Do What Your Sponsor Says Without Debate — Especially When You Are Positive He Is Wrong – Vince Y.

About This Speaker Tape

Vince shares his story at the Pacific Group during the 1988 holiday season, with 16 years of sobriety. He opens by describing the transformation of a woman named Esther, who went from being violently escorted out of the yard in 1976 to becoming an articulate, poised architect — a living example of what AA can do. He recounts a 12-step call that morning from Kevin, a stockbroker in South Pasadena who had six days sober but still believed his real problems were his job and family, not alcohol — a mindset Vince recognizes from his own experience.

Vince's bottom came in September 1972 in Costa Mesa: no job, no car, no money, a revoked medical license after stealing Demerol from the emergency room where he worked. He had been sober three years previously but never thrived. After two years of floundering sobriety in Orange County — including getting fired from a drill press job for incompetence — he made the desperate decision to ask Clancy to sponsor him and joined the Pacific Group, which was then regarded as a court of last resort.

Clancy's terms were absolute: do what I say without debate and your life will get better. He took Vince's car keys, installed him in the Midnight Mission on Skid Row, gave him eight dollars a day, and told him to ride the 83 bus up Wilshire Boulevard visiting hospitals and medical offices to ask for help getting his license back. Vince did this for eight months with zero results while his car was slowly stripped to nothing in Venice. On a Friday in May 1975, after sitting in chewing gum on the bus and losing his lunch to a busboy, he stood in line at a movie theater and ran into the administrator of the very hospital where he had been arrested — who was overjoyed to see him alive and sober, and connected him with a urologist on the Medical Quality Assurance Board.

Within 60 days his license was restored. He returned to the same emergency room where he had stolen narcotics, trusted and respected. By 1988 he had a successful career, a nine-year marriage he treasured, and a life he describes as almost impossible to reconcile with where he started. His message to newcomers is simple: be desperate enough to do what your sponsor says, especially when it seems contrary to your best interest, because you have absolutely no judgment about what is good for you.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Vince opens with the secret of the Pacific Group: act like the rest of them until you become one of them
• 2:30 Remembers Esther in 1976 — wild hair, violent, physically escorted out of the yard by Clancy
• 7:00 Holiday season reflection and the promise of Christmas in sobriety
• 9:00 Early morning 12-step call from Kevin, a stockbroker with six days sober who thinks drinking is not his real problem
• 13:00 Vince's bottom: September 1972 in Costa Mesa, half gallon of vodka a day, lost medical license for stealing Demerol
• 17:00 Fired from drill press job — foreman says he is simply not bright enough for the work
• 20:00 Asks Clancy to sponsor him; Clancy's condition: accept my judgment about your life without debate
• 24:00 Living in the Midnight Mission, riding the 83 bus up Wilshire Boulevard daily for eight months visiting hospitals
• 30:00 Chewing gum disaster on the bus, pants off in a gas station restroom, lunch stolen by a busboy
• 34:00 Chance encounter at the Bruin Theater — the hospital administrator who gets his medical license restored in 60 days