Not Willing to Go to Any Lengths When the Hypothalamus Also Controls Appetite and Sex – Ted B.

About This Speaker Tape

Ted B., a judge and lawyer from Lamar, Texas, shares his remarkable journey from arrogant denial to genuine recovery. Sober since August 19, 1974, he describes how he entered AA under the pretense of helping others — first accompanying a wealthy businessman, then sentencing defendants to meetings from his courtroom, all while refusing to admit he had a problem himself. His drinking stories are unforgettable: opening the Caravan Club at 11 AM for vodka martinis before holding court drunk at 2 (or 3, or 4, or never), marrying couples while intoxicated and having a real estate agent perform ceremonies when he was too far gone, and pronouncing deaths as coroner while so drunk the paramedics nearly hauled him away instead of the corpse.

Ted describes trying every possible remedy — jogging, yoga, transcendental meditation, psychiatry, antabuse, vitamins, and even a doctor who offered to remove his hypothalamus so he could drink normally. He rejected that option when he learned the gland also controlled appetite and sex. He tried drinking one ounce per hour as a scientific approach, but finished his first drink in 15 minutes and got drunk. Through it all, he maintained the delusion that he was different from the people he was sentencing to AA from his own bench.

The turning point came when an Al-Anon member named Celia confronted him at the 1974 Dallas roundup, asking why he kept coming to AA. That night he sweated through cycles of acceptance and denial — fifteen minutes an alcoholic, fifteen minutes not — before finally picking up a chip. His first real feeling in AA came after his sponsee Billy took his own life, and Ted felt the group's genuine concern for him. It was the first emotion he could remember experiencing.

After five years of frantic activity without real program work, Ted hit an emotional wall — crippling fears and resentments that alcohol had always suppressed. Through inventory work with his sponsor, he discovered his core wound: a deep fear of being unacceptable and unlovable, rooted in his father's constant criticism. His sponsor helped him see that clinging to old ideas, old beliefs, and old attitudes was the central obstacle to growth. Ted learned that the program was not about erasing the past but changing the reasons that made destructive behavior feel necessary.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and sobriety date of August 19, 1974; thanks to hosts and humor about the three drunks who couldn't make the trip
• 3:00 Four enemies of sobriety — youth, health, wealth, and brains — and why each one blocked him from accepting AA
• 7:00 Drinking at the Caravan Club before holding court; marrying people while drunk and deputizing a real estate agent to perform ceremonies
• 14:00 Coroner stories and courtroom humor — pronouncing deaths, assault cases, and the subpoena joke
• 20:00 Failed attempts to control drinking — jogging, yoga, psychiatry, hypothalamus surgery offer, one-ounce-per-hour plan, antabuse, vitamins
• 27:00 How he sneaked into AA — using the millionaire Billy as cover, sentencing people from his courtroom, carrying a little black book to check attendance
• 35:00 Celia's confrontation at the 1974 Dallas roundup: 'You're coming because you are an alcoholic' — the sweating night of acceptance
• 40:00 Billy's suicide and Ted's first real feeling — the group's concern for him breaks through his emotional shutdown
• 47:00 Five years of activity without program work leads to crippling fear and resentment; inventory reveals core wound of feeling unacceptable
• 53:00 The discovery of clinging as his prime defect — letting go of old ideas, the Atlas statue metaphor, and surrendering to God