A Town Idiot Who Sobered Up by Getting on His Knees – Buttermilk S.

About This Speaker Tape

Buttermilk Smith opens this 1969 Wichita talk the way he does everything — with a story. Born in Cincinnati, Arkansas, a town that never grew past a hundred people because every time a baby was born somebody had to leave, Buttermilk was the designated town character who earned overtime based on his looks and intelligence. He got his nickname from a Depression-era scheme to pipeline buttermilk to St. Louis at forty cents a gallon. His humor is relentless — the Poo-Poo dog story, the preacher brother whose divine sign "GPC" probably meant "Go Plow Corn," buying a pink Cadillac to match his girlfriend's telephone — but underneath every joke is a man who drank for seventeen years without stopping.

The real substance of the talk is what those seventeen years cost. He lost his first wife and two children. He worked as police chief in Cordova, Alaska, mostly because nobody else wanted the job and it gave him an excuse to stay drunk. He bounced back to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, broke, owning nothing that wouldn't fit in a shoebox. He went in and out of AA for ten years — always talking, never listening, always "dried out" but never sober. He'd flip through a magazine, spot a whiskey advertisement, and start salivating uncontrollably. AA had ruined his drinking but hadn't yet saved his life.

The turning point came through a hard-headed old-timer Buttermilk didn't even like. This man refused to coddle him and told him bluntly to go find a Higher Power, get alone with that Higher Power, and work out an agreement about the drinking. Buttermilk went to his brother's back porch, got on his knees on the concrete floor, and prayed. He doesn't know what time he started, but it was daylight when he got up. From that moment, the obsession to drink was completely removed — no craving, no struggle, no white-knuckling. At the time of this recording, he was approaching nine years sober.

Buttermilk closes with practical advice about the Steps: don't get hung up debating one Step, just take them. If you hit a wall on one, put it on the bench and pick up another. Nobody ever got drunk while actively working a Step. The talk is a masterclass in wrapping deadly serious AA teaching inside a hillbilly storytelling tradition that keeps a room laughing while delivering the message that surrender doesn't have to be complicated — it just has to be real.

Topics

Timestamps

• 00:00 Introduction — Two stories like Uncle Hooky Jack two fiddle tunes
• 03:00 Cincinnati, Arkansas — a town of 100 people and the designated town idiot
• 06:00 How he got the name Buttermilk — Depression-era pipeline scheme to St. Louis
• 09:00 The Poo-Poo dog incident on the train to Amarillo
• 15:00 Depression preachers, dust storms, and leaving Arkansas before starvation
• 19:00 Police chief of Cordova, Alaska — hired because nobody else wanted it
• 22:00 Seventeen-year drunk — lost wife and children, came home with a half-empty shoebox
• 26:00 Brother Big Tobe finds him at Uncle John Cabin, too sick to fight
• 30:00 The little man in the Jeepster — first real AA contact
• 34:00 Ten years in and out of AA — talking instead of listening, dried out but never sober
• 38:00 The hard-headed old-timer says go find a Higher Power and make an agreement
• 41:00 On his knees on the concrete floor — the obsession lifted completely
• 44:00 Falling off a shrimp boat — asking for help when it mattered
• 47:00 Buying a pink Cadillac to match Pauline telephone
• 50:00 Do not debate the Steps, take them — nobody got drunk working a Step