Queens Big Book Study – Part 2 – Gary B. – 2008

About This Speaker Tape

A raw, multi-speaker session focusing on the 'second half' of Step One—the unmanageability of the soul. Gary describes the wreckage of a man who can't hold a job or a marriage even while sober, begging for death in a dark living room. The conversation shifts to the struggle of coming to believe in a Higher Power, moving from the 'medieval' aversion treatments of the 1960s to the quiet realization that one cannot survive alone.

One speaker recounts the tension of facing a physicist father who viewed Higher Power as repulsive, while another describes the 'cheese sandwich' moment of total surrender. The narrative arc moves from the isolation of the 'beast'—where the only question is 'Where's mine?'—to the relief of finding a power that loves drunks, emphasizing that the spiritual basis is not a luxury, but a survival requirement.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Discussion on the ego and the inability to make a living while sober.
• 2:15 Mention of the book 'Your Higher Power is Too Small' and the isolation of long-term sobriety.
• 4:30 Laughter: The comparison between calling AAA and calling suicide prevention.
• 8:15 Raw account of begging a Higher Power for death in a dark living room.
• 12:40 Story about a grandson's struggle with alcohol, crack, and juvenile diabetes.
• 17:10 Step 1: The 'actor' and the self-centeredness of wanting to be seen as the hero in a dream.
• 22:30 Discussion on Step 2: Coming to believe and the experience of 'aversion treatment' in Denver.
• 31:10 Narrative on growing up with an atheist physicist father and the relief of not being alone.
• 42:15 Step 2: The experience of 'pretending' to believe as a starting point.
• 48:20 Reading from the 'We Agnostics' chapter of the Big Book.
• 53:10 The 'cheese sandwich' story: total surrender and the first prayer.