The Difference Between a Periodic and a Chronic Drunk – Clarence S.

About This Speaker Tape

1930s Cleveland. A bank officer who is "more crooked than a piano dealer" is fired for being drunk, though he manages to steal from the vault before the auditors catch on. Clarence S. describes himself as a "chronic" rummy—steady and dependable in his intoxication—unlike the "periodics" who build lives only to watch them go down the drain. After a stint as a failed truck driver and a period of "existing" on the streets of New York by hunting suckers, he hits a concrete floor in Akron.

He is terrified of his sponsor, Dr. Bob, convinced the man is the "mad butcher of Kingsbury Run" who dissects bodies in the dark. He enters a hospital in zero-degree weather, staring at a bottle of rubbing alcohol on the windowsill as a safety net against the DTs. He finds a Higher Power not through logic—since alcoholics "emote" rather than think—but through a rectal surgeon who piles him out of bed to pray.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction of his wife, Grace G., and the difference between chronic and periodic drunks.
• 4:15 Recounts his career in banking and the money he stole from his employers.
• 12:30 The truck trip to New York and the 'angel' who bought him drinks in a dump.
• 22:10 Meeting his sponsor, Dr. Bob, and the fear that he was a serial killer.
• 31:45 Laughter: The story of the 'flannel mouth Irishman' who challenged his guts to quit.
• 38:20 The experience of quitting cold turkey in the hospital and refusing the 'whiskey' medicine.
• 46:10 The first prayer on the concrete floor and the transition to the Oxford Group.
• 55:30 Discussion of the Oxford Group's six steps and the nature of the alcoholic mind.
• 1:12:00 The 'three questions' for qualifying a newcomer for sponsorship.
• 1:25:00 The 'riot' that occurred when he started the first AA group in Cleveland to include Catholics.
• 1:38:00 Sponsoring Sylvia K. in Chicago and her habit of lighting cigarettes everywhere.