Ten Cents Worth of the Program Is All Most of Us Ever Ask For – Jack B.

About This Speaker Tape

Jack Boland from Roanoke, Virginia speaks at a Texas conference, opening with warm humor about Virginians who came to Texas, the Alamo, and an Elks convention drunk who marveled that AA sobriety could last three years when his own bender had only made five days. He establishes that AA is not about identifying with drunkenness but with the answer — a light that shines through people who finally know it.

Jack was orphaned by alcoholism by age six and raised by a grandmother who started drinking at fifty. On his tenth birthday he sat barefoot in a dusty yard on the wrong side of the tracks in Roanoke, watched a passenger train with lit dining cars pull out of the station, and ached to be on it — to belong to something clean and loving. At sixteen, three friends passed him a bottle of wine and he found the answer before he knew the problem; the lights came on and he belonged for the first time.

He describes thirteen years of drinking: the life of the party who cried in the backyard, buying patching plaster for doors he kept tearing down, checking the basement convinced someone would cut his legs off, attending his own imagined funeral where mourners assumed more than 100% of the blame. Arriving dry in an AA with no program of recovery, he suffered six weeks until one hot Thursday in August 1953, selling cars in desperation, the agnostic atheist parked his car, looked both ways, and prayed. Sunday morning, after a lost poker game and hot checks, a presence filled him and he knew the universe was alive.

The tape closes with his fourth and ninth step work — making amends to former district manager Ray in a hotel, which nine months later led circuitously to a pharmaceutical job he desperately needed. On his tenth AA birthday, riding a railroad vice president's private car west out of Roanoke station, he looked out at the exact spot where the ten-year-old boy had sat watching trains and wept, knowing who had placed him there. In a Baltimore men's room a hopeless drunk asked him for a dime, and Jack felt Higher Power's love pour through him — and asks how often we settle for just ten cents worth of the program.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and opening jokes about jello, Texas, and Virginians who came west
• 4:00 Elks convention drunk on the elevator: ours has only lasted five days
• 7:00 Reads from page 52 Big Book on changing our point of view; identifying with the answer, not the disease
• 12:00 Johnny Van Dyke: a saint is someone through whom the light shines
• 15:00 Born June 11 1924, orphaned by alcoholism at six, raised by swingingest alcoholic grandmother
• 18:00 Tenth birthday in dusty yard watching passenger train with dining cars leave Roanoke station
• 23:00 Sixteenth birthday, friend passes wine, the lights come on, finds the answer before the problem
• 30:00 Life of the party crying in backyard, patching plaster, basement stairs, attending own funeral
• 38:00 August 1953 Thursday prayer in parked car, agnostic atheist asks Higher Power for help
• 42:00 Sunday morning after poker loss, feels presence, knows universe is alive
• 50:00 Fourth step, ninth step amends to Ray in hotel, nine months later leads to new pharmaceutical job
• 58:00 Tenth AA birthday on private railroad car passing the very spot where ten-year-old boy had watched trains
• 63:00 Baltimore men's room drunk asking for a dime; how often we settle for ten cents worth of the program