Audio
Transcript
Source: DICOBE-00562 – Chuck C – SOME QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS – 1975-01-25.mp3 File: dicobe-00562-chuck-c-some-questions-and-answers-1975-01-25.mp3 Duration: 00:37:36
============================================================
I have a lot of fun, of course, my wife is quite a nonny nonny, and I have a lot of fun with her. I got by for many years by saying to her when she got a little out of line, look sister, you people wouldn't even have a program if it hadn't been for us, because we loaned them our program, you know. And after a while she got smarty pants, and she started saying we wouldn't have needed a program if it hadn't been for you.
I don't see why I should go any place else, or have to go any place else, to find out how to work my program in Alcoholics Anonymous, as far as I'm concerned, I don't see the need of it. Long before Alcoholics Anonymous, before Al-Anon was born, when people were coming to me and saying you gotta get this guy sober, or this gal sober, I was saying to them, maybe, maybe, this is the best time in your life to find yourself, maybe the only chance you've got to help this alky, is not to come to me, but to apply these principles to yourself, find your own peace, and maintain your own peace in your own household, and it might be the only good thing you can do for that girl, long before Al-Anon was born.
And that's what they're trying to do, find living answers in our program, which we must find along with sobriety. I don't mind going to Al-Anon meetings, I talk before Al-Anon meetings a great deal. Matter of fact, you people don't know it, but you're looking at the greatest Al-Anon speaker there is. A few years ago, a Swede from Dallas called me, Erland Lancaster, I guess that's Swedish or something, I don't know, and it was Thursday, and Erland says, Chuck, when can you leave for Dallas?
I says, I'm not coming. Erland says, yes you are. I says, I'm not coming to Dallas. He says, I'll ask you when you can leave. And I says, I'm not coming. And he says, I don't want that kind of an answer. When are you leaving? And I says, who fell down on you? What's the matter with the speaker you had? Why didn't you ask me first? Well, to make a long story short, I flew to Dallas and talked at the Al-Anon luncheon, and I was a substitute for a substitute.
The first one that had agreed to talk to the Al-Anon luncheon was the late Liz, you know the gal that wrote the book, the late Liz. What was her name? Gert Bahanna. Gert Bahanna. Gertie and I don't get along too well anyway. And she was the gal that was supposed to talk, and she pooped out. And the next one was Adler Rogers St. John's, and she pooped out. So I'm a substitute for two broads. Substitute for a substitute.
And they still say down there that I gave the best Al-Anon talk to them. So I just threw that in to make it hard. Now, there's no reason you shouldn't go to an Al-Anon meeting if you want to. Next. How do you prove love? Well, I don't think that you prove anything. I don't think we've got anything to prove, nothing to win, and we're not going anyplace. I'll have to tell you again, I said this in this meeting already, that I'll spill it again because I love it myself.
This certain doctor called me at midnight. And he says, what's your definition of love? I said, it's the same as this ten o'clock in the morning. What the hell are you calling me at midnight and asking me what the definition of love is? He says, what's your definition of love? I says, you won't like it. He says, what is it? I says, it's action. To talk about love is like talking about humility.
[00:05:00]
I feel very humble this morning, boys. Action. If you love somebody or something, you do something for them. You just do it. And you don't make a big deal out of it. I wouldn't spend five seconds trying to prove anything that I've said from this podium to anybody here. That's not why I'm here. To prove something, I wouldn't spend five seconds trying to defend anything I've said. I have a right to my own opinion, and you have a right to yours.
And you have my approval if you want to disagree with everything I've said and the way I've said it. Then we get on right with me. And the same thing is true with people every place. I love you. It's none of my business what you think of me, unless you want to make a sound. So quit trying to make something out of it. Prove it. Next. Upon waking with negative thoughts, how does one establish a relationship with God?
I think this is what we've been talking about all weekend, too. Praying without ceasing. I find no difference in a prayer and a serious thought. It's the same thing, as we said since we've been here. Fear. Worry. Is a prayer for something you don't want to happen. To live in the conscious awareness of the living presence of God. I don't even like too much, I talk about it an awful lot, but the Our Father prayer.
Our Father God. I talk about Our Father lots. But this relationship that we've been talking about this weekend is much, much closer than a father-son relationship. As I said, I believe, I said, I've got two sons some place in Southern California. I don't know where either one of them are. This is impossible with my relationship with my own God. Because God is that which I am. God is that which I am.
I couldn't breathe, I couldn't be. There would be nothing. I would be extinct, but for God. Because God is life. And there's no way to be separated from God. In reality. The only separation there is, is conscious. The feeling of conscious separation from. Left field. Very real as an experience, but not reality. So, I don't think that we ought to wake up feeling any different than when we went to sleep.
Or feeling that it's any different than ten minutes after we get up. Now is the deal. How is it with me right now? How is it with me right now? Now if I had to get up and start praying right quick to feel good. I don't think I'd feel good when I got to pray. I think I ought to feel good when I'm going to start to pray. And again. My prayers, I don't know when they start and stop. I feel like Brother Lawrence a little in that deal.
Because I like to live in the conscious awareness of the living presence of God. In a relationship with everything around me. Everything around me. So, I think that's the thing to sort of get through your head. That now is the time. You see this is so very vital to me. Because tomorrow was always the day I was going to straighten up and fly right. Tomorrow I was going to do it, you know. But tomorrow I never got here.
Every time I came to it was now. And I was thirsty. So I took a drink. Tomorrow I never got here. And again. I don't think I ought to be in any particular position. To retain this feeling of the living presence of God. I don't think that it happens in a church. Or in the mountain or in the temple or in Jerusalem.
[00:10:02]
It's in my own mouth. That I might know it and do it. So that's the only answer I'd have to that. Yes. When did you really start trusting God all the way? I don't know. I don't know. Because I discovered that it had happened. You see. I think it happened when this thing was burned out the first time. I think that's when it happened. Because I was in here. This was me. All the time. You know. But to be born out of conscious separation and conscious unity makes it a reality.
A belief in God is good. But it is not good enough for alcoholics. We have to live in God. To live in God. That's what this whole thing is all about. To get us out of our own way. So that we can go about our father's business. That's the only business I've had for 29 years. I'm in a business. I go about my father's business. And that's my business and his business to take care of. And it's just as natural and normal as breathing.
I expect it. Not that I'm sitting around in expectancy waiting for somebody to pick up the phone. Or to ring it. It's just my being. I know that every good and perfect gift is from his hand. Father Barney said to me. Ten years ago. We were driving under the Garden Grove Freeway. I was taking him home with me. We'd been to the office. And just as we went under the freeway. He said to me. Chuck, how in the hell do you fulfill your commitments?
I said, what are you talking about? He said, you've got three lives. And any one of them is enough for anybody. And these are all three of them. How do you do it? And I said, Father, you ought to know that better than I do. You're a damn Jebby. You've been studying all your life. Why do you ask me that question? He said, why, how do you do it? And I said, there's no division in my life. There's no division in my life.
When we practice these principles in all of our affairs, gentlemen. There is no division in life. There is nothing that is more or less important. And there's nothing that is more or less spiritual than another. Your business is just as spiritual as your AA. Your AA is just as spiritual as your church. Your home is just as spiritual as both of them. Substance is just as spiritual as, uh, ha-ha. Joy.
Just as spiritual. Every good and perfect gift is from his hand. And to live in this. To be aware of this. Constantly aware of it. And that's what I was telling you yesterday. To trim the sail. To trim the sail. Some ships ply east and some ply west by the self-same wind that blows. It is the set of the sail and not the gale that determines where it goes. And so, trimming the sail. Saying to myself maybe 50 times a day, God is my refuge and my strength.
Well, now, why do I do that? I'm not afraid of nothing. I'm not afraid of you. I'm not afraid of God. I'm not afraid of the devil. I'm not afraid of tomorrow or yesterday. Why would I be saying, God is my refuge and my strength? Lift up your eyes into the hills from whence cometh thy strength. I love the hills. I love God. And I trim the sails. Reminding myself that in him I live and move and have my being.
The conscious awareness of the living presence of the almighty. Now, that's what this retreat's all about. There's nothing else here. So far as I'm concerned, 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 those are not words. That's the way I live. And I cannot live any other way. I did it 43 years. And that was 43 years too long.
Does that do you any good? I've always been a competitor. How do I remove competition from my life? It's a strange thing to me again. But I have been a competitor all my life. I was corrected this morning because there's a man who's three years older than I am. Sure don't look it, but he had a very sheltered youth. I could do anything with my body up until I got hurt in football. I could do anything with it.
Football, basketball, baseball, and track. The whole business was just duck soup. Erotic.
[00:15:07]
Got removed from football. Competition was my life. I had a brother that was three and a half years older than I. And we were competitors. From the time I could walk until I left home at 20, we were in a fight. Lasted 20 years on the installment plan. And he was three and a half years older than I and three and a half years stronger. And up until I was 18, 19, 20, he could whip me. But he couldn't make me believe it.
He could not make me believe it. We'd start a fight as kids, two miles from home. And every time he got off of me, I'd dog him. And we'd end up in the living room and mother'd whip us both. And I left home at 20 thinking I could whip that guy. He never did make me believe that he could whip me. So competition, yes, it was my life. Now I do a lot of lawn bowling. And if I go down there to beat somebody, I'm like a wash woman.
It's just like I never had a bowl in my hand. But if I go down there to do the best I can with what I got and enjoy my competitor's shot just the same as my own, I can beat anybody on the place. In 1957, I was champion of Beverly Hills Lawn Bowling Club. And I only bowled twice a week. I bowled Saturday and Sunday. And all the rest of them bowled every day. And you know, that's a delicate, delicate game, lawn bowling. So I can't compete with anybody.
And again, it is not because I decided not to compete. You see, I'm lucky. I'm lucky, lucky, lucky. Because I didn't want nothing when I came here, not even sobriety. I just wanted to rub out as much of the record as I could. And you can't rub out a record thinking, you know, in terms of competition. You can't do it. You just help people do things they need to have done because you want to. And I had to do that to rub out. And when I finally woke up to the fact that things were going good, I was in the habit of it. And I just kept doing it. And I'm still doing it. And I believe this is the thing that we're talking about.
Our civilization has laid so many things on us that are totally extraneous. You have to be this and have that and be known as before you can live, you know. And the only thing you can do with life, gentlemen, is live it. Being is the only thing that counts. The iridescence of the now is the only thing that counts in this life. Take no thought of tomorrow, what you should eat, what you should drink, or whether or not you should be clothed. The heavenly Father knows what you need to have for you.
Now then, my son, it's so much more fun to get as much fun out of your opponent's shot as your own. It's so much more fun. It's twice as much. And if you're in a foursome, it's four times as much, you know. It's normal and natural that you wish your, supposedly, your so-called competition well. Wish them well. They do their thing and you do yours. And there's no competition if you're doing it right. There's no competition. There's no feeling of competition in it.
Now, just while I've got it on my mind, all you've got to do, everything that this thing's about, is shifting the motivation in your life. That's all you've got to do. Shift your motivation from taking something from to giving something, to adding to. Even when you go to a meeting, and I want none, shift your motivation from going to get, to going to add to. From the time I discovered I was sober, six months after I got here, until right now, I have never gone to a meeting to get anything.
And I can't go to a bad meeting. I can go to a meeting and disagree with everything that's done in it. The speaker and everything he says, and the way he says it. And come out with a full cup. Because it always happens, if you go hoping that somebody just seeing you might get a lift, you know.
[00:20:07]
It might do somebody good just to see you there. And maybe somebody will ask you a question that you can answer, that you can share. And you can't come away from that thing without a full cup. And it's just shifting your attitude from taking from to adding to. And you do it throughout your life, everything in life. And it's not a do-gooder attitude. God damn the do, excuse me. Good morning, Dave. It's not that you want to be, you know, to be a do-gooder.
As we said yesterday, to be good for something is self-property, even if it's to go to heaven. To be good for something is self-property. To be good for nothing. That's the fun deal, just to be good for nothing. How do I overcome the assistance of my family and business associates that I should make plans for tomorrow and the future? I don't think I told you guys about having to walk off from a half a million dollars in 1957.
Did I tell you about that? No. I want to tell you this, because this is the answer to your question. When I was a year sober, I ran into a piece of property in the corner of Gardena and Normandy. It was owned by some very good friends of mine, Jackson Brothers, the builders. Very good Mormons, if you'll pardon me, Dave. Did you hear the one? I'll tell you the one about this, you know. The Pope got the College of Cardinals together.
And he says, boys, I just got a phone call, and I got some good news and the bad news. He says, which do you want first? And they figured it out, and he says, we'd like the good news first. And he says, Rob, the phone call said that the second coming of Christ had already taken place. Christ is at this time walking the earth. They thought that was great. He says, now what's the bad news? He says, the telephone call came from Salt Lake City.
So, I knew this property. It was ten acres on the corner down there, and I knew it was a tremendous buy, and I thought it was a good place for a market. In my early years in the market business, I got all of my business from promotions. I found who owned properties and talked to them about either leasing them or building a building or whatnot, you know. And if they wanted to do something, I'd get a tenant for it.
And all that stuff, or I'd buy the property for them. And all that was just to get a fixture order. I wasn't in the real estate business at that time at all. I was in the fixture business. Now, I knew values, and I was pretty well familiar with what would make a good market site and what wouldn't. And I liked this property, and I thought, who will I get to buy it? And it occurred to me that my boss might want it, because his father had started the business, and he was a wealthy man before he took it over.
In 1908, his dad had started this thing. And he was very wealthy. And so, I went in one morning and I said, Victor, I found something that you might want. And he said, what is it? And I told him about it. And he listened, and he said, go buy it, Charlie. And I said, no. I said, I'll show it to you, but I won't go buy it. Well, I said, you like it, go buy it. I said, no, Victor. Get in the car and we'll go down.
We can go down and back in an hour. And so we did. And he looked at it, and he said, go buy it. I said, no. Let's find out if anybody else in town likes it. Let me bring a couple of market operators down here and see if they like it. See if they'd like to have a building on it. He says, Charlie, you like it, go buy it. And I went and bought it. And when I got to escrow, one night after everybody had gone but his secretary and myself, he called me in.
The two of us were with him. And he says, Charlie, I didn't want that property. I don't want it. I don't need it. I want to get you in the same position I'm in. And as soon as I get you in the same position I'm in, we'll retire together. Now, I'm giving you 25% of this deal. 25% of this deal is yours. Now, go out and get us a tenant, and we'll build him a building, and we'll go from there.
[00:25:03]
25% of this deal is yours. And I went, and I got bonds to take a deal on it. They didn't like it. But, said they, this is the first time we've ever had any chance to do anything for Charlie. And he's never given us a bum steer yet on location. So, let's take it. It can't be that bad. It can't hurt us much. So they took the deal because of me. And they knew about my 25%, not only from me, but from Victor.
And so, we built him a building. Jackson Brothers built it. And they built it for half a fee. 5% instead of 10. Because I'd known them since they were labor contractors. The two boys and their father and uncle contracted labor for duplexes over there between Highland and La Brea, north of Third Street, and then got parked. And I was the duplex king. And we worked together a lot. And we knew each other good.
And so, they wanted to do something for me, too. And they built a building for half a fee. We needed a loan. I went to Vern Jenkins, who was chairman of the board of Occidental Life. And I'd called on his son, and he'd gotten sober. And Vern thought the sun rose and set in me. And I went down to see him. I said, Vern, we need a loan to build a building. He says, what do you want? He says, you can have anything you've got down here, including the company.
Just tell me what you want, and you've got it. And so, everybody in the deal knew all about it. And we built a building, and Barnes opened it, and it was a bonanza. From the very beginning, it was a bonanza. We were getting from $17,000 to $2,100 a week rent. A week, gentlemen, rent. Because we had a percentage lease. Had you an idea, it was just so good. $100,000, $125,000, $140,000 a week. They were doing volume in that place.
And everybody was very happy. And then they got an A-ass department store. And we built them a department store, and they went the same way. And everything was just beautiful, to make a long story short. Ten years later, in my 11th year, Victor was going to retire. And I was going to retire with him. Now, all this time, we had talked about this thing. We talked about what I was doing. We had laughed and cried together, because we were just as one man.
Up until the last year. And my 11th year, it seemed like the guy was growing away from me. But I just thought it was because he was retiring. And he was, you know, his mind was on something else. But I was retiring, and we had talked about it for ten years. And when it came time to do it, well, incidentally, the next thing is, I bought that house where I live now. Because I was going to retire. Because my part of this deal was worth $500,000 for this time.
A minimum of $500,000. And that was my security, you see. So I was going to retire. Now, I had a very, very good, commendable motivation. I was going to retire and spend my whole time working with bums like you at my own expense. There's nothing wrong with that motivation, huh? So I bought that house to retire it. And it came tied down to the wire, and Victor couldn't do it. He could not do it. It was too much money.
And he had to deny the whole thing. And it was impossible. Because we had been just like that. We had laughed and cried for ten years. And we discussed this thing time and time again. We were going to retire together. And he couldn't do it. It was too much dough. And he had to deny the whole damn thing. Now, I was naturally destroyed. Because I could not believe that this man would do that. I couldn't believe that he could possibly do it.
And my insight says you can't let him do this for his own benefit. You can't let him do this to himself. And my toenails and my hair knew I was right. And my insight says this is for your family, your kids and your wife. This is their thing. Thing, and they insisted Me, Counsel, Good Counsel, Legal Counsel, and They Said to Me, Charlie, You Can Take Him to Court and Beat Him Hands Down, You've Got Every Witness in Town, Everybody in Town Knows About That Thing, From Him and From You, So You Can Take Him to Court and Beat Him, Like That,
[00:30:22]
Then I Considered Taking Him to Court, But I Couldn't Take Him to Court, Why? Because in 1946, He Came in to Throw Me Through That Window, But He Didn't, He Didn't Throw Me Through That Window, and I Couldn't Take Him to Court, and I Couldn't Judge Him, I Couldn't Resent Him, I Couldn't Hate Him, Because If I Did, I'd Get Drunk, and If I Got Drunk, I'd Die, and Here I Am, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Suffering the Tortures of the Damned, Because I Couldn't See Through This Damn Thing, You Know, It Was Just a Reversal of Everything that We'd Built on, for Ten Years, Now, It Was Interesting, Because His Secretary Had Heard This Thing, Too, and I Would Talk to Her About It, and She Heard Things that She Wanted to Hear, but When She Didn't Want to Hear Anything, Even If She Heard It, She Didn't Hear It, Because She Had Hearing Problems, and She Would Tell Me, Charlie, I Didn't Get It, I Didn't Hear It Right, Well, Now, The Reason She Said That, Was Because This Guy's Dad, Had Set Up a Thirty Thousand Dollar, Thing for Her, and Victor Hadn't Paid It, and She Had Thirty Thousand Dollars Coming, and She Couldn't Take Sides, Judge the Guy, So She Had to Tell Me I Never Heard It, You Know, and I did the whole thing, you can see what a thing it was, because I had subconsciously come to believe this was my security, and it took me a whole year of the most excruciating pain, the only thing that was good about that pain period, except what came out of it, was that there wasn't one instant in the whole year that it ever occurred to me to take a drink, now that's, that's, uh, because I suffered the tortures of the damned, but, long towards the end of the year, I came to see that there's only one security, and this is the answer to your question, there's only one security, that's my own relationship with my own God, there are no values out there, the values are here, there's evidence of value out there, but no value, the minute we put a value on a million bucks, we've tied a noose around her neck, because we're liable to lose it, just as that 500 grand, you know, so there's evidence of value out there, but the value's right here, you remember the man said, don't lay up for yourself treasures on earth, where the rust corrupts, and thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, where rust does not corrupt, and thieves don't break through and steal, because where the treasure is, there will be the heart also, so I had to come to see that there's only one security, and that's my own relationship with my own God, and when that happened, I called Vic in one night, everybody was gone, again, but Vic and I, and I said, Victor, I want to go through this deal with you once more, and I don't want you to let me make one mistake, if I say anything that isn't exactly as it happened, stop me, and we'll iron that out or stop talking, and I went through the deal step by step, and when I got through, I said, Victor, you didn't stop me, and he said, no, Charlie, I didn't, and I said, is that exactly the way it happened, and he said, yes, it is, and I said, Victor, you take it, you need it, I don't need it, God bless you, go about your business, and he slipped off my back, and the 500 grand slipped off my back, and everything slipped off my back, and I became a free man, and instead of retiring in 57, I bought the business, and I worked another 15 years, and I commuted,
[00:35:09]
from Laguna Beach to 49th and Alameda, every day, 15 years, and that's, people say, how can you do that, how can you do that, it became the best time of my day, because it was the only time of the day when I was alone, but not by myself, when I was alone with God, and that's when I did my yakking with my papa, so that was good, and after the 15 years, I had it more, you see, now what am I talking about, I'm talking about the only security there is, when you and I think that we are secure because we have a job, or that we have some dough in the bank, or this or that, or the other thing, don't you believe it, that became one of the greatest living lessons I have ever learned, because there's never been a day since then, or an hour since then, that I haven't known where my security is, it's my own relationship with my own God, and so yes, one day at a time, one second at a time, the isness of the now is the only thing, it is not that we do not make appointments for next year, if you'd see my calendar, you'd know what I'm talking about, it's not that we don't know what we're going to do tomorrow, when we're in the business world, but it's that we do today's job today, and tomorrow's job tomorrow, and we don't get it mixed up, again and again and again, I can stand up here and tell you gentlemen, God is sufficient and to all of my needs, and he is, I'm telling the truth, but if I don't do something about it, I'll starve to death, it's a true statement, but there's something for me to do, the gift of God was made at the foundation of the earth, but not on my terms on his,