Step 2 Promised to Restore My Sanity — That Assumes I Had Any Left to Restore – John V.

About This Speaker Tape

A Dutch-born Episcopal priest and dean of a cathedral in Oklahoma City shares his remarkable journey from material ambition to alcoholic despair to spiritual transformation through AA. Raised in a small village in Holland by a schoolteacher father who could afford only secondhand everything, he developed an intense drive for material success and a resentment of the restrictive religion of his childhood. He earned two doctoral degrees, came to America at 23, and rose to become head of research at the largest distilling company in the world — complete with a chauffeur, butler, private railroad car, and a large estate.

But the escape mechanism that drove his ambition also drove his drinking. He describes the progression with painful clarity: drinking at lunch, then getting drunk at lunch, then getting drunk period. His hands shook so badly at a society luncheon that a woman across the table recognized his condition and gave him a half pint of whiskey just so he could hold a fork. His boss and a close colleague both died from alcoholism within months of each other — one bled to death, the other died in convulsions — leaving him the sole survivor of the three men forced out of the company.

After losing his job, his fortune, and his home, he ended up in an eight-dollar-a-week room where an old woman quietly placed the Big Book beside his bed. A minister talked him sober, and he made it to his first meeting. He describes the revelation not as willpower but as suddenly not needing a drink — a gift from a power he identifies as love loose in the universe. He attended 170 meetings his first year and insists that one meeting a week is not enough.

Sobriety led him to rebuild his life, marry the daughter of an AA founder, and eventually enter the Episcopal ministry after a bishop heard him speak about Higher Power to a room full of clergy. He sold his businesses and became dean of the cathedral in Oklahoma City, while continuing active AA work. His central message is that the same drive that made alcoholics drink can be redirected toward giving, and that happiness comes not through the front door of acquisition but through the back door of service to others.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Chairman reads the original AA preamble from when he first came in and shares his story of receiving a marble set from a man in the penitentiary
• 5:00 Chairman introduces the speaker as Johnny Van Dyke, dean of a cathedral in Oklahoma City
• 7:00 Speaker describes growing up poor in Holland with a schoolteacher father and a restrictive religion built on the word dont
• 14:00 Earning two doctoral degrees and becoming president of an oil company at 23 — buying an ivory Buick in a country built for bicycles
• 19:00 Coming to America to head a distillery and rising to lead research at the largest distilling company in the world
• 25:00 The progression of alcoholic drinking — shaking hands at the luncheon, the woman who gave him whiskey so he could eat
• 31:00 Boss bleeds to death, colleague dies in convulsions — he is the last survivor of three men fired from the company
• 36:00 An old woman places the Big Book by his bed, a minister talks him sober, and he attends his first AA meeting
• 42:00 Marrying the daughter of an AA founder and the bishop calling him into seminary after hearing him speak about God
• 48:00 Closing message — there is a power in this world that loves you, you do not have to be alone, happiness comes by the back door of giving