I Didn’t Know What Was Wrong with Me, and That’s Why I Couldn’t Find the Answer – Johnnie H.

About This Speaker Tape

Johnnie H. traces his path from a violent, alcoholic family through reform schools and penitentiaries to finding AA in San Quentin. He describes the phenomenon of craving — how one drink always led to destruction — and the spiritual malady that made him feel like an outsider his whole life. He found the program through an old woman named Myrtle who held his hand in prison and told him the answer was in the Big Book.

His fifth step, where he first admitted he was alcoholic, was the single greatest event of his life. He shares powerfully about crossing the invisible line from taker to giver, sponsorship under Clancy, and finding a Higher Power of his own understanding.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction — glad to be sober
• 1:10 Clay — his sponsee who died
• 3:09 From whence I came — the recurring dream
• 4:37 Crawling in solitary confinement — searching for something missing
• 7:00 Restless, irritable, discontent as a youngster
• 9:00 Grandmother — what she got from church
• 12:00 First drink of alcohol — the abnormal reaction
• 15:00 Phenomenon of craving — powerless after the first drink
• 18:00 Reform schools to penitentiaries — lost the fight
• 21:00 November 4, 1959 — followed women into first AA meeting
• 25:00 Myrtle Snyder holds his hand — first taste of freedom
• 28:00 Big Book investigation — looking for what Myrtle had
• 31:00 Fifth step — first time saying I am alcoholic
• 34:00 Crossing the invisible line from taker to giver
• 38:00 My problem is not alcohol — my problem is sobriety
• 42:00 Mother drank until she died — powerlessness over others
• 46:00 Sponsor Norm died — year and a half without a sponsor
• 49:00 Clancy becomes his sponsor
• 53:00 God of my own understanding — not grandmothers God
• 57:00 Emptying self of self to be full of Higher Power