Emotional Sobriety – Russell S. – UK Open Lounge – 2024

About This Speaker Tape

Russell, a 75-year-old former prosecutor from Miami, describes a life spent as a 'please love me-a-holic,' chasing prestige, money, and the right women to fill a void. He details the wreckage of a first marriage destroyed by 12-hour benders at the Alibi L. and a subsequent descent into a Christmas morning rock bottom.

After 44 years of sobriety, Russell argues that merely not drinking is a 'symptom' and that true recovery requires emotional sobriety. He reflects on the danger of 'worldly clamors'—the vanity and social standing that can blot out a Higher Power—and shares how he moved from being a 'spiritual agnostic' to making his Higher Power the central fact of his life. He uses concrete examples, from a bounced $50 check to his wife's mysterious purchase of two industrial steam cleaners, to illustrate the shift from being a 'mental basket case' to finding a state of being undisturbed.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction: Russell's 44 years of sobriety and his early mistake of getting married at three months.
• 2:15 Discussion on the 'please love me-a-holic' and the need for affirmation.
• 4:30 Mention of Bill W. and the importance of talking about a Higher Power to avoid being just a 'Rotary Club'.
• 6:15 Defining emotional sobriety and the risk of being a 'mental basket case' despite long-term sobriety.
• 9:45 The 'Spiritual MRI': How being disturbed by others is a sign of an internal problem.
• 11:20 Step 6: Growing in the image and likeness of the creator.
• 14:10 The 'Worldly Clamors' and the danger of half-measures.
• 17:30 The 'material man' persona and the drive for prestige over principles.
• 19:15 The Alibi Lounge: 12-hour drinking sessions and the collapse of his first marriage.
• 22:40 Christmas morning 1980: Rock bottom and the sinner's prayer.
• 26:10 The 'spiritual agnostic' phase and the struggle with vanity in sobriety.
• 31:00 Laughter: The story of the two industrial steam cleaners and the 'dementia' joke.