Chuck C. from Laguna Beach, CA speaking in St. Simons Island, GA

My name is Chuck See, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi. Because of people like you, the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and a god of my very own whom I found after I found you. It hasn't been necessary for me to take a drink or sedating or tranquilizing pill of any kind for something over 35 years. Early on in my sobriety, 1 evening at a meeting, a came up to me and he says, Chuck, he said, do you know why it's so difficult for us to find God?

And I said, no. Why is it so difficult for us to find God? And he said, because he ain't lost. And there's one little boy amongst us that wasn't joining in very much, and pretty soon he said he said, you know, I am a little out of place here. He says, I'm ignorant.

I never read no books. He says, there's no sense in me reading books because I don't understand He says I don't know nothing about the Bible. I don't know nothing about God. But this no man can take away from me. When I do these simple things that this program suggests one day at a time, I find that I feel good inside and good things happen in my life.

And I said, sir, don't ever read no books, no time because that's what it's all about. That we might feel good inside and have good things happen in their lives and that's what this program has done for me. I'll tell you a little bit about me and then a little bit about my last time out and what's happened since. I drank to the best of the best of my ability. So for about, I started to say to the rest of my knowledge and belief, not my ability.

I didn't have any ability in drinking from the start, but I didn't know it. But I drank for probably, I was gonna say roughly, and it was roughly, about 28 years, the best of my knowledge and belief, and I can look over 28 years of drinking, and I can't find one place in my entire drinking career where I could honestly say that liquor added anything to my well-being. I don't have any nostalgic memories of good drinking times. Now many of you do, but I don't. I just don't I don't find one place in my entire drinking career why I should say liquor actually added to my life.

Gamir was always a robber, always a robber, and yet for reasons that I think I know, I, kept doing it. I kept drink and I kept drinking, and I was out of good drinking time before I called Sudanese was born. See, I've had 35 years without a drink. Alcoholics Anonymous is 45 years old. And before it was born at all, I had run out of good drinking time.

And I had become a periodic for the simple expedient of getting well enough to get up back in the ring for the next round. Because I had to beat this rack. I had to beat it. And you can't find a very good battle when you're down on your back. You know?

So it became periodic. Just about the time this program was born. And, for the next 11 years, I was physically as dry as I am tonight between every 2 grunks. Physically dry them tonight between every 2 grunks. And I can look at my record with physically dry eyes and conclude after every drunk that I've learned my lesson.

The next time it's gonna be different. And of course it was. It was worse just like it's always been. You know? And it's not worse.

For instance, first, you start having a little trouble right around home, You know, getting a little trouble right right around where you live the most, and then your trouble spreads a little and you start having trouble wherever you are. Wherever you are, your trouble is. And, of course, you start having a little trouble with the gen arms. They start detaining you without your permission. And this is one of the things I can't understand because I never did in all my career.

I never got to place where I was comfortable in jail. You know, some I don't like it in jail. My family thought I loved it because I spent so much time there. I had a great deal of trouble with fleas. My bedroom had got 10,000,000,000 fleas in, And I lie there trying to get rid of those fleas and I try to, you know, get them off of me.

And they roll over my hands. I wear myself out Trying to get rid of those fleas and then I just have to lie there and breathe, please. Now that ain't good living, really. It's not. The trees finally became spiders as big as the top of this desk, and they're always right above my head when I was in bed there.

And I'd see him up there, and I'd only went there. And I'd look away, determined not to look back because I knew they weren't there. But I'd look back again. There they were. You know?

And pretty soon I look up there and I can't get by as often. There they are. And they start coming right down my face. These very big old spiders. And, that's nerve wracking.

Nerve wracking. The spot is finally between relevance. Now at this time, we will live in Beverly Hills. And I'm one of the few, if not the only guy, that live in Beverly Hills They're never charged by her development. It almost never happens in Beverly Hills.

But the down there ran me out of the the county. I had a good deal of trouble with, music with no visible means of support. I never I never forget the first time I heard the music. It was probably about 7 years before I got the program. I went to the kitchen after glass of buttermilk, which was my tonic in the withdrawal period, and the old tea kettle was sitting on the stove.

And out of the steam came the most beautiful symphony I ever heard. And I step back and I looked that situation over, and I said, this is the finest, most fabulous phenomenon of modern times. This old teacettle has suddenly become a receiving set. And then I did a very foolish thing. I went out and heard that the family and to listen to music.

They couldn't hear a damn thing, and I thought they were nuts. You know? But the time came when I if he doesn't bind at once, all I meant to have a different announcer and there's lots of good music, but there's no knobs. You couldn't turn it off. And it came out of peculiar places.

Came out of the lights. Came out of the shower. Getting out of the heater, getting out of the toilets. Lots of awful good music, but no knocks. Then later on, I was having company when I was the only one in the house.

They had company. I think that this was one of the toughest things in my family ever had to put up with. Here I am, you know, going through all the with my friends, and my friends went there. You know? I can imagine that's pretty gruesome for people that have loved you.

You know? And so all of those things going on before I ever got a chance to stop. It's a funny funny thing to me that being a periodic, I had to go through 11 years of that. Thinking all the time that, my drunks weren't my fault. I always had somebody to blame.

I never had one drunk that's my fault until my last one. Not one. It was my wife's fault. She didn't love me enough. She had an awful good reason for getting drunk.

But because she was, she wasn't she couldn't hold a candle to her mother. Her mother had only one kid, and I was married to her. And she was living with us, and she had a grandstand seat watching me crucify her only daughter. And she didn't like me very good. And I didn't like her that good.

We had a mutual hating society that was something beautiful to behold. So she she has very good reason for me to get drunk. She lived with us for 5 years after I got sober, and I did anything if I could tell you what this program did for her. It's early. So I can understand why anybody that drinks all the time, A daily drinker, why they would keep on drinking.

But it's the toughest thing in the world for me to try to, explain me to me because I was as dry as them tonight and tonight between every 2 lumps for 11 years. And I was still going through those antics. I had to win. I had to win. And, again, I had to get well enough to get back in the ring for the next round, which I did.

But the time finally came when I had my last go around, which I wanna talk a little about tonight. It started the Friday before Christmas 1945. I had gone down the office on the Friday before Christmas, and, it was sort of like any other Friday before Christmas except. And when I got down there, I found a note that I'll see the boss. Well, I didn't wanna see the boss because I knew what he was gonna do.

He was gonna can me because I knew I had it coming. But he said for me to come and see him and I went to see him. And he didn't shoot me when I walked in. He started talking, which was a good sign. And he said something like this.

He says, Charlie. I was Charlie in business. He says, you've had a lot of trouble this year. He never mentioned booze at all, but he knew that I knew what he was talking about when he said trouble. And he says, I think I know the reason for it.

I think it's because of the pressure you're under. And, says here, I'm gonna take a little pressure off of you. And maybe next year, you won't have so much pressure and you won't have so much trouble. And, again, instead of shooting me, he gave me $3,000 for Christmas present to take the pressure off of me. Now if you don't think you took the pressure off me, you're nuts.

There's one thing worse for an alcoholic than bad fortune, and that's good fortune. So I got drunk on the way home. Now looking back on that, I cannot believe that because periodic don't get drunk on the way home. Periodics never taper off. Periodic staper on.

We have a regular routine. We drink so we can't get it down, can't get it up, can't live, and can't die. And then we have to quit. And in my day, there wasn't any easy way to quit. There wasn't a hospital in Southern California that take a drug.

A doctor couldn't even admit an alcoholic to a hospital without calling it something else. So there wasn't any easy way for us to come off a drunk. We had to die till we could get well. And that's what I had to do all time. Had to die till you get well.

And so it's awfully difficult for me to believe that I could have gone that long, convincing myself every time that the next time is gonna be different. And that I wouldn't finally come to see that, it wasn't gonna get back, but I didn't. So I got drunk on the way home. Friday before Christmas 1945. And I came to sometime after the middle of January 1946.

Now if I could remember taking the first drink or any of the middle drinks or the last drink on that trip, I think I could come up with a reason to take the credit for the last 35 years. But I can't remember one thing about it. I can't remember even taking the first or the last. But I came to sometime after the middle of January with the clearest head I've ever known in my life. Now if my wife was telling this story, she would tell you that all through that period, which was 3 and a half or 4 weeks, I don't know what it was, I had destroyed 7 quarts of whiskey every 3 days.

Now that's what she says. I don't say that because I don't know. I wasn't there. You know? So So I can't argue with it.

Besides, I don't think 7 quarts is too much for 3 days. If you only do it for 3, 6, 9, 12 days, something like that. But if you do it 3 and a half or 4 weeks, it's either too much or just enough. And in my case, it was just enough Because I came to with the clearest head I've ever known in my entire lifetime before or since. Everything between me and me had burned out.

Every excuse was gone, and every I want was gone. And I saw me as it was. And I knew without knowing why that it lost the battle of life. And it was the first time in 43 years that I had ever admitted defeat. And I didn't know then why I had lost because I knew nothing about.

I knew about. I knew about convulsions. I knew about jails. I knew about many things that are not nice. But I knew nothing about alcoholism.

But I never lost the battle of life and I accepted that. I knew why my wife wife after 20 years was devotionally, and I might say quickly without cause. And I knew that she should have done it 10 years before. And I knew why our kids wouldn't come home when I was around. And I knew why the boss had sent with the house, that if I ever step foot and plan again, he's gonna show me through the window and a window to which he referred them open.

I also accepted death that morning because I'd come that close to it the next to the last time out, and this was worst. On my next to the last trip to the well, I'd gone to the living room on my way for a glass of buttermilk. Miss Sea and Richard were in the living room. Room. They heard me let out of Bella and heard me hit the floor, And they came running out to see if they could keep me from swallowing my tongue because they figured I was in an alcoholic convulsion, which was my wall.

But I wasn't convulsing. I was lying down in the kitchen floor as peaceful as anybody you ever saw. They tell me I was a peculiar color. I was, and they couldn't wake me up. And he got all exercised and called the oxygen squad Beverly Hills receiving hospital and told them to send down a squad and see if they could do anything for me.

And they did. And I have reason to believe they brought me too. I remember what happened after he came to. There's a young doctor with him, and he said to me, thusly. He says, to all intents and purposes, you were dead.

This is we've had a hell of a time bringing you to, and it's our opinion that nobody will ever bring you to again under these circumstances. And then he gave me the finest piece of counsel I'll ever hear. He looked me right in the eye, and he said, if I were you, I wouldn't do that anymore. Now we're past that off. Probably you wouldn't do that anymore, but I did it again.

And the last time was worse than any of the other times. And the thing that pleases me the most about the whole deal was, that my wife and my kids had been praying for me to die for at least 5 years. And they came out the kitchen and found me dead and called the oxygen. That just blows my board. But, anyhow, I remembered that morning that it had been my good fortune to read Jack Alexander's article in the post in 1941, which was 4 years before.

My wife had found it, had read it. She told you about that this morning last week or sometime. I can't remember. It's been a long day. And, she left it, opened the right page on the left arm of the chair I sit in right now, hoping that when I came in, if I came in, I'd read it.

And evidently, I did. But I hadn't remembered anything about it until that morning because I was drunk when I read it. And I remembered only 2 things about it, but drunk stopped drunks and didn't drink. That'd be called it alcoholics anonymous. And I said to myself, if I ever live to get out of this bed, I'll find AA.

A a. And immediately, the curtain dropped. My little period of sanity was gone, and I was sickened to death, drunk, and insane. And I had a lot of dying to do before I started getting better. But from the very second that I committed myself, if I ever lived to get out of this bed, I'll find out until right now.

I've never had a drink or sedating or tranquilizing pill of any kind. Such is the great significance of this thing called surrender. Surrender. Surrender is victory for the alcoholic. This is the most misunderstood experience of human life.

I would rather be able to explain surrender to 1 audience than to be president of the universe. But it cannot be done. It's impossible to explain to another individual what it means to surrender. But surrender is victory for us. This is a battle we win by giving up the fight.

And so far as I'm able to perceive, the greatest line in our book, is we cease to fight anything or anybody. Fantastic thing. And that's what happened to me. I died to self in January 1946. Now I take total credit for the first 43 years of my life.

I had 43 years in which I was the master of ceremonies and the star of the show. I ran my life for 42 years. And I failed at the ripe old age of 43 in every department of life. I failed as a husband, a father, a businessman, a man, and a drunk. And for that, I take credit.

I take absolutely no credit for anything that's happened since. Because that morning, I had only one piece of unfinished business to take care of before it died, And there was gonna die because nobody could live under the conditions that I went under that time. And the only thing I had to do that was important to me before death was to rub out as much of the record as it could before that. That's the only thing I hoped for. And in order to go back to record, I had to be able to live right now without drinking.

And I started hunting for alcoholics anonymous. Now my keen alcoholic mind told me it would not be in the telephone book. You are anonymous, aren't you? They don't anonymous in the telephone book. So knowing you weren't in the phone book, I never looked.

But it's the story of my life. I knew so damn much it wasn't true. I couldn't learn anything that was. So I had to call people and ask them if they knew anybody that knew anybody, and I'll call it synonymous. And I got a hold of a guy's name and telephone number from a doctor in Beverly Hills, who was a member of the society.

The emotion picture man, and, I called him up. There are few of you in the audience that are old enough to remember him. He was the original Boston blackie in the movies. So I called him up and we talked a little while. And he, confirmed the fact that he was a member of our society and that he would like to take me to meeting, but he couldn't do it that night because he had to work.

So he says, I'll call me tomorrow. And maybe tomorrow night, I won't have to work, and I'll take you to meet. So I called him tomorrow. We talked a little while, and he said you had a drink today. And I said, no.

But he said, don't take one. I'm still working. Call me again tomorrow. And the 3rd day I called him, and we talked a little bit. And this time I said, I know you're still working.

You don't have to take me to meet, and where's the meeting I can go to? And he told me. And so it was only 10 minutes from my house, and I decided to go. And I was pretty, pleased with the whole situation. I know about 10 minutes before I was supposed to leave for the meeting.

And then I did the unforgivable thing. I started to think. That's our downfall. That's the reason we're all here. We're thinkers.

I have only one piece of business yet to do before I kick off. I'm gonna take the whole United States and Canada, going to every group and every club in the whole territorial expanse of United States and Canada, and I'm gonna pick up every one of those signs that says, think, think, think. I'm gonna have any bonfire. Thinking is our trouble. It isn't alcohol.

So I started thinking. And my mind again, my keen alcoholic mind said to me, look, son. You've lived in Beverly Hills a long time, and it just might not be good for your reputation to be seen with a bunch of drunks. Now you never will know how funny that is because I've spent just about as much time in the Beverly Hills jail as a jailer in the last 10 years. And I was concerned about being seen with a bunch of people that are trying to do something about your drinking.

But I talked myself out of it by agreeing with me that I would disguise myself a little so I wouldn't be readily recognized. And I'd go to meet him, so I did. And I went to meet him. There was a big hall, beginning this. And there's a back door, and the back door was open.

And I stood there in the back door and looked at about 35 people in the middle of that room. Everyone of them talking and nobody listening. And it's been that way ever since. So, again, my keen, I'd like mine told me they've given you the wrong information. This is a long night.

These are the veterans and their wives, and they're here for party because this is the veterans of Foreign Wars Hall. And I said to me, now you're gonna have to leave and come back tonight to dumpster here Because you didn't look like me and you weren't dressed like me. And you most certainly weren't talking like me because it was all happy talk. I couldn't hear a word, really, to make out a word, but it was happy talk. So I knew you weren't drunks.

They gave me the wrong information, the wrong night. And I was gonna have to leave and come back tonight to run through there. And I turned to go. Now my opinion, the next minute of this thing is alcoholics anonymous. It's the very essence of alcoholics anonymous.

It's the reason that our program works. Somebody in the middle of that room had been watching me. And when I turned the leaf, they came running over the door, and he called after me. He says, mister, were you looking for somebody? And I said, no, sir.

But he says, what were you looking for then? And thinking he was a veteran, I said to him, well, if it would interest you, sir, I was looking for sobriety. And everything about that man changed just like that. It was just like he'd hit a light switch. He lit up all over.

And I was hooked before he ever opened his mouth again. Here was a stranger, a man that I've never seen before in my life, who was so glad I was there. He lit up like a Christmas tree. And my own flesh and blood wouldn't even spit on me. Now somebody in this audience know what I just said.

And again, I was hooked before he ever opened his mouth again. And when he did, this is what he said. He said, why take off your hat and coat. You're in the right place. And he took me in and brought me to sleep.

Now he didn't know it, but my hat and coat was my biggest prize. So he stripped me before he ever took me in. Didn't even know it. And this is what he told me, the first beat. Now mind you, this is over 35 years ago, and it's more indelibly embedded in my heart and my mind than last night's beat.

The first thing you told me was if you're an alcoholic, one drink is too many and a 1,000 are enough. The very first thing he told me. It's the first drink that's killing you. Now that had never occurred to me. I've never heard it and I never thought of it.

I thought it was the last gallon. I've been trying for time to knock it off before the trouble started. And here the very first thing you told me. Is this the first drink? It's the first drink that you must not take.

And I played with it a while and bought it, and I've still got it. The next thing you told me is today is the day we don't drink. I did. This is the most wonderful thing in the world. Today is the day we don't drink, you said to me.

If you would have told me that I had to be sober 35 years, I'd drop dead. If you'd have told me 35 days, I'd drop dead. But you didn't. You said today is the day we don't dream. And then you went ahead to say to me, if a day is too long, how about an hour?

Can you live an hour without drinking? Make that the length of your life. Live an hour and don't drink and then do it again. But said you, the very first night, regardless of how long you live in alcohol, it's anonymous. Never expand that time more than 24 hours.

That's as long as you'll ever live in alcoholics anonymous. And I played with that a while in Bart, and I still got it. It's the second greatest lesson I've ever learned in my entire lifetime. This is my day. I have no past.

I want no future. It's fantastic. Do things 2 comments about this. For the first several months or 2 or 3 months anyway, that I was in our college anonymous, going to meet every night. I thought that we have our values anonymous had come up with the 24 hour way of life.

As I would coined it, you know. But after the lesson, you people say the Lord's prayer. For a few months, I I got another idea. I thought, well, wait a minute now. Somebody a long time ago knew about this 24 hour way of life.

Because there's a line in that prayer that says, give us this day our daily bread, and it don't say a thing about 2 crust to wake up on tomorrow morning. So I had to believe that somebody else had found out a while back. That is the second greatest lust I ever learned. You see the past is nothing but guilt. Nothing but guilt.

And the future is nothing but fear. If I had to depend on what I read in newspapers, what I hear on the TV, and what I see going on in the world today for my security. It's anonymous. That, is very encouraging. But, of course, when you don't live in the past and you don't live in the future, you got both the guilt and the fear.

And you know where your security comes from. My security is my own relationship with my very own God, and that's all this security I need. Terrific. So the one day at a time, I highly, highly recommend. 2nd way this lesson I've ever learned in my entire lifetime.

The next thing you told me is stay close to us. Stay close to us. Get into as many meetings as you can. Because, said you, there is more wisdom in this room about your problem and a sanitary than in any other room on the face of the earth except another room just like this, where our Volley's anonymous members are meeting. So stay close to us.

And I've done that. I've attended near 5 and 4 meetings a week for 35 years. Yeah. And I haven't attended one too many. And you might say to me, how do you know?

Very, very simple. I never had it so good. This is the only good life I have ever known in my entire lifetime. This is the only easy life that has ever been mine in my entire lifetime, and I'm not about to change a winning formula. I will be attending my meetings until you pat me in the face with a scoop, And it's not gonna be any chore for me.

It's no chore for me to come down here because I love these meetings. I love this program, and I love its people. And, actually, this is the only reason I came down. To tell you I love you. I love you dead.

You don't have to change nothing for me to love you. If any of you happen to be nibbling today, you don't even have to quit that. If you're liars, you don't have to quit that. If you're thieves, you don't even have to quit thieving. You know?

God, I love you because I happen to know who you are, whether you do or not. In 35 years with people like you, I have come to see clear through me, Clear through me. That first two words of the Lord's prayer mean exactly what to say. Our father, God. Everything in me knows that that's true.

My hair and my toenails announce it. Our father, God. Now if that'd be true, you'd let your imagination go absolutely crazy, and you can't even get close to the truth of being itself. My father God, I his kid. Fantastic.

And it's true. So we're pretty fortunate bunch. Now the next thing you told me was why I can't drink like other people? This is the only information, in, an intellectual nature. I think that you and I need that we didn't have when we got here first meeting.

Why can't I successfully doing quicker? This used to just drive me nuts because it was obvious to me that the people that were drinking and not getting into trouble were, not nearly as intelligent as I was. Bunch of cramps. Really? But they weren't getting into trouble.

I was the guy that's getting in trouble, and I couldn't understand it. So it's good to know why we can't drink like other people. And you told me that the first night. The very first night you said that we were people who could not successfully drink liquor. And of ourselves, we could not successfully keep from drinking liquor.

They explained it as an allergy of the body coupled with an obsession of mind. The allergy of the body being physical, the obsession of the mind being mental, of course. And they said that there wasn't a doctor in the world, including doctor Mooney, in collaboration with doctor Hunter, The one that in the world that knew why our bodies could not successfully unlook it. It was unknown to anybody, and they thought that nobody would ever find out. So all we could do was to accept the fact that for some unknown reason, our bodies could not successfully handle alpha and then turn to the other half of the disease.

Our program has nothing to help with the physical aspect of the disease of alcohol. We just accept it and then turn to the other half of the disease. The obsessions of the mind that cause us to take the first drink. And that's what our program is all about. To find a way to live that does not include the necessity to take the first drink.

So it's all about. Now I happen to be very fortunate because I got to the program, surrendered totally even without wants. So I was very, very fortunate. But if we haven't been surrendered before we get here, the first 9 steps program of the of our call and synonyms are specifically for that purpose, To surrender us. To rid us of the bondage of self.

That's the first nine steps of our program. And it's the finest formula, as far as I'm concerned, that was ever conceived in the mind of man through the grace of God for that purpose. Finest program that's ever conceived in the mind of man through the grace of God for obtaining and maintaining sobriety. Now I say that for a reason. What time is?

Am I out of time? Okay. Now I ask you either run me out of here. I'd quit now. So now you're gonna have to stay like quit.

That will be long about midnight. I had the good fortune of knowing pretty much the whole artery of the first people that had something to do with this program. I, spent much time over a 20 year period with our beloved Bill and his lady. In their house and in ours, I met doctor Bob and early on. Didn't know them too well, but I'd met them.

I knew Abby quite well. I knew doctor, doctor Shoemaker, father Darling, the whole bunch of it. Sister Ignacio spent considerable time with her, and I particularly had much time and much conversation with, beloved Bill. And he told me that when he sat down to try to write chapter 5, including the 12 steps, that up until that time, they'd had only 6, maybe 7 steps that came out of the Oxford Movement, and they were trying to get something to hurry the book along. Now his his and their motivation wasn't entirely out altruistic.

There were this bunch of guys beating in Bill's kitchen, and Lois was the only one who was working. She's working in Macy's basement, getting them a little something to eat, and they were all starving to death. And they got the idea of writing this book, which was supposed to help drunks, but was maybe mainly supposed to make some money so they could get off the hook. And Bill said when he sat down to write this dealie, he was totally vacant. And he he said he never had such a feeling of the inadequacy in his life.

And he sat down and started trying to write. And in 30 minutes, he came up with the 12 steps. And they have never been changed in essence. There's been a few words changed, but the essence of the 12 steps have never been changed. And it's for this reason that I say the best formula that was ever been that has ever been conceived in the minds of man through the grace of God.

It is out of this that I came up with this thinking that there are 2 kinds of depressions, and they'll accept to both of them. There's the depression of the ego, which is not real good. That's poor me. And Bill had those pretty bad in his life. Some of them lasted a long, long time.

And there's also the depression of the spirit, which is a good thing because it's the feeling of inadequacy, and it leaves us wide open for the influx of the divine wisdom in which we live and move and have our being. And in sport, I'm able to see that's where our 12 steps came from. It's a terrific thing. The greatest program, the greatest formula that ever conceived the mind of man through the grace of God. For obtaining and maintaining sobriety, but it has two other aspects.

They're just as beautiful as that. It's also the formula for the good life and the formula for self discovery self discovery. Many many amongst us think that this is a program of self improvement. We get it to a considerable extent in our country, amongst the youngsters, mainly. We have a lot of people low all over the world who think they have to continuously keep working on the defects of character.

It's been our privilege also, miss C and I, to visit with our people almost all over the world, talking and listening in, four corners of the world. And, I find people all over the world thinking that they have to pull their defects of character out of the fire and work on them. Them. You know? I find that that's totally contrary to the way I understand or misunderstand our book because our book says that we're supposed to take the first three steps which are decisions.

The first three steps are decisions. The next two steps are action 45, and the next 2, again, are decisions. And it doesn't tell me in that series that I'm supposed to be able to do away with my defects of character. It says I take down 2, 1, 2, and 3 in my mind. I work on 45.

I write in the inventory and share it. Then I become willing to have God remove all these defects of character and humbly ask him to remove a short term. In other words, we become willing to give this mess away and give it away. And to me, that's it. I wouldn't go working through those things daily or weekly or monthly for all the tea in China.

I lived that stuff for years, and I went through it 35 years ago. And I became willing to give it away, and he gave it away. And I haven't had to go through it again. I noticed in a grapevine, we get a lot of writing, particularly out of well, I will not say that. You read the great part.

Where they're advocating that we continuously work on steps 45. That is not in my book any place, and I have not done it. And I thank God that I haven't because once was enough to go through that and once was enough to share it, which I did, and I got rid of it. We also have a great set up out on the coast, particularly amongst the youngsters. Where they have, meaningful relationships.

God, all of them have meaningful relationships. Now when I was a kid, they call that shacking up. But they've got it in another bracket. It's a meaningful relationship. And they call me and they say, Chuck, I'm mad at God.

And I say, yeah. What is it this time? He's taking my meaningful relationship away from me. Now God's taken them away. 5 days later, they call me and say they're double minded God because he hasn't sent them another replacement for the meaningful relationship.

God almighty. I have been using a bad term with him. I say you kids are making it necessary for me to decide that you're making a pimp out of God. You know? I don't think there's any God any place that has nothing ever nothing else to do but to furnish me, a bed fella.

I don't believe that's in his, in his plan for us at all. But my god, we have it all over the place out there. And it's it's something I guess we just gotta work through. So maybe it'll come out good after a while, or maybe I will see the wisdom and get me a couple of meaningful relationships. It may be I wouldn't be surprised that my age has a little bit to do with this.

Maybe if I was their age, I could understand it a little bit better. But, anyway Yes. So far as I'm concerned, alcoholism is a living problem, and you and I have to have a living answer. We have to have a living answer. There's only one reason that I'm not drunk tonight.

Just one. I have the thing I was looking for in the bottle. I've got it. And what is the thing? It's the ability to live comfortably, peacefully, and joyously with myself.

Something I never had until I found you people and started doing these simple things. I never had it. I walked alone for 43 years of my life. I didn't want to walk alone. I tried to get saved at 13 and couldn't make that.

Preacher tried with me and we worked at it pretty hard. But he finally got tied out. And he said to me, well, he says, sir, when you get baptized, it'll happen. And when the ice went out, I went in. And he left me.

And when I came up, he said, how are you doing? I said, no good. I'm all wet. Because nothing else has happened. And so he says, well, when you formally take it into church, it'll happen.

And I was and it didn't. And I spent the next 20 years straight, 30 years straight, from 13 to 43, trying to find out why. I got gypped, and I never found out. And I came to program of our colleagues anonymous, not looking for God, not even thinking in terms of yet any help from God. I came to find out how I could live today without drinking so I could use the time rubbing out the record because I didn't want my wife and kids to remember me as nothing but a tongue chewing, babbling, idiot, drunk.

And I started trying to run a record 35 years ago. And this is the way it happened to me. After 6 months of a meeting every night, I discovered that Anne had a drink repel for 6 months. And I was so pickled. I got lost in trying to give it away.

And another 6 months went by, and I had another discovery. I discovered I had a family and they were living like kittens, and that ain't a bad discovery. And another 6 months went by and I discovered I was still down in the office trying to clean up my desk, and business was good. Business was good. And that was a pretty good discovery.

Another year went by and I discovered that my state of being was better than anything I'd ever known in my entire lifetime. It was just good to be alive, to be breathing in and out. And another time went by 6 years when it was, And I discovered I was never alone anymore. I had a God of my very own, and wherever I am, he is. Now this was the series of discoveries that went with my first 6 years.

The god of my very very own, wherever I am, he is. And I've never been alone anymore. I'm often by myself, but never alone. Now if you'd asked me the first 6 years why I did what I did, I would have told you to run out a record. If you'd asked me after 6 years, I would have told you to help god's kids do things he needed to have done because I wanted to.

And to close-up, I'm gonna tell you how it started and quit. The first conversation that I had of a serious nature after I came to in January 1946 was with my wife. She was in the process of legally deboshing me at the time. And I called her in, and I said, honey, it's no longer of any consequence to me whether or not I live under this roof. It is of absolutely no importance to me at all.