The Zoom Meeting That Taught a Pessimist How to Live – Tom S.

About This Speaker Tape

Pasadena, a small radius of twelve bars, and a professional license held together by a thread. Tom S. spent decades as a professional pessimist, treating anxiety with alcohol until the medicine became the poison. He describes a slow slide into a "falling down drunk" existence, marked by suicidal gestures and a level of nastiness that left him unwelcome in the very bars he frequented. He lived in the wreckage of a failed marriage and a terminal outlook, convinced that AA was bullshit and the "God stuff" was a car trick to get him into a church basement.

The shift happened during the pandemic. Isolated and terrified of a retirement spent in slow organ failure, Tom joined a massive Zoom meeting. Hearing the calm in a stranger's voice from Key West, he realized that hundreds of people couldn't all be lying. Now nearly four digits sober, he relies on a Higher Power to stop the "meaningless suffering" and the feeling of being sentenced to another day of life.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:45 Tom S. describes his 'usual range' of wreckage, including DUIs and suicidal gestures.
• 2:30 Discussion on how alcohol initially provided serenity and relief from anxiety.
• 4:15 Laughter: Tom S. mentions his 'career bests' of 17 days of sobriety.
• 6:00 Tom S. describes his descent into becoming a 'falling down drunk' and visiting skid row.
• 8:15 The impact of the pandemic lockdown and the shift to teleworking while drinking.
• 10:00 First experience with the 'One Day at a Time' Zoom meeting and meeting Peg from Key West.
• 12:30 Step 6: Tom S. describes his moment of readiness to give up and the decision to get a sponsor.
• 14:45 Discussion on atheism and his specific approach to a Higher Power.
• 17:00 The fear that his sponsors would eventually tell him he is 'out' for being incapable of honesty.
• 19:30 Closing thoughts on the Big Book stories and a reading from 'Flooded with Feeling'.