The Saturday Afternoon Big Book Meeting – Bobby C.

About This Speaker Tape

Philadelphia, 1988. A car speeding at 50 in a 25 zone, aimed at a tree because the driver was too afraid of heights to jump from a fifth-floor hotel window. Bobby C. spent years as a professional actor, not on stage, but in his own life, lying about everything from his ethnic heritage to his sobriety. He describes himself as a "creep" who once ran over a child on a bicycle and left him in the street like a piece of trash before returning to the bar.

Even after getting sober, Bobby admits he carried the disease rather than the message, once beating a man with a baseball bat while stone-cold sober. It took a sponsor named Troubles—a man who treated people with dignity while Bobby used the f-word as a noun, verb, and adjective—to force him into the Big Book. From surviving lung cancer to a late-in-life marriage and the brutal grief of a late-term miscarriage, Bobby relies on a Higher Power to navigate a life that remains gritty and unmanageable.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Bobby B. introduces himself and describes his home group in Philadelphia.
• 5:15 Recounts his youth in Philly and the 'gangster' act he put on in high school.
• 12:30 The Ukrainian American Social Club and the pathology of lying about his heritage.
• 18:45 The hit-and-run accident involving a child on a bicycle.
• 23:10 Detailed account of suicide attempts: the fifth-floor window, the bathtub blow-dryer, and the car.
• 28:50 First encounter with the 12 Steps and Traditions on the wall at the VA hospital.
• 35:20 The 'maiden maker' period and the violence of beating a man with a baseball bat while sober.
• 41:10 Sponsorship: Troubles takes him on under strict conditions.
• 48:30 Diagnosis of lung cancer at age 33.
• 55:10 Meeting his wife, Libby L., in Nebraska and their marriage at age 51.
• 1:01:20 The grief of a late-term miscarriage and the process of one day at a time.
• 1:12:00 Laughter: The story of stealing the cash register keys at the airport.