His Higher Power Looks Like the Oracle from The Matrix – Steve R.

About This Speaker Tape

Nine years old, playing in a house full of drug-dealing motorcycle enthusiasts, and a gun goes off. Steve R. doesn't call it an accident; he calls it a repressed memory of pulling the trigger. He spent the next few decades running from that wreckage, selling cocaine at twelve and pushing through Navy SEAL training while drinking and using every single day. Even as a successful commercial real estate mogul, he was just a "trash can without a bottom," employing his own drug dealers to keep him supplied with Vicodin and coke.

He describes his addiction as a disease that does pull-ups and sit-ups while hanging, waiting for a moment of weakness to bite a chunk of skin out of his face. For Steve, a Higher Power isn't a bearded man in the sky, but something like the Oracle from The Matrix—a lady baking cookies who has seen some shit. He trades his "delusions of mediocrity" for the gritty work of the steps, finding a buzz from the program that beats any chemical.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction by Carl; mentions Steve R. is a man who 'on paper, he shouldn't be sober'.
• 2:30 Steve R. discusses his sobriety date (March 6, 2002) and his ego's desire to be liked.
• 6:15 The turning point: Steve R. recounts accidentally shooting and killing his cousin at age nine.
• 10:00 Details on his time in Navy SEAL training and his continued substance use while active duty.
• 14:30 The 'commercial real estate' era: employing dealers to fetch drugs from Mexico.
• 18:00 Laughter: Story about threatening to burn down Freddy's house for drugs while in rehab.
• 23:00 Discussion of the 'spiritual malady' and his aversion to organized religion.
• 27:00 Step 1 and 2: The 'fork in the light socket' metaphor for a Higher Power.
• 32:00 Step 4: The danger of resentment as a 'piece of steel' weapon that eventually cuts the user.
• 40:00 Step 11: His personal conceptualization of a Higher Power as the Oracle from The Matrix.
• 45:00 Closing remarks on the importance of a home group and the 'work' of recovery.