Meditating With Skinheads at a New York Buddhist Temple for Step Eleven — ChaZ H.

About This Speaker Tape

Chaz, nine and a half years sober at this Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting, opens with a NYC hospital scene: twenty-five drinks a day, voices coming out of his ceiling, knocking on his bedroom door that wasn't there, and throwing up only when he stopped drinking. Doctors flipped a coin over him, gave him an equivalent of fifteen Valium, and he hallucinated for seventy-two hours. He came to wanting to talk about the hallucinations; the doctor wanted to talk about his drinking. He tried to check himself out. They told him they'd call the police.

An H&I commitment brought AA into his second detox, and he landed at the 12th Street Workshop in Manhattan — a home group he describes as the bar scene in Star Wars, suits next to men rolling out of cardboard boxes. They taught him two things that stuck: he was a garden-variety drunk the program would work on, and alcoholism is a disease of isolation that only meetings break. His sponsor made him write "you're looking at the problem" on an index card and tape it to his bathroom mirror. That was his first step.

The heart of the tape is Step 11. His sponsor started him meditating early — in a park on 2nd Avenue with sunglasses so he could peek and headphones cranked so he could stand the noise in his head. He followed the simple AA meditation directions — breathe and count one to ten — and kept failing until one day it worked. Later his sponsor sent him outside AA to meditate with Buddhists at a NYC temple full of skinheads with neck tattoos. What he walks away with are the Step 11 promises on page 88: the pause, the air gap between what people say and how he reacts. His life wasn't a horror show, he says — his reaction to it was. That air gap is the most powerful thing he has, and it's entirely due to AA.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Meeting opens — Julie reads Blue Chip Speakers preamble from page 29 of the Big Book
• 1:45 Chaz introduces himself — ninth anniversary, sober February 9, 2009, Atlanta sponsor Lem W., two home groups including TUMS in Smyrna
• 4:30 NYC hospital scene — twenty-five drinks a day, fifteen Valium equivalent, doctors flipped a coin
• 7:15 Hallucinations — knocking on the bedroom door, static-y voices from the ceiling, throwing up only when sober
• 11:00 H&I commitment walks into detox — first introduction to AA, given a Big Book, starts hitting bottom on the ceiling
• 14:30 The allergy explained — each drink faster than the last, the first drink is the one that kills you, not the caboose
• 18:00 12th Street Workshop home group — bar scene from Star Wars, 'easy does it means shut up and be grateful you're alive'
• 22:00 Alcoholism is a disease of isolation — meetings break it; today he still treats isolation with more isolation
• 25:30 Index card step one — 'you're looking at the problem' taped to the bathroom mirror; sponsor goes on the fourth step
• 30:00 Step 11 — meditating in the park with sunglasses and headphones, later at a NYC Buddhist temple full of skinheads
• 36:00 Page 88 promises — the air gap between what happens and how he reacts is the most powerful thing in his life