The First Thing He Got Back Was His god**** Opinion 😆 – Bob D.

About This Speaker Tape

Great Plains Roundup - 2001

Long before his first drink, Bob D. was a 'freeze-dried alcoholic' driven by an internal void. He dismantles the illusion of control tracing a path from a childhood obsession with a jar of horseradish to a hit-and-run DUI in a stolen car. Bob cuts through the myth of the 'party' phase of drinking explaining how the roulette wheel of addiction eventually stopped hitting the wins and only landed on jail and detox. He describes the 'sickness of separation'—the invisible barrier that made him feel alien even in a loving home—and how alcohol was the only tool he had to dissolve that wall. Now over 23 years sober Bob argues that recovery isn't about self-help but self-abandonment moving from a life of luxury cars and deep depression to the vitality of driving a beat-up car full of newcomers.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Bob D. introduces himself and his sobriety date: Halloween 1978.
• 5:12 The De Beers story: a metaphor for looking everywhere for the answer while it's right in front of you.
• 10:45 Childhood memory: the horseradish incident and the 'itch in the soul'.
• 16:20 Discussion of Dr. S. and the 'phenomenon of craving' (Physical Allergy).
• 24:15 The 'roulette wheel' of drinking: how the wins eventually turn into jail and detox.
• 31:40 The hit-and-run DUI in a stolen car and the isolation of having no one to call from jail.
• 38:10 The bridge in Pittsburgh: facing the dilemma of suicide vs. unbearable abstinence.
• 44:50 The turning point in Las Vegas: meeting Joe and the commitment to put AA at the center of his life.
• 52:10 The story of Eddie and the 'oops' of the federal marshals.
• 58:30 The 'pie graph' of consciousness and the danger of worshipping things other than a Higher Power.
• 1:05:15 The contrast between owning luxury cars in a depression and driving a $100 car with newcomers.
• 1:12:00 Closing thoughts on the 'bondage of self' and the necessity of daily AA for the 'type' of alcoholic he is.