The Intellectual Arrogance of the High-Functioning Drunk – Charlie B.
About This Speaker Tape
Highland Park, Dallas. A childhood spent collecting gold stars and living in a house with upstairs and downstairs staff. Charlie B. describes a life of intellectual vanity, fueled by a photographic memory and a string of degrees from Harvard and Oxford. He lived as a high-functioning ghost, drifting from academic posts at Tulane to the bars of New Orleans, eventually listing his occupation on tax returns as "regular in 155 neighborhood bars."
The wreckage hit a crescendo in 1987: legs paralyzed, breathing labored, waking up in a bed he had wet, staring at two bottles of Jack Daniels. He was a 105-pound rag doll hauled to a hospital by his son. After a stint in a money-oriented detox center where he plotted escapes to get back to his whiskey, he encountered the "cult" of AA. He treated the Steps like merit badges and his sobriety like a superficial makeover, buying a Cadillac to signal a new life while remaining an agnostic. He was a man of precision and measurement who finally foun...
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