Surrender Without the Fight – Blackie B.

About This Speaker Tape

1973, the day of his last commitment to a nuthouse. Blackie B. didn't just drink; he used alcohol to silence a stutter and a "goosey" nature that made him a target for bullies. He spent years cycling through mental institutions and illegal operations, treating his life like a fantasy movie where he played the hero, while in reality, he was a "party drunk" sliding into a deep, dark depression. He recalls the wreckage of his marriage and the irony of his relatives tricking him into committing himself to a ward.

Blackie’s voice is raw, stripped of pretense. He describes the paradox of being a "full-blood alcoholic" on a cocktail of 37 mind-altering pills a day, playing doctors against each other for stronger scripts. He tried to "game" the Twelve Steps, treating them as a checklist of justifications. He admits he didn't find peace through a neat process, but through the brutal realization that he was powerless. He surrenders not with a fight, but as a man who finally stopped managing...

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Blackie B. opens with a reflection on gratitude and his sobriety date of May 20, 1973.
• 4:15 Childhood memories: the first drink of blackberry wine at a Boy Scout campout and the relief from his stutter.
• 10:30 The 'second baptism' story and his decision to be 'bad' since he couldn't be 'good'.
• 18:45 Discussion of 'blankouts' and the trickery used by his family to commit him to his first mental institution.
• 24:10 Laughter: Description of the 'federal nuthouse' and the experience of being on Thorazine.
• 32:00 The failure of his first attempt at sobriety and the '808 Tap Room' relapse.
• 41:15 The 'naked in New York' story following a flight from Athens, Greece.
• 52:30 The struggle with the 12 Steps: admitting powerlessness (Step 1) and the 'snap' of Step 3.
• 58:10 The Big Book study and the realization that the book is simple, but he is complicated.
• 1:05:20 The cancer diagnosis and the terror of dying.
• 1:18:40 A spiritual awakening triggered by reading the Book of John in the hospital.
• 1:25:00 Final reflections on living with cancer and the necessity of total surrender.