Arrested at a Naked Hedgehopping Contest and the CO Asked Why — I Thought He Meant Why I Got Caught 🤦 – Dick G.

About This Speaker Tape

Dick Grant shares his story at a Texas AA conference, framing his entire life through the lens of belonging to groups — and failing at every one of them. He grew up with two alcoholic parents in a chaotic household where dinners burned on the stove and family members chased each other with knives. He describes feeling separated from his peers by an invisible pane of glass, a sensation he carried into his college fraternity, the Navy, and his marriage. Alcohol was the substance that temporarily bridged the gap between him and everyone else.

His drinking career included blackouts at the officers' club, getting arrested during a naked hedgehopping contest, writing suicidal poetry on fraternity house walls that no one ever mentioned, and sitting alone in a Dempsey dumpster in Pensacola drinking by himself. He married a woman with agoraphobia — three days after the wedding she was hospitalized and he was drunk at a bar. On February 16, 1969, filled with self-revulsion and a sense of impending doom, he asked his wife to call AA, and she did.

Dick spent his first year hovering at the edges of AA — coming late, leaving early, hiding in the men's room during coffee breaks. His breakthrough came when he accidentally told the truth at a meeting and started to cry, admitting he thought he was flunking AA. A man appointed himself Dick's sponsor, and for the first time in his life Dick belonged to a group of two. A sponsor named Jim O'Leary later told him the words that saved his life: the hum of your self-awareness is so loud in your ears you can't hear what we're trying to tell you.

With 19 years sober, Dick describes finding his real group of two — himself and Higher Power — and learning to go to meetings not to get fixed but to find one person whose day he could make better. He tells of a men's step study group in Denver that met weekly for seven years, a Saturday morning home group he helped start, and the quiet confidence that replaced a lifetime of feeling like a misfit. He closes with the three words that made it all possible: Higher Power help me.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opens with humor about Blanche and Al-Anon, then introduces the theme of groups
• 3:30 The satirical description of AA — admitting you're a failure, grabbing on and letting go, talking to something you can't see
• 8:00 Growing up with two alcoholic parents — checking for ambulances, stealing money, chasing parents with knives
• 12:00 College fraternity years — social chairman as a pledge, writing suicidal poetry on basement walls that nobody mentioned
• 17:00 Navy career — drinking alone in a dumpster in Pensacola, the naked hedgehopping arrest, blackouts at the officers' club
• 23:00 Marriage to Jay — honeymoon disaster, her agoraphobia, his last drink on February 16, 1969
• 28:00 First year in AA — hiding in the men's room, accidentally telling the truth, sponsor who appointed himself
• 35:00 Jim O'Leary's pivotal words: the hum of your self-awareness is so loud you can't hear what we're trying to tell you
• 42:00 The Denver step study group that met weekly for seven years — helping a man write his fourth step in the car between sales calls
• 50:00 Closing on the group of two with Higher Power, the Saturday morning home group, and the three words: Higher Power help me