Thanksgiving 1997 My Sponsor Locked Me Up With Page 345 of Courage to Change – Ajit S.
About This Speaker Tape
Ajit S., an Al-Anon member originally from Bombay, India, shares how he stumbled into the program in 1980 after marrying an active alcoholic he met while waitressing through nursing school. He describes himself as clueless, arrogant, and obsessed with image management — a man with no real sense of self who measured his worth by the woman next to him. The bulk of his pitch traces his slow, reluctant journey from trying to fix, catch, counsel, and even fantasize about killing his wife, to finally surrendering and working the steps as an Al-Anon rather than as a frustrated spouse.
His wife got sober on May 25, 1983, but Ajit discovered his obsessions simply migrated — to her eating, spending, and clothing. For years he talked the talk in meetings, sponsored others, and articulated the program beautifully without walking it. The turning point came when his marriage ended in 1996 and a rebound relationship collapsed exactly one year later, shattering him worse than the divorce itself.
Over Thanksgiving 1997, his sponsor made him lock himself away for two days with page 345 of Courage to Change and work a real Fourth Step. He confronted rage at his dead father, fraudulent values he had espoused but never practiced, and his weapon of choice against his wife: sarcasm — from the Greek sarcoza, to tear flesh. He chose not to take her to court, kept joint parenting of his four kids, and credits the program with finally giving him back to himself.
Throughout, he weaves sharp humor — the Rhoditas wine meat-market years, Aunt Bunny leaving empty beers in the bathroom, the red-nosed marriage counselor, and the Alfred Hitchcock icicle murder plot — with hard Al-Anon truth about disease as dis-ease, obsession as the real illness, and the gap between intellect and surrender.
Discussion
Be the first to share your thoughts on this tape.