The Solution Is in Following the Directions – Bob O.

About This Speaker Tape

May 1973. Bob O. is in a no-hope position, trapped between the convulsions of the DTs and a bottle that has become toxic to his system. He describes the visceral horror of his detox—hugging a two-door refrigerator to push it away from giant, imaginary ants crawling across the kitchen floor. After years of "sentencing" himself to meetings and being lied to by people rubbing his back, Bob found a sponsor who refused to blow smoke up his backside.

Bob recounts a life of wreckage: shooting out a power station at seventeen and a genetic legacy of alcoholic deaths. He argues that the only way out is to stop intellectualizing and follow the directions by the numbers. He views the steps not as a mystery, but as a precise set of instructions to smash the delusion of being like other people. For Bob, sobriety is a matter of abandoning himself utterly to a Higher Power and conducting a rigorous inventory of the grudges and fears that held him captive.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Bob O. opens with a joke about his home group's name and his sobriety date of May 28, 1973.
• 4:12 Discussion on the 'singleness of purpose' and the history of the Washingtonians.
• 8:45 Description of his solo detox, hallucinations of giant ants, and moving the refrigerator.
• 12:10 Bob discusses his childhood in foster care and his need for a father figure in his Higher Power.
• 15:40 Story about shooting out a power station in Wisconsin at age 17 and his time in reform school.
• 21:15 Step 1: The necessity of smashing the delusion that the alcoholic is like other people.
• 26:30 The 'Golden Slippers' story and the importance of doing the steps rather than talking about them.
• 32:10 Step 3: The Third Step Prayer and the struggle with the 'bondage of self'.
• 38:45 Step 4: The process of writing a rigorous inventory, including principles and fears.
• 45:20 Step 5: The emotional experience of admitting his life story to his sponsor.
• 51:10 Step 9: Making amends to his father in a Wisconsin hospital.
• 56:40 Step 11: The discipline of planning the day and the 'pause' when agitated.
• 61:15 Closing reflections on a near-death coma and the question of whether one's life made a difference.