The High-Functioning Lie of the Controlled Drinker – John M.

About This Speaker Tape

1956, a white Thunderbird with a red top cruising down U.S. 25. John M. is a physician, a man of prestige and a "liar all the way through." He lived the high-functioning lie, spacing his drunks and polishing off every crisis with a drink

. To survive the hangovers, he turned his medical bag into a pharmacy, cycling through codeine, Benzedrine, and barbiturates to treat the symptoms of his own wreckage. He believed he was something special, a breed apart from the "common dope fiends" until a convulsion broke his vertebra and his ego began to crack.

Even a stint at a federal prison in Lexington, where he was stripped of his title and dubbed Number 55280, couldn't break the shell. He describes the paradox of the controlled drinker: the ability to attend a dance without a drink while screaming internally for one. Only after the total collapse of his professional and personal life did he stop fighting his Higher Power and accept he was just plain old John Mooney.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tom D. opens the meeting and introduces Dr. John M.
• 4:15 John M. discusses the 'automatic lying' that persists even in sobriety.
• 12:30 Description of the 'controlled drinking' phase and the illusion of stability.
• 18:45 The 'sample cabinet' pharmacy: detailing the cocktail of narcotics and stimulants used to function.
• 25:10 The failure of psychiatric treatments and the first encounter with the Big Book.
• 34:20 The 'Thunderbird' trip to Lexington and the humiliation of being a 'committed volunteer' in prison.
• 42:15 The 'last drink' of Canadian Club and the subsequent arrest on a lunacy warrant.
• 48:50 Step 1 study in the hospital: redefining powerlessness as the inability to have fun without a chemical.
• 54:10 The spiritual awakening in a motel room and the realization of the Third Step.
• 61:30 The loss and eventual reinstatement of his medical license.