Tell Them the Worst Stuff First So You Can Have Fun With Your Fifth Step – Bob O.

About This Speaker Tape

Bob Olson from Denver shares at Founders Day in Akron, 1991, with 18 years of sobriety since May 28, 1973. He opens by telling the story of a bad alcoholic he knew — a stonemason from southern Wisconsin, married seven to nine times, who ended up in a tar paper shack, then had a stroke, lost his speech, and spent 15 years in a wheelchair at the Grand Army home. Diabetes turned his extremities black; doctors amputated one foot, then came back for the rest. His brother chose to let him die of gangrene. Bob reveals the man was his father, and the point is twofold: alcoholics in his family have been dying that way for generations, and he is the first Olson to find AA.

Bob's message is entirely about the 12 Steps as spiritual exercises. A priest in a halfway house asked if he was done drinking and told him to go find a Higher Power he liked. Bob chose a gentle father, and his life changed. He walks through his experience with each step — conceding he was a real alcoholic, making the third-step decision on his knees with his sponsor, writing a resentment inventory and a fear inventory (snakes, spiders, failure, inadequacy, women, infants, police, courts), and a sex inventory where he discovered jealousy, suspicion, and bitterness were his tools of the trade in relationships.

He describes driving to Wisconsin to make amends to his father in the wheelchair, telling him he was an alcoholic and had found an answer. He owed $14,000 in 1973 and paid it off over two and a half years at 30% of his income, almost never going to movies or dinner. At a Denver boat show he won a Bassmasters raffle boat, sold it to a Texan for $2,500 cash, and cleared his amends. Years later his toaster business to savings and loans collapsed and left him a quarter million in debt, which Higher Power paid off in a year and a half through a little printing company that became the biggest in Denver.

Today at 53 he has three sons aged 27, 23, and 3, a wife pregnant with twin boys, the respect of his peers, and everything he ever wanted. His closing plea is for AA communities polarized by fear and fellowship: the 12 Steps are there to work, to get us closer to Higher Power, and Higher Power can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and Bob Olson takes the podium, sober since May 28, 1973
• 3:00 Story of a bad alcoholic stonemason from Wisconsin, married seven to nine times
• 6:30 Father's amputations and gangrene death at Grand Army home — reveals it was his dad
• 10:00 Priest in halfway house tells him to go find a Higher Power he likes
• 15:00 Grocery money equals two bottles of booze — Tommy needs shoes
• 20:00 Third step prayer on his knees with sponsor
• 26:00 Fear inventory — snakes, spiders, failure, women, infants, police, courts
• 32:00 Sex inventory — jealousy, suspicion, bitterness as tools of the trade
• 40:00 Ninth step visit to father in the wheelchair at the Grand Army home
• 46:00 Boat show raffle, Texan pays $2,500 cash, amends cleared