Called Al-Anon the Sisters of Perpetual Revenge 🤣 – Tom N.

About This Speaker Tape

Tom from Staten Island tells the story of a man who spent twenty years in AA without ever truly working the program. He first walked into a meeting in 1974 at his wife Ginny's insistence, and while he stopped drinking for nearly ten years, he was what he calls a "house devil" — rage-filled, resentful, slamming kitchen cabinets while his three small children flinched. He was making six figures, stepping over anyone in his path, but spiritually and emotionally bankrupt. He had no idea what he was actually suffering from.

The relapse came without warning. Standing on the Upper East Side next to his brand-new town car, he walked into a bodega and grabbed two forties without having thought about drinking that morning. That began a seven-year spiral that ended in a jail cell at age forty-seven, facing real time. In that cell, on October 15, 1994, he fell to his knees and begged Higher Power to either fix him or take him. Meanwhile, his wife Ginny was at an Al-Anon meeting where a woman named Patty — freshly on fire from working the steps out of the Big Book — pressed a phone number into Ginny's hand and said give this to Tom.

That phone number belonged to Larry G., a tattooed Jewish man on Staten Island who started making promises Tom had never heard in twenty years of meetings: you never have to drink again, you never have to feel this way again, and the best days of your life lay ahead of you. Larry gave him three assignments — pray the lay-aside prayer, read the Doctor's Opinion and highlight everything he identified with, and show up Saturday or never call again. Alone in a Richmond hotel room, terrified to step outside because any taste of freedom meant drinking, Tom got on his knees and did the work. The obsession to drink was removed on October 19th and never came back.

Tom walked through all twelve steps with Larry's guidance, did his fifth step with a man named Dave who helped him see things he could not see himself, and began making amends that changed his relationships. He started taking others through the steps almost immediately, driven by the same fire Larry had shown him. Today he has five grandchildren, walks his daughters down the aisle, and lives the promise Larry made him — that the best days were still ahead.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opening set-aside prayer and introduction of Tom from Staten Island
• 2:00 First AA meeting in 1974 — wife Ginny dragged him to the Old Bay Ridge group in Brooklyn
• 5:00 Life as a house devil — going to meetings constantly but raging at home, slamming cabinets, terrorizing his family
• 10:00 The relapse — stepping out of his town car on the Upper East Side and grabbing two forties from a bodega after nearly ten years sober
• 15:00 Jail cell surrender at age 47 — falls to his knees and begs Higher Power to take him or change him
• 20:00 Patty from Al-Anon gives Ginny a phone number for Larry G. — the call that changed everything
• 27:00 Alone in a Richmond hotel room — double-locks the door, too afraid to go outside, peeing in a cup in the car rather than risk freedom
• 33:00 Prays the lay-aside prayer and reads the Doctor's Opinion for the first time after twenty years in AA — obsession removed October 19th
• 42:00 Fourth step breakthrough — weeping over his inventory on New Year's Eve after Joanne told him we are all sick
• 52:00 Making amends and taking others through the steps — the best days of his life lay ahead