The Recuperative Powers of the Alcoholic Ego – Bob D.
About This Speaker Tape
1977, a county jail cell. Bob D. is facing two years in state pen for a felony hit-and-run in a stolen car. He is homeless, alone, and stripped to the bone, yet he still clings to the one thing he cannot lose: his own judgment. He describes himself as a "freeze-dried alcoholic," born with a tumor of an ego that convinces him he knows exactly what is wrong with everyone else.
For Bob, abstinence is not a relief but a "silent sickness of heart," a desolate place where he feels an impenetrable wall between himself and the rest of the world. He recalls the "glorious life of conviviality" that whiskey once provided—an illusion of community that masked a terrifying loneliness. After a failed suicide attempt on a Pittsburgh bridge, Bob realizes he was merely part of the "passing parade" in AA meetings, dying of untreated alcoholism while sitting in the back row. He eventually finds a Higher Power through the "fanatic doers" in a Vegas detox, admitting he is the kind of man who breaks the ...
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