Deep and Effective Spiritual Experiences Require Deep and Effective Step Work – David L.

About This Speaker Tape

David Lester shares a powerful and detailed story spanning decades of alcoholism, recovery, relapse, and redemption. He grew up in Willits, California, the son of a strict elementary school principal, and began drinking as a toddler. After his parents divorced and he moved to Sacramento, alcohol became his primary solution. He first learned he was alcoholic in 1983 at age 22, but his sobriety date would not come until July 19, 2004 — a gap of over twenty years filled with escalating consequences including DUIs, shooting out an ex-girlfriend's window, prescription drug abuse, and suicidal desperation.

A pivotal spiritual experience in 1989 — seeing his dying aunt and Higher Power while curled up crying — led him to get clean and enter AA. He raised his twin daughters while living out of a Volkswagen Rabbit, surviving on food banks and the fellowship of AA members. Over 13 years he rebuilt his life: earned a degree, bought a house, started a real estate company, entered grad school. But he had abandoned the inside work AA requires, and the internal pain became unbearable. He relapsed, was arrested four times in rapid succession, and on October 20, 2004, walked into prison facing a four-year sentence.

In prison — 1,153 days at Newell Creek State Prison among 900 lifers — David carried the AA message one man at a time, studying the Big Book relentlessly and refusing to adopt the prison mentality around him. Upon release in 2007, he found a new sponsor near Pleasant Hill who took him through the steps with a depth and rigor he had never experienced. A profound cemetery experience on January 11, 2010, during his fifth step work, coincided with his mother's death the following morning. He describes finding spiritual freedom through the program and now devotes his life to service — sponsoring many, running book studies, working with men coming out of prison, and navigating his own daughter Candace's unfolding battle with alcoholism with faith and patience.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 David opens with the six conditions of sobriety from the Spiritual Experience appendix and a prayer for willingness, honesty, and open-mindedness
• 3:00 Childhood in Willits — strict principal father, excelling at sports and academics, getting spanked at school and again at home
• 8:00 Parents divorce, moves to Sacramento, first DUI on New Year's Eve 1982 crashing through 16 feet of brick wall, shooting out ex-girlfriend's window
• 13:00 Learns he is alcoholic in 1983 at age 22 but cannot stop — the Kaiser cocktail of prescription drugs and the grinding hopelessness of active addiction
• 18:00 1989 spiritual experience: sees his dying aunt and Higher Power, feels pure love, loads a U-Haul and takes twin daughters to mom's house
• 24:00 Living out of a VW Rabbit with his daughters — six months of food banks and meetings, never going hungry, the fellowship carrying them
• 32:00 Relapse after 13 years sober — the phenomenon of craving hits, four arrests, sells his house, enters treatment, and is sentenced to four years in prison
• 42:00 Prison: 23.5 hours a day in a cell, carrying the Big Book, declaring himself a sober member of AA to his cellmate, studying everything about the program
• 52:00 Release and return to AA — new sponsor near Pleasant Hill, deep step work, cemetery experience on January 11, 2010, and his mother's death the next morning
• 62:00 Living the program today — daughter Candace's struggle with alcoholism, running sober houses and book studies, the fellowship responding when he needs help, closing with Thomas Merton's prayer