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Source: 1960 Long Beach International Convention – 1960 Long Beach Int. Chuck C.mp3 File: 1960-long-beach-international-convention-1960-long-beach-int-chuck-c.mp3 Duration: 00:53:36
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Eddie Mac, and I'm an alcoholic. A local California drunk. I don't know where the chairman is. I'm going to ask, is Dick M. from Denver here? Dick M. Dick H. All right, H. That's close. Well, it's an alcoholic meeting, so something must have been wrong, so I'll introduce our speakers. I happen to know both of them. You know, we got a meeting in Southgate every Friday night at midnight, so I know how to do this. It says a lady lost her purse at the stadium. I don't know. I better read this first. Please leave at lost and found desk. Also lost book, AA Today. Joe somebody, Taurus. Here's the lost book, see? We're doing all right. It works. Having had the pleasure of going to the convention in St. Louis, I know how they start all these meetings, so we will have a moment of silent meditation. Well, you know, I'm going to take advantage of this situation. Now that I'm up here, and I'm not supposed to be up here, and all these local drunks are, what the hell's Eddie McDougal doing up there? How come he got on this thing, and I'm not? I'm not on it. I just, the guy didn't show up, so I'm here. Would you all repeat after me, and please remain seated. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Well, we're in California. I'm a Californian. I found my sobriety in California.
I'm going to do this California fashion. We out here read the 12 steps before each meeting, and if you'll bear with me, I'll read them for you. Chapter 5, it says how it works. It says, Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot, or will not, completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunate people. They're not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They're naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living that demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Now, our story is disclosed in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, what we're like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you're ready to take certain steps. At some of these, we bought. We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us tried to hold on to our old ideas, but the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, and powerful. Without help is too much for us. There is one who has all help, and that one is God. May you find him now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked for his protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery. Number one, we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable. Number two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Number three, made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understood him. Number four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Number five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Number six, we're entirely ready to have God remove all of these defects of character. Number seven, humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. Number eight, made a list of
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all the people we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Number nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Number ten, continued to take personal inventory, and when we're wrong, promptly admitted it. Number eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for the knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Number twelve, having had a spiritual awakening, as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics and to practice these principles in all of our affairs. Many of us exclaim, what an order, I can't go through with it. Don't be discouraged. There isn't one among us who has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we're willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, in our chapter to the agnostic, in our adventures before and after, make clear three permanent ideas. A, that we were alcoholic and couldn't manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could relieve our alcoholism. And C, that God could and would if he were sought. Thank you.
Again, I'd like to ask if Dick H. is in the hall from Denver. He's supposed to be leading this meeting. I'm not. Well, you know all this jazz about photographers and last names and first names. You heard it before. It goes again tonight. I hope I can introduce my friends without using their last name. I don't know how I'll do it. I'll try. I think it would only be proper. You know, you've got two wonderful, wonderful people behind me here. It would be proper, I suppose. I don't know which one you'd introduce first. So I'm going to take the easy way out and go by seniority. So now I'll give you someone from our own area, someone who I have had the pleasure of knowing for a long, long time, ever since I've been with this program. Some of the time I've been in it, I've been with it a lot. A fellow who I dearly love, and as any Californian knows, what else can you say but Chuck, see?
Thank you, Eddie, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am Chuck C., and I'm an alcoholic. And Eddie got it wrong because he did not introduce the one with the greatest seniority. He introduced the baby. I have only a little over 5,000 days without a drink of liquor or a sedating pill of any kind, and I think our next speaker has 20 years or better. I think better than that. But I'm glad to be here, and I'm rather glad to be first because I'm getting pretty tired, and I want to sleep during my talk. First, I want to thank you all for coming. I don't believe that you know what time it is. I don't believe that you know what time it is. I am here because a drunk had time, and that drunk would not have had time had it not been for those who went before us. This is our 25th anniversary, and I think that all of us have had a chance today to look back over the early beginnings of this fellowship and to understand perhaps a little bit more about the problems they
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had in the beginning. I think that in these last five or six years, when I've been running around the country a great deal, that I have met some of the finest personalities that I've ever known, both male and female, and nearly always I look at them, and I think I wonder if he could have done it, or I wonder if she could have done it, had the program not come to us as it did. And I've looked at me very closely, and I've said I wonder if I could have done it. And in all cases, and much more so with myself, I've had to say no. If they hadn't found this thing before I had to have it, I would have been dead, and all those that come after me would have been dead. So I think that we cannot help but decide that our debt of love and gratitude can never be expressed to Bill and to Dr.
Bob and to those who went before us. And I think that on an anniversary, the great thing that comes to all of us is that feeling of rededication, rededication to the spirit and to the principles that have allowed us to be returned from the land of the living dead. I never got here by choice. I would never have gotten here by choice. I am one who had to run completely out of time, completely out of people, completely out of everything, including sanity and health. And when there was nothing else for me to do, I came to AA.
Now it was real difficult for me to come because I didn't like people. The human race didn't interest me very much. They were either too mean or too stupid to make me come. And I didn't merit my attention. And of all peoples, I hated the drunk the most. And it was not easy for me to come to Alcoholics Anonymous. To show you how hard it was, on my next to the last drunk, I drove 6,000 miles in a blackout. I drove from here to Louisville, Kentucky and up through Indiana to North Michigan and back to the coast. And I remember only about 5% of it. I remember a few things that happened. I was detained for a little while in Southern Illinois. I didn't know I was in Southern Illinois until they told me. And they kept me long enough that I sobered up a little less, enough to know where I was.
I remember visiting my mother and dad, and they were rather old at the time. And I remember them trying to talk with me, crying as if their hearts were completely broken. And I was too drunk and too stupid even to talk with them. And I remember finally getting back out here and going to bed with my bottle to finish my drunk, as I always did in the last seven or eight years of my drinking. And when I had had it and couldn't even roll out of bed to see if I had another bottle, I had to quit. And about maybe 48 hours after my last drink, I was able to get up and go to the kitchen to get a glass of buttermilk.
Mrs. C and our youngest son were sitting in the living room, and they heard me let out a belter. And when they told us that the horses were sick, we were in bed with our hands 한번
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they got the oxygen squad from the Beverly Hills Receiving Hospital, and they came down and worked over me for a while, and finally they brought me around, and I remember that they told me very likely no one would ever be able to bring me around again, to all intents and purposes, I was dead, and they told me if they were me, they wouldn't do that anymore, they were a guinea, and it might have been 48 hours after that, that I was able to get the old dirty bathrobe on and start walking, pacing up and down the living room floor, sweating, freezing, shaking and dying, and Mrs. C. was standing over by the fireplace, and I remember as if it were yesterday, and she said to me as I was walking away from her, Chuck, don't you think you might get a little help if you'd read the book Alcoholics Anonymous, and she might as well have hit me with the poker, and I turned around and I says, you, my very own wife, suggesting that I read a book written by a bunch of drunks, I have read all the good books, by the good authors, why, she says, you wound me deeply, how insane can you get, I've just been dead 48 hours before, and I topped it off by saying, and besides, I can write a better book than that myself, so you see, it wasn't easy for me to come to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I had to run out of time completely, and I am convinced that there are only two classes of alcoholics who can fulfill the conditions for sobriety, the first class are those who, like myself, have drunk the last dregs out of the bottom of the cup, and the others are those who come to see the nature of our problem.
Now, anyone that comes to see that he's fighting a losing battle, that no one has ever won this battle, that the only thing ahead of us, if we be alcoholic, is an alcoholic death, which to me 15 years ago was preferable, permanent insanity, where they have to put us in some laughing academy someplace for the rest of our lives, or a way to live without alcohol. Now, these are the only three things that can happen to an alcoholic, and if we can come to see this, then we can get off the merry-go-round anyplace from the first compulsive drink down to the snake pit, but we must come to see the nature of our problem.
Lest we will not fulfill the conditions. Why can't I successfully drink liquor? I can do nearly anything else that I want to. Why can't I successfully drink liquor? They tell us that there are 70 million people in the United States alone who can drink liquor without too much trouble. Why can't I drink like they do? Because I am an alcoholic. What is an alcoholic? An alcoholic is a person who suffers with the disease of alcoholism, the disease of alcoholism.
Why didn't somebody tell me this? I never heard alcoholism spoken of as a disease until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I remain to find that it's medically termed the third worst killer in the United States today, topped only by heart and cancer. That is second only to one of our social diseases as a cause for insanity, and medically speaking, it's incurable, and that's what I got. I am an alcoholic. It's pretty rough.
Probably the best definition we'll ever hear of the disease of alcoholism was given to us by a doctor whom you've heard Bill speak of several times today, the late Dr. Silkworth of Town Hospital in New York.
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He labeled this 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. An allergy of the body coupled with an obsession of the mind. Now the allergy of the body means simply this, that my body cannot successfully handle alcohol. I can't oxidize it, burn it up, and get rid of it. When I take one drink, I retain it. It goes into the bloodstream, into the brain, and it triggers some physical something that demands that I keep on drinking until my cycle is run.
Now this is not true with over 90% of those who drink liquor. It's only true of the alcoholic. This is the most interesting thing to me because there is not a doctor in the world that can tell me why my body cannot successfully handle alcohol. They don't know. About half the experts think that people like me were born with the inability, physical inability, to react normally to alcohol. That we're doomed to become alcoholics from birth if we drink liquor.
And there's lots of evidence along this line. Many amongst us go off the deep end from the first drink. And the other half of the experts say it's the damaging effect of the alcohol on the system that eventually causes us to lose our ability to react normally to it. And there's evidence along this line too because I drank 15 years before I lost control completely. But the thing that all the experts agree upon and the thing that I must forever remember is that once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, there isn't a case in medical history where anyone amongst us has ever been able to return to normal drinking, successful drinking.
Now this I must always remember. There's another thing that I must always remember. And that is that the physical part of the disease gets worse with the passage of time even when we ain't doing it. This fools a lot of us. You know when you get your wrinkles out of your belly and got a little money in your pocket and gets feeling pretty good. You can forget this pretty quickly. And this is one of the greatest recommendations on earth for staying active in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Because we can't forget that the allergy gets worse with the passage of time. When we're sitting once in a while in the dark room with a man or a woman who's been sober anyplace from 5 to 15 years who forgot. And we sit there holding their hand, smelling that second-hand feraldehyde and that 30-day-old booze oozing out of the pores. And we hear them say, why, why, why, why, why? This is a heartbreak.
But it makes it unnecessary for us to challenge the statement. The disease gets worse with the passage of time. Lastly, there is no known remedy for our bodies. If we had millions of dollars, there's no place on earth that we could go and buy a cure. So what are we going to do about it? We're going to come to fully concede to our innermost selves that that's the way it is with us. Now it would be a very simple thing if seeing this, we could decide to put the cork in the bottle and leave it.
If seeing that we were fighting a losing battle and seeing the nature of the disease, we could say, all right, I cork up the bottle, I drink no more. Then we wouldn't have a problem. But this is impossible. Why? Because of the other half of the disease, the obsessions of the mind. The reason willpower is of no avail is because the obsessions of the mind are greater than the willpower. You see, the first drink is not physically caused.
When the body is dry, without alcohol, there is no physical demand for alcohol. If there were, I'd be in the middle of a hell of a shape right now because I haven't had a drink for over 14 years.
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So the first drink is not physical. The first drink is mental. And if we, being alcoholics, want to be rid of the bottle, we must be rid of the obsessions of the mind that cause us to drink. And this takes some doing. This is the reason we love this book as we do, our Alcoholics Anonymous book. Because the book tells us about us. It tells us about our problem, and it tells us about the answer. But it also tells us why we couldn't handle this thing ourselves.
All the way through, the book says we lack the power. It says we're like people who've lost their legs. We never grow new ones. It says that a good… …a good… …we never grow new ones. It says that a good… …philosophy is good, but not good enough. Self-knowledge is good, but not good enough. Knowledge of the program is good, but not good enough. It says that all of us stopped during our practicing alcoholic days, looked at ourselves, saw what a lousy job we were doing with the business of living, decided to do better, says the book, but we lacked the power.
Lack of power was our dilemma, and it was obvious if we lacked the power we had to find one. And it was just as obvious that it'd be a power greater than ourselves. Now this I believe as I believe that I'm here. And for just a simple reason. If I could have remained sober, I would not believe that. But I could not remain sober, therefore I believe it. I lacked the power. Where was this power when I was waking up in jail?
Some monkey told me tonight he got two drinks in jail. I never got two drinks in all the jails I was ever in. And I needed them, I can tell you. Where was the power when I was writing in the floor chewing my tongue full of holes and babbling like an idiot? In an alcoholic fit. Or maybe on our 25th we should say an alcoholic demotion. It's nicer. Where was the power when in one of my sober periods, because I was a periodic for the last 10 years.
You see I was determined to beat this thing and you can't fight a very good battle when you're down on your back. So I had to get well in order to get back in the ring again. So many times I was as physically sober as I am now. Where was the power when I was feeling very good, backing the good graces of my family? Money in my pocket. Doing well on the job again. And I'd be going home one night after work.
And the thought would pop into my mind, why don't you drop into Joe's and get a double? You're going home to eat. Anybody knows that a drink won't hurt you if you're going to eat. Anybody knows that a drink won't hurt you if you're going to eat. Where was the power? I dropped into Joe's, never did get home. I lacked the power. And so I believe the book when it says that under certain conditions, certain circumstances, it seems that there's only one defense against that first slug.
The drink I must not take. And that's help from a power greater than myself. And I think the finest formula under heaven for bringing that power into being in our lives is the 12 steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous program. And I do not believe that any individual can fulfill the conditions of these steps and fail to receive the power. I don't think it's possible. I don't think there's any special dispensation or special grants or special favors.
We fulfill the conditions and the power is added. My book says here are the steps we took. That's the last thing before the 12 steps. And the beginning of the 12 steps says, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. As The Result of These Steps, Now This Would Indicate That Some Place Between One and Twelve, Something Happens, If We Take These Steps, And I Believe That's Where It Is, If You Want To Get Sober, And Remain Sober, Do These Things, This Is A Program Of Action, Here Are The Steps We Took,
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And It's As Simple As That, That's All There Is To It, Ha Ha, That's The Trouble With It, Ha Ha, We Say To Ourselves It Can't Be That Simple, If These Black Lines Mean So Much, These White Lines Must Mean Something Too, And We Started Reading Between The Lines, Ha Ha, Why Do You Say If It's That Simple, How Come We Have So Much Trouble? Well, There Are Just A Few Things That Cause Most Of Our Trouble In Alcoholics Anonymous, The First One I Think Is That We Keep Thinking That Alcoholism Is Just A Matter Of Separating Ourselves From The Bottle, We Look At Alcoholism As Being A Way To Rid Ourselves Of The Bottle Only, We Admit That We're Powerless Over Alcohol, That Our Lives Have Become Unmanageable When We're Drunk, But We Persist In The Illusion That We're Pretty Cute Operators When We're Sober, Ha Ha Now The Insanity That Our Book Talks About Is Not The Insane Things We Did When We Were Drunk, It's The Insanity That Will Let Us Look At A 25 Year Record And Come Up With A Profound Conclusion, This Time It's Gonna Be Different, Ha Ha Ha, Ha Ha, Yeah And So We Do Not Completely Abandon Ourselves To This Simple Problem, I Think The Second Thing Is That We Get Lost In The Wrong Half Of The Miracle We Hear Some Monkey Say I Think We've Gotta Have Help From A Power Greater Than Ourselves, We Read The Third Step And It Says We Made A Decision To Turn Our Will And Our Lives Over To The Care Of God As We Understood Him And We Say Uh Oh, Don't Understand Him, Got To Have Another Book, Ha Ha, And So We Get Another Book And We Read And We Nip And We Nip And We Read And Then We Nip And We Don't Read And We're Trying To Bring About The Miracle, Well Now If We Would Have Been Miracle Men We Wouldn't Have Come Here, What Do You Mean We Would Have Settled This Thing Before We Got Here We Would Have Told A Monkey Uh Uh Get Off And He Would Have Got But I Told A Monkey I Says Uh Uh Get Off, You Know What He Did He Sat Right There And Had A Little Pops, Ha Ha, Ha Ha We Are Not Miracle Men, We Do These Things And Let The Miracle Happen, Probably The Most Discouraging Thing That I Ever Hear From A New Person Is This Remark I See That I Have To Find God In Order To Get Sober, I Looked For God For 35 Years And I Couldn't Find Him And I Never Found Him At All Until I Quit Looking And Started Doing These Things And Then He Found Me And I Didn't Even Know When It Happened Let's Not Get Lost In The Wrong Half Of The Miracle, Let's Get Simple Enough To Turn The Page Quit Looking At The Problem And Start Looking At And Trying To Live In This Answer And The Miracle Will Take Care Of Itself And Lastly The Cloud Is Added And We Keep Waiting For The Cloud To Be Added Ha Ha Ha I Run Into This Too Much Guy Came Up To Me One Night He Says To Me Chuck He Says When In The Hell Am I Going To Have The Spiritual Awakening
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He Says People Keep Saying Keep Coming Back Keep Coming Back Keep Coming Back And It Will Happen But He Says Don't And I Say How Long You Been Coming Back And He Says Eight Years Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha And He Was A Good Looking Guy Well Dressed And Didn't Look Like He Was Having Much Trouble With Alcohol And I Said To Him Well Have You Had Any Trouble And He Says No I Haven't Had A Drink Since The First Night And He Looked Real Well Dressed And Affluent And I Says To Him Well What Else Has Happened To You And He Started To Listen To Him And Everything Had Happened To Him Except He Didn't Win The Wisconsin Primary And By This Time I Was Laughing Like A Fool And He Got Mad At Me Because He Was Very Serious About This Thing And I Says Bad Wake Up You Had It For Eight Years And Don't Know It I Says Could You Get Sober Before You Came Here And He Says No If I Could I Wouldn't Have Come And I Says You Came Here And Something Happened And You Haven't Had A Drink Anymore And He Says Yes I Says Did These Good Things Happen To You Before You Came And He Says No But You Came Here And Something Happened And Now These Good Things Happen In Your Life And He Says Yes I Says Maybe All You Need To Do Is Start Thanking God With Every Breath You Draw And You'll Have The Whole Package You'll Have It And I Just Like To Ask You One Thing And I Like For You To Let Your Imagination Run Completely Riot Riot I Am An Alcoholic I Cannot Of Myself Keep From Drinking I Cannot Live And Drink Now What In Your Imagination Could You Dream Up That Any Power Could Give Me That Would Be One One Millionth As Desirable As A Way To Live Without Drinking To Me This Is The Greatest Gift That God Could Possibly Give Me I Am An Alcoholic I Cannot Of Myself Keep From Drinking And I Cannot Drink And Live So This Is The First Fruit Of The Program The Ability To Live Without Drinking And Secondly A Few Little Things That Go With This What About The Ability To Eat Without Ha Ha Ha Ha Now Maybe You Think That Is Physical That Is Not Spiritual You Get Hungry And You Eat But Not So With Some Of Us You Know That I Spent Two Weeks Trying To Get To A Chili Joint At The Exact Second When I Could Swallow Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha And It Has To Be A Dead Heat Too If You Get There Half A Block Too Soon No Good And If You Overshoot A Half A Block Come Back Tomorrow You Can't Make It Ha Ha Many Of You Have Heard Me Say This But I Ran Into An Old Boy Out In San Fernando One Night He Got Up And He Says You Know I Came To Alcoholics Anonymous In A Fourteen Dollar Suit With Thirty Five Dollars Worth Of Chili Down The Front Of It And I Almost Jumped Up And Kissed Him Ha Ha The Ability To Taste, Smell, Eat And Enjoy Food Why This Is Terrific This Is Good Living I Think Even After Eating For Fourteen And A Half Years That I Never Sit Down To A Meal Without Maybe Having About The Same Reaction That The Devout Get Out Of The Blessed Sacrament This Is Truly A Great Thing In My Life
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And Next What About Sleeping Now Maybe You Never Lost A Nights Sleep Maybe You Think That Is Physical Maybe You Think That Is Physical But Not So With Me I'm Laying In That Bed Night After Night Day After Day Day After Day Night After Night No Sleep And After A While You Come All Unglued You Come All Apart And You Sit Tired You Can't Oh It's Awful You've Got To Rest And You Yell Out God Please Let Me Sleep For Twenty Minutes And There Is No Rest Because The Time Comes When You Can Drink That Flick By The Tumbler And You Can't Get Drunk And You Can't Get Sober And You Can't Live And You Can't Die Now I Can Flop Down On This Hardwood Floor And Go To Sleep And I'm About To Do It Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha This Is The Greatest Now Let's Add Two More Things To That What About People?
When I Came To Alcoholics Anonymous I Was Fresh Out Of People I Didn't Have Anybody Left But Me And If I Had Gotten Rid Of Me It Would Have Been Wonderful And Now I Got People I Got People And People Are The Difference Between A Full And An Empty Life A Family, The Same Family That I Had And I've Added To It A Family That Are Dearer To Me Than I Am And That's You People All Over Who Love Me And People Whom I Love And This Is Pretty Good This Makes For A Pretty Good Life And Add One More Thing And That Is A God Of My Own Ah What A Package This Is And It's All Contained In Fulfilling The Conditions Of The Twelve Steps And It's So Simple And It's So Beautiful And It's So Good And It's So Easy When We Want It More Than Life Itself And It's All There And All We Have To Do Is To Do These Things Fulfill These Conditions And I Would Like To Talk About All The Conditions But Our Time Is Limited Tonight And There Are Only Three Things That I Want To Talk A Minute About Number One Is Surrender Two The Recognition Of The Need For Help And Three Enough Self Honesty To See Ourselves As We Are And Enough Honesty To Do Something About It These Three Things And Yet If I Talked About All Twelve Of The Conditions And All Twelve Of The Steps There Would Be Only One Thing Amongst Them That's Difficult And That's The Very First One And That Is Surrender And This Is The Reason That We Must Either Run Out Of Rope Or Come To See The Nature Of Our Problem Or We Will Not Do It An Alcoholic Was Not Made To Surrender We Were Made To Win We Can't Surrender We Have Always Figured That Surrender Was For The Weak The Strong Man Wins His Battle The Weak Man Surrenders So We Kept Fighting The Battle For Ten Years After We Lost It Now I Would Rather Be Able To Tell One Audience What It Means To Surrender Than To Be President Of The World But It Cannot Be Done It's Impossible For Us To Tell Another What Happens When We Surrender We Gotta Do It And See The Only Thing I Can Tell You The Only Thing I Can Tell You Is That From The Moment Of Surrender Until Right Now I Have Never Had To Take A Drink Of Liquor Nor Have I Had To Take A Sedating Pill Of Any Kind I Have Come To Believe That There Is No Freedom Without It To Be Rid Of The Necessity For Ego Satisfaction Is The Only Freedom There Is And I Have Come To Believe That It Is The Very And I have come to believe that it's the very opening of the door through which the power comes.
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Don't be afraid of this surrender. I believe it to be the greatest single experience from the cradle to the grave. Truly, this is a battle we win in surrender. Secondly, the recognition of the need for help, and that's all we need in the first place. And we don't even need to put with it from a power greater than ourselves if we have anything against it. Just to see that we have lost the battle, that we need help from any place, is sufficient in the beginning.
The rest will come. And lastly, enough self-honesty to see ourselves as we are. And that merely means that the last excuse must go by the boards. If we be alcoholic and if we have one excuse left that's acceptable to us, we got another drunk left. Who in the world is going to surrender if he can still pin this on his mother-in-law? Ha ha! We must come to see that it is I who can't get along without that flit.
I'm the monkey. If there be fault, it is mine. And enough self-honesty to do something about it. Namely, to practice these principles in all of our affairs one day at a time. These are the conditions for sobriety. Again, if you want it, do these things. Now in closing, I'd like to spend just a minute or two with you. Thinking about what I think about and have been thinking about for the last three and a half years.
It was our happy privilege three and a half years ago to move to the little town of Laguna Beach. We're sitting up above the town about 500 feet on a hill down there. And we got a great big window. And the window looks down over the town of Laguna and the ocean and that beautiful coastline. And when it's clear, the ocean and Catalina Island. And I can sit there in that big chair of mine and I can see just about everything that God ever created.
Because out of one window is the mountains, down here is the flat, there is the ocean, over there the islands, and up here the heavens. And so I look out on almost all of creation. And I also look out and see God. And I like to sit there with the lights out and look at the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous. I used to be an avid reader. I read everything that I could get my hands on. I had to have an answer and I couldn't find it.
But now I can't read. I just sit there and look at this thing and think about it. And pretty soon, the only thing I see is faces. Faces. And they're your faces. Faces of those who have shared with me. And faces of those with whom I have shared. And pretty soon I can't even see the faces. Because I can't see. I knew the members of Alcoholics Anonymous. People whom I disliked more than any other segment of creation have become the dearest, the most beloved in my life.
And I sit there and I think of the little story. I think I learned it when I was a kid. Seems like it was about the Judgment Day. And seems like there were a lot of people trying to get into heaven, I reckon. And the judge was telling them once in a while that he'd never heard of them. And finally some nondescript little guy came up. And the guy says to him going in,
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he says, I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was sick and you visited me. And the little guy says, oh, you must have me mixed up with somebody else. He says, I never saw you before. And he says, inasmuch as you've done it to the least of these, you've done it also unto me. Go on in. And I think to myself, this is AA. That we share our experience, strength, and hope one with another in love.
Now somebody says that God is love. And maybe this is the way we come to know love and to know God. And then I think of one more little story. Seems to me that it was the last days that the carpenter was with us on this earth. And he called his very good friend Peter into him. And he asked him a question. He says, Peter, do you love me? Peter says, yea, Lord. He says, tend my sheep. And then he asked him again, Peter, do you love me?
He says, yea, Lord. He says, tend my sheep. And the third time he asked him. And the third time the admonition. Tend my sheep. And I think this is AA. And I think maybe it's in tending the sheep that we come to know the shepherd. And so it is that looking at my own life and looking at the life of my good wife and our children, seeing the pitiable condition that we were all in 15 years ago, and then looking at the life that we have now, truly it is a miracle.
And it's almost beyond my comprehension. And I think to myself, what then can I do? How can I serve this God who has come to be my constant companion and try as I might, the only way I can imagine that I might serve him, thus showing my gratitude, is to serve his kids. And this is my life. This is my love. This is my dedication. As I said in the beginning, I'm here because a drunk had time. And I'm almost sure that as long as I have time, I'll be here.
God bless you all.