Chuck C. from Laguna Beach, CA at the Top Of Texas Roundup in Amarillo, TX

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I don't think we lost anybody. I figured we'd lose half of them, you know. The pretty part of the family has already gotten been up here. My name is Chuck C and I'm an alcoholic.

Hi. I'm glad to be here and I'm glad you're here. I am in my 37th year without a drink or a pill of any kind. Due to the fact that there's a program called Alcoholics Anonymous. And there are people like you who share their experience, strength, and hope with people like me.

It's been no chore for me to be around here for 36 and a half years. This is the only easy life I have ever known. The only good life that's ever been mine. And I hope I have another 36 years. And I think I will.

You don't think so. He looks like he was mad at me. He's not mad at me. I think he, delivers Miller's light beer. And he don't want to spoil his sales.

You're in the right place. I've had a little trouble breathing the last few years. I don't think it had anything at all to do with the fact that I smoked 4 packs of Camels for many years every day. They told me about 20 years ago that I could either smoke or breathe. And I chose breathing.

But this thing didn't catch up with me till about 4 or 5 years ago. And, their prognosis is gone. They tell me that there's no reversing lung damage. So that was not acceptable. So I, took a good look at myself and I said to me, any power that could keep me from wanting to drink for 36 years.

A tongue chewing, babbling idiot drunk like me. I haven't even had one conscious desire for a drink since I got here. And I said to me, any power that you do that. This thing's peanuts. So I'm gonna get well and I've been getting well ever since.

I don't know, as I'm going to to continue Because, in July, I'm supposed to tell you. I'm supposed to talk to the doctors at Hoag Hospital at lunch. And then the I get through with that and then I'm talking to the patients. The doctors only get 30 minutes, but patients supposed to get an hour and a half. Now, I don't know why I ever accept that kind of commitment.

But the hell am I gonna take a tell a bunch of doctors. They probably all need this program. My own doctor, who is quite an expert in chest problems. Told me after he'd been treating me for a couple of years that he would treat me and not charge me. And I'd teach him and not charge him.

I said I can't do that. You have a license that gives you a right to charge. I ain't got no license. So, you treat me and charge me and I'll treat you and not charge you. Because, when I talk I have to call them as I see them.

Even in this left a colony of ours. And I can't, take an honorarium. Sometimes I get an assignment that has pretty good, stipend for honorarium. But I can't take it Because I figured that if they paid me, I would have to say what I think they want me to say. And I can't talk that way.

So I'm not charging you for this deal tonight. I wanted to when I saw this crowd. And most of you look like you had money. I've been conditioned to believe that all Texans have a large back row because they're sitting on an Orwell. That's what they've done.

But, I, will be happy just to get my car fare. I don't want it to, I don't want to leave, owing myself money. In an hour's time I can't tell you much about my drinking career other than this. That I had to die to get here. In the first 43 years of my life I never made a mistake.

I always had some place to point the finger. It was never my fault. It was your fault. It was conditions. It was circumstances.

It was the rotten society in which I was born. It was my wife's fault. And as good as as good an excuse for drinking as she was, She couldn't hold a candle to her mother. Her mother lived with us for the last 5 years that I drank. And she had a grandstand seat watching me crucify her only daughter.

And she didn't like me very good. And I didn't like her that good. Because if she hadn't been living with us, I wouldn't have had to crucify our daughter. It was her fault. All the way through.

She lived with us 5 years after I sobered up. And I could spend this evening beautifully telling you what this program did for her. Have you ever saw an old bag straighten up and fly right? It was her right. I'd say, never attended 1 a meeting.

See, this is just embarrassing me to death because she wouldn't believe that you people had been any help to me. She wouldn't believe that God had been any help. She would come up and put her arms around me and she'd say, oh, son. I always knew that you had it in you. Well, I did too, but I wasn't thinking of the same thing as you are.

And I want to tell you something. I wrote this thing right through the gates of insanity and death. I'll tell you a little about my last go round. It started on the Friday before Christmas 1945. And I just got a note from a chap that called himself my brunette son.

He's a little darker than I am. So, he's brunette all right. And, he sent me a thing that gave me the date on which the Friday before Christmas fell in 1945. And it was the 21st December. So, I had 10 days in December and 18 days in January that I lost.

I don't remember anything about it at all. Nothing. I don't remember the first drink, the middle drink, or the last drink. Don't remember anything. Now, that lady that you just heard talk said that during all that time, I destroyed 7 quarts of whiskey every 3 days.

And I can't even argue with it because I wasn't there. She was. And I just have to keep my mouth up. And that's one reason. Next reason is, I don't think 7 quarts is too much for 3 days.

And if you only work at it maybe 15 days. But if you go 28 days it's either too much or just enough. And in my case it was just enough. Because I came to after the middle of January 1946 with the clear set I had ever had in my life. Because all of my excuses and all my I wants burned out in that 28 days.

I did not surrender consciously. I had nothing to do with it. I can't even say to you tonight. Well, I drank the whiskey didn't I? And that's what burned them out, but I don't remember drinking the whiskey.

So I can't even say that. I think if I could remember anything at all about that deal, I could figure out a way to take credit. For the last 36 years. But I can't remember. I can't even say, well, I drank the whiskey tonight because I don't know.

But when I came to, my excuses were gone and my I wants were gone. And I saw me for the first time in my life with nothing between me and me. And for the first time in my life I admitted defeat. I had not one time in 43 years admitted defeat. I could not admit defeat.

I had an older brother, 3 and a half years older than I, and 3 and a half years stronger. And we had one fight that lasted 20 years on the installment plan. And he beat the bejesus out of you for 20 years straight. But he couldn't make me believe it. I left home at 20 believing I could whip it.

And he had flipped me for 20 years straight. I became a periodic 11 years before coming to this program because I was not going to lose to a battle. No way. So I became periodic. And for 11 years I was as dry as I am tonight between every 2 drunks.

But I always got drunk again. So, I could not admit defeat. And fortunately for me, and I believe it to be the most fortunate single experience in my life, sometime between the Friday before Christmas and the middle of January. The ego and the excuses all burned up, burned out. And I could look at me and see that I'd lost the battle of life.

I did not know why. Because I knew nothing about all its anonymous. Nothing at all. I didn't know anything about the disease of alcoholism. I knew an awful lot about the inside of jails.

I know a lot about the DTS and the convulsions and very dirty beds. But I didn't know anything about alcoholism. And so, fortunately for me, the second great good fortune was that after I'd been looking at this thing a little while, the morning I came to, I remembered that Mrs. C had found Jack Alexander's article in the Saturday Evening Post, March 1st, issued 1941. She had read it, Thought it might help me if I read it.

So she put it on the left arm of the chair I sit in today, open at the right place, hoping that when I came in, if I came in I'd read it. And evidently I did. But I never remembered a thing about it until that morning. And I remembered that I'd read it. I remember the only 2 things about it.

Drunks out drunks and didn't drink. And they called it Alcoholics Anonymous. And I said to myself, if I ever live to get out of this bed, I will find out for it's anonymous. And immediately the curtain dropped, and I was sickened to death, drunk, and insane. And I had a lot of dying to do.

But from the moment of commitment until right now, I have never had a drink or sedating or tranquilizing pill of any kind. Such is the great significance of this thing called surrender. Surrender. This is a battle we win by giving up the fight. In my opinion, one of the greatest lines in our book is we cease to fight anything or anybody.

Because that's what happened to me. And I haven't had a drink or pill since. And furthermore, and this I get a lot of repercussions over. My first group was Beverly Hills group because that's where we lived. And when I get up before my group and tell them that I never had a conscious desire for a drink since my first appearance with you guys, half of it hit the floor.

And they would say something that you shouldn't say in church. They'd say, Chuck, you're a goddamn liar. That's what they'd say in chorus. Because they were having trouble with most of them, hanging on to not drinking. We call it white knuckles sobriety.

I've never had any since I came to you. My 11 years trying to keep from raking and get off the stuff to get well enough to get back in the ring for the next round. I had white knuckle sobriety then, or not sobriety, but dryness. I think we use the term sobriety too loosely amongst us. My definition of sobriety is the ability to live comfortably, peacefully, and joyously with myself.

Because, in my opinion, alcoholism is not caused by drinking alcohol. Alcoholism is a living problem. And you and I have to have a living answer, lest we drink again. For instance, insofar as I am able to perceive, there is only one reason that I'm not drunk right now. Just one, not 2.

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

And having that ability, I don't have the slightest difficulty living with you. Even the meatheads sit here. Some of you I've known for quite a while. On me. I don't have any trouble living with you.

I had the privilege in the last 36 years of talking in many, many, many penitentiaries in different parts of the world. And I don't have any trouble there. I don't have a bit of trouble. It's it's not the problem isn't out there. Our problem is inside.

And I believe that every, society that we have allowed to use our program is a living problem. Just the same. I don't think finance and anonymous is, an easy problem. Some of these days when I'm gonna bounce a steel chair off my forehead. Because they've been trying now for years to get me to say, Overeaters Anonymous.

That don't mean nothing to me. Fanny's anonymous had a real ring. Gamblers anonymous. I'm a gambler, always was, love to gamble. But I'm not a compulsive gambler.

I sort of grew up in the south and the blacks thought we had a gamble and they taught me good. And so I've won a great deal more money than I ever lost gambling. But I don't go out and throw money away. One of the things he taught me, if you win some money, it's not you're not playing on the house. If you lose it, you ain't got it.

And if you win it, they ain't got it. It's true. So you're gambling with your own money. So don't don't think you're gambling on the house. Put it in your pocket and keep it.

They taught me never to gamble with scared money. One of my wife's bad problems. And she can gamble without having scared money. She pays the neck a lot of of slot machines and and condemns herself. It's a Zac Hart and Haitian because she's got their money.

That's not what they taught me. If you win, it's Jewish. And they taught me not to sit around and try to wait for your luck. If you sit down in the game and your luck's bad, get up and leave. Come back tomorrow.

You know, those things are fundamental. But that's not the way the, the compulsive gambler does it. I'm gonna tell you a little story that illustrates this. 3 years ago, I got a call on a Friday night from man and we're here. We live in Laguna Beach.

And this chap was in And he says, Chuck, I'm sitting here with a 6 gun in my hand and I'm going to blow my brains out. But Jim told me not to shoot myself until I talk to you. Now he says, what do you got to say? Well, I says, you called me on a bad night. I said I'm talking tonight, Saturday night, and Sunday night.

But I'm open Monday night. If you wanna talk to me, talk to me Monday night. And he hung up the phone and I thought that was it. Well, Monday night about 7:30 the doorbell rang. And I go to door and answer my boss, what are you?

What are you? And he comes in and he sits down. And he was a alky and a compulsive gambler. And he lost a lot of money that he didn't have. And he lost it to professional gamblers.

And that's not a good way to establish and maintain longevity. And so we sat down there at 7:30 and we started the preamble. And at about 2 o'clock we were at step 8. And steps step 8 says we made a list of all persons we'd harm and became willing to make amends to them all. And I was getting strung out on that.

And I was telling this old boy now look, you're gonna have to go to these people and you're gonna have to tell them that you had missed the debt. That it's legitimate. You lost the money. And you'll pay it back as soon as you can, but you ain't got no money now. Yeah.

He says, I can't do that. They'll kill me. I said, so what? You won't have suicide on your mind. And he started to laugh.

And he's never good lessons. He has never good left. I walked out on the porch and listened to him all the way down the hill. Laugh. Every time I meet him he's laughing.

And he ain't very dead. And he's paid off all his bills and nobody killed him. You see this is just a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. That's the reason I told you.

Because until we get rigorously self honest, we're gonna have trouble with this program. We got to learn how to be honest with us before we can think too much about being honest with other people. Rigorous self honesty is a golden key to this life that we find here. Fabulous thing. So I threw that in to make a point, and I won't belabor it.

Missus C told you a few times how her life has changed since she has gotten to the place where she can laugh at herself. I had my cryin' before nothing. Or I cry easily now, But it's not for me, you know. I cry a lot. And when I feel like crying, I cry.

I stand up here at these podium and cry like a damn baby. And it's alright with me. Because I don't mind, you know. So, I decided to come to this program and I didn't know how to find it. I didn't know how to find it.

I knew that you wouldn't be in the phone book because you were anonymous, weren't you? So knowing you went there, I never looked. Which is the story of my life. I knew that damn much that 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 in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And from a doctor that had treated me a few, on a few occasions, keeping him from dying. He gave me the name of a man that was a member of our society, Motion picture man. And I talked with him and he told me a little about the program. He said, have you had drinks today? And I said, no.

I said, don't don't take one. He says, I have to work tonight so I can't take you to meeting. But I might not have to work tomorrow night. So call me tomorrow. I call him tomorrow and we talked a little while.

He says you had a drink today. And I said, no. Then he said, don't take one. I'm still working. Call me tomorrow.

So I called him the 3rd day and we hadn't gotten very far into the conversation, when I knew he's still working. So I said, I know you're still working. He says, Yeah. I said, You don't have to take me to the meeting. Where's the meeting I can go to?

And he told me. And I decided to go. And I felt real good about it until about 10 minutes before I was supposed to leave. And then I did the, you know, the unforgivable. I started to think.

Now, I came all the way down here to tell you 2 things. First one is quit thinking. This is our problem. Thinking is our problem. If there was ever a bunch of screwball thinkers in the world, it's now all.

We can justify anything in the world, including murder. You know? So quit thinking. You can live yourself in the right, you can live yourself in the right thinking, but you can't think yourself in the right living. I'm totally convinced that you can't find God looking for him.

Because what you're looking for, you're looking with. And how are you gonna find God out your honor when he ain't out there. Yours isn't. Yours is right there. So you gotta turn your eyeballs around.

It's an inside job. So, quit thinking. Get lost in life and find yourself in God. And the second thing is, I've forgotten. We're done.

I'll bring this up a little later. So I started to think. And my alcoholic mind said to me, look, son, you've lived in Beverly Hills a long time. And it just might not be good for you to be seen with a bunch of drunks. Now, you'll never know how funny that is because the only guy in Beverly Hills that spent more time in the Beverly Hills jail than I did was the jailer.

I killed 2 chiefs of police in Beverly Hills in about, oh, maybe 15 years time, you know. I mean, put him to death. So, I was a little bit afraid that it might not be good for my reputation, Be seen with you guys. But I talked myself out of it because it was time to do something. And I said to myself, all right, Disguise yourself.

Sexual OP immediately recognized me and get to that meeting. And I did. And I went to the meeting. There was a great big hall, big as this one, only way deep, too. And right in the middle of the back wall there was an outside door.

And it was open. And I came up there and looked in, and there might have been 35 people there. Mind you, this is over 36 years ago. And they're all in the middle of the room, everyone of them talking and nobody listening. And it's been that way ever since.

Now, I couldn't hear a word to sit, but I could I could hear the the mumbling and it was happy. It was happy talk. I didn't hear their words, but it was happy talk. And I said to myself, they've given me the wrong the wrong boat. This is the wrong night.

This is these are the veterans and their wives near your party Because it was the veterans of Foreign Wars Hall where they were having to meet. And I'm gonna have to leave and come back tonight to dumpster here. And I turned to leave and I was as near dead as I'll ever be I guess because at long last I'd come in a wrong night. And here the next minute is the very essence of our program. It's the reason it works.

When maybe nothing else does, I don't know. Somebody in the middle of that room had been watching me. And when I turned to leave, he came running over the door. And he called after me And he says, mister, were you looking for somebody? And I said, no sir.

Well he said, what were you looking for then? And thinking he was a veteran, I said, well, if it would interest you, sir. I was looking for sobriety. And everything about that man changed just like that. He just lit up.

Blit up just like he'd turned the light on inside you. And here's what he said to me. Why take off your hat and coat, you're in the right place. Well, he didn't know it, but he'd just stolen my disguise Like that. He'd undressed me as well.

And so, they took me and rocked me asleep. I remember that meeting, the first one I ever went to, better than I remember last night's meeting. Everything about that thing I remember. The very first thing they told me, they said, if you're an alcoholic, it's the first drink that's killing you. Now, I've been drinking for a lot of years and it never occurred to me it was the first drink.

I thought it was the last gallon. I I was trying to knock it off before the trouble started for years. And the very first thing you monkey said to me, it's the first drink that's killing you. If you don't take the first drink, you don't take the second one. So I played with that a little while and bought it and I still got it.

The second thing he told me, and this I wouldn't take all the all in Texas for. A lot of oil down here. And no drunks down here that's got 43 oil wells. Might host up the wave years or ago, had an income of $10,000 a day. And he had 8 wells that was supposed to come in that weekend.

So I wouldn't take the whole whole deal for what you told me the next the next time you open your mouth. You said today is the day we don't drink. Today is the day we don't drink. Have you ever told me that I had to stay sober 36 years? I'd have dropped dead.

If he had said 36 days I'd have dropped dead. But she didn't. She said, today's the day we don't drink. Now, said you, regardless of how long you live in Alcoholics Anonymous, never expand that time more than 24 hours. And you went ahead to tell me that the past is nothing but guilt and the future is nothing but fear.

And if you live in the now, you duck them both. You hear me? Right now is the is our time. This is my day. I have no past.

I want no future. And I've lived this way for over 36 years now. And it's a cinch. It's a cinch. If I had to depend on what I read in the papers, and what I hear over that insane TV stuff for my peace of mind and serenity purpose.

I wouldn't had a I wouldn't even finish this talk. I'd say call me an ambulance. I'm going to the hospital. It's a beautiful thing. And somebody said something about that a long time ago.

You know? In another book that we read a little bit once in a while. Now is the only time we'll ever know. Right now is eternity. You don't wake up tomorrow morning.

You wake up and it's now. And that's the reason it took me so long to get here. Because I'd come too. I never woke up. I'd come too.

And I'd have to have a tumble of liquor. But he wouldn't take it. I'd look at yesterday and I'd see where I made my mistakes. And I would be able to argue myself in the position that today I'm only going to take what I have to to to live. Just what I have to live.

And tomorrow I'll wake up and I won't have to take that tumbler liquor. And when I got it all laid out right, I'd take the tumbler liquor. And tomorrow I would come through and I still had to have a tumbler look at, you know. So when we live one day at a time we don't have to do that. 2nd second greatest thing I ever learned in my life.

This is my day. I have no past. I want no future. The first one is not, it don't belong in this position in my yacht yacht, but I'm gonna give it to you. Is that, if we are going to live without drinking, We have to have some sort of personally acceptable, conscious partnership with the living God that made us in the entire business living.

The whole thing, if we're gonna live without drink. Because drinking is a living problem, and the only reason that I'm not drunk right now, I've got the thing I was looking for in the bottle. And it's better than any liquor that I ever had. There's nothing in a bottle, pot, acid, That you knew anything to me but tear me down. Because I've got the answer that I was always looking for.

And I'll tell you a little about that. As I told you, I didn't come here looking for permanent sobriety for myself. I came here to find out a way to to not drink right now so I could use the time rubbing out directly. I didn't want my wife and my kids to remember me as nothing but a tongue chewing, babbling idiot drunk. And I came to you to find out how not to drink right now so I could use that time to rub out.

And I stayed because it was comfortable. I knew you monkeys were all colleagues because you were marked up like me. You had headlights here and you had bags under bags. And your wiring was exposed. And I knew you were drunk.

But I also knew you weren't drunk because I saw your eyes and I heard your voices. And it was comfortable. And I was back there. I was back there every night I was back because it was comfortable. Now, I didn't, I knew you had something I'd like to have, but I didn't expect it because I didn't have the right to it.

I didn't figure that God owed me anything. You know, that I wasn't entitled to any of his goodies. So I wasn't asking him for anything. Put it back here because it was comfortable. Now, this is the series that happened to me.

In 6 months, I discovered that I hadn't had a drinker pill for 6 months and hadn't wanted one. And that ain't bad for a tongue shoo and babbling an idiot drunk. Is it? So I got so busy trying to give it away that another 6 months went by. And I discovered I had a family, and they were living like kittens.

And that wasn't a bad discovery. And a year went by, and I discovered that I was still down the office trying to clean up my desk. And, business was good. It was just good. Not a bad discovery.

And, another year went by and I discovered that my own state of being was better than anything I'd ever known. It was just good to breathe in and out. I've rediscovered that lately too. Those are pretty good discoveries. 6 years went by and I discovered I had a God of my very own.

Wherever I am, he is. Now, this is the great discovery. This is what I was trying to bring about for 30 straight years, from 13 to 43 and missed on. And what I had given up on 6 years before wasn't trying to bring it about at all. And 6 years went by and I discovered I had a God of my very own, Wherever I am, he is.

And I was so elated over this that I immediately started trying to figure out how I was going to show my gratitude. And the first thing I decided, I was gonna build him a plaque. We were in the woodworking business and I had some of the finest mechanics in the world. He can measure anything out of wood and stainless steel and formica and stuff like that. So I'm gonna build him a plaque.

And I got it designed in my mind and I finally, before I started him on the project, I said to myself, who are you gonna give it to? Now, you'd see me handing him this plaque and he didn't take it. And I dropped it on my foot and broke my foot. So I had to laugh about that. So then I was back to the starting gate.

I said, who are you going to get it to? And my second decision, I was gonna become a Trappist monk. I knew a lot about Trappist monks. I'd read a lot about them. I loved them.

And I said, I'll just be a Trappist monk. Then it hit me. Man, you're not even a Catholic. How you gonna get a trouble tomorrow? So how do you get that up?

So I'm back to start and diddy diddy. And this time I got the answer. And, there's a guy called Saint Peter. The Catholics think he was the first pope. I don't think so.

I won't explain that. But, anyway, I call him old Pete because, before he became a saint, I could identify with him a little bit. You know, when he got caught with red handed, he lied out of it. I said to myself, a little bit alcoholic. You know?

So, here, I ran on this little daily. The carpenter man called old Pete in before he left and he says, Peter, do you love me? And Pete says, yeah Lord. He says, tend my sheep. Now if you're Catholic, he said, tend my lambs, but I'm not Catholic.

So he said, tend my sheep. Far as I'm concerned. I happen to be looking at an ex an ex nun. So, I'm having a little fun out of her as they go along. Hi.

Anyway. Pete says, Peter, you love me. He says, yellow one. Tend my sheep. He said right around and said to them again, Peter, you love me.

Yea Lord, tend my sheep. And he turned right around asking again, Peter, you love me. Yea Lord, tend my sheep. I said, he must have meant tend my sheep. He said it three times.

You know? And I said, that's all I'm gonna do. And that's all I've done. That's all I've done for 36 years. I've never tried to get anything for me in 36 years.

I've never tried to go anyplace. I don't run my own life for my wife's or my kids. And everything's happened. Since I quit trying to run my life and hers and the kids, we've become a family. Since I quit trying to go anyplace, I've been all over the world.

And since I quit trying to get something, I got rich. That's what happened to me. And I never tried to bring in anybody back. I just tried to pin the sheep. That's all I've done.

And if I'd go ahead, I would tell you that I had probably one of the greatest experiences in the business world that anybody ever had. In my 11th year, I bought the business that I was thrown out at. And when I sold it, I was wealthy. And my people made me wealthy. They want me to be wealthy.

Now, you business people in this room, including my friend Ed back there, and he's a whale of a businessman, will know that this couldn't happen. Now, tell you a little story first. I'm about to quit anyway because I'm getting hungry. Nobody will give me another cookie or give me a cup of coffee or anything else. We have a group at home called the West Community Group.

It's a big beating and it's held in a church. And it's about 20 years old. And I've talked to every anniversary they've had. Clancy talks the Saturday before Christmas every year. It's a Saturday night evening.

Clancy, incidentally, claims that I'm his sponsor. I'm pretty sure that he asked me to be his sponsor so he can sponsor me. But he's been running my life ever since I said, well, I don't really be your sponsor, but I'll give you anything I've got. But I won't think I've used my baby. So, he takes that as giving him the lashes around my life.

I ain't bad. But anyhow, I was out there last year waiting for him to call the meeting. And a man that I'd done 100 of 1,000 of dollars worth of business with, I looked up and he's walking down the center aisle in that place. And and it was nonalcoholic. I'd known him and done business with him for years years.

And, I thought what in the world's Bob doing here? He's not an alcoholic. So I went out and hugged him a little and told him how much he loved it. I said, Bob, what are you doing here? Riley says, I was over to see so and so, a friend of his and a friend of mine who is a member of this society this afternoon, and we had a good visit.

And, I said to him, what are you gonna do tonight? He said, I'm going to Amy. He says, you know who you're gonna listen to? He said, yeah. I'm gonna listen to old Chuck see.

Because he always talks about our anniversary. Bob says, can I go with you? And here I am. And so, I introduced him to the 4 or 5 guys that were talking with him there. Bob stood there looking at the floor.

And he says, gentlemen, I want to tell you something about this guy. He says he's the only man I ever did business in my life that I never asked to write down anything. And he just stopped. And I figured that I ought to say something, you know. So I said, that's true Bob.

But it's also true that I never asked you to write down anything, isn't it? This is yes. Now, again, you businessmen know better than that. A little deal with me was 25,000 because we were in the fixture business, market fixtures only. We built them, designed, built them, install them, And a little deal with me was 25,000.

A big one was quarter of a1000000. And the whole time I owned that business, I never had a written word. Not a written word. And nobody ever beat me out of a nickel. I'd put in a deal and bill them and they'd pay me.

And it was more fun than Deli's pickles. There was just nothing but love and mutual trust. And a lot of people think it can't be done. But they made me wealthy. And they were tickled to death because they were all wealthy And they wanted me to be wealthy.

And they made me wealthy. That is a beautiful thing. And I tell you that because of this. I am totally convinced that, God don't think more of a Simon than he does of you. And you know that a salmon born at the headwaters of the Klamath river, he'll go down that river when he's about that long, and his livelihood has gone clear to Japan and back, and right back up that Klamath river where he was born, and he spawns and dies.

Now, I get lost on the freeway with a sign every 90 feet. I have to have help in the airport. I suppose if there was just one one line coming in, I'd have to have help because I get lost. And here's a salmon, goes all the way to Japan and back. And I said to myself, how you, I wonder who's travel agent is.

So I swam with him in my imagination. And I knew who his travel agent was. God's idea of assignment includes everything necessary for its complete fulfillment. Even going to Japan and back. We have another little phenomenon down there where I live.

We have the swallows that come back to Capistrano. Every St. Joseph's day, they show up almost on the second. At the first mission that was ever built in California, right there at San Juan Capistrano. And they winter in Venezuela.

Now, who do you think is their kind of lazy? And I had to fly with them. And it was obvious that God's idea of a swallow includes everything necessary for its complete fulfillment. In giving you an eventual event back without any roadmap. Now, this this is a this is a sermon that just carries me clear to the sky.

Do you think that God's idea of a salmon or a swallow is more complete than his idea of his kids, You or not? I don't think so. I don't think so. When you and I get simple enough to live as we live in Alcoholics Anonymous, sharing our experience, strength, and hope with anybody that needs us in love, just because we want to. We discover that underneath are the everlasting arms.

And it's terrific. It's absolutely terrific. And I learned it from my Blue Jays. You know, my Blue Jays and my, my, hummingbirds sit in the same tree, you know. And I've been watching them.

I feed them all the time. They break me up in business. Peanuts and sugar and stuff. And, I have never yet had one of those Blue Jays say to his partner, look at that so and so. He's flying backwards.

I can't fly backwards. Why can't I fly backward? You know. He don't even pay attention to him. He don't even know he's flying backwards.

You know why? He don't give a damn. He's barely beat himself. If I had a blue jay, I'd wanna be a hummingbird. My bone and bean, I've had it 25 years.

And it looks right up at the rose garden. And you know, that bougainvillea has not decided to be a rose yet. It's perfectly happy to be a bougainvillea and it knows how. And it knows how. Well, I'd wanna be a rose.

No. Everything up to us is perfectly satisfied to be what it is and it knows how. But we come along and they tell us we've got to improve on God's handiwork. We gotta be this, have that, and be no one ass before we can lift. You know?

And we get all involved in trying to self improve. And a lot of the people in our program thinks this is self improvement program and it is not. It's a self discovery program. And with this, I'm gonna quit. You sent me back to New York, the 2nd delegate to the General Service Conference in Southern California.

Cliff Walker was first and I was second. And I got to beat all the old timers. I got to beat the whole bunch of actors. Abby and Bill and Bob and their wives and Snyder and the whole bunch, you know. And, it was it was a fine experience.

Very fine experience. Something I wouldn't trade for anything. At the end of the second conference, you go back for 2 years, you know. And I was there in 53 and 54. At the end of the conference in 54, Bill sought me out and he says, Chuck, you've been back here 2 years straight.

And you have never taken 5 seconds of my time. And I think I know why. And it's time for us to become acquainted. And I'm gonna come out and see you. Well, Bill lived in Bedford Hills, New York.

And I lived in Beverly Hills, California, clear across the continent. And I, and he was the head man. And here I am a neophyte. And he's gonna come and see me. And I, for a while, I couldn't speak.

And what I could, I says, Bill, if you're serious, we got room for you and we'd love to have you. Now, that was in April 1954. In June 54, he was in our house in Beverly Hills. And from then until he died in 1971, Miss C and I spent much time with him and Lois in their house and in ours. And, we got to know them quite well.

And so quite often I say that our program, our formula for survival, is the finest formula that was ever conceived in the mind of man through the grace of God, for obtaining and maintaining sobriety. But it has 2 other facets that are equally miraculous. It's a finest program for the good life and for self discovery, not self improvement, self discovery. That was never conceived in the mind of man through the grace of God. And, this is the reason I say it.