The Resentment That Kept Him Sober for 27 Days – Jim P.

About This Speaker Tape

Abbeville AL. Group , 8-29-2013 - 2013

A childhood spent as the 'black sheep' of a military family led Jim P. down a path of early delinquency armed robberies and a 52-year sentence at 18 that was miraculously commuted to a chain gang. He describes the grit of the chain gang—swinging Kaiser blades in ditches and brewing 'butt' alcohol from rotten grapefruit in a dirty sock—before a career in real estate masked a decade of blackout drinking. The turning point arrived through a brutal wake-up call from a survivor of concentration camps who told him to drink arsenic rather than kill himself slowly. After a relapse that left him bleeding on a kitchen floor Jim found a sponsor in Joe and a lifeline in the Big Book. Now a registered EMT and tanker driver he navigates the grief of losing two brothers to the disease while dedicating his life to archiving the voices of old-timers.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and announcements regarding a Big Book study.
• 5:15 Jim P. introduces himself and discusses his childhood in a military family.
• 11:30 The first drink at age 11 and the 'little man with an anvil' headache.
• 18:45 Details of armed robberies and the 52-year prison sentence.
• 23:10 Life on the chain gang and the process of making 'butt' alcohol.
• 32:00 The 'blackout' years in real estate and the incident of wetting the bed.
• 38:15 First AA meeting and the encounter with Leo, the concentration camp survivor.
• 45:30 The relapse on the kitchen floor and the decision to start working the 12 Steps with Joe.
• 52:10 Discussion on the necessity of living the steps and the transition to becoming an EMT.
• 58:40 The tragedy of losing his little brother and the impact of the disease on his family.
• 64:20 Jim's work archiving speaker tapes and the influence of his sponsor, Wee Willie.
• 71:00 Closing thoughts on 'one day at a time' and a reading from Bill W.