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Source: DICOBE-00561 – Chuck C – AM I GOING TO RUN MY LIFE OR NOT – 1975-01-25.mp3 File: dicobe-00561-chuck-c-am-i-going-to-run-my-life-or-not-1975-01-25.mp3 Duration: 01:15:30
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Dad's 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 along in years. And he eventually did. And he was a 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 says, I can drink myself to death if I want to. And his son says, no you can't. Well, he says, 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 bricks, because that's what I was trying to do. But I couldn't make it. The thing that hastened me into Alcoholics Anonymous after 25 years was that 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 the boys, my boys, when the kids in the block says, where's your dad? And they'd say, he died. And they'd turn and walk off. Because they couldn't tell him I was in Baton. There was 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 in the last 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 in Alcoholics Anonymous 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.
I believe with the doctors that alcoholism is a disease. I believe that it's terminal. I believe that it's a disease of a two-fold nature, an allergy to the body coupled with an obsession with the mind. I accept all this. But I do not believe that that's all there is to the disease of alcoholism. If it was merely mental and physical, a good internist and a good psychiatrist could take me apart and put me back together in a tick.
But this doesn't very often happen to us. 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 say 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 makes it impossible for us to integrate ourselves into the life that we're born into, into this 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.
[00:05:00]
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 cliché that you've heard ever since you were a 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 other 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 should 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 it was cheap and it was dirty and it was ugly. And 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'll remember, in the days of Wine and Roses, that just tears the heart out of me, and I haven't had a drink for 29 years. 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, try to talk him into rejoining her in the drinking world. And he'd gotten into alcoholic snums. And he was begging her to join him in this new way of life.
And 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 cheap and it's dirty and it's ugly. And when I look out drunk, it's beautiful. For 25 years, the only way I could stand what I looked at was to be half in the bag. And this was 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 owkie. And I caution you not to speak of this to your psychiatrist. We are a highly sensitive people. Now isn't that something? When Mary 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're one of them. We're emotionally immature. I don't believe it. I think that we have several times the capacity for feeling that the psychiatrist has. A psychiatrist came in and found me lying there on the floor in front of my big window. When this is drunk, I couldn't even get up. Crying my eyes out over a beautiful sunset. Emotionally immaturity. He don't know it's so damn pretty I can't stand it.
Now again, I haven't had a drink for 29 years. But a year ago, I was down on the knobs above Louisville, Kentucky. Along the Ohio River. I was in October and the leaves had turned. It was 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 a pretty good understanding. We're not emotionally immature.
[00:10:00]
We are highly sensitive people. Now, as I've told many of you, I've been in prisons all over, practically all over the world. Mostly as a guest. I could leave after a while. And amongst them is fulsome. Now, fulsome is for habitual criminals. You can't get into fulsome for murder if it's the first time. You have to be a habitual criminal to get into fulsome. They tell me up there that the swallows that build up there in those rocks used to build in Capistrana.
But they're four-time losers. So they build 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 of 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 going to be priests, preachers, or nuns, or hopheads or alcoholics 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, very few people. I think I told you I had two this week. Monday and Tuesday, I had two. Two months ago, I was asked to give a little eulogy for a 16-year-old girl who had taken an overdose of cocaine.
That's the end 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 graveside service. And that whole hill was covered with kids. I don't know how many. Just a whole castle 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 was 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 19, I found a way to get comfortable in that society. And for the next 15 years, I used this chemical for an answer. And it was an answer for the first 15 years. But after 15 years, my answer turned on me and became a problem. And in the next 10 years, it made it necessary for me to find the right answer. And I did. And I told these kids that if they could just come to see that there was an answer that stayed with us.
I 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 quite a movement amongst the teachers and amongst the students. To find an answer. To replace this stuff. 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, 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 a chap by the name of Roland,
[00:15:27]
Roland was an Aki, and Roland was doctoring with Dr. Carl Jung, who might possibly be the greatest 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 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 was some little time before Alcoholics Anonymous was born, and eventually, Eddie called on Bill, and eventually, Bill heard the pronouncement that we've talked about already, he might have 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 to drink anymore, 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 it in this book for us, Bill heard about Roland, and his, what Dr. Jung had told him about the spiritual awakening, the 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-A-R-T, as the heart panteth after the water broke, so panteth my soul after thee, O God, he had always known that this was the alcoholic's problem, his attempt to find unity with the life around him, and with the God made, 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 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, and that's a beautiful thing, and most of us agree with it, now here's what happened, and this just curls my hair, this is fantastic, it's that beautiful, beautiful thing to me, Roland, having heard this, affiliated himself with the Oxford movement, and got sober, and he ran into Eddie, and he got Eddie into the Oxford movement, and Eddie got sober, and Eddie 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, from Dr. Carl Hughes, to Roland, to Eddie, to Bill, Bill to Dr. Bob, and Dr. Bob and Bill to us, what a beautiful thing it is, and how fortunate are we, I believe it to be, the most fortunate segment of humanity, of God's kingdom, because you see, we have to, we have to find an answer lest we die,
[00:20:08]
and we come here not looking for God, or to get our wives back, or to get the love of our children 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 residue, 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 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. We're going to talk about the particle sun, this afternoon, for a little while, and it's the greatest story on earth, as far as I'm concerned, it's my story, all good things have to come to an end, I guess, but, in thinking again, this might be just the beginning, not the end. I want to thank you gentlemen for coming down here, I don't believe that we could have hand-picked a group of men that would have been more to our purpose, than the ones that are here, it's a fabulous bunch of guys, it's been an amazingly beautiful weekend, there's been a lot of love in the grounds, and in the meeting rooms, and in the hospitality rooms, a lot of love, the spirit has been excellent, as far as I'm concerned, I've never been to anything that has been more nearly right, than this has been for me, and I thank you very much for coming.
I want that we again should give Bartha Bagels, and John Crean and Hal, a good rousing. It's been a lot of work going into this, and they did it, mainly Hal, the other two were not fullbacks, they were drawbacks. I can think of nothing that I might have wanted to say when I got down here that I haven't said, sometime during the hours that we've been together. Of course we can talk about this thing from now to Christmas, because there's no way that you can get through talking about this.
One of the greatest things about getting older in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is the memories that build over the years, the memories, the tremendous experiences that we have one with another as we go along. I remember when we went to Toronto 65 for the International up there, there's an old boy by the name of Frank McLean from Edmonton, I'd met Frank a number of years before, and he was, I had a beautiful experience with him.
And I was hoping as we went up there that Frank might be there, and he came. When I spotted him immediately we went for coffee and we sat down there and talked, and I told him how I so wanted him to be there. And I said all the way up here I was thinking about, supposing five years ago I had have said to myself, I've done enough, I've done my stint, I'm gonna take it easy, I'm gonna retire, let the other guys have it now.
I've done my thing. And I was so happy coming up here that I hadn't done that. Because I feel that the last five years has been the greatest period of my own growth. And the tears came into old Frank's eyes and he sat there and he says I drove down here from Edmonton. And all the way down I was thanking God that I had remained active in Alcoholics Anonymous because I felt that the last few years has been my greatest period of growth.
[00:25:00]
And I'm sure that one of the great spiritual values of things like this is the memories that will go with it through the years. Sharing our experience, sharing the whole fun with another and love. Beautiful thing. And as we said a while ago, this ain't no big deal. This ain't no big deal. People don't get sober on profanities. They don't get sober on intellectual knowledge. Ain't no big deal. It's a little deal. Little things are the things we remember.
There was a guy came up to me 20 some years ago in Claremont. And I believe he was the ugliest man I ever saw. He was tall, 6'4", 5". And he had kinky hair and he would stand straight up. And he had ears like that. With a great beak on him. Had no teeth. And after the talk he came up to me and he smelled like two breweries. Not one, two. And he said Chuck I heard what you said and I'm not going to have to drink anymore.
And every Christmas from that time, wherever the guy had been, on Christmas day I got a call from him. And I answered the phone. He said don't take that first drink. He said if you don't take that first drink you can't get drunk. It's been 20 some odd years. And he's called me every year. I heard what you said and I don't have to drink anymore. Little things that make this thing so big. And a few little things I want to share with you before we go into the last business of the day.
Many of you have heard me say this but it's more real to me today than it ever was. 20 some odd years ago I talked on Sunday night in Highland Park. And after the meeting there were four or five of us standing in the middle of the room with our arms on each other's shoulders. And we were saying to each other how lucky can a man be. How lucky can a man be. How fortunate can you be that a tongue chewing babbling idiot drunk could have a life like this. How fortunate can you be. And one kid wasn't saying anything. And pretty soon he looked to me and he said Chuck I'm ignorant. I ain't never read no books. He says there's no sense in me reading books because I don't understand them.
He says I don't know nothing about God. He says I don't know nothing about the Bible. But this no man can take away from me. He says when I do these simple things one day at a time to the best of my ability I feel clean inside. And good things happen in my life. And when I get drunk I say son don't ever read no books no time. That's the very essence of all the books that were ever written. That's what we want. That we might feel clean inside. And have good things happen in our lives. And about three or four years ago I was talking to the Highland Park group and Eddie Hawthorne was there. And I got to thinking well Eddie was in that meeting that night when the monkey said I'm ignorant.
So after the thing was over as soon as I could think away I caught Eddie on his way out. And I says Eddie do you remember who it was that said I ain't never read no books I'm ignorant. Eddie says no. And he started to walk away. And he came back and he said it was me. And it was. It was Eddie. And he's had 25 years or so. Sober. Happy and this broken. Beautiful. A little earlier than that at Jack's someplace I don't know where. And Eddie the kid came up to me and he says Chuck he says you know why it's so hard for us to find God. And I didn't want to answer him. I was tired. I wanted to get the hell out of there.
And I thought to myself I'm going to have to listen for an hour to some explanation of why it's so hard for us to find God. And I couldn't get away from him so I had to say no. Why is it so hard for us to find God. And he says because he ain't lost. Because he ain't lost. Isn't that fabulous. Because he ain't lost. He says you see all we got to do is come back home. And we'll find God's house. And we find God's always been there. We've been away.
And there was another old boy. His name was Big Smith.
[00:30:01]
Big Smith was from Flint, Michigan. And he was my kind of a drunk. He was the kind of guy that drove his car off the end of the pier and through brick buildings. He sort of crippled himself up a bit. One leg was about that much longer than the other and he'd walk like he was sneaking up on somebody. Smitty came in to meet me in Hawthorne. 27 years ago, I expect it was. And he had a little plaque on his arm.
And he picked it up in a hospital down in Texas. And here's what the plaque said. It said, if you're not as close to God as you once were or as you would like to be, make no mistake, you're the one that moved. And Smitty says, you see, all we gotta do is come back home. We find that God's always been there. We've been away. And there's another little thing that I have treasured over the years. I don't know where it came from.
I don't know where I got it, but it's a fish story too. You remember we had a fish story already. This is another one. And this is a story about three little fish. They were swimming around there and off the course of a lagoon. Just playing around. They'd had breakfast. They weren't even hungry. They were just playing around there. A big wise fish swam by and he says, good morning, boys. Isn't the water fine this morning?
And he swam on off. And as soon as he got out of here and these little fish got together, he said, wait a minute, wait a minute. He says, the boy spoke about water. He says, what's water? He says, you, do you ever hear of water? He says, no. He says, how about you? Do you ever know? Never heard of it. He says, neither did I. So they swam all over the Pacific Ocean hunting for water. In which they lived and moved and had their beings.
Fascinating. Now, I'm going to tell you a little story. And I'm going to use my own interpretation of it. Some of you might not think I have the right to change it a little. But I'm telling the story. And this is my story. And it's your story. It does more to explain me to me and you to me and our relationship to God than pretty nearly anything I've ever seen. The story of the particle sun. And it goes something like this.
A certain wealthy man had two sons. And the youngest one of them came to his dad. And he says, dad, I've got me some ideas. I'm going out to Hollywood. They do a lot of things out there. There's big deals out there. Motion picture industry, big. And you can do big things out there. So, says he, give me my inheritance. And the father gave it to him. Now, the father didn't say, wait a minute, son. We're wealthy.
We have everything you need right here. Stay home. You get out there away from home, away from your family, and you're liable to get in trouble. You might run onto a blonde with a bottle of muskadoodle and get into a hell of a lot of trouble. Stay home. He didn't say that. He didn't say nothing. The kid says, give me my inheritance. And he gave it to him. And the kid went away from home into a far country and wasted his substance on riotous living.
Now, that might not fit you, but it fits me pretty good. Sounds suspiciously like me. And he wasted his substance on riotous living. And when he had spread all, there arose a mighty famine in the land. As serious as this is, it's taking the hell out of me. If there's ever a bunch of people that should understand a famine. How many times have you come over drunk, found everybody that's been looking for you?
90% of them just tell you they never want to see you again. And the other 10% have been trying to bank one of your checks with a tennis racket.
[00:35:02]
I don't think they make famines like that no more. That's a famine. So the kid, after he'd spread all, there arose a mighty famine in the land. And what'd he do? Did he come back home? No, he didn't. He did just like you did and like I did. He went to a man in that country. We did too. We went to a man in that country, doctors, psychiatrists, priests, preachers. He went to a man in that country, and the man put him to work.
And of all the things he might have put him to doing, he didn't. He gave him a job tending the pigs. Now this is very significant, because this was a Jew boy telling this story. And Jews were like pigs. There would be nothing so obnoxious to a Jew than having to tend pigs. And there he was, tending the pigs. Meaningful it is, because that means the guy was down, low. He was low down. We have a name for it.
We call it a low bottom. And he'd done himself a low bottom, tending pigs. And while he was in the pig pen with the pigs, he got hungry. And he fain would eat the hush that the pigs would eat. And no man gave unto him. He was beyond human help. And no man gave unto him. Probably no human power could have relieved our affliction. Same thing. And while he was there with everything gone, it occurred to him that in his father's house was plenty in spare.
They were wealthy, and here he was totally done in. But he said to himself, I can't go back there and say to my father, look, Dad, I'm your boy. Do you recognize me? I'm your son. He couldn't do that. Couldn't do that. The self-condemnation that goes with the disease of alcoholism. How we condemned ourselves. How we hated ourselves for the favor that we were making in the business of living. And so it was with him.
But he also remembered that the servants back there, the hired servants, were pretty well taken care of. They were living a lot better than he was. And so he said to himself, I'm going back home. And I'm going not to say, I'm your son. How about taking me back home? But he said, I'm going to apply for a servant's job. A hired servant. So he made a decision. He says, I will arise and go to my father.
We made a decision. We made a decision to turn our own lives over to the care of God. Very parallel to my life. All the way through. It's my story. And your story, I think. So he got up and started home. Now, here's the miracle of alcoholics and non-alcoholics. Here's the thing itself. This is the essence of our program. The kid had made his decision and he started home. And the father saw him a long ways off and came to meet him.
Ah, this is fantastic. And the father saw me a long ways off. And the man says to me, mister, were you looking for somebody? And I said, no, sir. And he says, what were you looking for? And thinking he was a veteran, I said, well, if it would interest you, sir, I was looking for a bride. And everything about that man changed in the twinkling of an eye. I was hooked before he ever opened his mouth again.
Because it was obvious that he was glad I was there when everybody that knew me wouldn't even spit on me. My own flesh and blood wouldn't have anything to do with me. And he was a stranger. So glad that I was there that he lit up. And when he spoke again, this is what he said. He says, well, I take off your hat and coat. You're in the right place. And he took me and rocked me to sleep. God came to meet me through you who had already found your way.
Now, I didn't know you, but you knew me. You said I was an alcoholic. And it didn't make any difference. You didn't ask me if I was hot, if I was in bad with the law, if I owed money, if I had turned over a new leaf, if I was sorry for my sins. You didn't say any of those things to me. Have you quit drinking? You didn't say that. You said take off your hat and coat. You're in the right place.
[00:40:01]
And so the father saw the kid a long ways off, and he came to meet him. And the kid started trying to tell him what a bum he was, what a failure he had been in the business of living. And again, the father didn't hear him. He didn't argue with him at all. He didn't say, look, I've got the record on you right here. And you sure are a bum. You're no good. I've got it. I know every time you turn right when you should have turned left.
Now get to Grubbin Hole and get back here on the back 40 and grub out those persimmon sprouts and sassafras bushes. And maybe if you do a good job 25 years from now, I'll invite you in for lunch. He didn't say that. He didn't say nothing. He fell on his neck and kissed him, and he put a ring on his finger, a symbol of eternal life, no beginning and no end. And he called to the servants, and he says, kill the fatted calf.
We're going to have a party. The boy was dead. Not alive. He was lost, and he's come back home. So let's have a party. No condemnation. No reprimand. No argument. The love of the father for his child. You and I, having run out of our own resources, have been privileged to wander into an alcoholic synonyms meeting and to stay and to find the same experience, the particle son. We come home. It's not normal to walk alone.
It is not normal to walk alone. It's normal for us to walk down the high road of life with our arms around each other, sharing our experience, strength, and hope one with another in love. This is normal. Normal is breathing. It's not normal to be away from the father's house. We're like little kids that are lost in the woods, and darkness has come on, and we're scared to death. And we wander into an alcoholic synonyms meeting and find ourselves in each other and God.
What a deal it is. What a fabulous thing it is. Now, I recognized my problem thirty, uh, ten years before coming here, and that's thirty-nine years ago. Thirty-nine years ago. And in this thirty-nine years, millions of men and women have died of the same disease that I had, the disease of alcoholism, because they didn't find this place. There are many dying now, almost in rifle shot or right here, dying of the disease of alcoholism.
And they don't know. They don't know. And we might say to ourselves, how come we were so fortunate? And there's no answer to that. We were. And myself, having over ten thousand six hundred days, one day at a time, was the finest life that anybody ever dreamed of. And from a tongue-chewing babbling idiot to a personally satisfactory conscious partnership of the living God that made us in the entire business of living.
What a transition. What a miracle of life. What a thing to keep us practicing these principles in all of our affairs and carrying this message to the alcoholic who still suffers. How fortunate are we that we have a lifetime job outlined for us in step twelve. And as I have said on many occasions, I don't know who to be most grateful for or to. I don't know. Because I didn't come to you to find God.
I didn't come to you to get my wife back or my kids or my health or my sanity. I'd looked for God for thirty years and I couldn't find Him. Because I had Him located someplace else. And I came here to find out how to live one day at a time without drinking. And guys just like you took me in and shared their experience, strength and hope with me. But more than that, much more than that, their love. Guys that I didn't know, but they know me.
Guys that I didn't know, but they know me, they knew me, and so, insofar as I am capable of doing it, I will be attempting to share this thing with drunks, as long as there's breath in me, and again, and again, and again.
[00:45:18]
You guys get dear to me all the time, all the time, because you're the guy that nursed me back to health, and helped me do that which I could not do alone, and showered enough love on me that I became, I hope, aware of the fact that God is love. God is love, and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him, and so I'm so grateful to you who can't see. I love you. It's my joy to have had this weekend with you, and I shall never forget it, because some part of every one of you is going to be with me for the rest of my life, so I thank you again.
And all I have to do is to look in the eyes of a bunch like this, to see my God. God bless you. Thank you very much. I've had many troubles, most of which never happened. I like that real, real good. This is, we decided just this to be a question, period. Should we work with practicing alcoholics before we have taken all the steps ourselves? I think that the very moment that a guy decides he wants what we have, and becomes willing to go to any length to get it, he is ready to work with alcoholics.
Not that he tries to carry the message to alcoholics, but that he tries to carry the alcoholics to the message. Soon as we have decided that we want what's here, we can tell anybody, look, I found a place that seems to manufacture sobriety. Bunch of guys that were doing something about their drinking, and they have impressed me very much, and I'm going to meet and have that going with them. So you carry the alcoholic to the message.
The book, he says, obviously we can't transmit something we don't have. That's what you're referring to. But you don't have to be anything but kind to carry a message. Really, that's all. Little love. Okay. You know, sobriety, how do we deal with emotions? A. Others we work with in the program. B. In our own. Sobriety. I got into that, I guess. I said sobriety was fourfold. Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Emotional would just be one of the areas of our lives that has to become stable.
For instance, if we're going to work with alcoholics, we can't afford to become emotionally involved in their program. Or in their problem, I mean. Not in their program, in their problem. We can't afford to become emotionally involved in the problem, or we lose all of our possibility for help. You got to stay above the problem. Now it seems like maybe that that would be a sort of a cold attitude. It is not.
You have to love more to stay emotionally involved, uninvolved in the problem, than you do to become involved in it. The answer is not in the problem. The answer is in the answer. I worked on my problem for ten years. And the more I looked at the problem and the harder I worked on the problem, the greater the problem became. It was just like fertilizing the water and then cultivating the weed. It grew out of all portions. And I think we have to be able to live above the problem to be of value to those who have it.
We don't get emotionally involved in the problem. It's not that we love less, it's that we love more. I think it takes much more love to release than it does to hold onto. Emotional stability comes, I am sure, out of this thing we call self-discovery. Physical sobriety comes from not drinking. We don't drink today. And after a while we are physically free from the effects of alcohol. But until we become emotionally stable, mentally stable, and spiritually somewhat stable, we are not sober.
[00:50:17]
Sobriety is the ability to live comfortably, peacefully, and joyously with oneself. I find much, much confusion in this area of becoming emotionally involved in the problems of our so-called babies. Many people think you've got to be emotionally involved in it. And I think we completely stymie ourselves when we do. What about sex after sobriety? Is there anybody here that wants to cover that subject?
You want to speak on that? No. No. No. No. I'm delighted to be able to report. That, as we said yesterday, love includes possession but not the necessity to possess. I think that it's perfectly possible to live very happily in a marriage relation without emphasis on that particular deal. I know it's quite important. Many, many people. It's strange how important that it gets at times and then in a little while how unimportant it is.
We used to call it the biggest mess there is, you know. But I realize that this is a problem in many, many families. It might be in mine. I don't know. But I believe that sex as such should be just as spontaneous as everything else. I think it should come as the result of love, you know, the givingness of self to self in love. And I think that's the only way it has any value at all. I think that we as a sex are very, very lacking in this area. Actually I do. All men.
Because we are inclined to want what we want when we want it. And it's to explode. And that's what happens. And when the explosion's over the job's done as far as we're concerned. But I feel that that's a totally selfish approach. I think that the love and adoration both before and after the act is far, far superior than to the act itself. In other words, I find nothing wrong with sexual intercourse as a result of love. But as an objective I think it's self-robbery again.
It's a beautiful thing when it's the givingness of self to self in love. And otherwise I find no value in it. That's all I can say.
[00:55:03]
What is the value of patience when counseling with another alcoholic? If we had all the alcoholics in the world in this room right now we would have 90% of the impatience of the human race. We are a very impatient lot. We want everything to happen yesterday. And patience is certainly a virtue. I doubt very much if our value as a counselor would equal our value as a listener. If you can get the guy talking, or the gal, if you can get them talking, this is the deal. In my own case, if I'm talking to somebody new, the one thing that I listen for is the first attempt at a belly laugh.
This ain't no big deal. You can't get serious. And alcoholics cannot take a preachment or a lecture. We know all about the preachment and the lecture. We've given them to ourselves a thousand times. We know exactly what they're going to say before they say it. And so the sharing and to get them to talk and be a good listener gives the counselor more value than talking himself. We're not experts on anything.
And it's the simple little thing that opens the door. It isn't the profundity. Nobody ever got sober on profundity. Nobody. It's a little thing. Many of you heard me tell this, but I was talking at the Bob White group many years ago on Santa Barbara in Van Ness. And there was a drunk in bad shape sitting right about there where a castle is sitting. And it came time for him to light a cigarette. And he couldn't do it. He couldn't get the things to mate. And he struggled and he struggled. And after a while, a little old lady that was sitting next to him reached over and took his cigarette and his match and lit it and put it in his mouth.
And the next year, I was there at the same time. And this guy got his birthday, first birthday. And I thought, well, I must have done pretty well, you know, in that talk. So I was prepared to get a nice compliment, you know, when he got up to take his birthday cake. And he said the reason he was back was not what was said or done in the meeting. It was the fact that this little old lady had lit his cigarette for him.
This thing don't depend on profundity or expertise. It's love. And love is patient. Love is patient. Another one that I love to think about. This happened to the Harper group. I talked there on Friday before Christmas every year. And ten or a dozen years ago, there was a guy sitting along the wall. There were benches along the wall. And he was leaping. He wasn't shaking. He was leaping. And I went over and sat down beside him before the meeting started. And I put my arm around the guy. And I said, son, this ain't no big deal.
If you don't drink, if you don't take that next drink, three days you'll be pretty nearly well physically. Just put it off. Don't take that next drink. It ain't no big deal. Make a game out of it. And go for three days without a drink. See what happens to you. And for years, he's gone by me at least once a year in some meeting. And he gets right up to my left ear and he says, son, this ain't no big deal. He goes on about his business. So, yes. If you love him, you're patient. Next.
How do we surrender and turn our will to God when after asking for guidance, we still flounder at times? There are many times when even prayer is like braying up a chimney. No way can you seem to make any conscious contact with anything. Everything's futile. You have no purchase at all up there on the internet line. And that's what the book means when it says when everything else fails. Means when it says, when everything else fails, get your wet drunk.
Because you see, when we're feeling futile, we want something. We want something, and it isn't happening.
[01:00:01]
And there's no way that you can want something when you're working with a wet drunk. No way. You can't think about yourself when you're working with a wet drunk. That's one place where you give all your attention and interest and love to the thing at hand. If it's just simply to outmaneuver him. To neither be the pukey or the puke-off. Isn't that good? So we gotta get ourselves off our minds. Now I have a thing of my own.
I can't solve a problem. No way I can solve a problem. And I haven't tried it much in these last 29 years. Because I've expected guidance and direction. But if I wake up to the fact that I'm all tied in a knot. Working on something and I'm just completely rigid almost. Subconsciously I've been messing with this thing and beating my brains out. And I recognize it. And this is my little deal and it works for me right along.
I, as I said to you, I share everything with my own God. Good, bad and indifferent. And in this case I say, look dad. I'm beating my brains out over this problem and I don't know the answer. You do. And when you get ready to give it to me I'd certainly be glad to have it. Sure, thank you. And I dump it. And I never look at it again. I just dump it. That's it. And in a very short time I find out that it either wasn't a problem in the first place.
Which is about 50% of the time. Or I have the answer. It's the self-concern and the impatience that bring about this sort of an impasse in our own life. And to get ourselves off our mind. There's nothing more highly recommended than to sit down with a wet drunk. Does that do you any good? With ego and self taking over periodically, do I analyze and look for answers too much? You're a mess. If I were you I'd just give up.
I find so many of our people, even in the grapevine I find so many of them writing about self-esteem. Building self-esteem. I hear people get up here and talk all the time about you have to learn to love yourself before you can love anybody else. And I am most grateful that that ain't the case. I never spent any time trying to build up self-esteem. I never spent any time trying to love me. I wouldn't have taken me with a large dowry.
I hated my damn guts. And so I got busy doing things this book suggests. And it wasn't trying to learn how to self-esteem me. Or to love me so I could love you. I don't think that that is the way it is at all. Francis says, for it is better to love than to be loved. It is better to understand than to be understood. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in forgiving that we are forgiven. And it is in dying to self that we awaken to eternal life.
And that's exactly what we've been talking about ever since we've been down here. That's exactly what we've been talking about. I don't believe that an image Phil. I don't believe that an image of me would add anything to my life at all. I haven't any more image of me than I have of a walrus. That isn't what I'm interested in. I'm not interested in an image of me. That's not why I'm here. I'm here to share me with anybody that wants me in love.
And let the chips fall where they may. I'm not even interested in your opinion of what's happened. Except when you want to give it to me. That's not my deal. I love you. I love you and that's all I have to do. That's what I'm interested in. That's my deal. It's not my deal who you love or what you love. Or what you think. That's your deal. I love you period. I don't even have to concern myself about what you think of me.
[01:05:00]
I got no image at all of me. I think of myself exactly as that big window out there in front of my chair. That window to me is me. And when there's no obstruction, the light comes through. But the window is not the light. And I think of that drape as my ego. And when that drape's closed, the light don't come through. But just as the window is not the light, the drape is not the darkness. It just shuts out the light.
So my business is to keep the drape open Phil. And let the light shine. And I don't punish the light. I'm a channel. I'm a channel. You and I are necessary to God. As channels through which he goes forth into his creation. We're channels. When we get ourselves out of the way and let it be. And let it be. Now as we said last night. And as I say to me all the time. 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. And I can't run mine. And I don't get involved in running my life. I get involved in living. I think losing yourself in life guarantees finding yourself in God. Guarantees it. Because all you got to do is to get rid of the roadblock. You lose yourself in life and find yourself in God. And Phil I wouldn't if I were you. I wouldn't spend another five seconds trying to find self-worth or anything else.
To find yourself yes. To realize that whatever it is you're looking for is right here. What you're looking for. You're looking with. What you came here to get came with you. Everything you ever wanted to know. You've always known. And everything you've always wanted to be you've always been. But it's covered up. It's covered up. So we uncover and discover. And get lost in that Phil and forget about you.
To hell with you. And you got a little better break on that than I have. Maybe you have and maybe you ain't. Let the tips fall where they may. The beautiful thing about this deal is not to get serious about yourself. To make the whole deal a game. A play of life upon itself. And you have fun out of it. I have more fun with God than I do with you. I have a hell of a lot of fun with God. I think that the guy has a tremendous sense of humor.
Or he wouldn't have hid himself in the last place we ever looked. You know. I think it's terrific. The very last place we ever looked. There he is. I can just see him, you know. Here I am trying to find a bottle. Off hours, you know, and I've got to have a drink. Look at that son of a bitch. He's on to me and I'm with him. I love it. It's a fun deal. You're too serious, Phil. Make a fun deal out of it.
Huh? Does that help any? Should members of AA work professionally in the field of alcoholism? I do not really care much to comment on it, but I would say this. It's awfully hard. It's awfully hard for amateurs like us to get mixed up with professionals and stay amateurs. We're a strange bunch. All we have to do is to rub elbows a little while with a doctor and we become doctors. Maybe some people can retain their amateur standing in working for money in the field of alcoholism.
I don't know. Maybe they can. But in my personal life, I've met only one that seemed to do it and he wasn't around long enough to really see whether it was going to work out or not. And that was Warren Snyder. Warren died about a year or so after, two years after he started working in the field of alcoholism for money. Now, the one thing that would seem to be furthest from a paid 12-step call
[01:10:04]
would be working with the National Committee on Alcoholism because the National Committee on Alcoholism has no recovery program at all. They are educational and referral. That's their business and that's not the business we're in. So it would appear that there would be no conflict to work for the National Committee on Alcoholism because they have no program of recovery. But those of my friends who work with them somehow become professionals.
I'm mindful of one gal I love very, very much. And ten years ago, she made one of the finest day talks I ever heard in my life. And she became an employee secretary of the Committee on Alcoholism and she talked to our group a year ago, I guess. And she made just as fine a talk as she ever made. But it wasn't an Alcoholics Anonymous talk. It was a professional talk. And the one thing about us that we must maintain is caring and sharing.
We're not experts on anything. We share our experience, strength, and hope. One with another in love. And so I haven't seen anybody even be able to do that kind of thing without seeming to get lost in professionalism. Incidentally, it wasn't three months after that talk that she was in the hospital herself. Not, I'm sure, for either pills or drinking. I say I'm sure. I'm not sure of anything. I'm like, Phil, I don't know nothing.
But she was in the hospital for sort of a breakdown of some kind. I can't do it. Personally, when I talk for organizations that have an honorarium, the thing I do carries an honorarium for, say, 75 to 150 dollars. I won't take it. I don't take it. Because whilst they don't know it, I'm going to play it. I learned what I'm telling them from you guys, from drunks who don't drink. And I can't anymore take an honorarium than I can fly, because you guys didn't charge me a thing.
You didn't even ask me if I had anything. The only thing you said to me is, Mr., were you looking for somebody? And I said, no, sir. And you said, well, what were you looking for? And I said, it was interesting, sir, I was looking for sobriety. And you lit up like a Christmas tree. Took me in and rocked me to sleep. Now, I'm certain that any alcoholic is totally free to make a living. I think we're entitled to make a living.
But if I were a preacher, I would want my business on the side. Because I would not want to get up here and try to tell you monkeys what you want to hear. I would not want my gas and water in your hands. If you don't like me, you cut off my gas and water. So I've got to try to please you. I can't do that. I would want my business on the side. I'd want my money coming in from here, so I could tell you what I think.
I can't talk without saying it as I feel it, as I think that it should be. And I can't work in that field. But if I were a captain in the Marines, and they wanted me to head up the program of alcoholism for the Marines, and I could set up my own staff, as certain Marines have had the privilege of doing, I might do what a captain in the Marines who asked that question did. And he said, what am I going to do?
I said, get your staff to handle the related disorders. Get all these people that you have working with you to handle the hopheads, the pillheads, the sex maniacs, like, who was that then? All right. And you gave him an Alcoholics Anonymous, the drunk, an Alcoholics Anonymous, and that's what you did, and it's worked out beautifully, and I don't see it's doing you any harm.
[01:15:02]
Yes, Dave, what? Should members of AA attend meetings of Al-Anon, are we…