The Bondage of Self and the Delusion of Managing Well – Rory M.

About This Speaker Tape

June 4th, 2010. A 4'11" mother finally hits the limit, giving her son three hours to clear out of the house or face the police. Rory M. spent years as a "hobosexual," drifting through treatment centers and blackouts that left him waking up in different states. He describes the alcoholic's condition as a peanut butter allergy; while most people just stop eating the peanut butter, he found himself staring at a bowl of Jif with a spoon.

For Rory, the wreckage wasn't just the vomit on the highway or the bankrupt bank accounts, but the "dead man's hand"—the eight symptoms of untreated alcoholism that leave a man prey to misery. He speaks of the "stupid cult" of early sobriety, picking up cigarette butts in parking lots and buying thousands of cheeseburgers for newcomers. By abandoning the delusion that he could wrestle happiness from life through "managing well," he surrendered to a Higher Power. He found that sobriety isn't about addition, but subtraction—removing the boat that separa...

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Timestamps

• 0:00 Rory M. introduces himself and describes the 'peaceful place' of an AA meeting: 40 people talking and zero people listening.
• 5:15 Laughter: Story about drinking hard lemonades at his mother's house while unemployed.
• 10:40 Rory M. discusses the 'most powerful desire to stop' and the failure of willpower.
• 15:20 The 'peanut butter allergy' metaphor explaining the mental obsession of the disease.
• 22:10 Step 2: Discussing the willingness to believe in a Higher Power and the 'beating' vs. 'meeting' joke.
• 28:45 The 'butt man' service commitment and the irony of the 'stupid cult'.
• 35:10 Step 3: The 'third step contract' and the danger of 'managing' one's own life.
• 42:30 Detailed account of making amends for a federal crime involving stolen corporate data.
• 51:15 The 'Chinese Farmer' parable and the concept of 'maybe yes, maybe no'.
• 56:40 Raw and Emotional: Rory M. describes the moment he had a shotgun in his mouth despite having $4 million in the bank.