Our Family Crest Features a Wine Bottle and a Pair of Handcuffs 🤣 – Jimmy T.

About This Speaker Tape

Jimmy T. from San Diego shares his story as a fifth-generation alcoholic whose family crest, he jokes, features a wine bottle and a pair of handcuffs. He describes a childhood with an emotionally distant alcoholic father and a saintly mother who relieved stress by lighting firecrackers — and once accidentally detonated a diver recall bomb on the living room rug. He started drinking at 14 while spearfishing in Mexico and spent his youth racking up arrests for stunts like mooning the Coronado ferry passengers, prompting a judge to tell him he wasn't a criminal, just a pest.

Jimmy built a dream life running a dive shop in San Diego until a severe head injury left him with intractable grand mal epilepsy. Stripped of his ability to dive, drive, or work, he crawled into a bottle and drank from morning until he passed out. Twelve abdominal surgeries for internal bleeding followed, along with nearly two years in a mental institution where doctors inexplicably gave shock therapy to an epileptic. Through it all, he told doctors he would never drink again — and was drunk within a week each time, illustrating the book's teaching that fear alone has no staying power against alcoholism.

A spiritual awakening in the hospital changed everything. Jimmy realized his powerlessness, remembered two former drinking buddies who had gotten sober in AA, and decided he would do whatever the program asked. He walked into his first meeting at the Lemon Grove Alano Club and was drawn in by the sound of laughter. His first year was rough — auditory hallucinations, violent shaking, and memory so poor that a man drove him home seven nights in a row without Jimmy recognizing him. When he had a seizure at 30 days sober, a dozen members came looking for him, and he knew he had found something real.

Jimmy found a sponsor, finished all twelve steps in six months, and two years into sobriety his neurologist was stunned to find his brainwave pattern markedly improved — the epilepsy simply stopped. He credits the spiritual principle from the Big Book that when the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. Despite 37 surgeries, six strokes, two heart attacks, and cancer, Jimmy remains sober and active in service, closing with a warning against complacency — sobriety is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition, and those who stop doing the work are defenseless when trouble comes.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and opening remarks about what we used to be like versus what it was like
• 4:30 Family history as a fifth-generation alcoholic, father's emotional distance, mother's firecracker stress relief
• 9:00 First drink at 14 in Mexico, youthful hijinks including mooning the Coronado ferry and the judge calling him a pest
• 14:00 Running a dive shop, the head injury that caused epilepsy, losing everything and crawling into a bottle
• 19:00 Twelve abdominal surgeries, telling doctors he would never drink again, drunk within a week each time
• 23:00 Nearly two years in a mental institution, shock therapy, the belt he made as his lifetime achievement
• 27:00 Spiritual awakening in the hospital, taking the first three steps without realizing it
• 33:00 First AA meeting at Lemon Grove Alano Club, the laughter, auditory hallucinations, the man who drove him home seven nights
• 38:00 The parrot at the meeting table, seizure at 30 days, members coming to find him — that is Alcoholics Anonymous
• 45:00 Epilepsy healed after sobriety, neurologist stunned by brainwave improvement, daily reprieve and the danger of complacency