Projection Is the Second Most Useful Tool in Recovery — Behind Prayer – Bill B.

About This Speaker Tape

Bill B. celebrates 25 years sober at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the Nava Club — his third time telling the story from this podium (15, 20, and now 25 years). A late bloomer who didn't start drinking until 18, he made up for lost time with Jack Daniels binges that led to other substances, to stretches of not coming home for two or three days. He burned down three marriages on a grim clockwork — a year of dating, three years married, divorce — before the third wife told him she still loved him but he had killed the in-love.

His bottom was 48 straight days in the Caribbean drinking Jack Daniels daily and shooting cocaine, on an overdrawn credit card and other people's money. He came home broke to a condo his family had already moved him out of, and friends drove him to Marr, an Atlanta treatment center. The turn came in a community meeting where he tried to kiss-ass his way out of being the subject. When the group came for him anyway, he walked out, threw his suitcase on the bed, realized he had nowhere to go, and then pulled each guy out to the stoop one by one and asked what he was doing wrong. That was when he became willing to hear what he didn't want to hear.

He found a sponsor, Lawrence Potts, who worked him through the 12 Steps and gave him a set of tools he now condenses into six daily practices: go to meetings, get a competent sponsor, work all 12 Steps, learn how to pray, work with others, and learn how to have fun sober. He designs his life around his meetings, not his meetings around his life. For the Higher Power step, he started by using five respected members as a proxy — checking his thinking against what they would say — and worked his way toward a Higher Power of his own understanding.

The life that followed still astonishes him. Marr sent him out to take a job below his field; he sold ice cream at a Gorin's, hid in the kitchen the day a former leasing client walked in, and later brokered a shopping center sale for the Chinese restaurant owner next door — his first commission back. He rebuilt a commercial real estate business, retired comfortably last May, married a fourth time to a woman whose Greek father he sat down and told the whole truth to, and learned that the only people impressed by his log-cabin-porch lies about lunching with the Maharaja were other sick people. He calls projection — worrying about something in the past or future he can do nothing about right now — the second most useful tool in recovery, behind prayer.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tim opens the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the Nava Club, reads from page 29 of the Big Book, and introduces Bill on his 25th
• 3:30 Bill qualifies as a late bloomer who started drinking at 18 and gives his working definition of the disease — fatal when untreated, the patient comes out better than if they had never had it
• 10:00 The three-marriage pattern: year of dating, three years married, divorce — until wife number three tells him she still loves him but he has killed the in-love
• 15:00 The Caribbean bender — 48 straight days of Jack Daniels and shooting cocaine on other people's money, flight home to friends waiting at the airport with a bed at Marr
• 22:00 The community meeting turn — walks out, throws suitcase on the bed, realizes he has nowhere to go, pulls each housemate out to the stoop and asks what he is doing wrong
• 32:00 Introduces the six-part daily recipe: meetings, sponsor, all 12 Steps, learn to pray, work with others, learn to have fun sober — and designing life around meetings, not meetings around life
• 40:00 The Higher Power workaround — putting five respected members on his shoulder and checking his thinking against what they would think, then growing into a Higher Power of his own understanding
• 48:00 Projection defined as worrying about anything in past or future he can do nothing about right now — the second most useful tool behind prayer
• 53:00 Gorin's ice cream shop — hiding from a former leasing client, then brokering a shopping center sale for the Chinese restaurant owner next door as his first commission back
• 58:00 Sitting down with his Greek father-in-law-to-be to say I love your daughter, I've been married three times, I'm a recovering drug addict and alcoholic — and retiring comfortably last May