The Ritual of AA and the Danger of Thinking Too Much – Ken D.

About This Speaker Tape

13th Unity Weekend - 2000

Brooklyn streets and mafia families shaped Ken D.'s early world where 'zero tolerance' for drugs meant a car door to the hand or a sudden move to Jersey. He spent decades as a 'mental defective' in full flight from reality until a sponsor anchored him in a family structure he'd lost. The wreckage is punctuated by the devastating loss of his son to AIDS a period where he watched his son crawl across the floor to maintain dignity—a mirror to his own spiritual crawl. Now a 'four-box guy' who has stripped away the excess Ken D. views sobriety as a ritual of action over the 'king' of thinking. He moves through the world with a peace that doesn't require happiness focusing on the 'dash' on the headstone and the simple gritty necessity of being of service to others.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:45 Laughter: Ken D. jokes about 'wacko magnets' and 13-step dances.
• 4:10 Ken D. describes the 'zero tolerance' drug culture of his Brooklyn childhood.
• 8:40 Discussion on the 'mental defective' nature of the alcoholic and the Big Book's descriptions.
• 12:15 Laughter: The 'reservation' joke with the Navajo fellowship.
• 16:30 Ken D. discusses the 'ritual' of AA and the danger of making 'thinking king'.
• 20:10 The 'garbage can lid' story: a gritty account of an early 12-step call.
• 25:45 Raw and emotional: Ken D. recounts the death of his son from AIDS.
• 31:20 Reflection on the 'dash' on the headstone and the value of the present moment.
• 35:10 Discussion of Step 11 and the practice of constructive review.