Sharing a Room with a Heroin Addict’s Wife Was Not How Notre Dame Was Supposed to End – Bob B.

About This Speaker Tape

Bob B. shares his story at the Cornhusker Roundup XI in 1988 with roughly 20 years of sobriety. He describes growing up as the second smallest kid in his class, desperate to belong and terrified of being found out as inadequate. His first drink at 13 gave him a feeling of comfort and belonging he had never known, and from that moment he never passed up a chance to drink. He drank his way out of Notre Dame in the middle of his senior year, was diagnosed alcoholic at 19 to get a military medical release, and spiraled into living on Skid Row in Minneapolis — working as a waiter, sleeping in a room shared with a heroin addict's wife, and getting beaten so badly he was fired for how he looked.

After a four-day blackout at age 23, he called AA and was met by two men who shared their own stories rather than lecturing him. He drank twice more — once on a business trip and once on his honeymoon in Acapulco, where he drunkenly dove off the famous cliffs and split his swimsuit in front of the ex-president of Mexico. His last drink came on the plane ride home. The two critical discoveries in early AA were that alcoholism is a disease affecting him physically, mentally, and spiritually — even when not drinking — and that people in the rooms had found something in sobriety visibly better than what the bottle offered.

The heart of Bob's talk is his painful middle sobriety. Five to seven years sober, he was still gambling, overspending, angry, failing at parenting, and buying $400 suits on an overdrawn checking account. He built elaborate walls so no one could see the real him, and neutralized anyone who got close by withholding information. A breakthrough came when he went back through the steps at seven years, took Step Three on his knees with his sponsor, and realized at Step Six that he had been trying to remove his own defects rather than becoming entirely ready to let Higher Power remove them. That night five major problems fell away — he hired someone to wake him for work, turned the finances over to his wife, quit gambling, and started dating Linda every Friday night. He closes with a passionate call to preserve AA's program undiluted for future generations, invoking Chuck Chamberlain's words: you are already everything you are ever going to be.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and thanks to the Cornhusker Roundup speakers; sober since December 10, 1967
• 6:30 First drink at 13 — 4 foot 11, 95 pounds, desperate to belong; alcohol gave him instant comfort and belonging
• 11:00 Drank out of Notre Dame mid-senior year; diagnosed alcoholic at 19 for ROTC medical release
• 15:00 Suitcase on the porch; descent into Skid Row — liquor store job, waiter job, sharing a room with a heroin addict's wife
• 20:00 Calls AA after a four-day blackout at 23; two men share their stories in a café booth
• 26:00 Last drunk on honeymoon in Acapulco — dove off the cliffs, split his swimsuit, got stuck at 90 feet
• 30:00 Two discoveries: alcoholism is a disease affecting him all the time, and people in AA had found something better than the bottle
• 37:00 Middle sobriety crisis — gambling, overspending, anger, buying $400 suits on overdrawn accounts while telling newcomers it gets better
• 45:00 Goes back through the steps at seven years; Third Step on his knees; industrial psychologist helps him face fear of failure
• 55:00 Step Six breakthrough — surrenders his whole life, five major problems fall away; Chuck Chamberlain's message: you already are everything you will ever be; call to preserve AA undiluted