The Sponsor Who Told Him to Pull His Head Out of His A** – Dave M.

About This Speaker Tape

A childhood defined by a crushing nameless fear and a desperate need for acceptance led Dave M. to a life of 'abnormal becoming normal.' He describes a trajectory of early drinking at age eight juvenile life sentences at fifteen and a decade of drifting through detoxes and 'AA rat races' where he mimicked sobriety without internal change. He speaks of the 'reversal of the ego'—the pride found in how low one can sink—and the grit of panhandling on Roosevelt Boulevard while imagining the lives of drivers.

The turning point arrived in 2004 not through a plan but through a series of crashes that left his scorecard at zero. He details the shift from treating alcoholism as an external problem of money and apartments to an internal spiritual malady eventually finding a sponsor who forced him to pull his head out of his ass and work the steps with urgency.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Dave M. opens with his sobriety date and the story of the Port Fishington Speakers Group.
• 10:15 Childhood fear and the 'committee' of voices in the head that drove him to drink at age eight.
• 18:40 The 'abnormal becomes normal' principle and his history of juvenile incarceration.
• 25:10 Laughter: The 'James P. bid' and 'Dean K. bid'u2014using jail sentences to read different authors.
• 32:00 The 'AA rat race' and the delusion of external recovery.
• 38:15 The 'last 30 days' concept and the slide into a relapse after four years of sobriety.
• 45:30 The grit of homelessness: panhandling on Roosevelt Boulevard and living in a tent on a soccer field.
• 52:10 The 2004 turning point and the experience of a voice in a mental health cell telling him 'the fight's over.'
• 58:00 Step 3: His sponsor's blunt advice to 'pull your head out of your ass' and the urgency of the steps.
• 64:20 Amends: The story of the fiancu00e9 and the 'two amends in one' blunder.
• 70:15 The parallel between his life and his father's life at age 30 and 36.