The Disease That Owned His Father’s Family – Bill C.
About This Speaker Tape
Greensboro, North Carolina, 1950s. A house owned by a father's disease. Bill C. grew up in the shadow of a "good drunk"—unreliable and embarrassing, but not violent—and a strict Baptist upbringing that branded alcohol as evil. He spent his youth trying to be a "cat," wearing starched collars and pomade that could survive a train wreck, drinking only to fit in with the rebels. Then he hit the "reward": a feeling that he was finally enough.
The descent was a blur of blackouts and a job as a neuropsychiatric technician, where he wore white clothes and carried keys, terrified that he’d flip out and have to switch suits with the patients in blue pajamas. He describes the "morning drink" and the desperation of drinking down to his underwear—specifically, obscene drawers made by an Aunt Pearl. After a failed attempt at "tapering off," a call to AA and his wife's entry into Al-Anon broke the rhythm. In 1967, he walked into a church basement and believed a stranger's story. He surrendered t...
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