He Thought Sobriety Was a Three-Part Program – Sandy B. 🤣

About This Speaker Tape

Pearl Harbor Day, 1964. Sandy B. called for help not to get sober, but to have a convenient excuse for the military board when they smelled the booze on his breath. He entered the program as a Marine fighter pilot who had discovered that three drinks could erase a lifetime of inferiority, while twenty-three drinks brought the "hatchet in the forehead" and a stomach full of vomit. He describes the disease as a tightening vice, eventually leading to a straitjacket and a six-month stint in a psychiatric ward.

Sandy B. views the ego as a cocoon or an eggshell that traps the individual in "cosmic loneliness." He argues that a spiritual awakening requires a "bottom"—comparing Step One to Tony Soprano breaking your arm in three places to force you to seek help. Sobriety, he found, wasn't just about the bottle; it was a multi-part program of stopping the embezzling and the cheating. By punching holes in his own ego, he shifted from a non-entity to a spiritual being guided by a Higher Power.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Sandy B. opens with the 'Pocket of Enthusiasm' and thanks the veterans.
• 2:15 The story of his first sponsor, Bill T., and the 'bookends' of their relationship.
• 5:40 Laughter: The 'vomit' tip for surviving the holiday season.
• 8:10 The story of Sybil C. and the power of working with another alcoholic.
• 14:20 Sandy B. describes the 'secret' of alcohol at Yale and the subsequent physical wreckage.
• 18:50 The 'oxygen emergency' and the shame of being a failure in an elite squadron.
• 23:10 The descent into alcohol poisoning, vodka and soup, and the hospital straitjacket.
• 26:40 Step 1: The 'Tony S.' metaphor for hitting bottom.
• 31:10 Discussion on the 'cosmic loneliness' of the ego and the 'egg shell' of the self.
• 35:20 The 'multi-part program' of sobriety: no drinking, no embezzling, no cheating.