Queens Big Book Study – Part 6 – Gary B. – 2008

About This Speaker Tape

Mickey shares the visceral terror of the Fifth Step, recalling a sponsor who was a defrocked Catholic priest with 'blue eyes that could look through a steel door.' He describes the wreckage of a soul in total chaos, once wondering why people on the street weren't killing each other because the warfare in his own head was so loud. He details a rigorous annual retreat in Taos, New M., where a group of men use a 'wheel of life' to map their energy and conduct a collective step-study. Mickey pivots to the spiritual surrender of Steps S. and Seven, using the image of a man with a club foot he mocked as a child to illustrate his own permanent spiritual curvature—the realization that he cannot 'straighten up' his own soul and must rely on a Higher Power to remove the defects that act as his life's broken platform.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Discussion begins on the daunting nature of the Fifth Step.
• 1:45 Mickey describes his sponsor, the defrocked priest, and the 'rigorous honesty' of the Fifth Step.
• 3:15 Laughter: Mickey jokes about the length of sex inventories.
• 4:30 Mickey describes the 'warfare in his soul' and the antisocial isolation of late-stage drinking.
• 5:45 Detailed description of the annual step-study retreat in Taos, New Mexico.
• 10:15 Group discussion on the necessity of sharing one's 'entire life story' versus a formal inventory.
• 15:30 Mickey discusses Step 6 and Step 7 and the 'broken platform' of his life.
• 18:45 The metaphor of the man with the club foot as a symbol of spiritual powerlessness.
• 20:15 Mickey shares his blunt, non-eloquent Seventh Step prayer.
• 22:30 Discussion on the 'mask' and the battle to give up self-preservation.