sober that drinking yourself to death was suicide. But of course it is. Now, how am I going to stay sober? I have to be sober. Sobriety and life are synonymous. How am I going to stay sober? I'm going to so perform that I'm comfortable right here. That's the

only way I can stay sober. When I get to feeling a certain way around here, I'll get drunk. Now, I hear many people say that if you've been an alcoholic synonymous a while, you have to think to drink. I don't believe it. I don't think you have to do anything but quit doing the things that keep you comfortable right here, and you wake up drunk. Because you see, you and I know a way to stop that big hurt, and if we allow it to hurt like it used to hurt, we'll be just as drunk as we were in the old days. And we don't have to think about it at all. Just quit doing the

things that keep us comfortable right here. Now, I believe with the doctors that alcoholism is a disease. I believe that it's terminal. I believe that it's a disease of twofold nature. It damages the body coupled with obsession of the mind. I accept all this, but I do not believe that that's all there is to the disease of alcoholism. If it is merely mental and physical, a good internist and a good psychiatrist could take me apart and put me back together, and I'd tick. But this doesn't very often happen. Twice, once in a while, somebody gets sober and stays sober, but it doesn't often happen. So there must be something else to this deal. A living

problem, and we must have a living answer. And inasmuch as there has never been a mass recovering program for alcoholics that did not include a basic spiritual rest, then it seems kindergarten to me that the problem behind the problem is a basic spiritual unrest. Now, I've so often, when I'm about ready to quit talking, the time has to come to, in our lives, when we come to see that if there be fault, it's mine. If there be fault, it's mine. And I say, "If there be fault," because I don't believe there's fault. I believe that you and I are the victims of a combination of characteristics which came with us that made it impossible for

us to integrate ourselves into the life that we're born into, into the so-called civilization that we're born into. And I look at myself and a few thousand of you people, and it seems that there are three characteristics that are common to all of us, so common that they're so easy to see in every one of us, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, or the lack of it, education or the lack of it. Which side of the tracks we were born on don't make any difference. Every alcoholic that I've ever known, almost throughout the world, is a perfectionist, an idealist with the terrific drive for excellence that goes with perfectionism. It is this drive for excellence

that brought about the cliche that you've heard everything to from the little guy. "This is the best mechanic we ever had in the shop, but… The best lawyer that ever hit this part of the country, but… The best stenographer we ever had in the office, but she can't get down till about over Tuesday or Wednesday." Drinks too much. Terrific drive for excellence. Perfectionism. Now, perfectionism is a beautiful characteristic or attribute when we learn how to live with it. But until we do, it'll kill us. It makes us set goals for ourselves that we cannot attain, and we're forever disappointed in our own performance. And it makes us demand more of those around us than they

can put out. And it makes it necessary for us to make them over, our wives and our kids and the people that work with us, and so on. It's a killer until we learn how to live with it. Perfectionism, idealism, and it's very evident in all of us. The second thing is that to a man, we were born with the interior awareness that life could be a good and a big and a beautiful thing. I knew when I was six years old that life should be like it is now. My insides proclaimed it. But I looked at it, and there was too- And it was dirty, and it was ugly. That was one of my

biggest problems. I couldn't integrate myself in the life around me because I didn't like it. There was a scene, if you remember, in the days of Wine and Roses that just closed the heart out of me, and I haven't had a drink for twenty-nine years. But every time I think of it, it does me in. This gal had come back to her husband's apartment to try to talk him, her ex-husband's apartment, to try to talk him into rejoining her in the drinking world. And he's gotten into alcoholic's numbs. And he was begging her to join him in this new way of life. She was standing, looking out the window, high above New York City. And

she finally says to him, "I can't, I can't, I can't. When I look out of this window sober, it's steep, and it's dirty, and it's ugly. And when I look out drunk, it's beautiful." For twenty-five years, the only way I could stand what I looked at was to be half in the bag. And this is one of my big problems and yours. And lastly, there are many more, but we'll just use three. And this is the most incongruous thing you'll ever hear come out of the mouth of an alchie. And I caution you not to speak of this to your psychiatrist. We are a highly sensitive people. Now, ain't that something? When there we lay

in the gutter, and the pig got up and slowly walked away. We're a highly sensitive people. That's the reason that the psychiatric world, from one end of the world to the next, has labeled us as being emotionally immature. They want to. We're emotionally immature. I don't believe it. I think that we have several times the capacity for feeling that the psychiatrist has. The psychiatrist came in and found me lying there on the floor in front of my big win-windows, so drunk I couldn't even get up, crying my eyes out over a beautiful sunset. Emotional immaturity. He don't know it's so damn pretty, I can't stand it. Now, again, I haven't had a drink for twenty-nine

years. But a year ago, I was down on the Knox above Louisville, Kentucky, along the Ohio River. And it was in October, and the leaves had turned. That's the most beautiful sight on the face of the earth. All those beautiful colors and miles of it. It's so beautiful. I sat there all alone in my car and bawled my eyes out. It's pretty, couldn't stand it. We're not emotionally immature. We are a highly sensitive people. Now, as I've told many of you, I've been in prisons all over the, practically all over the world, mostly as a guest. I could leave after a while. And the most of them is Folsom. Now, Folsom is for habitual criminals.

You can't, you can't get into Folsom for murder if it's the first time. You have to be a habitual criminal to get in Folsom. They tell me up there that the swallows that build up there in those rocks used to build in Capistrano, but they're full-time hooters. So they built up there in the stone wall around that place now. I stood there and talked to twice this many people or three times this many people and watched them cry right along with me. And the tears bouncing off their bellies, and they make no attempt to hide it. And it isn't because they're emotionally immature. It's because of the identity. They feel right here exactly like I

do. And they cry with me, and they laugh with me. And it isn't because they're emotionally immature. Now, I'm convinced that people like us, when we get here, have all the characteristics for alcoholism, except alcohol. All we have to do is add a little alcohol, and we're off. Very few things can happen to us. From the time we're born, we're either gonna be priests, preachers, or nuns. Because we cannot integrate ourselves into the life around us. And it's not because we don't want to, because we do. We want so much to be a part of and we're forever apart from. And so this is our problem, a basic spiritual unrest. Unfortunately, the teachers don't know

the answers. I, uh, bury a few people. I think I told you I had two this week. Monday and Tuesday, I had funerals. Two months ago, I was asked to give a little eulogy for a sixteen-year-old girl who'd taken an overdose of cocaine. That's the in thing down in my country now, cocaine. And she died. And I got out there to the place, the cemetery, because there was no chapel deal. It was just a graveside service. And that whole hill was covered with kids. I don't know how many, just a whole pack of kids, teenagers on that hill. And I said to myself, "This can't be just a regular deal. I've got to talk to

these kids." And I talked first for a little bit with their parents, and there's a few older people that were there. And I told them that I didn't believe in death and why and so forth and so on. And then I started talking to the kids. And I told them I had great empathy for them because I, too, had been born into a society that I couldn't swallow, I couldn't integrate myself into. And I had to find a way to be comfortable because I was not comfortable in society in which I had to move. And when I was nineteen, I found a way to get comfortable in that society. And for the next fifteen years,

I used this chemical for an answer, and it was an answer for the first fifteen years. But after fifteen years, my answer turned on me and became a problem. And in the next ten years, it made it necessary for me to find the right answer. And I did. And then I told these kids that if they could just come to see that there was an answer that stayed with us. They said when you're behind the acid, you got all the answers. But when the acid's gone, you ain't got none. The answer's gone, too, you see. But there is an answer that stays with you. And it's so much better than any chemical that you can

put in your body, that you can sing about your business, the business of living. And you don't have to repeat a dosage of chemicals. And if you just decide that you want to find this answer and make an effort, you can find it. And there are many people that'll help you. And if you do this, maybe this life will be– this death will be justified. Her mother called me the early part of the week, first time since I had been there. And she said there was an, a– quite a movement amongst the teachers and amongst the students to find an answer to replace this stuff. And she told me about some guy that's throwing his

house open to kids there in Laguna Beach. And they wanted me to come down there last Friday, but I was– I had to do something else, and I couldn't go. Friday a week. But isn't that beautiful that they might now be looking for something that might take the place of this chemical deal? And I want to close with this little story. Before Alcoholics Anonymous was born, there was this chap by the name of Roland. And Roland was an alcoholic. And Roland was doctoring with Dr. Carl Jung. psychological mind that the world has produced so far. If I was learned, that would be a good opinion, but I'm not. But to me, he was tops. He

was the same vintage as Freud and Adler and Jung. But it seems that Jung had a personal answer. He had a living answer, and maybe the others didn't. And Roland was doctoring with him, and every time he came back to him, he was worse. And he finally came back to him, Dr. Jung, and the doctor told him, he says, "Medical science has done everything in its power for you, and it can do no more. Psychiatry, psychiatry has done everything in its power for you, and it can do no more. And now it's my duty to tell you that your only hope is to find a spiritual experience that might save you. It's your only chance."

Now, this is some little time before Alcoholics Anonymous was born. And eventually, Ebby called on Bill. And eventually, Bill heard the pronouncement that we've talked about already. He might have six more year– uh, six more months to live, and then his wife would have to either lock him up or bury him. And he called out, "God, if there be a God, reveal yourself to me now." And something happened, and he got sober. And he shared this thing pretty well until he died. Never had drinking. Now, after he and Dr. Bob and some of the rest of them had worked out this formula and had proven that it worked if you and I work it, and

had put, put it in this book for us, Bill heard about Roland and his, uh, th-the, what Dr. Jung had told him about the spiritual awakening, a spiritual experience being his only chance. And Bill wrote to Dr. Carl Jung in Zurich, Switzerland. And he asked him in the letter, how come he had known enough about alcoholism to so counsel Roland as he had done? And Dr. Jung wrote back, and he told Bill, in essence, that he had always known that the alcoholic's problem was his search for unity, his search for unity, and he couldn't find it. He even quoted one of my favorite verses. "As the heart," H-O-R-T, "as the heart panteth after the water

brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." He'd always known that this was the alcoholic's problem, his attempt to find unity with the life around him and with the God within. And when he found the bottle, it seemed to be the missing ingredient. It seemed to let him live a little bit more comfortably with himself and in the, in the society around him. And he had found chemical unity. And it did a pretty good job with him until it became the problem that only a spiritual answer could solve. Now, that's a beautiful thing, and most of us agree with it. Now, here's what happened, and this is, uh, this just curls my hair. This

is fantastic. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing to me. Roland, having heard this, affiliated himself with the Oxford Movement and got sober. And he ran into Ebby, and he got Ebby into the Oxford Movement. And Ebby got sober. And Ebby called on Bill. And Bill got sober. And so the finger of God. Oh, this is so beautiful. In our entire history, the finger of God is so evident all the way through it. From Dr. Carl Jung to Roland to Ebby to Bill, Bill to Dr. Bob, and Bob, Dr. Bob, and Bill to us. What a beautiful thing it is. And how fortunate are we, our believers, to be the most in, the most fortunate segment of

humanity, of God's kids. Because, you see, we have to. We have to find an answer, lest we die. We come here not looking for God or to get our wives back or to get the lover of our kids back. Not even looking for help in many cases, like my own. But just a way to live one day at a time without drinking so that we might rub out a little of the record. And we find that the formula for sobriety and the formula for the good life and the formula of God are all the same. And we find an answer that makes the chemical unnecessary. And it's, it's an answer that don't stay in the

meeting when we leave. It goes with us. And we're never alone anymore. How fortunate can a man be? God bless you. Thank you very much. And Dr. Jung wrote back, and he told Bill, in essence, that he had always known that the alcoholic's problem was his search for unity, his search for unity, and he couldn't find it. He even quoted one of my favorite verses. "As the heart," H-O-R-T, "as the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." He'd always known that this was the alcoholic's problem, his attempt to find unity with the life around him and with the God within. And when he found the bottle, it seemed

to be the missing ingredient. It seemed to let him live a little bit more comfortably with himself and in the, in the society around him. And he had found chemical unity. And it did a pretty good job with him until it became the problem that only a spiritual answer could solve. Now, that's a beautiful thing, and most of us agree with it. Now, here's what happened, and this is, uh, this just curls my hair. This is fantastic. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing to me. Roland, having heard this, affiliated himself with the Oxford Movement and got sober. And he ran into Ebby, and he got Ebby into the Oxford Movement. And Ebby got sober. And Ebby

called on Bill. And Bill got sober. And so the finger of God. Oh, this is so beautiful. In our entire history, the finger of God is so evident all the way through it. From Dr. Carl Jung to Roland to Ebby to Bill, Bill to Dr. Bob, and Bob, Dr. Bob, and Bill to us. What a beautiful thing it is. And how fortunate are we, our believers, to be the most in, the most fortunate segment of humanity, of God's kids. Because, you see, we have to. We have to find an answer, lest we die. We come here not looking for God or to get our wives back or to get the lover of our kids back.

Not even looking for help in many cases, like my own. But just a way to live one day at a time without drinking so that we might rub out a little of the record. And we find that the formula for sobriety and the formula for the good life and the formula of God are all the same. And we find an answer that makes the chemical unnecessary. And it's, it's an answer that don't stay in the meeting when we leave. It goes with us. And we're never alone anymore. How fortunate can a man be? God bless you. Thank you very much.