Give Them a Loaf, Give Them a Fish, Don’t Look in the Basket — the Twelfth Step Has an Unending Source of Power Behind It – Roger M.

About This Speaker Tape

Roger M. shares his story at a young meeting celebrating its first anniversary. He traces his alcoholism from age 17 on Long Island through his years at Notre Dame, where he was already in enough trouble to attend his first AA meeting in 1960 in Mishawaka, Indiana. He describes building a high-powered Wall Street career selling bonds, chasing material success as a substitute for spiritual fulfillment, and systematically violating every principle he once held as his drinking progressed from moderate to chronic.

His bottom came at 45 years old — living over his mother's garage, divorced, the executive vice president of a Wall Street firm whose president was actually embezzling money and deflected attention by forcing Roger into rehab. He went to Chit Chat in Wernersville, Pennsylvania for 28 days, where the pivotal moment came sitting alone on a bed holding the Big Book and thinking three words: maybe they're right. He identifies that as his spiritual awakening.

Back in New York, Roger built his recovery through the Exchange Views group, a Russian cook who handed him the Promises, Sean O'Flaherty who gave him the program on a subway strap, and Kenny Pilate who put him to work carrying the message at Bergen Pines Hospital. His sponsor Barney and the chain above him — Johnny and Clancy I. — held him to a rigorous standard of attendance and service.

Now 71 with 27 years sober, Roger is retired and passionate about AA history, exploring Bill and Lois on YouTube and using technology to bring the original message alive. He carries meetings into Sussex Correctional Institute, watches men he sponsored transform their lives, and argues that the program's power is unchanged — it just needs people willing to do the work and pass it on so future generations will still have AA.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Meeting chairman introduces the one-year-old group and invites Roger to speak
• 1:30 Roger introduces himself — sobriety date December 18, 1982 — and tells the story of his first screwdriver at 17 at the Bayview Club on Long Island
• 4:00 Notre Dame years — first AA meeting in Mishawaka, Indiana in April 1960, and a reunion letter with a photo from six months before that meeting
• 8:00 Wall Street career begins — from Pricewaterhouse accountant to bond salesman, chasing material success as a solution to internal emptiness
• 14:00 The chronic alcoholic described — flying into New York craving liquor, St. Patrick's Day pub crawls down Second Avenue, every night was New Year's Eve
• 22:00 The bottom — vodka that stopped working, howling like an animal in pain, the Four Horsemen, sent to Long Island Council on Alcoholism
• 28:00 Chit Chat rehab in Wernersville — scrubbing pots, group therapy, and the moment alone on the bed with the Big Book thinking maybe they're right
• 35:00 Brother John's suicide, the realization he had screwed up his whole life but could do one thing right — AA right
• 42:00 Recovery in New York — the Russian cook with the Promises, Sean O'Flaherty on the subway strap, Kenny Pilate at Bergen Pines Hospital
• 52:00 What it's like now — exploring Bill and Lois on YouTube, carrying the message into Sussex Correctional, watching sponsees transform, the standard passed down from Clancy I.