Step 11 and the Need to Increase the Dose – Tom O.

About This Speaker Tape

1950s, California. A flat rock on the Pacific coast, the sun warming his stomach and waves lulling jagged nerves. Tom O. tried to quit drinking for a single day of annual leave, only to end up drunk and disorderly by midnight. He describes the "irresistible impulse" of the alcoholic as a form of insanity, citing a court case about a woman's impulse to chop off her husband's ear as a parallel to the desperate dash for a hidden bottle.

Tom speaks of the "abundant life" as a collection of balloons he pulls in daily, a state maintained by the gritty work of Steps 10, 11, and 12. He warns that using any chemical resource to meet life requires an ever-increasing dose just to keep even. While he received an initial gift of sanity from a Higher Power, he claims he earned a second, superior sanity through the first nine steps. He rejects the "self-help industry," preferring the raw reality of losing control and falling down to beg.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tom O. opens with a gritty critique of the group's reaction to the word 'sanity'.
• 5:15 Laughter: Tom recounts lying about taking pills when he first entered the program.
• 10:30 Tom explains his 'balloon' metaphor for the abundant life.
• 15:45 Discussion on the 'resource' of alcohol and the tragedy of needing to increase the dose to keep even.
• 20:10 Tom discusses Step 11 (Prayer and Meditation) as a way to improve conscious contact with a Higher Power.
• 25:30 Tom describes the 'irresistible impulse' and the insanity of the alcoholic.
• 30:00 The story of the failed attempt to quit drinking on a rock in California.
• 34:15 Big Book reference: 'He has lost control' (pages 23-24).
• 40:20 Tom describes the 'first sanity' vs. the 'second sanity' earned through the steps.
• 48:50 The story of Jack the cartoonist and the 'onlyest place left to go'.