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>> Howdy. How y'all doing?

>> I'm glad to hear that. My name is Chuck Stunnard and I am an alcoholic.

>> I want to thank God for bringing us all here together. I don't know if you believe as I do that he's a father, but if you do, these are your brothers here with you this evening. I hope you'll love your brothers this weekend, particularly the ones you don't know. Thank you, Jimmy, for the challenge. There were men that didn't know me when I got here, and I didn't know them, and they love me. And today, I know that each and every one of you in this room are my brother. We just might not know each other yet.

I got a feeling a lot of us know an awful lot about each other without knowing each other, though. I want to thank the Atlanta men's workshop who gave birth to this great idea that brought us here and to all the men with the Central Florida Workshop that have put this thing together and been faithful and dedicated to doing this for us, providing this opportunity for us to come together and the service they provide in our community recovery community and the community as a whole.

I want to particularly thank Tennessee. It was not easy wearing overalls and finding out when you got here someone else had been wearing them before you were. You know, people tend to think we're related down here anyway. Show up dressed like Twinkies and they really start to wonder about you. Certainly want to thank all the members and volunteers that are here this weekend doing everything to make this possible. That's right.

[applause]

I want to thank Billy very much for being my friend, for being the man that I've had the privilege to watch him become. I will tell you, I first saw Billy sometime back in the '80s when the Christmas parade in Ocala was one of the biggest events that we had around here. And I was not happy about being there. I had got my truck parked just right where I could fix what I needed to endure that parade and keep myself warm and watch what was going on.

Lo and behold, there was this group came from Howard Middle School and they were all dressed up and they all looked the same playing in the band except for this little guy out front wearing a turquoise blue outfit with a big hat and carrying a baton. He was the only white face in that whole band and he was dancing down the street and I just said, "Would you look at that?" I had never seen anything like that in my life.

When I first met Billy, there he was. It wasn't turquoise, but he was trying to look different than everybody else. What he didn't know is I had a sponsor that taught me pretty early when I walked in looking like that, that for us, different means drunk and drunk means dead.

I want to tell you why I'm here tonight. I believe this with all my heart. Well, the real reason I'm here is my wife just dropped us off. We came down from Kerry, North Carolina, and we left yesterday, which should have provided me ample time to get here sometime before four to seven when we rolled in. So, you know, as always, things happen and the unexpected happens. Life continues to happen in my life while I'm making plans.

And I'm blessed that a man that I sponsor and a young woman that my wife sponsors agreed to ride down with us and spend the weekend together. My wife's up in Ocala with her family and friends and her AA family up there and introducing this young lady to them. And it's just a beautiful thing. But we are alcoholics and when we travel together things happen, you know.

When a young lady who's just about to have a year wouldn't mind me sharing this with you got a phone call this morning as we were leaving for breakfast and headed down the road somewhere around Bluffton, South Carolina, thinking we were leaving with plenty of time to get here, that her probation people had called and suggested today would be a good day for her to go find a place to take a drug test.

I was reminded what my life was like and I knew that this was exactly where I was supposed to be and this was unfolding exactly as it was supposed to unfold by the grace of God and the program Alcoholics Anonymous that was given to me by the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous who showed me with their love and affection and in time the black words on the white page in the blue book.

I've been sober since July the 27th, 1991. And for that, I am very grateful. I know that it has been nothing short of a miracle for Alcoholics Anonymous to have been right where I needed it to be, exactly when I needed it to be there. And more of a miracle for God to have placed every single person exactly where they needed to be, exactly when I needed them to be there for me to be standing here with you tonight. Had even one of those people been out of place, I don't believe I would be here.

She was a little embarrassed about all of this this morning and she said she was going to have to do this for five years and she just didn't understand if that was something that she really was going to be able to endure. Well, my sponsor's here tonight and a few other men know that for five years when they rang my bell, I answered and did what they asked me to do.

You know, there's a judge up in Ocala that some of you may know who will not be named in this current venue. If you don't know him, I'm sure you may know one just like him. And if you don't, I hope you never have to meet one. But if you do meet one, I hope that you find one that in his heart knows that you need the help so desperately you may not know that you need. And you know who I'm talking to here tonight.

I know that you're here because I was you sitting in a place like this not too long ago and a man stood up and he said, "I'm here to speak to the one person tonight that needs to hear what it is that I'm here to share. I don't know who you are and if you do hear whatever that is, you don't need to tell me. You just need to listen now. Think about it and let God work in your life the way that I'm certain that he will."

You know, five years of doing what they ask you to do is a difficult thing, but it was a whole lot better than the five years they had planned for me in the state penitentiary here in the great state of Florida. I am one of those that the state of Florida admitted I was powerless over alcohol and my life was unmanageable. They got a program for guys like us and it was not called Alcoholics Anonymous. But this judge seemed to see fit to give me one last opportunity. One last opportunity.

And so I was sentenced to Alcoholics Anonymous in lieu of going to prison with the assurance that after four years and 364 days, if I was not clean verifiably so, if I stubbed my toe by not doing one of those many, many things they had asked me to do, that I would withdraw the entire five-year sentence. And I had every reason to believe that's exactly what he would do.

So today I was reminded when we drove through Ocala and we passed the corner of 17th Street and Pine Street. I was reminded again there used to be a Waffle House there on the corner. It says one China now or something such as that. That big sign should say Chucky's Last Stand. As I looked at the corner sidewalk where 6,390 days ago I was beaten to a state of reasonableness with handcuffs on my wrist and handcuffs on my ankles and the two handcuffed together while I was still trying to bite the guys that were beating me.

I finally gave up enough to understand that this just wasn't going to work for me anymore. Something about the way I'd been living my life had not exactly turned out the way I had planned.

So, I'm here because she dropped me off. We got married 18 days ago, 19 days ago. So, I'm a little nervous. She's out there on her own for the first time and she's got my truck. I know I'm going to be okay here with y'all tonight.

[applause]

>> All right. One speaker at a time, please. If you would, from the Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, on page 124. Just a piece from the Family Afterward, showing others who suffer how we were given help is the very thing which makes life seem so worthwhile to us now. Cling to the thought that in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have, the key to life and happiness for others. With it, you can avert death and misery for them.

Now, that's a good deal for a guy like me. If you want an opportunity to come up here and do what I'm doing and what some of the others are going to do, don't drink. Go to meetings. Trust God. Clean house. Keep working on you. Try not to die in the process. Become sufficiently horrified. And you'll get your chance. I assure you.

My past is plenty dark enough. My kids came to this camp. I brought them down here for many years. I worked with volunteers down here. So, I'll go ahead and apologize to the good people of my faith for anything I may intentionally or unintentionally say tonight. And I'll have to deal with them next Sunday.

And if there's anyone that I unintentionally offend here tonight, well, I'll apologize to you. Now, I can guarantee you there's some of y'all, and I'm probably going to intentionally offend. And there's a few in here that maybe need to be offended. If you're like I was, you probably need to hear what you don't want to hear. My first sponsor used to tell me that sometimes we say what we need to hear. So, I hope that I'm also paying attention tonight as well.

You know, I also have one of those other things that some of us have. I'm an alcoholic. And I know we got California guys here, so you can appreciate this. And I'm from LA. That would be Lower Alabama for anyone that is geographically impaired. And I'm glad to be here. And I'm really glad that you're here.

When you come from a place like I do and you talk like I do and you wear overalls and you stand up here, inevitably there's somebody out there that's thinking, "Great. Won't have to listen to a pig farmer tonight." Well, I'm going to tell you, I never raised any pigs. I grew a few things. I had a cousin. He raised some pigs. Well, he thought he would. He was kind of lazy and was looking for an easy way out. And he went out and bought him a whole bunch of little piglets.

Well, next thing you know, time passed and he was thinking that those little piglets would multiply and he'd have a whole bunch of little piglets and he'd get just wealthy as they'd keep multiplying like rabbits and next thing you know, he'd have a veritable pig ranch and he'd be set for life without having to do anything but slop the hogs.

Well, about a year passed and he didn't have any more piglets. So, he went down to see the veterinarian and he asked him what the problem was and the vet came out and checked things out and said, "Well, all your pigs are sows. You're going to have to get a boar." Well, he couldn't afford that. He said, "Is there another option?" He said, "Well, you could artificially inseminate them."

He thought about that for a minute. He said, "How much that going to cost?" He told him. He said, "Well, all right. I don't think I can afford that either." He says, "You do know what that is?" And he said, "Yeah, I do." So he drove all the way back out to the farm and thought about it. And whenever he got home, he loaded those little sows up in the truck and took them out in the country and he artificially inseminated them.

He got home, he was real tired, and he waited a little while and noticed that they didn't show any signs of having little piglets. So about three months later, he loaded them up and took them out there and he artificially inseminated them again. About three months later, he had the same results. So he called the vet and he said, "How am I going to know when they're getting ready to have some little piglets?" He said, "Well, they'll be wallering around in the mud."

So he waited three months and he went back out there again and he came back. He was so tired and he asked his wife, he said, "Please tell me, honey, look out there and tell me that those little pigs are out there rolling in the mud." She said, "No, darling, they're not." And he said, "Well, what in the world are they doing?" She said, "They're sitting in the truck blowing the horn."

Welcome to the Central Florida Men's Workshop in my little corner of the world here this weekend.

[laughter]

I sure am blessed. You know, I was given an opportunity in life that a lot of people would have absolutely killed for. I know that there are people that grew up in a difficult household. I thought that I came from a dysfunctional home. My sponsor assured me that I did when I told him a bit about me and then he later pointed out it was because I was in it. And he is absolutely right.

My mom and daddy grew up in a depression. And all they ever wanted for me and my baby sisters was everything that they had never had. Good home, no drinking, no beatings, no fighting, no abuse, none of those problems. Somebody in my house was paying attention because my two baby sisters grew up to be doctors. Someone was paying attention. I decided I'd rather be the black sheep. See?

So, I set about working at it. You got to work at it sometimes. And I set about working at it because I didn't like the fact that my daddy was an engineer and he moved all over the country. And about every year or so when I was growing up, we'd move to another project. We'd move to another project and I'd end up being the new kid all over again. From the time I got to where I was graduating high school, I believe I'd been to about seventeen or eighteen different schools growing up.

And my mama had this thing to where, growing up in the '60s and the '70s when most everyone was looking like they just came back from Woodstock, my mama thought I should look like Richie Cunningham on Happy Days. So, not only was I looking different than most everybody else and moving all around the country, I sounded different than most everybody else. And the truth is, even in my own home, in my own room, in my own bed, with my own family all around me loving me, I felt different than everybody else.

I don't know why. I don't know if that's because I was born an alcoholic. I don't know if that's just because I was selfish and self-centered and didn't think about anything but me from the time I could start thinking about me. I don't know. I know it certainly wasn't because I wasn't loved or I was abused or I was not given all the things in life that should have given me the opportunities I needed to become successful in life.

But I do know that by the time I ended up in Alabama and I was going into high school out of junior high school, see in Alabama, football was big. Well, I mean, y'all just saw what happened this year. It's still pretty big there, too. And everybody wanted to grow up and play for Coach Bryant. And a lot of families in Alabama would tend to hold their kids back maybe a year or two when they were young. Some of the poor folks would. That way they'd be bigger when they got to high school.

And when I got to high school, there was a few of them that had been held back. And then some of them had gotten held back on their own account. See, in fact, there was a young man that I grew very fond of who had been to Vietnam, been shot, and come back. He introduced me to a new word called paranoid. I liked that. I liked it even better when I found out how you got that way. It works if you work it, right?

You know, I was taken in by these older guys and they made a project of me kind of like some older guys were to do about fifteen or sixteen years later. They took me in and they made a project of me. These guys, I was coming home from football practice and some of the older ones stopped and picked me up, saw me walking home and asked me if I'd like a ride and I jumped in the back. They asked me if I'd like something to drink. I said, "Sure." They had an ice chest. I opened it up. They said, "Help yourself." And I took out what they told me was a pony. I drank it.

Didn't particularly taste that good, but they were all drinking. It seemed to be funny. Seemed to be the cool thing to do. And something began to happen to me as I drank that little thing. And they asked me if I wanted another one. So, I had another one before the evening was over. I drank way more than everybody else. I said and did a whole lot of things that I don't remember. I know I got into an awful lot of trouble. I hurt some people. I got real real sick.

I pray to God that the last drink I had was the last time that I drank way more than everybody else, that I said and did a whole lot of things I don't remember, that I hurt a lot of people and I got into a lot of trouble and I got real sick. Because for me, from fifteen to thirty-three, nothing really changed except it just got worse.

Now, most of you know what that was about. And if you haven't found that out yet, ask your brothers to tell you about it this weekend. They'll be happy to share with you what it used to be like, what happened, and what it's like now. And maybe it doesn't need to be in a general way so much since it's us men here together. Maybe it needs to be real specific. Maybe some of the older brothers need to grab the little brothers and let them know what's really waiting for them if they continue down the path that we were all once on.

I know for me what I heard in Alcoholics Anonymous was the absolute truth. Locked up, covered up, or sobered up. The Big Book says we only got a couple of choices. To accept a life lived on a spiritual basis or continue to go on trying to blot out the intolerable consciousness of our situation. Accept spiritual help or continue to live in the insanity that I believe to be the only way to live.

You know, I did a lot of things during that period of time that I had an awful lot of fun with and I did some things that every young guy ought to do. Briefly, what I tried to do was go to school. I was supposed to. Barely got out of high school. Spent a lot of time running around, cutting class, being a fool, thinking it was cool. Managed to get accepted to a handful of the best colleges in the southeastern United States.

Because like all of us that I've ever met in Alcoholics Anonymous, my problem's not that I'm too stupid. My problem tends to be that I'm too smart. And I haven't met anyone here yet that didn't have the same problem. Most every single one of us came in here too smart for our own good. You know, we are the cream of the crop. It's no wonder that we ended up like we did. How could anyone but us possibly know what was the right thing for us to do? No wonder we did what we did.

See, but life has a way of making us believe the truth whether we want to or not. At least it did in my case. I went to college just long enough to get that Pell Grant, to get any financial aid I could get, to go down there to drop out, get rid of all that crap, get the refund, and go to the liquor store and to that other place I like to go to where that paranoid guy was waiting for me. Sometimes he's still there. I know he's still waiting.

You know, I went to some of the best universities in the southeastern United States and I just didn't go to class. I just didn't go to class. I've got friends I went to school with, doctors, lawyers, engineers. I just didn't go to class. I got into so much trouble before school even started at Auburn University. And thank God it was the campus police that caught me. They sent me to the school psychologist and I had an interview. And when that interview was done at eighteen years old, she pronounced me an alcoholic and gave me a meeting schedule and suggested I go to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I left their office. A friend of mine was waiting. He said, "What did they say?" I told him they think I'm an alcoholic and they want me to go to AA. He said, "What are you going to do?" I threw the schedule away and I said, "Let's go to the liquor store." And so it went until I came to the place where I didn't really know what else to do. So I got married.

You thought you really thought nineteen days ago was the first time? Come on. You must be a newcomer. And I didn't understand that girl. So, I married her and twenty-five years later, twelve and a half of it drunk, twelve and a half of it sober, she informed me that if she had known when she gave me my last chance it was going to last that long, she would have never given it to me.

It seems that I found the hardest place to practice the principles of this program was under the roof of my own house and I would go down to the meeting, particularly the men's meeting, and I would share the hardest place for me to practice the principles of this program is under the roof of my own house. That's why I ran away from home and came here this morning.

Oh, Chuck, that's good. That's good. You can share and be honest with just like that. Be even better if you'd do something about it.

See, that's what this is about for me. It's about doing something. It's about changing. It's about taking action whether I want to take it or not. It doesn't have anything to do with how I feel about anything.

And when I got here, I had a lot of feelings about what y'all were talking about around here. And most of them I had no interest in whatsoever. You know, you don't get sent to a place to stay out of prison and feel good about being there. I mean, for a minute, I ran away to a treatment center after the last drunk. I had to come home and show my wife the papers to prove to her that I'd been locked up. There was no trust left in our marriage at all. None whatsoever.

And I had two beautiful kids. We lived next door to a preacher who had been praying for me heavily for quite some time. You know, I came to one morning. I mean, I came to. It was an ungodly hour. The sun was barely coming up and I heard this organ music or something going off and I wasn't sure what was happening to me and it was coming from outside. I lived on a little tiny pond. I'd made a small beach and the preacher was out there having some kind of service and putting people in the water in my backyard and I didn't even realize it was Easter.

And what I did was I brought my Labradors in from outside through the house, grabbed two cans of tennis balls, opened the door, and sent them for a swim. And that man kept praying for me. And that man kept praying for me.

And when I ended up in a treatment center, he came and he saw me and he told me that he was going to continue to pray for me. And his daughter had been taking care of my little daughter. So when I came home, that drunken, broken shell of a man that I was, I had only come home to try to get the checkbook to go out and write some more bad checks to get some more liquor and to see if there was anything left in my house.

And I opened the refrigerator door and there was one beer in there. And I took the beer out and my little daughter asking me where I'd been took it out of my hand and it hit the floor. It's no wonder I became the monster that I really was. I didn't beat her, but I broke her heart. I unleashed something that child had never seen or heard before from her papa. And she ran to her room crying and screaming. And all I could hear was the cries and sobs in my house and the silence.

And this is what my life had become. In my daughter's room, I heard a little voice crying and sobbing like little children do. And I walked in there and she had a stuffed angel and she was hugging it and she was crying and singing, "Jesus loves me, yes, he do. And Jesus loves my papa, too."

Now, I was born in the mountains of western North Carolina, and I was raised by a grandmother from a little church in the Wildwood. And she always believed that her grandson would stand in a podium in a church one day and carry a message of hope and faith to others. She never thought I'd get here like this. I can guarantee you that.

So, I remembered something that I had forgotten. And I knew that I was very sick. And I held that girl and I told her that I wanted to get some help and I loved her very much. And her mama came and took her from me and took my little son and they left and she said, "It's all over." And I went outside and I looked at my little house that I'd been so proud of. And it was falling down. It was absolutely falling apart. It looked more like a haunted house than a home.

And my Labradors that I raised, I was so proud of. They were covered with ticks and fleas and matted up and sand spurs and burrs and my beach was grown up and my grass was up to my knees and my house interior. I had gone in there and sprayed flea fluid all over the carpet. It turned green because I was too lazy to do anything about really tending to the fleas on the dogs. I just go in there and poison the house once in a while.

And I realized the man I had become was not the man I was intended to be. And I didn't know anything to do except what my people had done for a couple hundred years. And that was work hard. And I went into that house and I did everything I could to straighten up the inside and outside in what was one of the hottest heat waves we ever had here in this part of the world right up there on the Waucilla River.

I went to work and I heard things and I saw things and I know it was by God's grace only I didn't die out there on that river bank because I have held men that I know were not in the condition I was in who very nearly died under medical care. There was a loving God holding me in his hand and it took me to a treatment center and when I was in that treatment center I heard things and saw things from people.

God put everyone in my life right where they needed to be. I was in a treatment center where everyone from the doctor down to the guy that part-time drove the van were all active in the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and were in meetings and were showing up and they invited Alcoholics Anonymous to come inside.

I'd like to tell you I'd had a big spiritual experience with my daughter. Truth is I had a little. I guess I got woke up a little bit and I ran to that treatment center to hide. And while I was in there, Alcoholics Anonymous came to see me. And there's two men that are here tonight that were coming in there. Three, I think, I believe. I see one who's maybe changed a bit since I saw him last. But two in particular. One will be speaking for you Sunday morning. The other is my sponsor.

And those men shared something. They didn't just come to that meeting and just come take advantage of our pain so they could go home and feel better. They came and brought the message of hope from Alcoholics Anonymous that you don't ever have to feel this way again and the worst can be over if you are prepared to do something about it.

You know, when I came from the treatment center, I was gifted beyond belief with more people that kept showing up right where they needed to be. I have lived an enchanted life in recovery and it needed to happen that way in order for me to stay here.

You don't do the things that I did in the places that I was at. You don't come to in those places hiding from the dealers and the cops that I came to in. You don't come to listening to the sound of some old rocking chair creaking like something out of a horror movie and see a pair of crusty feet pushing that thing up and down and only to open your eyes and look a little further and see that there's an old woman sitting in that chair, naked, smoking a crack pipe, telling you that if you're okay and got another twenty dollars, we can do it again.

I don't know exactly what she was talking about, but I can tell you at that moment I became pretty clear I was an alcoholic because I wasn't interested in anything she was offering then. But I was very interested in a drink.

You know, I drove down Pine Street coming in today and I prayed to God I'd see some changes and some I saw and some I didn't. My old place of business is still up there where I was selling myself short trying to get away from the pain. And everything I did only made it worse. And so I'd continue to go to those places and do those things.

There was a man who showed up in my life. He taught me that there were some simple things I was going to have to do. One of them was to come in, sit down, shut up, and do what he asked me to do. One of them was to give up. One of them was to show up. One of them was to come and take some actions. Didn't matter what I thought about them. Didn't matter what I felt about them. All it mattered was that I just do it.

And one day, he pointed out to me that I needed to be doing the same thing a little closer to home. And so he sent me to AA that was closer to my house because, see, I didn't have a driver's license and the kind people in Alcoholics Anonymous were carrying me around everywhere. And so he sent me to AA closer to my house and I found a place I could ride my bicycle to.

And when I got there, I was sitting in a meeting and they asked if there was any newcomers or visitors. And I introduced myself and they asked if I'd care to share. And I said, "Yeah, I would," because there were all these happy people. And they were so happy and laughing. And I said, "I don't see how you can possibly have the same problems that I have and be this happy." They just laughed even more and told me to keep coming back and asked me if I would care to pick on someone.

And I looked around the room and I didn't really recognize anybody and there was a man there. And he was one of those two men that had come to that treatment center. And I remembered his name and I said, "I'd like to hear from my friend Gus over there."

And the next voice I hear says, "My name's Gus. I'm an alcoholic and I do not know that man and he is not my friend. Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous in Citrus County."

He became something much more than my friend. That night, he gave me his phone number. And he said, "So, I know you. You know me from when you were over to the treatment center in the hospital." He said, "Maybe someday you'll want to talk to someone." And he gave me his number. He said, "Give me a call if you do. This isn't easy, this thing we do, and we could hang out a bit."

Three days went by and I finally got myself back in that place that we always get into and I picked up the phone and I called and I was scared to death and he answered and I said, "Gus, I don't know if you remember me. This is Chuck, the guy from Holder and the treatment center chat."

He said, "Of course I remember you. What took you so long to call?" He said something else, but this is AA—you can fill in the blanks for most of this. We can for each other.

And he came and he taught me that the first step for me would always be to shut up and get in the van. We're going to another meeting. He helped me to understand that step two was not asking me if I was insane. It was telling me that I was. And no one really cared what I thought anyway. And the proof of that was he would always tell me night after night as he was taking me home about the many men that had sat in that van that he had driven over the ten years he had been in Alcoholics Anonymous who had shared thoughts such as mine and their feelings with him who were now dead or in prison.

And he's got this wall in his garage that's got pictures of them. So if he comes around taking your picture, be careful. My picture's on that wall. My picture's on that wall with my best friend. See, he forgot.

My sponsor is a man who was raised by men in New England. And they believe in doing this thing the way it was handed down to them. They believe in doing this thing the way they were doing it before we had a book. A great many of them do. And that's the gift that he gave me. But he also took me to men that believed in this book. And he took me to conferences where there were men that believed in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. And he encouraged me to reach out to these men.

We went to a conference not long after he and I had spent some time together watching the tide change. One day I was in the paint business and he asked me if I knew how much a gallon of paint weighed. I told him I thought it was about ten to twelve pounds. He said, "How about a gallon of water?" I said, "Eight to ten."

He said, "Chucky, we've been sitting here for some time. You've seen what's happened out here. How many pounds of water do you think has moved back and forth with no help from you whatsoever? You know what? Go count dandelion seeds. Look at butterfly wings. Look up in the sky as far as you can and tell me if there's something beyond what you see. Look down at the ground as close as you can and tell me if there's something smaller than you there. And then tell me what do you believe is in charge of all of that. Because whatever that is, that's what you get to choose to ask to help you to stay s