The Pink Cloud Was Never Supposed to Turn Gray – AA Speaker – Chuck C.
AA speaker Chuck C. discusses why sobriety shouldn’t fade over time and what real spiritual recovery looks like beyond physical abstinence from alcohol.
Chuck C. from Laguna Beach, California has nearly 21 years sober and a lifetime of sponsoring others. In this AA speaker tape, he challenges the idea that recovery’s joy has to fade—arguing that the pink cloud should actually get pinker, and explaining what true sobriety really means beyond not drinking.
AA speaker Chuck C. explains that true sobriety is emotional and spiritual, not just physical abstinence, and that the initial happiness of early recovery should deepen rather than diminish over time. He walks through the 12 steps as a process of ego surrender, showing how each step squeezes the alcoholic’s self-will until they’re willing to accept help from a Higher Power. Chuck emphasizes that recovery is about developing a personal relationship with God and living a life of service and giving, which naturally prevents relapse and creates lasting peace.
Episode Summary
Chuck C. opens with characteristic humor and humility, immediately establishing that he’s stolen everything he has to say from the fellowship and others. But what he shares in this talk—the distinction between physical sobriety and real sobriety—cuts to the heart of why some people stay sober and happy while others white-knuckle through decades of dry misery.
The central claim he makes is direct: there is nothing in the Big Book that says the pink cloud has to turn gray. There’s nothing that says the honeymoon ends. In fact, everything in the text and in real recovery suggests the opposite—that the pink cloud should get pinker, and the honeymoon sweeter as time goes on. If that hasn’t happened in someone’s sobriety, Chuck says simply, they’re missing the boat.
He starts by defining what sobriety actually is. It’s not just physical abstinence. Chuck spent the last ten years of his drinking career—his final decade before getting sober—as a periodic drinker, physically sober between binges for months at a time. But he got drunk again, over and over. He wasn’t sober at all. Real sobriety, he says, is “the ability to live with oneself peacefully, joyously, and comfortably.” He used to drink to get comfortable. Now he can live without drinking because he’s found that peace inside himself.
From there, Chuck moves into the heart of his talk: the steps themselves and what they actually do. He walks through them not as a checklist but as a process of ego destruction. The first nine steps, he argues, are there for one primary purpose—to squeeze the ego out of you. They’re a vice, tightening with each step, until you surrender completely.
Step 1 is a two-fold admission of defeat: admitting he’s an alcoholic and his life is unmanageable. For someone like Chuck, who spent 43 years convinced he could run his own life, this was a complete reversal.
Step 2 comes next—admitting he’s nuts, that he needs a power greater than himself to restore him to sanity.
Step 3 is about getting a new driver. Chuck tells the story of knowing he couldn’t drive sober anymore, yet fighting like hell before finally turning over the keys.
Step 4 is taking his own inventory instead of everyone else’s. For 43 years he was an expert on other people’s defects, never looking at himself.
Step 5 is the killer—admitting to God, himself, and another person the exact nature of his wrongs. This is where the ego really takes a hit.
Steps 6 and 7 involve becoming willing to give away his defects and asking God to remove them.
Steps 8 and 9 are what Chuck calls “like an inside shower”—making a list of harm and making direct amends. He shares a powerful story about a man suicidal over gambling debts, convinced he’d be killed if he tried to make amends to professional gamblers. Chuck’s response was blunt: “That’s good. You won’t have suicide on your mind then.” The man laughed, made the amends, paid off his debts, and found freedom.
After the nine steps, the wreckage is cleared. The stone is rolled away. Now you can look deep within yourself and find yourself—your true self in relationship to God and others. This is what religion calls being born again.
Step 10 is about maintaining that spiritual condition through daily inventory.
Step 11 is about conscious contact with God through prayer and meditation—and Chuck emphasizes he lives with “total expectancy of guidance and direction.” He shares a story about showing up to the wrong meeting despite having the address written down, only to discover 300 people were waiting for him to speak at the location he actually needed to be at. He’s learned not to trust his own direction.
Step 12 is about carrying the message. And here’s where the paradox emerges: you don’t get sober and recover to get something. You get the whole package—the marriage restored, the business returned, peace of mind, a relationship with God—by giving it all away. By trying to carry the message to the still-suffering alcoholic, you end up with everything you never knew you needed.
Chuck shifts here into what he calls “the way it is”—a giving life, not a getting life. For 21 years, he’s been pouring out without a price tag, and he’s received infinitely more than he could have pursued. More good has come into his life in 21 years sober than in the entire previous 43 years of his life, and he never spent five seconds trying to make it happen.
The emotional core of the talk comes when he describes what he came to AA for. Not to get his wife back (she was gone and should be). Not to get his kids back (they were gone and should be). Not to get his job back (his boss had thrown him out). He came hoping against hope to find a way to live that didn’t include alcohol. He would have settled for the meanest, unhappiest sobriety on earth just so he wouldn’t have to drink anymore—because he couldn’t die with the record he’d written on the blackboard of life.
He came to people he disliked most—drunks like himself—because there was nowhere else to go. And they rocked him to sleep. They said, “Just don’t drink today. Stay close to us. Call before you drink.” And somewhere in those early days, he discovered he was sober. Six months in. And from that moment, he never came to a meeting in fear. He came because he wanted to.
Now, 21 years later, he owns the business that threw him out. His marriage is solid. His family is restored. But infinitely greater than all of that, he says, is having a God of his very own. A God he’s not afraid of and who’s not afraid of him. Someone to share everything with—the good and the bad. He shares everything in the closet, so to speak, with his Higher Power. And it’s normal. It’s not normal to walk alone. It’s normal to walk down the road with your arms around others, sharing your experience, strength, and hope. That’s what being human is supposed to be like.
Chuck closes by reminding the room that those who think they’ve lost time—years of drinking, lost relationships, missed opportunities—actually lost nothing. He didn’t spend one second in hell that wasn’t necessary, because that’s the only way he could have surrendered. He had to burn up completely before he could accept help.
Notable Quotes
There is nothing in my book that says that pink cloud is supposed to turn gray. Everything I read in my book would indicate to me that the pink cloud gets pinker and the honeymoon becomes sweeter as the days turn into months and the months turn into years.
Sobriety is the ability to live with oneself peacefully, joyously, and comfortably. We formally drank to get comfortable, and there was a time when we could get comfortable with the bottle. You know now we so live that we are comfortable and we don’t have to drink.
Here are the steps we took. There is nothing in there that says here are the steps we interpreted. If you’re still nipping a little and want to keep on, just interpret the steps.
The first nine steps are there for the primary purpose of squeezing us out of ourselves. We’re in a vice and every one of those steps is just tightening that vice a little bit and pretty soon the damned ego is gone.
It’s always been a given life. The more you pour out without a price tag on it, the more you have. In 21 years, infinitely more good has come into my life than the entire previous 43 years. In every department of life. And I’ve never spent 5 seconds in 21 years trying to bring it about.
It’s not normal to walk alone. It’s normal for us to walk down the high road of life with our arms around each other. Sharing our experience, strength, and hope one with another in love.
Step 3 – Surrender
Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
Step 5 – Admission
Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
Step 11 – Prayer & Meditation
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Big Book Study
Emotional Sobriety
Spiritual Awakening
Acceptance
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 1 – Powerlessness
- Step 3 – Surrender
- Step 4 – Resentments & Inventory
- Step 5 – Admission
- Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
- Step 11 – Prayer & Meditation
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
- Big Book Study
- Emotional Sobriety
- Spiritual Awakening
- Acceptance
People Also Search For
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AA speaker on step 5 – admission
AA speaker on steps 8 & 9 – making amends
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-rise.com.
Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Uh, see a note here.
We keep our smoking to a minimum. Well, we've arrived at the moment for which we've all been waiting, and I know that uh it's taking nothing away from Elsa or Joe or Ed, Tommy, or any others who have appeared on this program to say that this is it. And how do you go about introducing a man like Chuck to AAS anywhere?
It would be like introducing St. Peter to the other apostles. And of all people uh someone like myself to undertake to tell you something about Chuck.
He and his lovely wife Elsa been carrying this message, this wonderful message of AA over the country for a good long while. And they are speakers of the first quality. But more than that, they've been carrying the message on a personal basis.
Recently, I was with a man uh in Chicago from Chicago down at Augusta. Some of you heard him, Jim. And I told Jim that I expected to see Chuck this weekend.
He asked me to convey Chuck his love and kind regards. He met Chuck Early out on the West Coast and is now restored to the position from which his daddy kicked him out some years back as a president of a large corporation. In other words, uh, Chuck is an AA in the finest tradition.
And with that, what more is it to be said except that I give you Chuck? >> >> It's mighty careless for that cigar. I'm old watch his name.
frustrated frustrated actor >> from Laguna Beach, California and I'm now calling I don't know why it's always my turn to bat after the game's over. If you look closely, you'll note that I haven't got my dog tag on. I was sort of in hopes that that burly bouncer Clarence would keep me out of this meeting this morning.
It's been a very wonderful weekend up until now. I've enjoyed it so much. I've had more meetings than there have been meals.
And I'm talking about some of these people that have been eating all the time. You know, those Canadians are going back about 5 lbs heavier than they were when they came down. They don't like grits, but they eat it.
I'm not going to mention any names, but every meal but this morning they ate mine. They thought the sausage was a little bit too highly seasoned, you know, so I ate mine. I didn't.
It's a beautiful morning. This morning the sun came out and they turned the heat on. You know, it tickles me when people talk about uh what a great guy I am.
It tickles me. You know, I've made something like 5,000 talks in this society of ours. I've never said an original thing yet.
I've stolen everything I've had to say. And when you're quoting me, you're quoting yourself and you don't know it. I was talking to some guy yesterday.
And I said to him, why is it if I'm so damn good that every time I go into prison in the country, and I've been in prisons all over this country and Canada and the Hawaiian Islands, and every time I go into one, I see from one to half dozen people that have heard me on the outside. If I am so hot, why they do it in there? Tell me.
One of the things I think we ought to recognize all of us, and I suspect we all do, is that there no big and no little in this fellowship. There are none large and there none small. If you see one guy listen to me and get drunk and listen to you and get sober.
Strange as it might seem, that's the way it is. Some guy was introducing me uh some years back and he said right at the podium introduced me he says I've heard this man talk three times and three times I've gone right out and gotten drunk and he was introducing me and I said to him I think it'd be wise if tonight you'd go out and sit in my car and turn the radio on and when I get through we'll call you back in here and let you close this beating and maybe you won't have to get drunk. You see, every one of us have our place in you.
Every one of us. This is a unique thing and we are unique people. See, God never created two of us just alike.
He don't make mistakes. If you'd have made two of us just alike, one of us would have been unnecessary. And each of us have our own contribution.
And nobody can make your contribution but you. And nobody can make my contribution but me. It's a very unique thing.
And there are those who nobody but you can touch can reach because of your unique experience and the uniqueness of you and your similarity to them. There are those whom nobody but you can touch. And you see that's the reason that we must be ready, able, and willing to make our own contribution.
Because nobody can make it but you. And nobody can make mine but me. One of the greatest guys that I know in Alcoholics Anonymous, I've never heard make it talk.
I don't know if he ever did. He's an ex bartender. He was at the first meeting I have attended almost 21 years ago.
He's been sober ever since. He makes coffee for all the groups in the Bay Area. And every time I go down there, I run the kitchen if I get there in time and I have a meeting with old Stanley over the coffee pot.
And if I don't get there in time, I wait until everybody goes and then I stand with him over the broom and we have a meeting. And I'm only one. Hundreds of people have meetings with Stanley all the time, but he never gets up here and talks, you know.
But he is a most wonderful AA and a carrier of the message. The people to whom my hat is off are those who are serving on the panel at the jail. You know, getting the speakers to go down to jail every week of the world.
You never heard that. You never will hear them. But they're there every day.
Every week they've got their meeting lined up. And in those institutions, a was, is, and will be one drunk talking to another. One drunk sharing his spir experience, strength, and hope with another in the dark room.
And we must never forget it. These occasions are terrific. They're wonderful.
And I wouldn't I wouldn't at all think of not having them. But this is sort of the frosting on the cake. The jobs done in the dark room.
One alcoholic talking to another. The language of the heart. Sometimes we sort of forget this.
Sometimes particularly, and I can say this because most of us here have had a few years in this great fellowship. I haven't run on to anybody yet that was here for the first meeting. This was the first weekend.
There might be somebody here, but I don't I haven't run into them yet. So, we're all sort of old-timers. It's so easy sometimes to forget what a joy it was when we first got here because we get here in a state of temporary surrender.
And people people who know us but whom we don't know because they're alcoholics, too. share their experience, strength and hope with us and we get sober and it seems so easy. It seems like we don't hardly do nothing, you know, but we're sober and it's a new thing and we have new friends and new people and it's good.
And they give us a little something to do. They get us busy on the ashtrays and the coffee. And this is good.
and we're happy as bird dogs and we discover that we're sober and we got to talk about it. We got to talk about it. So we start working with drugs and things get good in our lives and there's great joy within us and we get a year old, two years old and sobriety sort of becomes the norm with us.
That is physical sobriety and other things begin to get important. And the first thing you know we forgot. We forgot about those early days and the light sort of goes out of our eyes and we get concerned about other matters.
Things become important to us and get between us and our program and our God. And if we're not careful, we get drunk. If we're lucky, we don't.
And we hear each other talking about getting off of the pink cloud. There is nothing in my book that says that pink cloud is supposed to turn gray. There is nothing in my book that says the honeymoon is just of short duration.
Everything I read in my book and everything that's happened in my life would indicate to me that the pink cloud gets pinker and the honeymoon becomes sweeter as the days turn into months and the months turn into years. And if this hasn't happened in our lives, we're missing the boat. We're missing the boat.
What is sobriety? What is sobriety? Certainly sobriety is not just that I haven't been nipping on that flit this morning.
You know, just because I haven't been drinking out of the bottle, am I sober? I don't think so. I don't think so.
I was a periodic for 10 years, the last 10 years of a 25- year drinking career. And I was sober physically as I am today. Between every two drunks for 10 years, just as sober physically as I am right now.
Between every two drunks for 10 years. And yet I got drunk again and again and again and again and again and again. So, I don't think I was very sober.
It's no chore. It's no big thing to get sober. Even habitual drunks have to get sober once in a while.
They get wandering around, the gend arms get them or something and they they have to get sober physically and a periodic has to get sober often because you see we periodics are hogs. We got to drink it all. You can't drink like a periodic and not have to get sober because the time comes when you can't get it down and you can't get it up and you can't live and you can't die and you have to soak up.
There's nothing in my book that talks about physical sobriety. There's nothing in there that talks about sitting with a drunk in the dark room feeding him a little carol syrup and water and holding his hand. That isn't in there.
We do it as individuals. We do lots of this, but that isn't what our book's talking about. Our book's talking about not having to sober up anymore, about sobriety, about not having to drink again, not having to take that next drink.
That's what our book is all about. That's what our program is all about. that we might find a state of being that makes a drink or a pill or a needle absolutely unnecessary.
That's what our book talks about. So what is sobriety? Sobriety is the ability to live with oneself peacefully, joyously, and comfortably.
To live with oneself in peace and joy and comfort. We formally drank to get comfortable. And there was a time when we could get comfortable with the bottle.
You know now we so live that we are comfortable and we don't have to drink. And this is the great miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous. We don't drink because it's not necessary to drink.
We don't have to drink. We have the thing that we were looking for in the bottle. >> >> You know, I had a great and frustrating life between the age of 13 and 43 because I was trying to make this old world over so it would be a fit place for me to live in.
>> >> You stupid asses didn't live like I knew you should and like I told you how. And so I tried to fix that. I was making you over trying to.
But I got news for you. The world ain't ready. It ain't ready.
And so finally I ran out of my own resources. came here for something else, just to find a way to live that didn't include liquor. And I found a way to live comfortably, peacefully, and joyously with me.
And ever since that happened, I haven't had a bit of trouble living with you stupid people. Haven't had a bit of trouble. I don't have to make you over.
don't have to change you at all because it's necessary. I'm comfortable with myself. And what a wonderful thing it is.
There are two of the greatest lines in our book. Two of them to me are these. We cease to fight anything or anybody.
We cease to fight anything or anybody. Now, what a thing this is. To be able to live without the necessity to prove anything.
To be able to live without the necessity to win anything or to change anybody. We cease to fight anything or anybody. Life becomes easy when this is unnecessary.
The next one is here are the steps we took. You know, we're we're uh peculiar breed of cats. I don't think anybody ever said that we were uh dull or stupid.
I don't think anybody ever classified us as dull, stupid people. Uh we we are sort of smart. We tell each other about our keen alcoholic minds.
You know, you don't hear much about that in the marketplace. But in meetings, we tell each other, you know, and we sort of like it. Keen alcoholic mind.
Terrific, isn't it? Why can't we read that line? Here are the steps we took.
There nothing. There no big words there. There ain't no big word in it.
Here are the steps we took. What's wrong with that? Why can't you not read it?
But we can't. We can. Why can't we read the first step in our program?
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable. We can't read that. with these keen alcoholic minds.
We read the uh first step. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable whilst drunk. Many of us read it that way for years.
Why strong? Maintaining the illusion that we're pretty cute operators when we're sober. You know, the book don't say that our lives had become unmanageable whilst drunk.
And an alcoholic's life is unmanageable whilst drunk. It's not talking about why we're drunk. It's talking about an unmanageable life while we're sober.
We can't read that, you know, whilst drunk. If we had a discussion meeting this morning and we're talking about the second step, we came to believe that a power greater than his elves could restore us to sanity. The first guy that got up would talk about the insane things he did while he was drunk, you know, and the second guy would beat him.
It's like Tommy said, he got him prenatal last night, you know, prenatal drunk. Sanity whilst drunk. Insane.
We can admit we did insane things whilst drunk, but we still maintain to ourselves subconsciously that we got a keen alcoholic mind while sober. Show you how keen my mind is. I was between 40 and 43 in the worst part of my drinking.
That was the last of 10 years of hell. And I would sit there or lie there in my bed after I'd been there quite a while. And I would wake up right early in the morning.
I didn't wake up. I came too. And maybe I would discover that the bottle was dry.
I drunk it all during the night. Or that Mississippi had ascertained where it was and had changed its position or that I'd hidden it from myself. Now, this is the most frustrating thing on the face of the earth.
There is nothing that can compare with knowing you got a bottle in the house and knowing that you hid it someplace and you can't find it. It's not half as bad if somebody got it on you. But when you hit it from yourself, this is the most frustrating thing in the world.
So I would be lying back there in that bed, nothing to drink, diet, and a couple of blue jays would light in a tree there right out of my bedroom window. Now, this was sort of a tropical fruit tree. It had lots of fruit on it.
It was sort of an inverted uh uh bunch of grapes. little larger fruit than grapes, but they like a grape bunch of grapes upside down. And they had sort of big seeds in them.
And birds ate them when they were ripe. And they left seeds. And blue jays eat seeds.
And these two blue jays fly in there and start squawking each other. And they told me, "Big boy, there's a new day being dawned and you ain't going to be with it. You know, you ain't going to be with it." And I developed a resentment against those birds because they had no right to tell me what a bum I was.
And as time went on, I developed quite a hatred towards those birds. All because they were telling me, you know, new day and you ain't going to be with it. And so I started to dreaming up ways and means of capturing them.
Now, I could have killed him, you know. I could have shot him, but that was too good for him. I was going to capture them.
And when I got them, I was going to pull the feathers out of them one at a time. And when I got them stripped naked, I was going to stick them back one at a time. Now mind you, I was between ages 40 and 43.
Now isn't that a keen alcoholic mind? I would say that I just missed being a a quiz kid by that. And because I hadn't done the little things in life for many years, I had to do something big.
You know, the longer we drink, the more important it is to do that big thing. We haven't got time to do the little things. We got to do something big to get us back in the stream of life.
And in my alcoholic stuper, I would dream of saving the pope in an earthquake. Now, you don't know how far out that is. I'm not even a Catholic.
>> >> And I was drunk in Beverly Hills and I think he's in Rome or some place like that. But this was a recurring dream over and over again. I was going to save the pope in an earthquake.
Keen alcoholic mind, isn't it? It's a good thing for the likes of me that there is a power greater than ourselves that is available to us when we fulfill the conditions. Else I would have been dead 20 years ago.
If anybody ever needed a power greater than himself, I did. Because you see, I don't learn too easy. I don't learn too easy.
It's almost impossible to conceive of a guy being physically sober and being otherwise a rather productive individual. I never had any trouble making a living when I was sober. I made my living some since I was 13 years old.
I was born working, you know. I never had any in trouble when I was so old. And to think of a guy that was an A student and an athlete, could do anything.
To think of a guy like that physically sober with a 25 year record to look at. The last portion of which, the last 10 years of which was hell on wheels. To be able to look at that cold, sober physically, the record, and come up with the profound conclusion, this time it's going to be different.
This time it's going to be different. It seems like it's impossible. You know, how could we look at a thing like that year after year?
It was different. It was worse. It was just like it has that been worse every time.
But that isn't the difference we thought it was going to be. We we we we were decide we had decided we had it lit. We were going to we're going to be all right.
And I gave this thing everything I had. I gave it everything I had because you see I could not surrender. I couldn't.
The word surrender was not in my vocabulary. I had one fight that lasted 20 years. My oldest brother and I started fighting the day I was born and we fought until I was 20 when I left home.
He was three years and a half older than I. three years and a half stronger. And he could always whip me, but he never could make me believe it.
I left at home. I left home at 20 knowing that I could whip the guy, you know, and he whipped me for 20 years straight. Hell, if I had have agreed with my adversary quickly there about 10 years before, I could have saved a lot of eyes and old clothes cuz he walked the Jesus out of me, but he never make me believe it.
The same thing with this fleck. I put everything I had in that fight. All my wit and wisdom.
I put in my wife. I put in our children, our home, my job, my health, my sanity, and my money. I put in the fight.
And I lost. I lost. And I had to do it that way.
I had to do it that way because I had to win. If there had been any possibility of me living in left field, I would still be out there. But I ran out of everything.
I was fresh out of people as well as everything else. And finally out of choice. I had no choice.
and I had no place else to go. So I came here, but not until after I'd used up every resource I had. And so again, it's a good thing for me and people like me that there is a power available to you and to me when we fulfill the conditions that allows it to happen.
Now, it's real interesting this little deal. this power greater than we are. And in as much as this really is a sort of a retreat, they changed the name.
You know, they used to call it an AA retreat because these guys down here got this thing started. Didn't know that there wasn't any such thing as an A retreat, you know. So they got told and they changed it to the Roundup, the Mont Eagle roundup.
I wouldn't have done it that way if it been me. Of course I have told them. So I'll take this opportunity.
I would change it to a retreat for a there's nothing matter with a retreat for a but there's no such thing as an a retreat because this really is a retreat. This ain't no conference. We are supposed to be on this hill at this particular time to share with each other our living experience of our struggle and our successes and our failures in establishing a personally acceptable relationship with the living God that made us.
That's what this thing's this particular deal is about to charge our spiritual batteries, if you will. And so we're going to think a little about it. Thoughts and the thoughts I've gleaned from people like you about this particular subject.
I was talking in uh Pasadena a little while back. I don't know when it was. It was on It was on uh Halloween night.
I wish I hadn't mentioned that cuz I got to tell a story and it's bad word. We got an old boy in Pasadena. He's a good Roman boy.
His name's Well, he's got a name. pretty nearly busted his aminity right here. Old Tom C.
and he'd had a heart attack. He's been around 18 years. Hey, he's a great guy.
nice shock of white hair and he's quiet and he'd had a heart attack and he was back to his first meeting for uh maybe 60 days and he was giving out the birthday cakes. We do that in the West Coast. Every time a guy has a year, we give him a cake and have a candle and we sing happy birthday.
Some people think it's lousy, I think, but we think it's fabulous. We think it's fabulous. Not for us, but what a deal it is for a youngster sitting back there in the back to see somebody getting a birthday with 18 candles on, you know, when he can't think of saying so 18 days.
Somebody gets up there and balls over a a silly little old cake with 18 candles on and a bunch of wouldbe teners singing happy birthday to you, you know. So Tom was giving out the cakes and it was Halloween and in between cakes he was telling about this little deal. He said these two older folks were sitting at home uh giving out tricks or treats, you know, and uh it was getting late and they had pretty well given up given away all he had.
A little he left to play, too. So the man says to his wife, he says, "Honey, uh it's getting late." He says, "I don't think there'll be any more kids around." He says, "Let's go to bed." She says, "I think you're right." And they got up and started to get ready to go to bed. The doorbell rang.
They went to the door and here's a little old kneaded boy and his and his sister, you know, and they both had their bags standing there, open bags. And so the old man looks over and he sees a little more candy on the plate. brings it home, puts it in the little girl's bag and uh there was a little boy, you know, and he looks around for something put in there and there's a plate with few apples on and he got that and dropped the apples in the little boy's bag and he looked up.
He says, "Son, bet you broke my potato chips. >> >> Oh man. Oh man.
Now you see I wouldn't have heard that if I hadn't been in an A meeting. But anyway, after the meeting was over, there's no boy there. He was doctor, medical doctor.
And he told me this little story. He said my father was a Methodist bishop and he had a very good friend who was a man senior in the Catholic church and they were very great friends these two and they used to get together and discuss uh religious matters a great deal philosophy and religion and he said he was a little old boy, 7 years old. And he at one of these discussions said to the man senior.
He says, "You're always talking about prayer. You're talking about prayer all the time." He says, "What what does God do when you pray?" He says, "Does he talk back to you? Does he say anything?
What happens?" And his father said to the man senior, "The boy asked you an honest question. Now you gave him an honest answer." And the man senior thought about it a little bit and he says, "Son," he says, "you pray and then you do it yourself. >> >> You pray and then you do it yourself.
I think that's fabulous. Maybe you don't like it. Like Red Skilton, I think the wrong bus came in tonight.
You pray and then you do it yourself. You've heard many times in this fellowship, if you pray for potatoes, reach for the hole. You know, if you pray for potatoes, reach for the hole.
God helps those who help themselves. You know, it says that in the good book. God helps those who help themselves.
Now, I think of this power greater than ourselves as the reserve tank. You know, in your gasoline tank, you got some reserve there on the side, but it never comes on to the reserve until you've run out of your other gasoline. I think of this power greater than ourselves as a reserve tank.
When we have run out of our own resources, then what we lack is supply. But our first chore is to do it ourselves. This Catholic priest and the uh uh Jewish rabbi were sitting at a prize fight and one of the boys that were fighting duck down his corner and crossed himself.
And the rabbi says to Catholic father, he says, "What does that mean?" And the priest says, "Don't mean a damn thing if you can't fight." You know, you pray and then you do it yourself. You see, here are the steps we took. Now, it does not say here are the steps we read.
Here are the steps we heard read. Here are the steps we discussed in last night's discussion meeting. Don't say that.
It don't say here are the steps we interpreted. Don't say that. If you're still nipping a little and want to keep on, just interpret the steps.
You can nip and interpret and interpret and nip and nip and interpret and then you nip and don't interpret. It don't say here are the steps we interpreted. Neither does it say here are the steps we conned God into taking for us.
It don't say that. Here are the steps we conn God into taking for us. It says here are the steps we took.
Now God has a tremendous place in this program of ours and without him we would have no program and we would have no sobriety. But it is not to take these steps for me. This is my job.
Here are the steps I took and take K took. This is my job. Now at the beginning of step number 12, it says, "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, why do we with our keen alcoholic brains think that we can have a spiritual awakening as the result of 11 steps that we took?
you know says having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. Well, this implies that we've taken 11 steps before we get to the 12 that we have applied these things to us and yet we don't do it. We tell each other, "Oh, it's uh you know it's not particularly important how you take them and when you take them as you feel like it or you don't have to take them 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 take one and 12.
You know, we hear a lot about two stepping in this society. There's no such thing as a twostep. There is any such thing as a two-stepper.
There's a half of the first and a third of the 12th and that don't even make one. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and ran to carry the message. That's not even one step.
Not even one. It's a half and a third. >> >> How you going to carry a message you ain't got?
Says in the back of the book, it is obvious that we cannot transmit something that we do not have. See to it that your own house is in order. You see, why can't we read these things and do them?
You know, kids, we're dealing with one of the most insidious and one of the most destructive things in life. Alcoholism is a terminal disease. It is a terminal disease and it is progressive.
And the only thing ahead of you and I if we keep drinking is permanent insanity or an alcoholic death. Just two things can happen to us. Permanent insanity or an alcoholic death.
Serious deal. And yet we tell each other you don't have to take a written inventory. I heard a guy, we had one out at R on the beach.
He get up this podium and say, uh, I've been sober 5 years. I've never taken a written inventory. I never read that book clear through you.
Don't let him tell you you got to do this or that or the other thing. You don't. I'm sober.
He got up to six and he got up to seven, but he didn't make eight. He's drunk right now. Here are the steps we took.
Now, there's a very definite reason for taking these steps. Because the key to sobriety, the key to this new way of life is the acceptance of ourselves completely and totally as a defeat in the business of living as a as a failure in the business of living. to accept defeat.
To be able to abandon ourselves completely, completely. Because you see, we got to roll away the stone before we can get help from God. We got to roll away the stone.
Something for us to do. And the first nine steps of this program are there for the primary purpose of squeezing us out of ourselves. We're in a vice and every one of those steps is just tightening that vice a little bit and pretty soon the damned ego is gone.
People say to me all the time, "Chuck, how do you surrender? How do you surrender? The first nine steps will surrender anybody that will apply them to himself.
You can't you can't do it and not become surrendered. You got to let's look at him for just a second with this in mind. The first step is a two-fold admission of defeat.
I admit that I am an alcoholic, that my life is unmanageable. Well, now this is not according to my former pattern. I have lived 43 years and I never admitted that I couldn't run my own life and I never admitted that I was powerless over 1 ounce of flit either.
This is a total and complete turnabout in thinking and action. We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol. Imagine a drunk doing that and that my life is unmanageable by me.
This is just a direct reverse of the way I've lived for 43 years. came to believe the power greater than a self storage. A left-handed admission was nutty as a fruitc cake.
We're nuts. Far himself, he gets in that step, too. And I got to tell you this little I was listening to a colored boy, 35ish, son of a gal that's been in our program for a long time.
And he was talking a little and he said uh you know he said I think I always I always realize that there's power that kept the universe in order kept the planets from bumping into each other and had the sun come up. Said I think I've always recognized this but he said it never occurred to me they're bigger than I am. You see that's us, you know, came to believe that a power greater thanelves could restore us to sanity.
We're nuts. No use to restore a sane man to sanity. You see?
So the squeeze plays on. We're in the vice. This is absolutely contrary to this keen alcoholic mind of mind.
Third step, you got to get a new driver. Now, how many of you also wheel? Did you just go out to the parking lot and say, "Honey, you better take the keys.
I'm drunk. >> >> like hell you did. He says, "Get in if you're going." And I'm driving.
It's my car. If you don't want to ride with me, get a cab. But we don't give them two bucks to get a cab with.
We fight him all over the parking lot for two hours here. We got to get a new driver. Just in the third step.
This is just three. A new driver made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God. Well, what's this doing to that thing called ego?
What is this doing to a thinking and action process of in my case 43 years? It's destroying it. That's what it's doing.
It's completely destroying it. Now, if you think the next one is an ego builder, get you a thick pad and a long pencil and start writing. made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Now, this is a switch to a guy that's taken everybody's inventory that he ever saw, but he's old for years. Hell, I was an expert on your inventory. I could tell you what was wrong with you across the room.
I didn't have to get close. Well, this is different. Taking we take a a moral inventory, a thorough moral inventory of ourselves, you know, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Me. So we sit down with ourselves and we write down there on that thing our motivations for action. What what is what's been transpiring in my life?
What's what have I been doing? What is my motivation? A thorough and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
>> >> This don't mean that I got to put down here every time I turned left when I should have turned right. It's the intent. It's the motive.
It's the the thing that makes us tick that we want to look at, you know, and the squeeze play is definitely on. And number five is worse than all four of them. Number five is a a kingsiz ego killer because it says here that we admitted to God to ourselves and to another human being to another person the exact nature of our wrongs.
Now I can write it down and I've got it. I'm in possession of it. I can admit to God and to me hidden out behind the house and nobody knows yet but me and God.
It's still quite a secret. But when I lay this dirty linen out in front of another human being, boy, if you got any ego left after that, you ain't done it. Get honest.
This is a killer. Nothing in me that I won't share. Nothing to hold back.
lay that muck right out on the table and go over it with it. Another human being, a man or a woman that you feel you can talk with in confidence, a priest or a preacher or somebody. I like it with another alcoholic cuz I'm funny that way.
We we admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another individual the exact nature of our wrongs. And then we became willing to give this muck away. We've done a bad job.
We've done a bad job. We can't get rid of these things on our own. If we could have, we would have.
So we become entirely ready to give them away to have God remove all these defects of of character and we humbly ask him to remove our shortcut. We become willing to give them away and we give them away. Now I'm a simple guy.
I do not believe it's necessary for us to pull these defects of character back out of the trash bin for years and years and years and beat her brains out with them. I don't read my book like that. My book says I became willing to give them away and I gave them away.
And I'm simple enough. People say how'd you know if I haven't got them? If I've still got them, I didn't give them away.
I'm the simple. I still retain them or I take them back. So you give them away that you don't take them back.
We're now ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. There's not much ego here.
and what is left is destroyed in the next two. These next two steps are the most fabulous things on the face of the earth. This is like an inside shower.
We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. And we made direct amends to such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others. Oh, don't sell these short.
These are the these are the greatest. What a what a feeling it is when we have become willing to and do face these people that we have harmed and tell them that we've harmed them and we're not only here to apologize but to tell them we'll make restitution as soon as possible. You know, I had I had picked this some time back.
It's been several years ago now. I got a call on a Friday night from a guy in Whitier and he says, "Chuck, I'm sitting here with my my revolver in my lap just ready to blow my brains out." But Jim told me not to shoot until I talked to you. He says, "What he got to say?" I says, "You called me on a bad time." I says, "This Friday, I'm talking tonight.
I'm talking tomorrow night and I'm talking Sunday night. I've got n Monday night open now." I says, "You can shoot yourself on Tuesday just as well as you can tonight. So, if you want to talk to me, come down Monday night and we'll talk.
if you don't go ahead and blow your brains out. So he came down on Monday night. And we were sitting there talking and amongst other things he was a gambler and he lost large amounts of money that he didn't have.
And we got down here to this a man's step and I said to the guy, you know, we got to be able to go to these guys and say, "Look, I'm not the big shot that I would have had you believe. I'm an alcoholic. I've done you wrong.
Now, I'm here to make amends." Why? Says, "Juck, I can't do that." He says quite a few of these people are professional gamblers and says they're tough. Why?
He says they'll kill me. I said to the guy, "You reckon you will?" Why? He says, "Sure." Well, I says, "That's that's good.
You won't have suicide on your mind then. Let them do it. The guy started laughing and he's still laughing.
He's still laughing. He's paid off all his debts and he's living like a king, you know. Oh, don't settle these short.
This is like an inside shop. You get rid of all that stuff and you're a free man. Now, that's nine steps.
And what have we done? We've rolled away the stone. We've cleared away the wreckage of the past.
We've washed a few windows and now we can look deep within ourselves with brother Lawrence. Look deep within ourselves and find ourselves which includes our relationship with each other and with God. You remember brother Lawrence said, "If you would find God, look deep within yourself because it's the only place you're ever going to find him.
It's the only place you're ever going to find him." Well, we can't look deep within ourselves till we've cleaned the mess up. We got to get rid of the overburden. And then we can look deep within ourselves and find ourselves, which includes our relationship to each other and to God.
And this is the great discovery. This is the great discovery. This is what life's all about.
This is the thing that religion calls being born again. Being born out of conscious separation, out of aloneeness that thus talked so much about last night. Into unity.
into unity. Conscious separation. Conscious unity.
Conscious separation. The problem. Conscious unity.
The answer. And so we're born again. And now we can pray, seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious awareness of the living presence of the Almighty.
We can do this now. Sought through prayer and and meditation to improve our conscious contact with our very own God. God as I understand him, God as you understand him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
Oh, thank God for this. This is the way I live. This is the only way I can live.
This is the only way I can live. I can't run my life. I can't run yours.
I can't run my business. I can't run my wife. I can't run anything.
And I know it. I had 43 years to do that and I ended up in the bottom of the snake pit. I can't do it.
But I can pray for knowledge of his will for me and fire carried out. And I get it. I live with the total expectancy of guidance and direction and everything that I do, you know.
I am probably the worst mess that you will ever look at when I know what I'm doing. I can't even get to the right meeting when I know exactly where I'm going. I can't make it.
I've told some of it here this weekend. I was going to meeting in Pasadena a year or two ago, year about a year ago, I guess. And I knew exactly where I was going.
I had my names in the little squares on the Girl Scout calendar, you know, and I knew where I was going. I was going to Royce Sea in Pasadena. I could see it written in the square.
Hell, I could see it just as plain. And I went to Pasadena. I got there in time to get a sandwich and cup of coffee, which I did.
went to the meeting and the place was dark and I said to myself, uh, this is something wrong here, you know. So, I get out my little book and I look and here I see a meetings on Tuesday night. This is Monday.
Villa Street's Monday night, but I'm not going to Villa Street. I'm going to Royal Seca. So I say to myself, you damn fool, you put in the wrong square.
Now mind you, I'm within a mile of Villa Street and I'm 65 miles from home. But do I go to Villa Street? No, I wasn't going to Villa Street.
I was going to Roya. So I went home. Well, Mrs.
C was talking someplace that night. So, I unlocked the door and walked in. The phone was ringing.
I went over and answered and the man says, "Uh, where in the hell are you?" I says, "I'm on the other end of this phone, you ignorant bastard." Well, he says, "You're not supposed to be." He says, "There's 300 of us sitting up here at Villa Street waiting for you to talk." Now, there is the way I run my life. It's quite a convenient thing for me to be able to pray for knowledge is well, for me at the party out, I tell you that. And having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these things and we can't do them and miss it.
We can think we miss it because we might think that a spiritual awakening is something different. Something different. Something ethereal.
Something mysterious that might light on us or miss us. No, no. If we do these things, we will have a spiritual awakening.
Tommy says last night you feel peculiar. You know, and you wake up and find out you're healthy. You know, you've never been healthy before.
We feel a little peculiar, too, because life is good. Life is good. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to the alcoholic who still suffers and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.
We tried to carry this message. The alcoholic is still suffering. We tried to give this thing away that has been given to us and in the doing again we prove something.
Now we never find out unless we do because you see action is a magic word. The only way on earth to convert intellectual knowledge into wisdom is through action. Act as though I am and I will be, sayeth the Lord.
Action. So we tried to carry this message to al the alcoholic who still suffers. And in attempting to give this thing away, we discovered that this has never been a getting life.
It never was. All the conditioning that I had had in home, in church, and in school goes right out the window because I was conditioned to believe that I had to outthink, out, perform, and out maneuver in order to eek out a miserable living out of an unfriendly universe. And I beat my brains out doing that for 43 years.
21 years ago, I started trying to carry this message to the alcoholic who still suffers. I started trying to make amends to the woman and the kids that I crucified. I started trying to get even with the boss because he'd paid me for something I hadn't done.
Trying to do something for God's kids that they needed to have done because I wanted to and found that this never been a get getting life at all. It's always been a given life. The more you pour out without a price tag on it, the more you have because that's the way it is.
It's not a reward for well-being, for good. It's not a It's not a all day sucker for being a good boy. It's the way it is.
This is the way it is. The more I pour out without a price tag on it, more I have. How do I know?
All I got to do is look at my own books. It's all I got to do. Infinitely more good has come into my life in 21 years than the entire previous 43.
In every department of life. Every department of life. And I've never spent 5 seconds in 21 years trying to bring it about.
Not 5 seconds. This is the way it is. It's a giving life for it is in giving that we receive.
It is in forgiving that we are forgiven. And it is in dying to self that we are born into the reality of life. the reality of God, the reality of unity.
And we never know till we do it and practice these principles in all of our affairs and we are made whole. How fortunate can we be? How fortunate can we be?
I am what I am this morning because of the accident of total failure. Total failure. I can take no credit even for coming here or even for living long enough to get here.
There is no credit due me for anything because my determination, my choice, my decision was never to come here. And until I ran out of choice, I couldn't come. And I came here what for?
To find God. I'd been hunting for God for 30 years and had given up to get my wife back. No, she was gone.
Should be gone. And I wasn't entitled to have her back and I knew it. To get back to loving my kids.
No, no, no, no. They were gone and should be gone and I wasn't entitled to have them back to get my job back. Uh-uh.
I knew that the boss meant what he said when he said, "If you ever step foot in this plant again, I'm going to throw you through the window to find peace of mind and surrender your purpose. Never heard of it. I came here hoping against hope that I might find a way to live that didn't include that alcohol.
I would have settled for the meanest, old, unhappiest sobriety on earth just so I don't have to drink anymore because I can't die with this kind of a record. I love that wife and I love those kids and they had nothing to remember but a tongue chewing babbling idiot drunk writhing in the floor. So I've got to have a little time to rub out what I've written on the blackboard of life.
And I came to a bunch of drunks. The people I dislike most on earth because you see I was a drunk and I hated me and I hated all of you and I couldn't come to drunk for help but there wasn't any place else to go. There wasn't any place else to go.
And people like you took me on their laps and rocked me to sleep. Strangers to me. But you see, I wasn't a stranger to them because I was a drunk.
I was a drunk when I got here. They weren't. They were alcoholics.
See, we're drunk till we get here. And then we're alcoholics. You see?
And they rocked me to sleep. And they said to me, "If you want what we've got, do the things that we've done. Here are the steps we took.
Just do these things one day at a time to the best of your ability. See what happens. Don't drink today." They said, "Not that you've got to be sober 21 years.
I'd have died if they told me that." But they didn't. They said, "Just just don't drink today. Stay as close to us as you can." They said, "Stay close to us." And they gave me a few names and they said, "Now, if you get hurt and too bad, call before you drink.
Call before you drink. Let's see if we can't help each other." and I saw and I heard and I felt and I decided I wanted what you had and became willing to go to any length to get it and I've been coming back ever since. I reckon I've attended maybe four and a half five meetings a week for 21 years.
But since the day I discovered that I was sober, which was 6 months after I got here, I never came to one of these meetings in fear. I come to these meetings because I want to. I found life in these meetings.
For the first six months that I lived in Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous was my home. See, I didn't have any home. And I come and I'll continue to come as long as there's breath in me.
Now, isn't it marvelous that you come here willing to settle for just a way to live that don't include that flit and find the whole package? And find the whole package. How fortunate can we be?
How fortunate can we be? And those amongst us who think you might have lost some time. Oh, I hear this so often.
You didn't lose any time. You didn't lose an hour. I didn't lose a second.
I didn't spend one second in hell that wasn't necessary. Because you see, this is the only way I could have ever surrendered. I had to burn up.
And in order to get help from this power greater than myself, I had to be able to recognize the need for this help. As long as I was going to do it with do it myself, there was no help. There was no help.
God was willing, but I wasn't. So I had to become willing. Now, out of this way of life have come these things.
I haven't had to have a drink or pill for almost 21 years. In January the 10th, if I live that long and don't drink, I'll get a cake with 21 candles on. Now, that's not bad.
That's not bad because physical sobriety and life are synonymous with me. I can't have one without the other. It's the greatest gift God could give me that I might live today without having to drink.
So that's good. 21 years. maybe 7,700 days that I would not have had.
But for the grace of God, through the miracle of AA, that's not bad. What else? I got a new body out of it.
Took me three and a half years to get over falling on my face after my last drunk. And I haven't fallen on my face for 16 and 12 years now. That ain't bad.
Got a new body. What else? My family was put back.
Miss C and I have completed 41 years. If we're still around in June 24th, we'll have 42 years in double harness. That ain't bad.
The boys, we're getting along pretty good. And that ain't bad. What else?
I own the business. They threw me out of now. That's impossible.
That's impossible. This is something I never even dreamed of whilst drunk. But there it is.
And that ain't bad. But what else? Something that is infinitely greater than all of those things.
I have a God of my very own. My very own. And I just woke up to the fact that there he was.
The guy I've been hunting for forever. There he was. And wherever I am, he is.
and I have a lot of fun with him. I'm not afraid of him and I don't think he's afraid of me. And I share everything in life with him.
Everything in life I share with you. The good and the bad and the indifferent. Just like an kid.
Something bad I do, you know, and I do them. I take that in the closet with me. And I said, "Look, Dad.
Look what I did yesterday. Isn't this awful? Isn't this a hell of a thing for a guy like me to do?
But I did it and I know why. And I don't like it. And you don't like it.
And I'm going to do better. And with your help, I'll do a lot better. Sure.
Thank you. And I throw it away. I never carry it another second.
And a good thing happens like something like this morning. And I take that in the closet and I said, "Look, Dad. Isn't this terrible?
Isn't this wonderful? It couldn't happen to a bum like me, but it did. And I know where it came from." And I sure thank you.
Because you see, it's not normal to walk alone. It's not normal to walk alone. I walked alone for 43 years.
It's cold outside. It's normal for us to walk down the high road of life with our arms around each other. Sharing our experience, strength, and hope one with another in love.
This is normal. This is normal. It's not normal to be away from the father's house.
It's normal to become as little children totally dependent on this great thing called God. It's normal, just as normal as breathing. Because you see, without God, there would be no breathing.
Without God, no life. Without God, no intelligence. Without God, no peace.
Because you see, truly, truly, those first two words of the little prayer that we're about to recite together mean what they say. >> >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message.
Until next time, have a great day. >>