“The Fact That You Like It Indicates to Me It’s Probably Wrong” – Russell S.

About This Speaker Tape

Russell takes a brilliant Bill W. quote about fudge and turns it into a whole talk about what really keeps alcoholics stuck. Bill wrote that as a child, his aunt gave him a plate of fudge, and he spent the next 35 years chasing the fudge of life while forgetting about the mountain. Russell asks the room: what's your fudge? What's the thing you're chasing instead of developing a relationship with a Higher Power?

This is a Step 9 talk, but Russell goes deep into the spiritual disease underneath everything. He pulls from Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers to show what early AA members were actually doing — morning devotions, reading the Book of James, sitting in silence waiting for guidance. He makes the uncomfortable point that what most of us do in AA today looks nothing like what the first 100 were doing when they wrote "rarely have we seen a person fail."

Russell's got a dry wit and he's not afraid to ruffle feathers. He tells the room that if you like doing something, that's probably a sign it's wrong — because alcoholics chase comfort, not growth. He reads from Bill W.'s writings on emotional sobriety and unhealthy dependencies, making the case that after the alcohol is gone, it's all about the idols we set up in place of a Higher Power.

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