The Obsession That Replaced the Obsession to Drink – Joe L.

About This Speaker Tape

East TX Roundup -

A Texas old-timer with a sharp tongue and a sharper memory Joe L. cuts through the mysticism of recovery to describe it as a natural response to the humiliations of the disease. He recalls the grit of the 1940s and 50s—riding freight trains lying paralyzed in cotton patches while buzzards winked at him and the sheer loneliness of a malady that forces a man to cry silently in the dark. Joe dismantles the 'experts' and psychiatrists arguing that the only real cure is the raw unsolicited experience of one drunk talking to another. His narrative moves from the depths of a Sacramento flophouse to the surprising grace of a first meeting where he found a former camp idiot and his own former jailer both sober and serene. He frames the recovery process not as a profound journey but as a necessary replacement of one obsession with another ending with a biblical parallel of the demoniac restored to his right mind.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Joe L. opens with a gritty joke about the 'lovable old AA members' and the tendency of newcomers to criticize sponsors.
• 5:15 Laughter: Joe tells a joke about a drunk asking a bartender if his lemons have feathers.
• 10:20 Joe discusses the 'malady of alcoholism' as a sickness and the importance of focusing on the disease before the spiritual solution.
• 16:45 Joe mocks psychiatrists and the idea that he drank because his 'mama put me on the pot backwards'.
• 22:10 Joe describes the 'loneliest malady' and the inability to discuss the shame of the disease with society.
• 28:30 The Buzzard Story: Joe recounts a hallucination or reality of being stared at by vultures in a cotton patch.
• 35:15 Joe explains the concept of 'obsession' and uses the metaphor of a dog named Millard Fillmore who couldn't stop scratching.
• 42:10 Joe describes the 'Picasso study in brown' and his journey from Goose Creek to Los Angeles in a state of total collapse.
• 51:20 Joe recounts being visited unsolicited in jail by a man with a pamphlet, marking the turning point of his recovery.
• 58:15 Joe describes his first meeting and the shock of seeing his former jailer and a former 'camp idiot' sober.
• 65:40 Joe closes with a biblical story about the demoniac and the restoration to sanity.