Chuck Chamberlain Twelve Step Talks

Chuck says, "So, we gotta go to our people and say, Look, I'm not the big shot I would have had you believe. I'm an alcoholic. And I found a way to live that might let me live one day at a time for a lifetime without taking another drink. And one of its conditions is that I make amends. And that's why I'm here. I've done you wrong. And I'm not only here to apologize, but to tell you I will make restitution just as quickly as possible.

Oh, these are beautiful. Let me tell you a little story. Some six years ago, I got a call on a Friday night from a guy over in Whittier. And he says, ‘Chuck, I'm sitting here with a six gun in my lap, just ready to blow my brains out. And Jim told me not to shoot myself until I talked to you. Now he says, what have you got to say?

’Ha ha! And I says, ‘well, bub, you've called me at a bad time.’ I says, ‘I'm talking tonight, I'm talking tomorrow night, and I'm talking Sunday night. But Monday night's open.’ Now I says, ‘you can blow your brains out Tuesday morning just as well as you can tonight. So, if you want to come down here Monday, we'll talk it over.’

And you know something? He showed up. He showed up. And we sat there and talked for a couple of hours and finally got down to this point. And amongst other things, this guy had lost money that he didn't have gambling. And he had lost a lot of it to professional gamblers. And I said to him, ‘you've got to go to them. You've got to go and tell them that you ain't got it. That you recognize the debt and that you'll pay it whatever you can. But you haven't got it and you'll have to pay it off as you can.’

Why, he says, ‘Chuck, they’ll kill me.’ And I says, ‘so what?’

I says, ‘at least you won't have suicide on your mind.’

And the old boy started laughing and he's still laughing. And he's going to town and he don't owe nobody nothing. You see what it does to us when we get honest enough to face this thing called life.

©2024 Thomas Laperriere (P)2024 History of Recovery