Feet on the Dashboard, Seat Reclined, Letting My Higher Power Drive 🫠 – Gus R.

About This Speaker Tape

Gus R. tells his story at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Zoom meeting, introduced by his sponsor Randy P. Born in Queens in 1977 to a Colombian Catholic family — his dad was AA, his mom Al-Anon — Gus grew up in Woodside, took his first sips from his father's Budweiser cans, and got bombed for the first time at thirteen in Sunnyside. Feeling like he never fit in, he got arrested at seventeen, was shipped to Colombia for a military academy, and served four years in the Colombian armed forces. He earned a scholarship to West Point, flew home, and got drunk with buddies the night he was supposed to report. He never made it. His twenties, he says, were one long blackout.

He rotated through detox centers, therapists, and antidepressants before finally walking into St. Sebastian's in Woodside and, later, a rougher Irish biker meeting called K-Mail-A-Folta. A Friday night Big Book study cracked him open — he nodded through Bill's story and More About Alcoholism, found his first sponsor, and did a fifth step he describes as gliding home after dumping mountain-sized boulders. Work and money kept pulling him back out. He relapsed, moved to Athens, found the Biscayne room on fire, relapsed again, lost his courthouse job, wound up in jail, and got tangled in what he calls the most dysfunctional relationship of his life.

His final drunk started November 19, 2012. A roommate at Sober Living America in Atlanta was drinking a pint; Gus asked for a hit. They polished it off, bought a bottle of Taaka vodka, and he drove through Doraville and Buford until a state trooper stopped him on 285. The officer asked how he was still standing. Gus answered, I'm an alcoholic. In DeKalb County Jail a kid from drug court carried a message to Tim R., and a Big Book arrived under a corrections officer's arm. Gus went through all 164 pages, wrote another inventory, and started a Big Book study inside.

Released November 20, 2012, his parents drove him straight to the 5:30 happy hour meeting. He joined the Alumni group for service, chased Randy for three months until Randy agreed to sponsor him, moved one block from Randy's house, and planted himself at the Atlanta Men's Workshop on the dishwashing crew he inherited from Tim. He says the spiritual malady was the piece he kept skipping — he was treating himself financially, mentally, physically, but never spiritually. Page 77 jumped off the page at him: to fit ourselves to be of maximum service. Today he runs a company with 23 employees, many of them in recovery, and credits his Higher Power, the Big Book, Randy, Tim, Tinsley, and the fellowship for the life he has now.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tim R. opens the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting on Zoom; Randy P. introduces Gus
• 3:00 Queens childhood — sips of dad's Budweiser, first blackout in Sunnyside at 13
• 9:00 Arrested at 17, shipped to Colombia, four years in Colombian armed forces, West Point scholarship lost to a drunk
• 16:00 Hiding under the detox bed when AA visited; therapists kept handing him antidepressants
• 21:00 K-Mail-A-Folta biker meeting in Woodside welcomes him; Friday night Big Book study cracks him open
• 28:00 Sponsor catches him outside the corner store with two 40-ounce beers clinking in a plastic bag
• 33:00 Relapse in Athens — lost courthouse job, jail, the dysfunctional relationship
• 40:00 November 19, 2012 — Taaka vodka, joyride through Doraville, DUI on I-285, 'I'm an alcoholic'
• 46:00 DeKalb County Jail — Tim R. sends in a Big Book; Gus reads all 164 pages and starts a jail Big Book study
• 52:00 Page 77 — maximum service — and the Big Book coming alive; 23 men working for his company today