He Was the Drunk in Charge of Discipline at a Catholic High School – Tim H.

About This Speaker Tape

Christmas morning, 1971: a first-born son arrives, but Tim H. is in a hospital restroom spitting up whiskey, missing the gift. A former all-state basketball star and a failed law student who once paid a classmate $20 to take his LSATs, Tim describes a life of "ripping and running" through five car accidents, three stints in an asylum, and a quarter-million dollars lost. He was a "body in the room," physically present but spiritually absent, until a moment of clarity in a silent office on April 12, 1990.

Even with sobriety, the wreckage remained. Tim recounts the paradox of losing his marriage at five years sober and a second AA-based marriage collapsing at ten. He identifies as the "self-centered guy" who thought sobriety was the absence of problems rather than a transformation of character. By keeping a drunk in front of him and surrendering to a Higher Power, he eventually found a way back to his "most frequent wife," turning a history of divorce into a lasting partnership.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tim H. opens with gratitude for his sobriety date of April 12, 1990, and introduces his sponsees who traveled with him.
• 5:15 Laughter: Story about being rear-ended in Louisville and being surrounded by a fellowship of black men who knew him.
• 10:45 Recounts his childhood in an Irish Catholic family and watching his father's 'restless, irritable, and discontent' behavior.
• 16:20 The basketball scholarship to St. Louis University and the game where he was hidden at the end of the bench because he was drunk.
• 22:10 The LSAT fraud: paying a tutor to take the test and the subsequent lie to the law school dean.
• 31:40 The 'most frequent wife' and the wreckage of multiple marriages and divorces.
• 36:15 The heartbreak of missing the birth of his first son on Christmas morning due to being drunk in a hospital bathroom.
• 42:30 The 'drunk dean of students' era and the student who called him out for looking bad.
• 51:10 The 'nut house' experience and the realization that he was the one who was broken.
• 58:45 The moment of clarity in his office on April 12, 1990, and his first meeting at the Tolkien Club.
• 1:05:20 Discussion of the 12 Steps (specifically Steps 4-9) and the failure of his marriage at five years sober.
• 1:18:10 The story of his daughter's alcoholism and eating disorder in LA, and the role of Scott R. in her recovery.