Quit Arguing, Quit the Closed Mind — That’s What Step Two Actually Means

About This Speaker Tape

Recorded Monday, October 3rd, 1994 at a prime time stag meeting in Sherman Oaks, California, Bob delivers a hard-hitting talk about what he calls the missing message of Alcoholics Anonymous: that the program of recovery has to happen NOW — not tomorrow, not after five years of meetings, not after enough reading. He describes being sober for a long time while still being "the same man sober as I was drunk" — raging at a neighbor who ran over his flowers, suspicious of everyone, unable to live with the people closest to him, carrying a mind that "wouldn't let go." The disease, he insists, is not in the bottle. It is in the mind, and it is on full blast the instant he drops the application of the steps.

Bob builds his case around Step 2 as the character-building step. Coming to believe in a power greater than self means, in the day he is in, quitting the argument, quitting the closed mind, quitting the fault-finding look he gives to people at meetings, and consciously replacing the self-talking power with a Higher Power. He repeatedly returns to page 85 — the daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of his spiritual condition — and to Step 11's "conscious contact" as something that must be practiced every waking moment, not stored up the night before like he used to do with the Big Book, the 12 and 12, and the Sermon on the Mount.

The sharing portion is unusually substantive. Dan talks about a mentor outside AA who warned him that "talking shit" is transparent and costs you jobs, and about driving with the same mind that used to want to pick fights. Perry — called "the Hammer" — describes riding in a car with a man he would have grabbed by the throat without the application, catching himself mid-thought: "this fucker is working me… I'm the man." Nadir shares a furious confrontation with neighbors during a move and a hospital trip for kidney stones, admitting how quickly self hops back in as the director. Ken says the application is the hardest thing he has ever done in his life, harder than a college degree, harder than a clutch job in pouring rain with his father.

Bob closes the discussion by arguing there is no such thing as a choice for the alcoholic with alcoholism — either this application or death — and insists that what he is talking about is not praying on your knees, but a mind function that does not go to the file cabinet of yesterdays or the fantasy of tomorrows. The meeting closes with announcements about setup volunteers, coffee for the next three weeks, and two sobriety birthdays for Charlie and Anderson.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Monday October 3 1994 prime time stag Sherman Oaks California — Bob opens on the message that was never delivered to him: the disease of alcoholism growing in him without the alcohol
• 4:30 The same man sober as drunk — anger and hostility triggered by a thought, no confrontation needed, leaving meetings unable to drive his own car
• 11:00 The neighbor who ran over the flowers — almost killed the man, then the shame came afterwards the way it always did
• 18:45 NOW means NOW — not tomorrow, not next week, not five years from now; the message Bob did not get for two and a half years
• 26:00 Step 2 as character building in the day I'm in — open mind means quit arguing, quit the preconceived idea about the person you saw yesterday
• 38:20 Page 85 daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition — Step 11 conscious contact every wakeful moment
• 52:00 Dan shares — the non-AA mentor who said talking shit is transparent, the huge bomb that dropped before the meeting, 'he is or he isn't'
• 1:02:30 Perry the Hammer — the man in the car working him, 'I'm the man', the throat-grab that did not happen because of the application
• 1:15:00 Nadir on kidney stones, the furious move, the neighbors who would not help, producer of confusion — 'let me bring harmony when there is discord'
• 1:24:00 Ken — the hardest damn thing he ever did, harder than the BA, harder than the clutch job with his father in the pouring rain