The Truth About the 45 Pages That Guarantee Recovery – Eddie C.

About This Speaker Tape

A childhood spent in the mud of Hawaiian Gardens and a nose broken over a carom stick forged a man who viewed fear as an anesthetic. Eddie C. climbed the corporate ladder to bank vice president but the view from the top was blurred by scotch and a penchant for bad company.

A night of counterfeit money and cocaine on Hollywood Boulevard ended his career and sent him spiraling through treatment centers and a brief fragile sobriety. It took a blackout in a dive bar in Sedalia Missouri and the memory of a non-judgmental old-timer to pull him back. He describes a slow grueling 100-day battle to shake a 'spirit of death' and a deep dive into the original six-step program to finally stop the war with himself.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:45 Eddie C. jokes about the restroom confusion and the lack of humor regarding gender-specific bathrooms in Long Beach.
• 2:15 Description of growing up in Hawaiian Gardens with outhouses and mud-slicked streets.
• 4:30 The carom stick incident: a childhood memory of being frozen by fear and the subsequent rage.
• 7:10 Discussion of his dyslexia and how he navigated high school through cheating.
• 10:20 The night on Hollywood Boulevard: counterfeit money, cocaine, and the police sweep.
• 13:45 The fallout of the arrest and the loss of his position as a bank vice president.
• 16:10 First introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1985 and the experience of the Third Step.
• 19:30 The 'Bud Bar' in Sedalia, Missouri, and the moment of clarity involving a Long Neck Miller.
• 21:15 Laughter: Discussion of the 'spirit of death' and the 100 days it took to get the beast off him.
• 23:40 Detailed experience with the original six-step program and the 12 and 12.
• 26:10 The '45 pages' of the Big Book that he claims guarantee recovery.
• 28:00 Final reflections on the miracle of the 10th Step and the freedom to travel the world sober.