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I'm supposed to do steps one, two, and three.

And I'm just, I really am delighted that I'm doing this because the 12 and 12 says that step one is the only

step I have to take in its entirety.

And really, I only have to take the first part of step one in its entirety.

And one of the things that I didn't get to, I got to know Chuck just a tiny little bit before he died.

Dave and I had moved to Southern California, and I got to be with him because our sponsors were people who were always hanging around Chuck.

And so I got to be at his side for a few times before he died.

And one of the things that Chuck said that I always loved, and he also says it, in a new

pair of glasses, is life is just a sequence of surrenders.

But we have to have the first one before we can have the second

or the third. And the first surrender that I had to make was a surrender to alcohol. And I want

to talk about that because one of the things that I want to say is that when I came to the rooms

of Alcoholics Anonymous,

everybody seemed to be from alcoholic parents or alcoholic somebody. I do not come from

alcoholic parents. In fact, the only person in my family who drank was my grandfather.

And I can assure you from my recollection, he never drank like I drank.

He just had some beer now and then.

...