A Run-of-the-Mill Drunk with a Straightforward Old-School Message – Bob B.
About This Speaker Tape
Bob B. from Norfolk, Virginia, speaks at the NC Tri-Area Roundup in 1972 with a straightforward, old-school AA message. A self-described run-of-the-mill drunk, Bob believes he was born an alcoholic — he did not drink himself into the disease. He draws on his upbringing in a Baptist family where his mother hated alcohol because of her father's periodic binges, and a Sunday school teacher who once declared himself an alcoholic despite never having taken a drink.
Bob started drinking at 18 after a lifetime of being told it was wrong, and it did something for him immediately — it made this shy, quiet man feel like he could talk to anybody. Trouble came fast: a drunk driving arrest within a year and a half, friends telling him he did not act right when he drank. He passed every warning off and went on his merry way.
His honest, unvarnished style is pure mid-century AA. Bob is not interested in impressing anyone — he just wants to tell what he was like, what happened, and what he learned. He credits his wife Anna, who married him after he got sober and has never seen him drink, with being the anchor that kept him from going back out during his darkest moments, even though she never fully understood the problem.
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