My Sponsor Had His Foot on My Chest and Said That’s Step 1 😂 – David B.

About This Speaker Tape

David B. shares his story of getting sober at age 20 in 1981 after a short but devastating drinking career. Raised in a competitive, sports-minded family in Chicago — his father was a minor league baseball player — David felt he could never measure up to his brothers. He discovered that alcohol erased every feeling of inadequacy, and from his very first drunk on sloe gin, he chased that half-hour of relief before the blackouts took over. His drinking accelerated in college at Northern Illinois, where he attended class in shorts and flip-flops in late November because his only calculation was "sun equals warm." A terrifying Halloween blackout involving a closet pole and no memory of the night finally shook him, and after one last destroyed house party, his father told him, "With a son like you, I don't need any enemies."

That moment of clarity — "If I'm going to stop drinking, I need help" — was foreign to everything David had been taught about being a man. He went through treatment and a halfway house, but insists his recovery didn't start until he began working the 12 Steps. In Norman, Oklahoma, he found the Big Book Group and a sponsor he couldn't manipulate — a six-foot-four man who literally wrestled him into understanding surrender. David describes a terrifying near-relapse at four years sober after a breakup with Susan, when he did a "drive-by listen" past a friend's house and felt Alcoholics Anonymous vanish from his mind completely. Only Higher Power and a friend named Chip being home that night kept him sober.

David and Susan reconciled, married in 1985, and built a life centered on service. They renew their vows every year at a chapel during the Canyon Conference, praying the Third Step Prayer over their marriage. David powerfully recounts watching his mother nearly die of alcoholism before she got sober in 1993 — and the gift of handing her a one-year chip. His once-shattered relationship with his father was restored over 15 years of living the program, culminating in his father telling him he'd been "called to a higher order." David is fiercely protective of AA's singleness of purpose and insists that everything he has — marriage, family, career — exists because of the program and the people in it.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 David B. introduces himself, sober since January 2, 1981, thanks the convention committee
• 3:00 Describes the 'corridor of hopelessness' and his moment of clarity — 'my life is my fault'
• 7:00 Pushes back on AA as a 'self-help program' — challenges anyone to find that in the Big Book
• 10:00 Growing up competitive with a baseball-player father, being fat and slow, switching to golf
• 15:00 First drink at 13-14 on sloe gin — the half hour where all the pain disappeared
• 20:00 College at Northern Illinois — Halloween blackout with the closet pole, attending class in shorts in November
• 27:00 Father's devastating line: 'With a son like you, I don't need any enemies' — moment of clarity
• 33:00 Meeting confrontation — told to choose between being a good or bad example of AA
• 40:00 Near-relapse at four years sober — the 'drive-by listen' and Chip saving his life
• 48:00 Mother's recovery from alcoholism, handing her a one-year chip, father saying David was 'called to a higher order'