The Insanity of Thinking Insight Is Enough – Terry R.

About This Speaker Tape

International Doctors , Aug.1979 - 1979

A childhood spent in the shadow of alcoholic uncles and a father who died in a dry-out place on his 42nd birthday left Terry R. with a head full of theory but no armor against the disease. Despite the seminary and the priesthood he found himself chasing a 'chemical transcendence' that mirrored a spiritual high leading to a cycle of booze-fighting blackouts and twenty-three failed aversion treatments. He describes the exhausting mental gymnastics of the 'drinking project'—the constant computation of alcohol percentages and the performance of adequacy to keep people from interfering with his access to a bottle. Change arrived not through more insight or prayers for a 'radical overhaul' of his personality but through the willingness to feel like a fool in a church basement accepting a sobriety that is a gift rather than a self-sufficient achievement.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Ron opens the breakfast meeting with jokes about the White House and Cape Canaveral.
• 2:30 Preamble: The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.
• 4:15 Terry R. describes his early 'education' in alcoholism and his father's death in a dry-out place.
• 7:40 The 21st birthday: mixing Manhattans and the immediate 'crossing of the invisible line.'
• 11:20 Discussion on the 'chemical transcendence' of alcohol versus a true spiritual experience.
• 15:45 Laughter: Terry R. describes the 'drinking project' and the mental energy spent playing 'adequate' to others.
• 20:10 The 'spiritual condition' of sitting in a church basement with formica tables and Sanka coffee.
• 24:30 The failure of 23 aversion treatments and the 'pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization' of Chapter 3.
• 28:15 Analysis of 'self-will run riot' and the secret clauses in his prayers for virtue.
• 32:00 Terry R. discusses the pragmatic approach of the 12 Steps and the gift of sobriety.
• 34:10 Closing: The Lord's Prayer.