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Source: DICOBE-00236 – Chuck C – JACKSONS MILL WEST VIRGINIA RNDP – 1977-04-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00236-chuck-c-jacksons-mill-west-virginia-rndp-1977-04-15.mp3 Duration: 01:33:06
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Because they told me a long time ago, my sponsor told me, he said, if they wanted you to talk, they'd ask you to talk, when they ask you to chair, you're supposed to chair. So I've been thinking of about a 45-minute talk to introduce Chuck to you, and I can't think of that much, except the best compliment that I think I can ever give a member of Alcoholics Anonymous is that he is a good member and good standing of Alcoholics Anonymous, and a beautiful person, Chuck Steve from Laguna Beach. Chuck.
Thank you, I'm Chuck Stee and I'm an alcoholic. Hi. This evening finishes up the preliminaries. The main event starts shortly after this, over at the hospitality suite, and runs through tomorrow noon. I think that I would have enjoyed this conference much more if I had understood Franklin's jokes last night. I'm pretty sure he said something funny, because a lot of you people laughed, but I didn't know what it was. Maybe you'll understand that a little better if I explain something to you.
I already asked Mrs. Stee and I to come out here, and she of course was already engaged. She's ramrodding the first all-Alanon conference in Southern California this weekend. So she couldn't come. So Larry wrote me a note and said that I could bring anybody with me that I wouldn't mind sharing my room with. And I mentioned that to my wife and I said, there's a couple of nice gals in my group that I think I'll talk to about this. And she says, well go ahead. She says, I'll assure them that they'll be in no trouble at all.
They'll be perfectly safe. Now that may be why I couldn't understand Franklin's jokes. I sure had a good time up until now. This is a great bunch of people. I don't think they'd come any better. And of course, this is a good country. I believe this is the first time that I've ever talked to West Virginia. And I think it's one of the last states in the Union that I haven't yet been sometime in the past. So I'm glad to be here for that reason and others.
It's been my great privilege to live for a little over 31 years without having to take a drink or a sedating or tranquilizing pill, for which I am profoundly grateful. And our chairman said to me, Chuck, are you nervous? And I said, no, I guess not. I said, if I could have done anything about my life, I wouldn't be here to talk tonight. So why should I want to be doing something big tonight? And I don't. I'm delighted that I didn't come out here as a missionary, because I've been missionaried all over the place ever since I got here.
Some of these kids have been straightening me out, for which I, again, am very grateful.
[00:05:05]
I am going to have a little fun tonight, too, because my entire experience in this program couldn't happen. And it's just a little bit different from the way most of you have done it. And it isn't particularly, because I'm different. You know, this is a great hue and cry amongst us. I'm different, you know. It won't work for me, I'm different. Well, I wasn't different, but my entrance into the great society was a little bit different from most.
When Abbey called on Bill, which was ten years before I got this program, I called on me. I'd been drinking for fifteen years, and I'd been drinking pretty much according to my code. I had a code for everything in life, including drinking. And the first fifteen years, I didn't do too badly, drinking according to my code. But after fifteen years, I wasn't doing too well with my code. And I didn't like the way I was drinking, so I had a session with me, and I came up with the profound conclusion that this was a personal weakness, something that I had to overcome to get rid of.
And I started working on my problem ten years before I got here. And I worked very diligently and very hard. And the harder I worked, the worse it got. And the worse it got, the harder I worked. And the farther backwards I went, the more intense was my obsession to win this battle. And I beat myself to death. I rode it right through the gates of insanity and death. And I got to the program surrendered, not by choice. Because if I'd have had to surrender consciously the first time, I would have died without coming to this program. There isn't a question in the world in my mind about it.
Because the word wasn't even in my vocabulary. I had been conditioned for generations to believe that surrender was for the weak. A strong man wins, a weak man surrenders. And I couldn't any more surrender than I could fly at the moon. And thank God, on my last trip out, the bottle killed me. So my battle was from ten years before I got here till I got here. And it's very interesting to me because during that whole last ten years, I was periodic. Because, you see, I was going to win this battle. And you can't fight a very good battle if you're down on your back.
You had to get sober in order to get back in the ring for the next round, you know. So I was periodic for the last six months. I'd last that ten years. And I can't understand at all how it could have happened because I could look at my record between every two drugs for ten years with physically sober eyes. And how I could have done what I did, I'll never know. I can't understand it. And this is about the way it goes. First you get drunk and then you get drunker and stay drunk longer. And then you get in a little trouble, you know, right around home. And then your trouble starts to spread and it covers everything that you cover, including the gendarmes.
[00:10:01]
The police start capturing you and detaining you against your permission, you know. Now that's the first thing that I can't understand. Because I never got to the point where I was comfortable in jail. I don't know about you, but I just don't like it in jail. But I spent more time in the Beverly Hills jail than the jailer. Can't understand it. I had more trouble with fleas than putting anybody. I've only run across seven people, men and women, in thirty-one years, that had the trouble of fleas I did. My bedroom would get absolutely loaded with fleas. I'd be lying there trying to get the fleas off of me, you know, and they'd roll over my hands. And I'd wear myself out trying to get rid of those fleas.
And after I was worn out, I'd just have to lie there and breathe fleas. Now that ain't good living. Finally the fleas turned into spiders, and they'd be bigger than this thing, and they'd be coming down from the ceiling. And I couldn't get out and wander, because I couldn't move. And that's nerve-wracking. Those spiders finally turned into elephants. And I suspect, highly suspect, that I'm one of the few, if not the only person that ever lived in Beverly Hills that was charged by a herd of elephants. I think that don't hardly ever happen in Beverly. But they burned around me out of the county.
I had considerable trouble with music, but no visible means of support. I think about seven years before I got to Brooklyn, I heard music for the first time. I'd gone to the kitchen in a withdrawal period after a glass of buttermilk. Tea kettle was sitting on the stove. And out with the steam came the most beautiful symphony I ever heard in my life. And I took it big. I backed up and I looked at that thing and listened to it. And I said to myself, this is the greatest phenomenon of modern times. This old tea kettle has suddenly become a receiving set.
And I went out and herded the family in to listen to music. And you know, they couldn't hear nothing. I thought they were nuts. I lived to hear a dozen bands at once, all of them playing different music, a lot of good music. But it came from peculiar places. It'd come out of the heater, out of the lights, out of the shower, out of the toilet. Many times a dozen bands, all of them with a different announcer, yacking away, you know. And there was no way to shut it off. No knobs.
I had a lot of trouble with people. People that weren't there, you know. I think one of the worst things that my family ever had to put up with. Quite often we'd all be in the same living room and I'd have company and they wouldn't have any. And later on I was coming through with cuts and bruises all over me. Cuts and bruises all over me. Tongue that thick, all full of holes.
[00:15:05]
And I didn't know how I got them. They call that an alcoholic convulsion. And I had to run out of convulsions before I came here. Now, all this time, all that last ten years when most of this stuff happened to me, I was periodic. Sober them tonight physically between every two drunks for ten years. And I can't understand that. I can't understand it. You know, if you do it ten times, you'd think, well, you're just a slow learner, you know.
But to do that for ten years, the only word in the dictionary that will explain it is insanity. We may be totally sane in every other department of life, but so far as alcohol is concerned, we are insane. For instance, I drank for twenty-five years, and up until my last drunk, it was never my fault that I drank. Now, how could that be? You would think that anybody as intelligent as I am would have been able to see that one drunk was my fault by accident yet.
But up until my last drunk, it was never my fault that I drank. It was my wife's fault. She was a good, good reason for getting drunk. She didn't understand it. But as good as she was, her mother was three times as good. Her mother had only one kid, and I was married to her. And she was living with us, and she had a grandstand seat watching me crucify her only daughter. And she didn't like me very good.
And I didn't like her that good. Because, you see, if she hadn't been living with us, I wouldn't have had to crucify her daughter. We had a mutual hating society that was absolutely fantastic. Before I get off of this little task, I got to tell you that she lived with us five years after I sold my duck. And I'm pretty sure that if she'd have come in and found me slapping her only daughter all over the living room, she would have said, why, Elza, what have you done?
By that time, I could do no wrong at all. It's absolutely fantastic what this program did for her. But my last trip out, I came to see that if there be fault, it is mine. If there be fault, it is mine. I don't want to tell you a little about my last trip. It started on the Friday before Christmas, 1945. My boss called me in that afternoon. And I knew that it was curtains, because I knew I had it coming.
And instead of shooting me, as he had every right to do, he started talking, which was a good sign. And he told me, he says, Charlie, I was Charlie in business. He says, you had a lot of trouble this year. And being a non-alcoholic, he had it all figured out. He says, I think it's because of the pressure you're under. Now, he says, I'm going to take a little pressure off of you. And maybe next year you won't have so much pressure and you won't have so much trouble.
And again, instead of shooting me, he gave me $3,000 for a Christmas present.
[00:20:02]
The Friday before Christmas, 1945. Now, if you don't think that took the pressure off of me, you're nuts. If there's anything worse for an alcoholic than bad fortune, it's good fortune. So I got drunk on the way home. Now, that is not part of the course for a periodic. Periodics do not get drunk in a hurry. Periodics taper on, they never taper off. So usually from the first drink after a dry spell, it'd take 30, maybe 60, and sometimes even 90 days for me to get off my feet.
But I always made it, I never fouled up on that. I always made it. But not in a hurry. But this time I got drunk on the way home. And I remember nothing from the Friday before Christmas, 1945, until after the middle of January, 1946. From the best I can see from this vantage point, I had four weeks of total blackout. No recall at all. And yet I came through sometime shortly after the middle of January, 1946, with the clearest head I've ever known in my life.
Now, this is, this can't happen, because I never ate when I drank. And I had nothing in my skin but whiskey. And yet I came through with the clearest head I've ever known. And for the first time in my life, I saw me with nothing between me and me. It had all burned out, everything had burned out, including my mother-in-law. And I saw me. And I knew without knowing why that I'd lost the battle of life.
You see, prior to thirty-one years ago, nobody much knew anything about alcoholism. In my last ten years I went to many people trying to find help. I went to good medical people. And I went to priests and preachers. And I went to people that knew more psychiatry than there is. And every one of them talked to me about willpower, backbones, standing up and being a man. Every one of them. You see, in those days they didn't know about alcoholism, and they couldn't help me.
And I didn't know it, and I couldn't help myself. So I had to go through the gates of insanity and death. But the very idea of being so full of alcohol as I was, and to have a total and complete sanity, little period of sanity, I accepted myself as a failure. I knew without knowing why, as I said, that I'd lost the battle of life. And it was the first time in forty-three years of life that I'd ever admitted defeat.
It wasn't the first time I'd ever been licked, but it was the first time I'd ever admitted it. I knew why my wife, after twenty years, was divorcing me. And I knew she should have divorced me ten years before. I knew why our kids wouldn't even come home when I was around. I knew why this same boss that sent word to the house that if I ever stepped foot in the plant again, he was going to throw me through the window.
And incidentally, the window to which you referred don't open. I accepted the fact that everything dear to me in life was gone and should be gone, and that I was not entitled to have it back. Now, I'm going to say that again, because that's what my life has been built on for the last thirty-one years. I totally and completely accepted the fact that everything dear to me in life was gone and should be gone, and that I was not entitled to have it back.
[00:25:01]
I also accepted death, because on my next and last trip out I had gotten as close to death, I guess, as you can get and live. Again, I'd gone to the kitchen in a withdrawal period after some buttermilk. Mississi and Richard were sitting in the living room. They heard me let out a beller and heard me hit the floor. And they came running out thinking I was in an alcoholic convulsion, as was my wont. But I wasn't.
I was just lying there on the kitchen floor as peaceful as anybody you ever saw. I wasn't doing nothing. They tell me I was a peculiar color. I was blue. And they couldn't wake me up. So they got all panicked and called the oxygen squad from Beverly Hills Receiving Hospital. Now, as serious as it is, it took me to death, because I'm positive that my wife and my kids had been praying for me to die for at least five years.
And they come out in the kitchen and find me dead. They get exorcised and call the oxygen squad. And they came down and I have reason to believe that they brought me around. I remember what happened after I came to. There was a young doctor with him. And he told me, he says, to all intents and purposes, you were dead. He says, uh, we had a hell of a time bringing you around. And he says, it's our opinion that nobody will ever bring you to again under these circumstances.
And then he gave me the finest piece of counsel I've ever heard. He looked me right in the eye and he said, if I were you, I wouldn't do that anymore. Now I want to pass that on to you new people. If I were you, I wouldn't do it anymore. But I did it again. And my last trip was worse than the next to the last trip. So I knew I was going to die and I didn't care. But I didn't want to die with the record.
I didn't want my wife and my kids to remember me as nothing but a tongue-chewing, babbling, idiot drunk. And I want to say something right here that I'd sort of like to say. We've heard some good out and on this weekend. There are lots of men and women in this room, I'm sure, who lived with people like me. And to live with us, you had to be convinced that we didn't love you. I bet my wife has told me 500 times, Chuck, if you loved us, you wouldn't do these things.
Now how could I tell her it was because I loved her that it did it? You can't hardly do that. Some of the worst drunks I was ever on in my life was because I knew I was crucifying my wife and my kids and I couldn't do anything about it. And the hurt was so excruciating that I couldn't stand it. So I'd have to get drunk and crucify them all over again. During that whole last ten years, my bed was only that far from my wife's.
And it might as well have been in Siberia. Many of the times during a dry spell I'd lie there in my bed until I could tell by her breathing that she was asleep. And I'd cry me up a river. That's all I could do. I wanted to take her in my arms and say, Honey, I love you. I've always loved you. I'll never do this again, so help me God. But I couldn't. I'd already done it a hundred times. So the only thing I could do was lie there and cry me up a river.
I never got to the point where I didn't love my wife. I never got to the point where I didn't love my wife and my kids, and on this particular morning, I decided that it was very necessary that they not remember me as nothing but a tongue-chewing babbling idiot drunk.
[00:30:21]
I must be sober until I die in order to rub out as much of the record as I could. And right at that second, I remembered that she had found the Jack Alexander article in the Post in March 1941, and she'd read it, and she'd thought it might do me some good, and she left it open at the right page on the left arm of the chair I sit in right now. And when I came in, I sat down and read it. And on this morning, I remembered it. But I was four sheets in the wind when I read it, and I only remembered two things about it. That drunks helped drunks and didn't drink, and they called it Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I said to myself, if I ever live to get out of this bed, I will find AA. And instantly, the curtain dropped. The sanity was gone, and I was sick unto death, drunk and insane. And I had a lot of dying to do. But from the very second of commitment until right now, I have never had a drink of intoxicating liquor or a sedating or tantalizing pill. Such is the great significance of this thing called surrender.
Surrender. I would rather be able to explain surrender to one audience than to be president of the world. If anybody could explain it, everybody would do it tonight. Everybody. This is the most misunderstood experience in human life. About all we can say about it is for the alcoholic, surrender is victory. We win this one by giving up the fight. Perhaps there's no such thing as peace of mind and serenity of purpose as long as it's necessary for you and I to try to satisfy the human ego.
It cannot be done. In my opinion, it is a divine impossibility. And surrender is temporary release from the demands of the human ego. I came to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous wanting nothing for me, not even sobriety. Just to gain a little time. To rub out as much of the record as good, because I didn't want my wife and my kid to remember me as a tongue-chewing babbling idiot drunk. Now it's pretty interesting about my first meeting, because after I got through dying, started getting a little better, I started trying to figure out how I was going to find you, because I didn't know anything about where to find you.
I knew you wouldn't be in the phone book, because you were anonymous, weren't you? They don't anonymous in the phone book. So knowing you wouldn't be in it, I never looked. And that's the story of my life. I knew so many things that weren't true, I couldn't learn anything that was. So in order to find you, I had to call people that I knew and ask them if they knew anybody that knew anybody in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I finally got a telephone number from a doctor in Beverly Hills, one of our members. He was a picture man. And I called him up.
And we talked a little while, and finally he says to me, have you had a drink today? And I said, no. But he says, don't take one. He says, I'm working tonight. And I can't take you tonight, but maybe tomorrow I won't be working, so call me again tomorrow. But don't drink.
[00:35:01]
And I hung up, and I called him tomorrow. And we talked a little while, and he says, have you had a drink today? And I said, no. But he says, don't take one. I'm still working. He called me again tomorrow, so I called him tomorrow. And he started off again, and I said, I know you're still working. And he says, yes. I said, you don't have to take me to a meeting. Where is there a meeting I can go to? And he told me. And I went. Now, he might have been my sponsor, but he was working tonight.
So nobody ever took me to meetings. I went to my first meeting by myself alone. I like to say that, by myself alone. Because I'm quite often by myself now. But I'm never alone. There's a tremendous difference. Now, this tickles me to this day. When it became about time for me to go, I got concerned about being seen with people like you. It just might not be good for my reputation to be going to meetings with a bunch of tramps, you know. And as the years go by, it tickles me more all the time.
How in the hell I got concerned about that when I already told you that I spent more time in the Beverly Hills jail than the dealer. And yet I was a little bit concerned. So I disguised myself a little bit. Many of you have heard this, but I had two good garments left. I had a gray camel's hair top coat with a belt around the middle and a great big collar on. And I put it on and I tied it up good and I pulled that collar up around my head. And I had a hat with a brim on it about that wide. And I put that hat on and pulled it down over my face and sallied forward.
And I got to the meeting maybe ten minutes before it was busy. Take that. And I stood in the doorway. It was on the ground floor. Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall in Beverly Hills, the corner of Santa Monica and Wilshire. And I looked in there and there may be forty people there, thirty-five or forty. And they were all standing in the middle of the room. And every one of them was talking and nobody listening, you know.
And I stood there looking at you all over. And again my keen alcoholic mind told me, this is the wrong night. These are the veterans and their wives and they're here for a party. And I'm going to have to leave and come back the night the drunks are here. Because, you see, you didn't look like me and you weren't dressed like me and you most certainly weren't talking like me because it was all happy talk. So I was going to have to leave and come back the night the drunks were there. And probably that move will be the move that I will make nearer death than any other move I will ever make.
At long last I'd come. That was the wrong night. And I was just done in. But somebody in that bunch had been watching me. And this is the, this next half minute is the essence, the very essence of alcoholic stenology. This guy had been watching me. And when I started to leave he came clopping over to the door quickly. And he called to me, he says, mister, were you looking for somebody? And I said, no sir.
But he said, what were you looking for then? And thinking he was a veteran, I said, well, if it's of interest to you, sir. I was looking for sobriety. Just like that. Everything about that man changed. He lit up like a Christmas tree. And it was obvious to me that he was glad I was there. So glad that he lit up. Now this is something I'd never seen a guy before. And the people that knew me, every one of them was tickled to death that I was there too. Because if I was there, I couldn't be there, you see.
[00:40:10]
But this guy was so pleased. Well, as a matter of fact, I was a bargain to him. And I was no bargain, I assure you. And when he did, this is what he said. Why take off your hat and coat, you're in the right place. This is the very essence of the reason that this thing of ours works. Did it ever occur to you how fortunate we are that we love each other? This is probably the most fortunate thing about our society. We love each other. And a wet drunk is not easy to love, is he? It just about takes one to love one, you know.
But that's why this thing works. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share. Who share. Caring and sharing is Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's the reason this thing works. There isn't a drunk in the world that ever got sober on profundity or principles. We don't get sober on profundity. There isn't anybody in this room that didn't know the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous since he was a kid.
If there was ever a bunch of philosophers on the face of the earth, we got them right here in this room. We're the kind of people that knew exactly what was the matter with everybody that we ever saw. And the thing that endeared us to the non-alcoholic world, we didn't mind telling them what was wrong with us. I inventoried everybody I ever knew and lots of people that were just walking by. We don't get sober on profundity. We don't get sober on principles. I bet you there's not a society on the face of the earth with equal numbers to ours that's populated by as many men and women who are sons and daughters of preachers, who studied for the ministry of the priesthood, or priests and preachers.
As we've got in this society. The woods is just full of them. So it wasn't that we didn't know anything about profundity. We did. I got to tell you a little thing. I had a chap out in Beverly Hills that I used to drink with. He and three or four more guys and myself started the first Lion's Club in Beverly Hills. And when we got the thing going, it was a noon meeting, you know, and so we used to have a drink or two before lunch on meeting days.
And I always was so pleased with the way Jack drank. I'd say to myself, sure wish I could drink like old Jack. Because he was a real sharp drinker, you know. And I didn't know, but he was sitting over there thinking to himself, sure wish I could drink like old Chuck. Because, you see, we weren't drinking together at night. Just at noon. Well, Jack was an automobile painter. And he drank up all his paint thinner and was out of business a year before I ran out. And so he was in this program a year before I got here.
He got his 32nd birthday the day I got my 31st. And he's still around. Well, Jack, after he was sober a little while, became one of the finest dressers in Beverly Hills. He got some of the prettiest threads you ever saw. He got some of the prettiest threads you ever saw. They didn't do him that much good because he wasn't near as pretty as I am.
[00:45:03]
But he sure did dress. And not too long after I got in, old Jack got a twelve-step call. And he came in and took a shower and dolled up and went on this twelve-step deal. And it was in a three-bag hotel about halfway between Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. Jack went on down there and went in. And it was just the same as all rooms that you go into where a guy's been drinking a month or two. It was full of empties.
Had that sticky sweet smell about it, you know. And the old boy was laying on the cot over against the wall. And Jack walked in in all his splendor and he started talking to this guy, you know. The guy listened a little bit and pretty soon he came up on his elbow and he looked at Jack. And he says, why don't you go home? He said, you ain't impressed with me a bit. And he says, besides, I don't think you ever had a drink in your life.
Jack says, well, maybe it didn't. But he says, I came a long way and ain't ready to go home yet. And there's a picture over the cot where this guy was laying. And it had a donkey with a load of wood on his back and a Mexican leading him off down the road. Jack says to this guy, he says, by the way. He says, how long has it been since that donkey winked at you? And the old boy pretty soon fell out of bed.
He says, what do you know about that donkey winking at me? Jack says, hell, if it had been me, it would have been in bed with me for three days. And the old boy says, sit down. Sit down. And I saw Jack a couple of weeks before he came out. He says, the guy's still sober. Still sober. It isn't profundity. It's identity. It's identity. The wonder of wonders about this program is that one guy will listen to me and get drunk and listen to Franklin and get sober.
Now that's impossible. He don't know nothing that I didn't tell him. But that's the way it is. It's the way it always will be. And it's beautiful. So we don't get sober on profundities. We get sober on identity. And the love that makes us get out of bed at two o'clock in the morning and go clear across town and sit with somebody. I'll tell you this and run along. A couple of years ago, I was talking to a fellow that came in about the same time I did.
He says to me, Chuck. He says, I've quit working with wet drunks. He says, I've done my share. I'm cutting it out now, and I'm going to let the youngsters take over and do this 12-step work with the wet drunks. And he says, besides, I'm tired of getting puked on. Now he says, how about you? And I said, well, I don't know. I said, I sort of like to work with wet drunks. They remind me so much of me.
And I said, I'll probably be working with them until you pat me in the face with scoops. And I have another reason. I said, I'd a hell of a lot rather be the pukey than the puke-or. On many occasions, I was both. Now I've got to share something else with you. In our country, the entire faith of Alcoholics Anonymous has changed. When I came, there were seven men to one woman. And they were all old bucks.
Well done, front and back and both sides and top and bottom.
[00:50:06]
The faith of Alcoholics Anonymous has changed. Because now, right there in the audience tonight, there are about as many women as there are men. And it's much, much nicer to get up here and look at a bunch of faces like these than just a bunch of dirty old men. So from that standpoint, it's good. And the other standpoint is that the age has changed so drastically out in our country. I talk at many groups, 200, 250 people, where the average age wouldn't be 30.
We get lots of kids, lots of kids. I sat not too long ago with a lad that was in his 90th day of withdrawal, and he was 12 years old. We have many of them out there that aren't teenagers yet. We had a kid that came to our group some 17 years ago. Got his first birthday before his 18th birthday, and he's still around. Still around. And these kids say to me every once in a while, I have lots of fun with the kids because I like them.
And they come to me and they say, Just what makes you think you can remember how we feel in here? Why, you can't remember because you've been sober longer than we've been alive. You couldn't remember. And I said, Maybe I can. I don't believe it's possible for any member of Alcoholics Anonymous to be any older than his last session with a wet room. You can't get any older than just your last, if it was 2 o'clock this afternoon, that's as old as you are.
You are in a continuous fourth and fifth step as long as you're working with wet rooms. Because every one of them reminds you of something, you know, that you hadn't thought about before. And you share it with them. Continuously taking steps four and five, not even thinking about it, if you're working with wet rooms. Now, I've said for years that anybody that takes the fourth and fifth step twice are bragging, particularly the fifth.
But I have to amend that now and say that I don't know how many times you should take it if you're not working with wet rooms. But if you're working with wet rooms, I don't think you need it because it's a continuous thing. And there's no way to forget how you feel. And incidentally, just the paper I picked up the morning, Thursday morning, before I got on the plane to come down here, I read about a chap that I'd called on, he was an attorney, and his name was Fitz.
And when I moved to Laguna Beach twenty years ago, we moved in their house the 14th of February, twenty years ago, and there was a man down there that everybody was talking about. He'd been the wheel in town. He was an attorney. And he had lost his way in alcohol. And everybody had worked with him, and nobody had been able to do anything about him. And I hadn't talked with him. Nobody'd go call on him.
And so I got his address, and I went down to see him. And he lived between the Pacific Coast Highway and the ocean. And I went down there in the middle of one afternoon and rang the bell and no answer, and beat on the door and no answer. And I start peeking around, and I saw him sitting in there on a sort of a dab and forth thing, in his shorts, and he wouldn't pay any attention. So I tried the door, and it was unlocked, and I went in.
And I went in and sat down beside this old boy. And he was sitting there looking at television, you know, watching something very exciting,
[00:55:00]
but the television wasn't turned on. And I said to him, now you don't know me, and you didn't ask me to come down here, and you can throw me out if you want me to be thrown out, but I want to talk to you a minute. I said, I'm an alcoholic. And I found a way to live that has allowed me to live for a long time without drinking, and it's good. And if you'll let me, I'd like to talk to you a little bit, with you a little about it.
And he got it, and I talked. And I suspect I talked a half an hour, maybe 45 minutes. And the old boy had a seizure. He got the leaps. And there he went. And I said to him, well, the interview's over. But I sure enjoyed it. I hope you remember a little of it. I picked up his legs and put them up on the diving board and spread him out there so it was easy, and left him. And 60 or 90 days, he came to the house, and I didn't know him.
He and his wife came. And when I went down there, he had a cauliflower nose, you know. And it was purple. And he had a little stick-out belly, and his arms and legs about that big around. His wiring was all exposed. He was a mess. And when he and his wife came to the house, he looked pretty good. And that was, I'll bet you, 15 years ago. And he just died sober the day before I came out here. It's a great thing, this thing about it.
We never know. We never can tell a thing about it, that I think that when I feel that I should go, I have to go. That's my business. It's not my business what happens to it. But sometimes it turns out good. Now, getting back to my first meeting, I've had a detour, as you know. They took me in and rocked me to sleep. They told me a few things that I shall never forget. They said to me, if you're an alcoholic, one drink's too many and a thousand aren't enough.
It's the first drink that's killing you, and again. No periodic would ever dream that that was the way it was. I thought it was the last gallon. I was trying to knock it off before… It's the first drink that's killing you, and again. No periodic would ever dream that that was the way it was. You know? I thought it was the last gallon. I was trying to knock it off before the trouble started, for that whole ten years.
Soon as I'd get sober, I'd analyze my last drink, you see. See where I made my mistakes. Decide not to do it that way anymore. Now, I'd get in a pokey on Wednesday. I'd say to myself, see, if you'd have quit Tuesday, you wouldn't have gotten a pokey on Wednesday. And I'd decide to quit on Tuesday the next time. But I'd forget to specify which Tuesday, you know. And here you were telling me, it's the first drink that's killing you.
And I played with it a while and bought it, and I still got it. The second thing they told me was, today's the day we don't drink. Today's the day we don't drink. Now that's a sneaky way of keeping us coming back. They told me I had to be sober 31 years or I'd drop dead. They told me I had to be sober 31 days or I'd drop dead. But they didn't. They said, today's the day we don't drink. Now, if a day's too long, how long can you live without a drink?
Can you live an hour? Make that the length of your life. Live an hour and don't drink. Life, Live an hour and don't drink and then do it again, but regardless of how long you live in Alcoholics Anonymous, never expand that time more than 24 hours, and I bought
[01:00:01]
it, and I've still got it, and it's the second greatest lesson I've ever learned in my entire lifetime. This is my day, I have no past, I want no future, and I've got to plead tonight for those of you who haven't done so already. Leave every yesterday and every tomorrow in this room when you go home tonight, and you'll leave 95% of your troubles right here in this room. 95% of our troubles are yesterday's burdens and tomorrow's fears, and if you haven't either yesterday or tomorrow, 95% of your troubles are gone. This is the most amazingly simple thing on the face of the earth, and we don't do it. We forget it, and particularly after we've had a little sobriety, we forget that this is a one-day program.
Thank God I haven't forgotten it yet. I have never worked for a birthday since I came to my first meeting. I never even worked for next Tuesday. Today is my day, I have no past, I want no future. I think I'll tell you a little story about this too. Probably 25 years ago I was talking in Fresno, and there was a kid there to meet him, and he took us home with him for some sweets. He was a nice kid, he was formerly from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and he had a beautiful young wife and two or three little old kids, much younger than I, and at two o'clock in the morning we were standing in the kitchen talking, and he said to me, Chuck, every so often I have to get drunk. And I says, that's interesting, tell me about it. And he says, I get to thinking about what I did to my wife and my kids and I can't stand it. And I have to get drunk. And I says, don't blame me. I did that too.
But now I don't think about what I did to my wife and my kids, because there's nothing that I can do about it. The combined intelligence of the human race can't do anything about yesterday or tomorrow. So I try to add a little something to their lives today. And I don't have to drink. You see? Yesterday is nothing in the world but guilt, and tomorrow is nothing in the world but fear. Dump them both. Now is the only time we've got.
Now the next thing he told me was, stay close to us. Get into as many meetings as you can. Because today there's more wisdom in this room about your problem and its answer than in any room on the face of the earth, except another meeting just like this, where every member is a meeting. So get into as many meetings as you can. Stay close to us. And I've done that. I have attended nearer five than four meetings a week for thirty-one years.
And I've never attended one meeting too many. You might say, how do you know? It's the simplest yardstick in the world. I've never had it so good. It's the only easy life I've ever known in my entire lifetime, the only good life that's ever been mine. And I'm not about to change a winning formula. The next thing he told me is why I can't drink like other people. And they explained, people just like you, drunks who were not drunk, explained to me about the disease of alcoholism.
I'd never heard that phrase before in my life. I was only five years old on the coast, and very, very few members, you know, prior to thirty-one years ago. I was only ten years nationally old at that time. So, nobody has ever told me about the disease of alcoholism. Well, I've remained with people like you to find that informed medical opinion in our part of the country classifies alcoholism as the second-worst killer in the world today, in the country today. Second. They used to say it in the top four. Now, in our way, they call it second. We've always known that it was second only to one of our social diseases that cause for permanent insanity. And medically speaking, it's incurable, and that's what
[01:05:04]
I got. I'm an alcoholic. It's a matter of life or death, and it's my life. Now they also gave me the definition of the disease. They said it's a disease of a twofold nature, an allergy of the body coupled with an obsession of the mind. An allergy of the body coupled with an obsession of the mind. They told me now there's nobody on the face of the earth that can do anything about the allergy of the body. No doctors, no nothing.
So we accept it and turn to the other half of the disease, the obsessions of the mind. And that's what our program is all about, to rid us of the necessity to drink against our own will, to get rid of the obsessions of the mind that are greater than the willpower. That's what our program's all about. And I'm convinced, clear through, that any alcoholic who will honestly apply the first nine steps to himself, to the best of his ability, for sobriety only, will be surrendered at step number ten. That's what the first nine steps are for, to squeeze us out of ourselves, to rid us of the obsessions of the mind because they rid us of the human ego temporarily. It's fantastic. Now, it's too simple for us alcoholics. We have keen alcoholic minds. You know, there's got to be something tougher than this. This is an easier, softer way, you know. But it's the way it is. I think our problems are because we put conditions on sobriety. Now, in our country, we have one hell of a lot of experts on related disorders. You ain't got so many experts on related disorders that you can't hardly get anybody to go see a drunk. You know, that's too simple.
Now, I had a nice little bunch of related disorders. I told you about them a while ago. But not as related disorders. First place, you know, if you drank twenty-five years, you accumulate a few related disorders. Like your wife divorcing you after twenty years. Here I'd given this broad my twenty years of the best part of my life, and she's divorcing me. I might say quickly without cause. Now, I call that a related disorder. Our kids wouldn't come home when I was around. Now, that's no way to treat your dear old father. I think that's a good related disorder. The boss man's gonna throw me through the window. It's a plain glass window. Well, I think that's a related disorder. I've got no home, no job, no health, no sanity, and no money. Pretty good crop of related disorders. And I never spent five seconds on any one of them. Not five seconds. And every one of them disappeared with the obsession to drink. So I think we should get simple enough to do these things for sobriety. That's why they're down there. And we will be surprised to learn, to discover, that the formula for sobriety and the formula for the good life and the formula for self-discovery is all the same formula. Steps one through twelve inclusive. But we get sidetracked.
We start doing them for peace of mind, or serenity of purpose, or to find God, or to get our wives back, or our kids, or something. I don't think we can have any conditions on sobriety. Thank God I didn't have any. Because the bottle, it killed me. I didn't want nothing for me. And you guys told me not to drink today. Says if you want what we have, and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, do these things. That's what we've done. And
[01:10:04]
I did them for sobriety. So I could rub out as much of the record as I could before I died. That's all. And they all disappeared. All the related disorders. Now this is the wonder of wonders. This is all we need to be sober, to find the good life, and to discover which means that we also discover our relationship to each other and to God. It's fantastic. I hear a lot of people out in my country say you've got to learn how to love yourself before you can love anybody, anybody else. I don't think it's that way. Because I wouldn't have any kind of idea how to go about learning to love me. That never occurred to me. I don't know whether you've ever noticed it or not, but I'm partial to women. Never occurred to me to learn how to love myself. Not yet has it occurred. And then I hear and read in the grapevine both that and this. That we've got to rebuild our self-confidence. If there's anything in life that I don't want, it's self-confidence. I was born with enough self-confidence for everybody west of the Mississippi River. My self-confidence kept me working on my problem ten years after I lost. Ten years after I lost. I'm saying to myself, I'll beat this thing if it's the last thing I ever do. Okay, that's supposed to be the last thing I ever did. I don't want any self-confidence. I don't need it. I came here knowing that I couldn't stay sober. I came here knowing that I couldn't run my life, couldn't run yours, couldn't run my business, couldn't run nothing. And I dumped myself on this simple program. Totally and completely. Just to be able to rub out as much of the record as I could. Now I'm going to conclude pretty fast that I want to make a few statements about a few of the things that I have concluded before I sit down. Just live in this program with people like you. I was born in a family that was too poor to pay, and too proud to whitewash. And we were told that in order to get what we thought we were born without, we had to get a good education. Get out there in the salt mine. And out think, out perform, and out maneuver. In order to eke out a miserable living out of an unfriendly universe, you know. The very cliches of life. The early bird gets the worm. The devil takes the anemone. You got to be there firstest with the mostest. And I did that for 30 years. I worked hard to get what I thought I was born without, according to the rules as they were told to me. And I ended up in the bottom of the snake pit. At the ripe old age of 43 I was a failure as a husband, a father, a businessman, a man, and a drunk. And I take credit for that. I take no credit for anything that's happened in the last 31 years. But I started trying to rub out a record. And without knowing it, the motivation shifted from getting to adding to. You can't rub out a record thinking I want it, don't want it, like it, don't like it, yi-yi-yi-yi. You can't do it. You rub out a record by doing something for somebody that has no price tag on it at all. And that's what I started doing and never quit. And in 15 years I bought the business.
And in 15 years I bought the business. And in 25 years I got rich as dirt. And I wasn't even trying it. Never even thinking about it.
[01:15:01]
I was trying to help God's kids do things they need to have done because I wanted to. So if every book on earth said this was a getting life, I'd laugh out loud. I know better. St. Francis knew what he was talking about years ago when he said, For it's in giving that we receive. But you can't give to receive. But you've got to be free and fun without a price tag on it. And I know because it happened to me.
Now they told me truth. And I'm not opposed to anybody's religion. Don't get me wrong. I happen to have been born and half of my family was hard-shelled Baptists. And the other half was Methodist Church South. Then which ain't nothing witcher. And I loved it. But it didn't work for me. And they told me that I had to be worthy of, earn, merit God's grace. And that's backwards. That's backwards. If we'd have had the merit God's grace, we wouldn't have this meeting tonight.
We wouldn't have Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill didn't have time to earn anything. You know when Abbey called on Bill, Bill listened until he got to the higher power. God of his very own. And he turned off his hearing aid and drank gin. Gin's a great leveler. So after he had drunk enough of it, he was back in town in the hospital. And he was laying there dying. And he heard Dr. Silkworth tell Lois, Bill's wife, to treat him nice.
Treat him as nice as she could because he was a hopeless, helpless alcoholic. And within at most six months, she'd either have to bury him or put him away forever. Or put him away forever. A raven maniac. Now that isn't good news when you're feeling good, is it? But he wasn't feeling good. And he heard that. And he was lying there and he said to himself, I've done everything that anybody ever told me to do.
And nothing's happened but one. Maybe, maybe there's something in what Abbey was talking about. And in total and complete abandonment of self, he says, God, if there be a God, reveal yourself to me now. And wham-bo, it happened. And we've got Abbey. Now he didn't have any time to earn anything. And my experience yells now. That the gift of God has made its foundation to the earth. I sit in the same chair that I sat in for the last ten years in hell.
And I've had thirty-one years in heaven. Now there's a sermon there longer than from here to Mars and back. I see we can't get out of here anyway, it's raining, kids. So relax. Relax. Now, nothing happened to that chair I'm sitting in. Oh, it's been recovered a few times. But nothing happened to the chair. Nothing happened to the living room, nothing happened to the wife, nothing happened to the kids.
Something happened to me. And I moved out of hell into heaven in the same chair. Now that says to me heaven was always in that chair. I was in hell. You hear me? And the next thing I was told, very, very harshly, that the two great needs of the individual were to be needed and to be loved. And I was told how to, you know, get along with people, but nobody ever told me how to get along with me. You know.
And so, I came to see that that's just as backwards as everything else. The two great needs of the individual are to love and to do. To love and to do. If you love something or somebody, you do something for them.
[01:20:01]
And it's doing something that makes you feel good. I got a call from a doctor a couple of years ago. Midnight. Many of you have heard him. Some of you have heard him in Miami when we had the International down there. He called me and it was midnight and he says, Chuck, what's your definition of love? And I says, you damn fool, it's the same at ten o'clock in the morning as it is midnight. Hang up the phone and call me at ten o'clock tomorrow morning.
He says, what's your definition of love? I says, you won't like it. He says, what is it? I says, action. Why action? He says, what are you talking about? I says, action. I says, action. If you love somebody, do something for them. That's what you do. Or something, you do something for them. Action. And so I came to see that love is a complete thing. It's none of my business what you think of me. I never ever even have to wonder.
Never crosses my mind. Don't need to because I love you. Now if you ask me to love you back, it's a plot so you can add to my life but you can't take away it. And you can't beat that deal. It's fantastic. So everything that I was conditioned to believe as a kid has had to be reversed since I came to this program. And it's fantastic. You know, my first surrender done by the bottle lasted three and a half years.
And it was three and a half years of the greatest period of miracles to which I've ever lived. Now they've never quit but that was just replete with miracles. Every little piece of the jigsaw puzzle of life fell together. And I was living in total non-expectancy from any corner. But I was trying to rub out a record and doing these things for sobriety today. And all these things happened. And I guess you people told me that I was doing pretty good or something.
Because in three and a half years I became somebody again. And that's bad. Because when you're somebody you have rights. And when you've got rights you've got to defend them. And you're in hell with your hat off again. And after three and a half years I had to start consciously surrendering. And this was the worst pill I ever had to swallow because I'd been totally free for three and a half years. And here I've got to consciously surrender.
And I got mad as a wet head. And every time I had to surrender for thirteen years straight I got mad. Where does this thing have to, why, why, why, you know. But I had to surrender just the same. Because I can't live in left field now. I've got to get out of it. And the only way I could do it was surrender out of it. And after I was sixteen years and six months sober sitting in that same chair looking out the window.
And after I was sixteen years and six months sober sitting in that same chair looking out the window. I got my answer. This is the burr under the saddle. This is the thing that keeps us walking. When you and I turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. And I mean turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. We enter a new dimension of life. An infinite father, an infinite child and an infinite journey.
And when you're on an infinite journey you can't stop walking. Life won't let you stop walking. When you get fat and complacent and quit walking if you're an alcoholic you either get drunk or you surrender out of it. One or the other. And so I'm perfectly happy with the thing now. It's the burr under the saddle. It's the thing that keeps us walking. Now, again. An infinite father, an infinite child and an infinite journey.
I've come to believe there will always be as much ahead of us as there is right now. That's what makes this journey of ours so fabulously interesting. Because there's no destination. Always will there be as much ahead of us as there is right now. Because, you see, we're looking at infinity. And so it's fascinating. So we go do our best today with what we've got.
[01:25:04]
And let the chips fall where they may. Now I've totally, totally accepted this fact. That it's my business to go about my father's business. And it's his business to take care of me. That is not my business and hasn't been for 31 years. And he's done an infinitely better job of it than I have. Than I did in the 43 years before. It's my business to go about his business. And it's his business to take care of me.
Now I'll close with this. I don't want to, but I'm going to. I could talk about this until Christmas. I love this program and I love its people. Thank God. So, when I discovered that I was sober. And had been. And when I discovered after three and a half years that I was never alone. After five years that I was never alone anymore. I had a God of my very own. Wherever I am he is. You know. I got to saying to myself how am I going to show my gratitude.
And I was pretty simple because I was in the woodworking business. We had beautiful mechanics in woodworks. And we could do lots of pretty things. And I said well I'll build him a plaque. Which would have been nice. But I got thinking who will give it to? You know. That bothered me. That bothered me. And then I thought well I'll be a hummer. I'll go up on the mountain and dig me a hole and pull the hole in after me.
And pray for you guys the rest of my life. And I thought that wouldn't be any fun for me. And I'd read a lot. I don't happen to be a Catholic. But I was pretty much in love with the. Trappist monks. And I said to myself I'm going to be a Trappist monk. And I can pray for these people then. You see. And then I got to thinking well I very likely. I'm not going to run into many drunks. If I'm a Trappist monk there probably won't be many drunks there.
And if I have any value to life. It's the alcoholics. Because I know both the problem and the answer. And so I decided that was no good. And in thinking about it this popped into my mind. When the carpenter was about ready to leave. He called old Pete in. Now I call him old Pete because I love him. A lot of you people call him Saint Peter. But I have a sneaking hunch that Peter just might have been a little bit alcoholic.
Because when he got caught with the goods. He lied out of it. That reminds me of me. So Pete must have been sort of a maverick. And the carpenter liked him better than anybody else. So he called Peter in. And he says Peter do you love me? And Peter says yea Lord. He says tend my sheep. Then he turned right around and asked him again. Peter do you love me? He says yea Lord. He says tend my sheep. And immediately he asked him again.
Peter do you love me? Yea Lord. Tend my sheep. And I said to me he must have meant tend my sheep. He said it three times you know. And I said to me that's what I'm going to do the rest of my life. And that's what AA is for me. It's going about my father's business. Helping his kids do things they need to have done because I want to. And it's a fabulously interesting life. And it's a fabulously easy life.
And it's a fabulously satisfying experience in the business of living. Again our program the formula for the good life and the formula for self-discovery is the same formula. It's the same point. Now, in self-discovery, which is, of course, an inside job, we uncover and discover the thing we were looking for all our life. When this discovery is made, it includes a feeling of dignity, of value, of worth, that is unspeakably beautiful. And
[01:30:06]
that it has absolutely nothing to do with the human ego. That it has everything to do with gratitude. And I'm so grateful I can't speak. Every day that goes by, I'm more grateful. Because I've had over 11,450 days now that I wouldn't have had if it hadn't been for people like you. And this program, and the God that found me, or I found, or we found each other in this fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And my gratitude starts with you.
Because you are the guys that took me in and rocked me to sleep. And then to the program. And then to God, because that's the way it happened to me. But I don't think he minds. But I have come to see that God is you. And God is the program. And God is me. God bless you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chuck, for a beautiful message on Alcoholics Anonymous. I have a quick message. Gene or Eddie Young, please call home. Your babysitter is leaving now. Again, I'd like to say thanks to Chuck for a beautiful, beautiful story, which proves our co-founder knew what he was talking about when he said the language of the heart. And on behalf of Jackson Mills of West Virginia Spring Roundup, we'd like to give you this token, Chuck.
We have two winners of big books that will come up front after the meeting, and we'll give them to them. Heather Hardy, $1.99, and Ober Rooney, $1.73. I know Ober, he needs it. It's a trick to start the rain coming down because you weren't finished yet. But I've stopped it, and you'll all be able to. Before we stand and end with the Lord's Prayer, I'd like to quote our co-founder again from his last message. I salute you, and I thank you for your life. Would you help me close this meeting with the Lord's Prayer?