The Bias and Prejudice of Self – Otto M.

About This Speaker Tape

September 22, 1968: bleeding out on a jungle floor in Vietnam, watching the enemy strip his gear while he lay in the dirt. For Otto M., this was the day he stopped wondering about a Higher Power. He grew up in a house with a liquor closet and a father who pinned his mother to a blood-covered bed, teaching Otto that truth was a liability and silence was survival.

He spent decades as a "stud" in a world of delusion, believing he was the favorite guy at a reunion when the tally sheet showed only two people actually voted for him. He lived in a reality of his own making, using bourbon and VA pills to muffle the screams of his past. It took hitting a bottom in Florida—staggering out of a club with corn dog vomit in his ears—to realize his perspective was biased.

He entered treatment to get a bigger script, not sobriety, but found a Higher Power defined not by control, but by care.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opening remarks and jokes about hosts in Missouri.
• 5:15 Description of childhood trauma and his father's violence.
• 12:40 War stories from Vietnam and the trauma of 1968.
• 20:15 The 'Pit' nightclub in Florida and the physical purge of a blackout.
• 25:30 The high school reunion and the 'Oh, What a Knight' award.
• 32:10 Discussion of Valium dependency and entering treatment.
• 38:45 Step 1 and the relief of admitting powerlessness.
• 42:10 Anger toward the concept of Higher Power after the jungle floor experience.
• 48:20 Working Step 4 and the discovery that he is 'afraid of everything'.
• 55:10 The realization that his problems are of his own making (Self-centeredness).
• 1:05:20 The story of the dog, Speeder, and the shift from abuse to laughter.
• 1:18:40 The reconciliation with Ken M. and the final spiritual shift.