Sandy B. on High-Functioning Alcoholism, Gratitude, and the Big Book

About This Speaker Tape

2nd Crossroads Soberfest - 1994

Sandy B. traces the distance between the front door of a German restaurant and the table where he sat with his sponsor noting that while the physical space is small the internal transport is vast. He maps out a life of high-functioning facades—Yale the Marine Corps and becoming a fighter pilot—that masked a deep-seated feeling of being a stranger in his own life. The wreckage includes a six-month stint in a nut ward a diagnosis of 'childhood fear of flying' to cover his alcoholism and a near-fatal descent into malnutrition and vodka. He dismantles the idea that sobriety is a magic wand recounting how he was pushed out of the Marines and later divorced only to realize that the 'one solution' of the program works for bankruptcy and heartbreak just as it did for the bottle. He frames recovery as a process of unlearning and stripping away the granite to reveal the statue beneath.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Sandy B. opens with a visit to Bill W.'s birthplace and grave in Vermont.
• 5:15 Laughter: The 'get acquainted night' at university and the discovery that alcohol makes the world look friendly.
• 12:40 The danger of drinking while flying jets and the 'one in a million' engine relight.
• 16:20 The 'nut ward' experience and the diagnosis of 'childhood fear of flying'.
• 21:10 The 12-step call: Sandy B. meets his sponsor, who tells him, 'I talk, you listen.'
• 25:30 Resentment over being pushed out of the Marine Corps and the 'miracle' of the Denver plane crash.
• 31:10 The 'one solution' for divorce and bankruptcy: the Serenity Prayer.
• 36:40 Discussion on 'unlearning' and the pride of authorship over a rotten plan for living.
• 42:15 The metaphor of the sculptor stripping away granite to find the statue.
• 45:50 The 'spiritual cushion' metaphor: maintaining the air in the tires to avoid the pothole.