The Big Book as a Guide for the Non-Alcoholic – Don B.

About This Speaker Tape

1944, a diary found in storage, a woman who married and unmarried several times. Don B. moves through the wreckage of history, reciting a roll call of the dead and the sober.

He speaks of Paul Olinger, who made "bomb moccasins" in the hospital while his wife was committed, and the black doctors who fought segregation to stay clean. He treats the Big Book not as a static text, but as a living map for the sick and those trying to understand them. He describes the vagabond years of Bill and Lois Wilson—living in tents and moving 54 times in two years—before the royalties turned Lois into a millionaire.

For Don B., the history is in the human terms: the holding of hands, the sheriff taking the house, and the spiritual tests that force a man to go left or right. He closes on the "road of happy destiny," urging a clearing of the wreckage through a Higher Power.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Don B. begins by discussing a titled woman in AA and her sobriety date of 1944.
• 4:18 Discussion of Harrison K. and the length of his story 'Stars Don't Fall'.
• 7:30 Laughter: The story of Paul O. and the 'Bronze Moccasins' in the hospital.
• 12:00 Don B. notes the history of racism and segregation in the South affecting black members like Jim S. in the 1940s.
• 16:45 Analysis of the Big Book's intended audience and the 'Doctor's Opinion'.
• 21:10 Explanation of the 1955 addition of the 'Spiritual Experience' appendix to clear up confusion.
• 26:30 The wreckage of Lois W.'s early years: living in tents and moving 54 times in two years.
• 32:15 Don B. reads from page 164 of the Big Book, focusing on the 'road of happy destiny'.