The Dependency of Living in Two Different Worlds – Sandy B.

About This Speaker Tape

Stepping Stones Club - 1994

Sandy B. maps out the duality of his drinking years contrasting the 'sober world'—a place of pain and anxiety—with the 'good world' of alcohol where he felt an intuitive false freedom. A former Marine Corps fighter pilot he describes the wreckage of his later years: the physical tremors the 'dark ages' of military medicine where his alcoholism was misdiagnosed as a childhood fear of flying and the desperation of borrowing money just to get enough booze to stand in line for his paycheck. He recounts the terror of the 'nut ward' at Bethesda and the subsequent rescue by a corpsman who told him 'All drunks fall in.' Sandy B. dismantles the idea of AA as an intellectual exercise framing it instead as a spiritual survival mechanism—a 'ripcord' for those about to hit the ground—and a process of unwrapping the garbage to find the magnificent human being underneath.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Laughter: Sandy B. opens with a series of jokes about a letter written to someone who can't read fast.
• 4:15 Sandy B. describes the '14 Promises of Whiskey' and the false social freedom alcohol provided.
• 8:30 The 'Clock': Sandy B. discusses the agony of waiting for 4:30 PM to hit the bar.
• 13:40 The 'Great Pretenders': Discussion on the necessity of pretending to be fine while dying inside.
• 17:10 The misdiagnosis: Medical doctors label his alcoholism as a 'childhood fear of flying'.
• 22:40 The 'banjo ditches' and the struggle with dried shoelaces in Japan.
• 26:50 The 'nut ward' at Bethesda and the first encounter with AA.
• 31:20 The 'ripcord' metaphor: Discussing the need for a Higher Power as a survival mechanism.
• 36:10 The 'New Pair of Glasses' and the shift in perspective regarding self-worth.
• 40:00 The 'unwrapping' process: Finding the true identity beneath the garbage of addiction.