The Baffling Simplicity of Surrendering to the Program – Larry T.

About This Speaker Tape

A cold April morning in a parking lot, standing in the rain outside a dry cleaners. Larry T. watches his mother work and waddles in with drunken mud and dirt to bleed her for a few bucks, while a childhood photo of him in Little League slips from her wallet.

He describes a life spent "slithering around," from a childhood shaped by a speed-using mother and a father who was a "happy drunk" until he climbed through bedroom windows. For Larry, alcohol was a "welcome mat to the head," a safe place that eventually led to forged prescriptions, a stint in the state pen, and being found curled like a dead dog at a gas station. He speaks of the "baffling simplicity" of the program and the danger of seeking "relief" in non-AA approved obsessions.

After 30 years, he warns that he is only sober because he stays "divinely inconvenienced" through service, knowing that he must work for his sobriety because the program doesn't just work—he has to work for it.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Larry T. opens with a self-deprecating joke about 30 years of sobriety and not amounting to a damn thing.
• 4:15 Childhood memories of his mother's speed use and her obsession with knitting 'fresh Afghans' for everything.
• 10:30 Discussion on the 'wicked malady' of alcoholism and the danger of the memory of the last drink fading.
• 14:45 A raw account of showing up at his mother's dry cleaners business as a drunken mess to ask for money.
• 20:15 Laughter: Larry describes his father's habits as a 'happy drunk' who sang Bobby D. and Frank S.
• 26:40 Larry discusses the 'empty' feeling he had as a child and his first drink of Four Rose Whiskey at age 11.
• 32:10 Stories from the 60s: 62 Chevy Impalas, big hair, and dating a girl named Lupe L.
• 38:50 Larry talks about sponsorship and identification, using his experience with Ronnie R.
• 45:20 The danger of 'relief finding' and the idea that one is 'as sick as their secrets.'
• 52:10 Larry describes the 'drink and dream and die' cycle of the Apache Hotel in Phoenix.
• 58:40 Discussion on the primary purpose of the program and the spiritual experience of carrying the message.
• 1:12:15 The turning point: May 2nd, 1982, and the moment of surrender at the mission in Wilmington.