The Second Story and the End of the First Story – Russell S.

About This Speaker Tape

1971. A gold metallic Camaro with a white Landau top rolls off the assembly line. Russell S. climbs in, smelling the new car scent and feeling like he’s driving through Yankee Stadium with the whole world watching. But the high lasts three blocks; the payments last thirty-six months. For Russell, the car was just another drug—a temporary cure for the "dis-ease" of alcoholism that strikes the moment the bottle is empty. He spent years chasing Playboy Bunnies and material prestige, trying to solve a spiritual void with vanity.

He describes the "drunk-a-logs" getting shorter as the years pass, replacing the noise of the wreckage with a gritty, head-on approach to adulthood. He warns that stopping the drink is just the tip of the iceberg; the real fight is abandoning the rational lies and the "finite self." By surrendering to a Higher Power, he moved from the alcoholic scrap heap to a place where even a cancer diagnosis can be viewed as a tool for closeness.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Russell S. introduces himself and his sobriety date of January 25, 1981.
• 3:45 Discussion on the difference between being drunk and the disease of alcoholism.
• 7:12 Laughter: The 'Playboy Bunny' as a perceived cure for life's problems.
• 11:30 The gold Camaro story and the illusion of being 'on top of the world'.
• 16:40 The 'First Story' of the divorce: blaming the 'nagging' wife.
• 21:15 The 'Second Story' of the divorce: admitting to sabotage and selfishness.
• 25:30 The necessity of the Fourth Step for removing the 'first story' and building a relationship with a Higher Power.
• 28:10 Closing remarks on the transition to Step Five next week.