Higher Power Shows Up as the Gap Between a Thought and an Action — That’s What the Sixth and Seventh Step Gave Me – Dave D.

About This Speaker Tape

Dave D. from the Great Fact Group in Neptune, New Jersey shares at a workshop on the three legacies of AA — recovery, unity, and service. With about three years of sobriety (date September 6, 2009), he describes how he went from being a bright pharmacy student at Rutgers to complete destruction through alcoholism and drug use. He found his roommate dead from an overdose at 20, got kicked out of pharmacy school after an arrest, and eventually experienced cardiac arrest before getting sober.

Dave walks through each of the 12 steps from his personal experience, starting with the physical allergy, mental obsession, and spiritual malady that define alcoholism. He came into AA as a committed atheist and scientist, but the We Agnostics chapter slowly opened his mind. His third step prayer marked a turning point — he flushed sleeping pills he had been misusing and never obsessed about drinking again. He describes the inventory process, the terror of making amends, and how it took three rounds through the steps with three different sponsors to complete them.

He speaks candidly about hitting a wall at two years sober when spiritual arrogance isolated him, and about a current struggle with feelings for a woman who has a boyfriend — a situation that kept him in self-pity for a month until he finally wrote a 10-step inventory the day before this talk. He describes the spiritual experience as recapturing the pure joy of riding a bike as a child, and estimates he lives in conscious contact with Higher Power about 20 percent of the time. His message centers on the idea that balance across all three legacies — not just recovery alone — is what keeps him grounded and useful to others.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opening prayer and introduction of Dave D. from the Great Fact Group in Neptune
• 2:00 Explains the three legacies — unity, service, and recovery — and the AA triangle symbol
• 7:00 Meeting his sponsor Brian in rehab — a 20-year-old with three years sober who asked if Dave was really done
• 12:00 Drinking story: first blackout at 12, Rutgers pharmacy school, roommate's overdose death at 20
• 18:00 Cardiac arrest in July 2009 and mother's phone call wishing he had died — his moment of clarity
• 24:00 Physical allergy and mental obsession explained from personal experience — waiting at the liquor store feeling better before the first sip
• 32:00 Spiritual malady and the bedevilments — identifying with these symptoms even at two years sober
• 40:00 We Agnostics chapter and the atom analogy — an atheist scientist becoming willing to believe
• 48:00 Third step prayer on his knees, flushing sleeping pills, obsession to drink removed that day
• 58:00 Current struggle with feelings for a woman with a boyfriend — writing a fear inventory the day before this talk and finding relief