The Monkey Is Off Her Back but the Circus Is Still Going On – Liz B.

About This Speaker Tape

1939, a courthouse in Baltimore. Liz B. stands there crying her heart out, not from sorrow, but because she finally trapped a man into marriage. She spent nineteen years as a "stoned alcoholic," starting at twelve with rice wine and moving to bathtub booze sold for forty cents a pitcher. She describes a life of wreckage: third-degree burns from frying frozen chicken, sleeping on park benches three blocks from home, and a husband who eventually told her to put the Bible down because she was too much of a hypocrite.

She admits she was "ignorant about life," giving away a leopard-skin coat in a drunken haze only to want it back once she was sober. After a final collapse that left her praying to die in a basement, she found a Higher Power and the rooms of AA. Now, with over five decades of sobriety, she warns that while the monkey is off her back, the circus is still going on.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Liz B. opens with gratitude and introduces her partner, Ron.
• 2:45 Childhood drinking: sipping rice wine at age 12.
• 4:10 Selling 'King Kong' bathtub booze at age 14.
• 7:30 The marriage to Mr. B. and the early days of their relationship.
• 11:20 The second-story window incident and the conflict with Mr. B.
• 15:40 The 'leopard coat' metaphor for the blindness of active addiction.
• 18:10 The final drunk and the surrender in the basement.
• 21:30 First AA meeting in 1952 and the 'you don't look like an alcoholic' comment.
• 25:10 Mention of Bill W. and the anniversary event at the Hotel Commodore.
• 28:40 Family wreckage: the son who won't forgive her and the loss of her daughter.
• 32:10 Discussion of the Third Step and the 'bondage of self'.
• 35:50 Closing thoughts on the 'monkey and the circus' and the power of the fellowship.