Steps 4 and 11 – Friday Night Recovery Workshop – Part 2 of 17 – 2021 – Howard E.

About This Speaker Tape

Friday Night Recovery Workshop - 2021

The Big Book is often treated like a set of Ikea instructions without the diagrams but for Howard E. Joe and Charlie were the ones who finally explained the assembly. Howard traces the legacy of Joe M. and Charlie P. two 'AA fundamentalists' who spent decades traveling the world to strip away the confusion of the fellowship and return members to the heart of the program. From Joe's early days in an Arkansas psych ward—where black men were sent while white men got treatment—to the rigged raffle in New Orleans that spread their tapes globally Howard maps out how these two old drunks turned the textbook into a living practice. He details their rigorous approach to the Fourth Step using concrete grids and columns to dismantle denial and reflects on the personal impact of their teaching on his own sobriety since 2006.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction by David and the set-aside prayer.
• 6:30 Howard E. describes his 'speaker's nightmare' of going blank during a previous talk.
• 11:15 The Ikea metaphor: The Big Book as a set of instructions without diagrams.
• 14:30 Joe M.'s history in the 1960s Arkansas state hospital and the racial barriers to recovery.
• 21:00 The 1973 meeting of Joe and Charlie and their shared vision of AA fundamentalism.
• 26:40 The story of the rigged raffle in New Orleans to spread the Big Book study tapes.
• 34:00 Discussion of the mortality of Joe, Charlie, and Joe M. and the emotional weight of their passing.
• 38:00 Statistics on Big Book sales and the influence of Joe and Charlie on the fellowship's growth.
• 45:00 Detailed walkthrough of the Fourth Step grids, anger lists, and fear inventories.
• 53:00 The 'Fellowship of the Spirit' diagram and the process of personality change.
• 58:00 Charlie's personal interaction with Howard regarding the 10th and 11th steps.
• 1:05:00 Closing remarks and a brief contribution from Phyllis M.