The Combined Programs of Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous – Bob E.

About This Speaker Tape

Altadena, California. A skeleton weighing 135 pounds laps up coffee like a dog at his first meeting, convinced he has finally sunk to the bottom. Bob E. describes a mind that is a "neurotic spaceship," a place where he spent seventeen years of sobriety totally out of touch with his own feelings. He navigates a mental committee of four distinct personalities: a fragile child, a Corvette-driving adolescent who wants nothing more than a "giant breast encased in a cashmere sweater," a peaceful adult, and a "son of a bitch" voice that acts as a vulture on the headboard, waking him up with fake diagnoses of bone cancer.

The turning point arrived through a broken back and a scream at the ceiling: "If you're not there, I am fucked!" Through a Higher Power, Bob E. moved from the wreckage of bankruptcy and "covert suicide" via cigarettes to a life of "perfect order," eventually finding a path into writing through a series of absurd, divine coincidences.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:45 Bob E. introduces the 'committee' of voices in his head and the four distinct personalities he now manages.
• 4:10 Laughter: Story about the adolescent personality and the Corvette.
• 10:20 Bob E. describes the 'vulture on the headboard'—the negative voice that greets him every morning.
• 15:30 Discussion on the 'end of the road' mentality and the danger of viewing AA as a waiting room for death.
• 22:15 The 'covert suicide' realization regarding cigarette smoking.
• 28:40 A profound spiritual prayer born of desperation: 'Higher Power, if you're not there, I am fucked!'
• 35:10 The surreal journey of becoming a TV writer and the meeting at Universal Studios.
• 45:20 Bob E. discusses the necessity of therapy and the 'bullshit' in AA regarding professional mental health support.
• 52:10 The 'club foot' revelation and the memory of being told that new shoes were too expensive.
• 58:45 The distinction between forgiving parents because they did their best and acknowledging they did a 'rotten fucking job'.
• 63:10 The importance of self-care and the metaphor of the plants that finally stopped dying.