Step 10 Inventory: Stop the Deliberate Manufacture of Misery – Tom W.

About This Speaker Tape

A seasoned member of both AA and Al-Anon shares how the principles of recovery apply to living with — and loving — alcoholics and addicts. Speaking at a Las Vegas conference in December 2012, he draws heavily on the wisdom of Blanche, an Al-Anon mentor from Texas whose cassette tapes he listened to dozens of times. He explores how denial operates when we are emotionally entangled with someone, why parents often cannot help their own children, and how worry masquerades as intimacy and action when it is really just wasted energy.

The talk is built around Al-Anon slogans — HALT, WAIT, Live and Let Live, Keep It Simple, Easy Does It, First Things First, Let Go and Let Higher Power — but each one is illustrated with vivid personal stories rather than abstract teaching. He recounts a grueling election day where hunger and anger nearly led him to shove an elderly woman down the stairs, a moment saved only by the slogan "I'll be right back." He tells the devastating story of Peggy, a fearless nurse who died of HIV from a needle stick, and how he was too busy to visit her before she died — a permanent lesson in putting people first.

He describes the progression from thinking in his 40s that he could handle being hungry or angry alone, to realizing in his 50s and 60s that any single HALT condition makes him dangerous and stupid. He talks about the trap of busyness as armor against criticism, the futility of nagging, and the radical simplicity of prayers that are just "help" in the morning and "thank you" at night.

The talk culminates in an extended gorilla metaphor for alcoholism: you are not done dancing until the gorilla is done dancing. For those who love alcoholics, the Al-Anon program comes down to staying out of the cage — no vacuuming, no rearranging furniture, no getting between the gorilla and the person you love. The audience laughs hard at the dark humor throughout, from plotting perfect murders at an Al-Anon meeting called "What Would You Do With the Body" to a desk sign that simply reads "tomorrow" — sparing household members one more day.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opens with a joke about a boy wanting to be an alcoholic, frames recovery as growing up
• 2:00 Introduces Blanche from Texas, an Al-Anon mentor he learned from by cassette tape
• 5:30 Denial in emotional relationships — missing that a housemate was falling-down drunk
• 8:00 Parents cannot help their own kids but can help someone else's — Alateen work
• 14:00 HALT explained — in his 50s and 60s, any one of the four makes him dangerous and stupid
• 19:00 Worry is not intimacy and not action — prayer reduced to the single word help
• 25:00 Election day story — 10 hours without food, nearly shoving a hostile voter, saved by I'll be right back
• 35:00 First Things First — Peggy the nurse and the lesson of being too busy for a dying friend
• 42:00 Keep It Simple and Easy Does It — busyness as armor, Lucy telling Charlie Brown five goes into three if you push
• 50:00 The gorilla metaphor — alcoholism is dancing with a gorilla, Al-Anon means staying out of the cage