Read the Washing Instructions or You Get Pink Socks — the Big Book Works Exactly the Same Way – Tim T.

About This Speaker Tape

Tim T. shares his story at a Detroit convention, tracing a childhood defined by instability — six stepfathers, thirteen stepmothers, over twenty schools, and a father whose alcoholism he witnessed firsthand in New Orleans at age fourteen. He left home at fourteen, hitchhiked across the country for four years, and returned to Cleveland at eighteen chasing the "magazine ad" version of the American dream. He married his first wife the day he picked her up hitchhiking — he was eighteen, she was fifteen — and spent the next twelve years cycling through jails, workhouses, and penitentiaries, culminating in a 20-to-40-year sentence at Mansfield Reformatory.

After prison, everything from the magazine ad was gone. He drank in a chair for three months, then met his second wife at a bar in the Cleveland Flats. She brought honesty and love into his home; he brought the disease of alcoholism. She tried for four years before leaving. By the end, his family handed him holiday meals on paper plates through the back door because they loved him enough to stop catching him before he hit bottom. He weighed 112 pounds when he called his mother on June 23, 1982.

A psychiatrist in the psych ward turned out to be a recovering member of AA who sat on the edge of his bed and offered him a way out — one day at a time. Tim's first meeting was July 4, 1982, where the woman who had found him drunk in her Rocky River backyard seventeen years earlier was leading the meeting. His sponsor gave him simple, non-negotiable instructions: never say no to AA, read one page of the Big Book per day, and use the magic words — please and thank you — on his knees morning and night.

Tim walks through the steps with characteristic humor — pink socks from ignoring washing instructions, a Doberman with a resentment, running out of gas in a Honda Civic as a Step One lesson with a newcomer. He married his current wife on October 16, 1993, at an AA wedding where all 320 invited guests showed up — a stark contrast to the day in 1975 when he could not find a single person on earth to accept his collect call from prison. He closes by saying he can never drive enough miles or put away enough chairs to truly show his gratitude.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction at Detroit convention, blue socks with a black suit
• 3:00 Childhood instability — six stepfathers, thirteen stepmothers, twenty-plus schools, never past eighth grade
• 6:00 First drink at 13 in Rocky River, Ohio — the woman who found him was three months sober in AA
• 10:00 Leaves home at 14 to find his father in New Orleans, watches him relapse and go into DTs
• 15:00 Four years hitchhiking across America, six-pack of Olympia beer outside Salt Lake City ends the dry stretch
• 22:00 Marriage at 18 to a 15-year-old, twelve years of jails and courtrooms, sentenced 20-to-40 at Mansfield
• 30:00 After prison — drinking in a chair, holiday meals on paper plates, the Doberman with a resentment
• 37:00 June 23, 1982 — bottom at 112 pounds, psych ward, recovering psychiatrist offers him a way out
• 44:00 Sponsor's instructions — one page a day, please and thank you, never say no to AA
• 52:00 Steps, pink socks, Honda Civic Step One lesson, PhD-GED license plates, AA wedding with 320 guests