The Higher Power Groove and the Michael Jordan Three-Pointer – John K.

About This Speaker Tape

In the final installment of a four-part series recorded in Fort Worth in 2006, John K. walks through Steps 10, 11, and 12 directly from the Big Book, treating them not as lofty spiritual ideals but as precise daily instructions that keep an alcoholic alive. He opens with Step 10, breaking it down to four mechanical actions: pray immediately, call your sponsor, make same-day amends, and turn your attention to someone you can help. He illustrates this with the story of blowing up at a company director over a furniture delivery dispute, then calling his sponsor, swallowing his pride, and making an amends that left the director in tears and permanently repaired their working relationship.

John K. then delivers one of the tape's sharpest moments — the weekend he skipped calling his sponsor for 48 hours while visiting family, letting work stress and frustration pile up unchecked. His sponsor's response was blunt: "Who in the hell do you think you are, some normal guy?" The lesson landed hard. Alcoholics cannot afford to let resentments and fears accumulate the way other people might. Since that dressing-down, John K. says he has called his sponsor nearly every day of his sobriety.

Moving into Step 11, he lays out the Big Book's morning and evening prayer template — constructive nightly review, morning planning divorced from self-pity, and the five-letter word that shortens every Tenth Step: "pause." He describes what he calls "the Higher Power groove," comparing it to Michael Jordan draining threes on Reggie Miller — when the daily disciplines click, life just flows. When they don't, frustration and fear are the immediate signals that he has stepped out of his Higher Power's will.

He closes with Step 12 and the story of Ben, a furious ex-convict who hated everyone, whom John K. took through the Big Book line by line until something broke open. The night John K. watched Ben — the man who would have killed everyone left to his own devices — handing out phone numbers and little red books to newcomers, he wept. That, he says, is the promise the Big Book means when it says "this is an experience you must not miss." The tape ends with the page-100 promise: follow these dictates and remarkable things will happen, no matter how far down the scale you have gone.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and sobriety date (September 4, 1999)
• 2:30 Step 10 overview — continue personal inventory, set right new mistakes
• 5:00 When resentments crop up — four precise actions to take immediately
• 8:00 The furniture director amends story — making it right the same day
• 12:00 The 48-hour sponsor silence — Who do you think you are, some normal guy?
• 16:00 Step 10 promises — neutrality toward alcohol, reacting sanely and normally
• 19:00 Fred and the absurdity of trigger lists — put doorways on your list
• 22:00 Daily reprieve contingent on spiritual maintenance — no resting on laurels
• 26:00 The Higher Power groove — Michael Jordan three-pointer on Reggie Miller analogy
• 30:00 Step 11 — constructive nightly review and morning prayer template
• 34:00 Pause when agitated — the five-letter word that shortens your Tenth Step
• 38:00 Step 12 and the Silkworth method — lay out the problem before the solution
• 42:00 Ben the ex-convict handing out phone numbers to newcomers
• 46:00 Page 100 promise — remarkable things will happen if you persist