Nothing Wrong with Freeing the Slaves but the Washingtonians Lost Their Singleness of Purpose and Everybody Died Drunk – DeAndre M.
About This Speaker Tape
DeAndre shares his journey from the Jordan Downs housing projects to Skid Row to recovery, with almost 16 years of sobriety at the time of this talk. He describes discovering alcohol as a child at his mother's parties, cleaning up after guests so he could finish their drinks of Spaniada-spiked punch. His drinking progressed until he wound up on Skid Row, selling his brother's clothes for his next drink, before landing at Warm Springs Rehabilitation Center where he first encountered AA. He stayed 11 months in the 90-day program and became chairman of 38 weekly meetings there.
After leaving Warm Springs, DeAndre moved to Lancaster, California, where his home group at Open Door Fellowship Hall taught him discipline and seriousness about recovery. His sponsor Dennis Lee pushed him to get a job, learn to vote, and understand that freedom means doing what needs to be done rather than doing whatever you want. He shares a hilarious story about trying to vote his sponsor out at a business meeting, and how elder member Doug Hills and his wife later fed him spaghetti when he was broke at six years sober, dissolving a resentment he never told them about.
DeAndre delivers a passionate defense of AA's singleness of purpose, drawing a parallel to the Washingtonians who saved drunks for ten years before losing focus and collapsing. He uses two vivid metaphors to drive his message home: the It's a Small World ride at Disneyland, where you stay in the boat and finish the ride instead of jumping out halfway, and his friend Al's story about a boat on the sea of life where if a wave knocks everything out, you grab the boat first because the boat is AA. His central message to newcomers is blunt and loving: bring your pain, stay uncomfortable, stop bar-hopping meetings, get connected, and do the work.
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