Four Questions on Page 345 Did What Seventeen Years of Intellectual Step Work Could Not – Ajit S.

About This Speaker Tape

Ajit, a member of Al-Anon from Irvine, California, shares his story of growing up in a dysfunctional home in Bombay, India, where alcoholism was never named despite an uncle dying of cirrhosis. He describes himself as image-obsessed, shallow, and totally focused on external appearances. He married a woman who turned out to be an alcoholic, and for three and a half years he became completely enmeshed in her disease, monitoring her drinking, hiding bottles, and losing himself entirely in her moods and behavior.

With characteristic humor, Ajit recounts his failed attempts to fix his wife: confronting her after seeing a Schick Shadel commercial, spying on her through a TV reflection, dragging her to marriage counselors (one of whom turned out to be an alcoholic himself), and even briefly contemplating homicide after reading an Alfred Hitchcock story about icicles. He found Al-Anon through a Dear Abby column in the Detroit Free Press, but spent his first 17 years stuck in his head, intellectualizing the steps without truly feeling them.

The turning point came after his wife asked him to leave in 1996 and a subsequent relationship ended painfully a year later. His sponsor told him to lock himself away and do a fourth step using page 345 of Courage to Change. Over Thanksgiving 1997, Ajit wrote furiously about his identity, values, and character defects, confronting his anger at his absent father and his lifelong pattern of image management. He describes the moment his feet finally touched the ground, when he could look in the mirror and actually like what he saw. Today he has a good relationship with his four children, a civil relationship with his ex-wife, and an understanding that his real problem was never alcoholism but his own obsession with controlling behavior and perception.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opens with Mark Twain joke, introduces himself as Ajit, thanks hosts at Hilton Head conference
• 4:00 Describes growing up in Bombay in a dysfunctional home with a crazy uncle, walking on eggshells, never hearing the word alcoholism
• 8:00 Moves to Detroit for graduate school, hangs out at bars, meets his future wife who is working her way through nursing school
• 14:00 Discovery phase: empty beer cans in bathroom cabinet, mysteriously empty wine bottles, growing awareness something is wrong
• 20:00 The half-gallon jug moment: time stands still and a voice says your wife is an alcoholic, becomes totally enmeshed in her disease
• 28:00 Failed fix attempts: Schick Shadel confrontation, spying through TV reflection, alcoholic marriage counselor with the red nose
• 35:00 Contemplates homicide via icicle from Alfred Hitchcock story, shares it at Friday meeting and discovers he is not alone
• 42:00 Finds Al-Anon through Dear Abby column, walks through all 12 steps showing how image management blocked every one
• 50:00 Divorce in 1996, hires barracuda lawyer but sponsor intervenes, calls wife and discovers she does not want to take the kids
• 57:00 Thanksgiving 1997 breakthrough: does honest fourth step on page 345 of Courage to Change, confronts anger at father, finally feels feet touch the ground