I Don’t Want to Baffle Anybody but This Is a Big Book 🤣 – Jim H.

About This Speaker Tape

Hope and Serenity Group - 2011

A scholarship jock with a penchant for hard liquor Jim H. spent a decade chasing a feeling of 'rightness' that alcohol couldn't provide. He describes a life of contradictions—living in a beautiful house in Southland Park with a sauna and pool while remaining absolutely miserable. After a period of white-knuckling sobriety and a brush with suicide at ten years clean Jim H. found the depth and weight of the 12 Steps. He speaks candidly about his bisexuality his HIV-positive status and the wreckage of his sexual inventory framing these not as curses but as the very things that allowed him to connect with others. He emphasizes that the obsession is gone not through meetings or service but through the rigorous application of the steps moving from a place of antisocial fear to a life where he volunteers as a state park historian finally comfortable in his own skin.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Jim H. opens by reflecting on the privilege of sharing recovery on New Year's Day.
• 2:30 Jim H. discusses his first introduction to AA: stealing brochures to mail to a roommate.
• 6:15 Discussion on the difference between the liquor and the disease of alcoholism, and the tragedy of a friend's suicide.
• 12:40 Jim H. describes his 'weekend warrior' drinking days and the need to be the first one drunk in the room.
• 18:10 Detailed account of his relationship with an IV drug-using bartender and the start of his sobriety.
• 25:30 Step 3: Jim H. explains the difference between having the answers and simply making a decision.
• 32:15 The 'fourth column' of the Step 4 inventory and the exact nature of the wrongs.
• 38:40 Jim H. speaks on his bisexuality and the harms done during the 70s and 80s.
• 45:20 The importance of Step 12 and the story of his best friend/roommate.
• 52:10 Jim H. reflects on being HIV positive for 28 years and the grace of his Higher Power.
• 58:00 Reading from the Big Book stories regarding willingness and action.
• 62:15 Laughter: The story of the 5:30 AM hula hoop phone call.