The Road Map Found in the Big Book – 1962 – Tom S.
About This Speaker Tape
A man sits in a dark balcony of a church, weeping in the shadows while a wedding ends below. Tom S. describes this as the wreckage of a life—a minister who had spent four years bumming across the country, lost and broken.
For Tom, AA is a "service station" for the soul. He warns against the "parade" of recovery, urging the listener not to miss the heart of the work. He speaks of the "dirty windshield" of the alcoholic, where splotches of wreckage accumulate until vision is completely fogged.
The only way out is to stop sitting on the bank of the river and jump into the stream to hold up others. By carrying the "baby"—the burden of another alcoholic—the broken regain their own strength. He argues that the Big Book is the road map for those in the low places where the road is impassable.
He concludes that no one should push away the Higher Power, lest they be the father who accidentally drives away the only doctor who can save his son.
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