John E. at the Triple C Big Book Workshop – 2023

About This Speaker Tape

A Walmart parking lot on a Saturday morning, two portable chairs, and the humid tension of a pandemic. John E. sat there in the open air, stripped of his "stage character," sharing the wreckage of his fourth step with another alcoholic. For years, John had been the actor, leading a double life and pushing nightmares deep inside where they couldn't see the light of day. He describes the spiritual malady as a blockage, a jam that keeps a man from his Higher Power. To break it, he had to swallow big chunks of truth and stop justifying the damage.

He moved fast—a life-and-death errand—tearing through steps five through eight in a single day. He built an arch of honesty, though he admits his eighth step list of harms was longer than his inventory. He categorized the wreckage into columns: the easy fixes, the difficult ones, and the "no way in hell" amends. By trading fear for action, John began to taste a freedom that was tangible, not theoretical.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 John E. opens by discussing the 'spinoff moments' and resistance encountered during the fourth step.
• 4:15 Discussion on the 'double life' and the alcoholic as an actor (Page 73 of the Big Book).
• 8:30 Advice on choosing a sponsor over a priest or doctor for the fifth step, though acknowledging the value of Catholic confession.
• 11:45 The urgency of the fifth step: describing it as a 'life-and-death errand' to avoid spiritual blockage.
• 14:20 Laughter: The story of doing the fifth step in portable chairs in a Walmart parking lot during the pandemic.
• 18:10 Sponsorship dynamics: taking the paper away from the sponsee to prevent them from justifying their stories.
• 22:40 The 'hour of quiet' after the fifth step and the process of connecting dots to omitted items.
• 26:15 Practical application of Step 6 and 7 through daily prayer and the gradual fading of defects.
• 30:00 The 'three-column' method for Step 8: Easy, Difficult, and Impossible amends.
• 35:10 The experience of making an immediate amend the same day as the fifth step.
• 38:45 Story of using Facebook to track down a former schoolmate in Lubbock for a serendipitous amend.