Larry K. on the Disease of Hurt and Using the AA Program as an Antidote

About This Speaker Tape

10th West Texas Roundup - 1984

The true engine of Larry K.'s alcoholism was a pervasive, multi-layered hurt—physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. A Catholic priest who refuses the title 'Father' in meetings to avoid the distance of hierarchy Larry dismantles the idea that faith alone cures addiction arguing instead that AA is the medical solution for a terminal disease. He traces his history of isolation from being mocked as a child for his ears to his struggles with lust and greed and his tendency to hide behind a 'front' of professional success. He works through the 12 Steps not as a set of rules but as a specific antidote to pain detailing how he uses a daily written inventory to balance his perceived failures with the small concrete wins of sobriety. He concludes by framing the fellowship as the force that 'unbinds' the alcoholic from the strips of guilt and shame.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Laughter: Larry opens with a long, elaborate joke about donkeys in an English town.
• 4:30 Larry identifies as an alcoholic and a priest, discussing his background and his drive from Oklahoma.
• 7:15 The 'It hurts' realization: Larry discusses a drunk man at a meeting who highlighted the pain underlying the addiction.
• 12:40 Discussion on the relationship between the Catholic Church and the AA program, and why he prioritizes the program.
• 18:20 Physical hurt: Larry shares about his childhood insecurity regarding his ears and his struggle with athletics.
• 24:10 Intellectual and social hurt: Larry describes his feelings of isolation and his history of stealing from the church poor fund.
• 32:15 Step 1: Larry discusses powerlessness and the danger of assuming sobriety.
• 38:40 Step 2: The challenge of belief and the hope for future sanity.
• 44:10 Step 3: Turning the will over to the care of a sponsor and the role of the 'sacred relationship'.
• 51:00 Steps 4 and 5: Confronting the 'midlife crisis' and the tension of trying to be who others expect a priest to be.
• 58:30 Steps 6 and 7: Discussing character defects and the difference between a defect and a tool for empathy.
• 1:12:00 Steps 8 and 9: Making amends to the dead and the specific experience of abortion guilt.