Incoherent Around English Speakers So Naturally I Moved to Tijuana and Expected Clarity – Butch

About This Speaker Tape

Butch shares his journey from a fear-driven Catholic childhood in Los Angeles through decades of progressive alcoholism that took him from surfing and teenage drinking in Manhattan Beach to heroin addiction, geographic cures in Alaska and Tijuana, and a marriage he nearly destroyed. Raised one of nine children, he describes an early pattern of running from discomfort — fleeing kindergarten after a humiliating incident, bolting from first grade on the first bell — that foreshadowed an adult life spent dodging reality through substances.

His drinking escalated from teenage beer runs along the Strand to blackout drinking that consumed his last nine months before sobriety. He tried a two-year stint on Antabuse without any program, which he describes as terrifying — experiencing DTs he didn't understand, believing that the horror of withdrawal was simply what life felt like without substances. When a doctor suggested he try "controlled drinking" afterward, the final nine-month spiral began, culminating in a DUI arrest where he heard a calm voice tell him to "stop fighting."

In treatment, a sober AA member gave him the 20 questions and something shifted — for the first time, his drinking became funny instead of deadly serious. He found identification with other alcoholics who drank and thought the way he did, breaking the isolation he'd carried his whole life. He credits his sponsor and the steps — particularly a fourth step he wrote over three years and a fifth step that made the world feel like it had "more room" — with teaching him to trust people and take responsibility for his own feelings.

Now sober over 31 years, Butch describes a transformed marriage of 37 years with Larcine, a living amends he makes daily. He watches his four-year-old granddaughter Ava every Tuesday, something he knows would never have happened without the program. He closes with Dr. Bob's handwritten prescription card: trust Higher Power, clean house, help others — and always remember this.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction by host who explains last-minute speaker change; Butch takes the podium
• 4:30 Catholic childhood in Los Angeles — conflict between feeling Higher Power's love and breaking the rules, going to hell three times a day in his mind
• 9:00 Fear patterns as a child — stripping in kindergarten and never going back, running home on the first bell of first grade
• 14:00 Teenage surfing and first drinking at 15 in Manhattan Beach — walking the Strand trying not to throw up or get arrested
• 20:00 First marriage forced by girlfriend's father, daughter born, marriage falls apart — sitting in the dark drinking whiskey to Moonlight Sonata
• 27:00 Geographic cure to Ketchikan Alaska, Everclear and bars open until 5 AM, then Tijuana with a friend, living by the bullring
• 34:00 Friends dying from alcoholism — surfing buddy blows up apartment building in failed suicide attempt, lights cigarette after turning on gas
• 40:00 Two years on Antabuse with no program — DTs, shadows moving during the day, terrified by the Brady Bunch on TV
• 48:00 DUI arrest and moment of clarity — hears a voice say 'stop fighting,' blows into breathalyzer, feels himself relax, hasn't had a drink since
• 55:00 Working the steps — three-year fourth step, fifth step with sponsor where the world suddenly had 'more room,' living amends with Larcine