Chanting Higher Power Is Good Until the Committee in My Head Shut Up – Matt K.

About This Speaker Tape

Matt shares his story at the Brentwood Workshop in Los Angeles, a meeting that was the first place he laughed as a newcomer. Sober since November 6, 1978, he traces a harrowing trajectory through adolescence and young adulthood — arrests starting at age nine, probation from nine to twenty-two, a quart-a-day vodka habit by the end, suicide attempts, a car strike that caved in the side of his head causing brain contusions and partial amnesia, and a friend beating his head on the ground until his eardrums burst. His mother finally gave him three choices after a Grateful Dead weekend arrest: a one-way ticket out, thirty days of AA, or the Midnight Mission. He chose AA but held back a mental reservation about speed — and drank again five months later before finally surrendering for good.

His sobriety story centers on three sponsor relationships that each gave him something different. Clancy at the Pacific Group told him to live his own life and take the sound engineering job even if it meant missing the Wednesday night meeting. Bob Horrigan, his sponsor for twenty-two years, taught him dignity and humor — and gave him the line that changed his relationship with Higher Power: "Open the door, take a deep breath, and let Higher Power walk in first." That advice carried him through a custody battle where he got his son despite thirteen prior arrests. His current sponsor Howard P. rebuilt his higher power from the ground up, working the steps cumulatively and talking about Higher Power from the Big Bang forward until Matt finally had what he calls a shift in consciousness.

Matt gets deeply personal about forgiveness as the mechanism that freed him. He made amends to Frank — the boyfriend who chased him through four years of high school — by painting three houses for free in Lancaster. He made amends to Tom, the friend who burst his eardrums, over coffee at their twenty-year reunion, and Tom broke down crying because he had carried that guilt the whole time. He talks about forgiving his father, a Major in the Air Force who died of cirrhosis when Matt was three and a half, after choking Matt's mother on Christmas. The old imprint of violence gave Matt impulse control problems and rage he worked on for decades.

The talk closes with Matt describing how he replaced the angry committee in his head with a simple practice: breathing in Higher Power, exhaling love, chanting "Higher Power is good" until — after about eight years — the noise finally went quiet. He tells newcomers his first year was brutal, with hallucinations, inability to read, and stumbling through every word at book studies, but the group clapped for him anyway. He promises anyone new that it will get better.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction at the Brentwood Workshop; welcomes newcomers and recalls needing $500 and a lawyer when he first came to AA
• 3:00 Sobriety date November 6, 1978; details the final six months of drinking — quart of vodka daily, multiple arrests, inability to communicate
• 7:00 Hit by a car at the Rainbow parking lot; brain contusions, suicide attempts, friend's death, eardrums burst by friend Tom
• 11:00 Three hits of Purple Microdot at the Grateful Dead in Santa Barbara; mother gives him three choices — Germany, AA, or the Midnight Mission
• 16:00 The mental reservation about speed; drinks again November 5, 1978; friend Doug tells him to go back to AA or die
• 22:00 Forgiveness and perception as core principles; the Frank story — running from him in high school, reuniting on a movie set years later
• 30:00 Sponsor Bob Horrigan at the courthouse: 'Let Higher Power walk in first'; wins custody of his son after thirteen prior convictions
• 37:00 Throat cancer, radical neck dissection, marriage falling apart simultaneously; Howard P. teaches him about the golden thread
• 44:00 Amends to Tom at the twenty-year reunion; Tom cries and reveals he carried the guilt for two decades
• 52:00 Morning practice: breathe in Higher Power, exhale love, third and seventh step prayers; after eight years of chanting 'Higher Power is good' the committee in his head went quiet