Connecting With a Higher Power via the Basic Literature – Don

About This Speaker Tape

East L.A., a dirt alley behind a city playground. A fifteen-year-old kid finds "magic in a bottle"—Mexican Champagne—and spends the next two decades as a "big-time swinger" between pool halls and drunk tanks. Don P. describes a life of "living screaming hell," where the only constants were the "Black Mariah" police wagons and the "yellow mushroom beans" of county jail. He describes himself as a thief who smashed everything he loved to feed a craving that "wouldn't quit."

The turning point came in a vacant lot in Compton, weighing 120 pounds soaking wet, leaning against a kitchen door jam and begging his wife for the phone number to AA. After being "shot down" by the beauty of the word welcome, Don found a Higher Power through the Basic Literature and the guidance of a "ball-headed" sponsor. Despite a medical diagnosis of "wet brain" and a sentence to a state hospital for the rest of his life, he clawed back to a life of acceptance.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Don P. is introduced and greets his wife, Elsie.
• 2:30 Laughter: Don discusses the confusion of his home group's location and the nicknames given to him by old-timers.
• 5:15 Don discusses the 'magic in a bottle' and his early days drinking Muscatel wine in East L.A. alleys.
• 10:40 Description of the 'Grey Bar Hotel' drunk tank and the nature of the alcoholic disease.
• 15:20 Don admits to being a thief and the 'craving' that drove him to steal from his family.
• 22:10 The turning point: Don's surrender in a vacant lot in Compton and the phone call to AA.
• 28:30 Mention of his sponsor, Gus H., and the introduction to the 12 Steps as tools for a sober life.
• 35:10 Don describes the 'wet brain' diagnosis and his time at Camarillo State Hospital.
• 42:00 Don shares the story of buying a house for his wife as a gesture of amends.
• 50:15 Applause: Don concludes by describing the spiritual tokens and pictures he keeps by his bed.