There’s a Big Hungry Mouth at the Center of Your Being and the Only Thing That Shuts It Is Higher Power – Dottie S.

About This Speaker Tape

Dottie S. shares her story at the Rafters AA Group in Newhall, California, opening with a humorous account of recent medical adventures — eye surgery that accidentally saved her thumb from amputation, which she credits to Higher Power's mysterious timing. She dives into the science of alcoholism as she understands it, describing research on how alcohol remains in the spinal fluid of alcoholics and brain wave studies showing hereditary differences in children of alcoholic fathers. She frames alcoholism as a threefold disease: physical allergy, mental obsession, and spiritual malady.

Dottie came to AA on February 8, 1950, at the North Hollywood group on Radford Street, weighing 82 pounds, malnourished, insane, and unable to function. She got sober quickly, spoke at meetings within 49 days, attended 365 meetings her first year, and became a circuit speaker. But ego and boredom crept in. On June 11, 1951, after 16 months of sobriety, she relapsed out of resentment — fantasizing that the group would come beg her forgiveness. Three shots of whiskey later, she was on the floor bleeding, convulsing, and clinically dead. A doctor who happened to be an alcoholic himself ran two blocks to revive her with a needle to the chest.

After that experience, Dottie pledged her life to service and never drank again. She describes losing both sisters to alcoholism, her oldest daughter and grandson finding sobriety in the program, and divorcing her husband of 33 years after his financial ruin. She shares a moving story about reconnecting with her father at age 90 — a man she had emotionally erased her whole life — only to lose him two months later. Through it all, she credits the spiritual core of the program for sustaining her.

Approaching 34 years of continuous sobriety, Dottie announces she has been invited to speak at the 50th International AA Convention in Montreal. She closes with a passionate call to welcome newcomers, give Higher Power credit for sobriety, and surrender fully: nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opens with story of eye surgery that accidentally led to discovering a dangerously damaged thumb — credits Higher Power's timing
• 5:00 Describes the physical allergy of alcoholism — research on alcohol found in spinal fluid of alcoholics but not non-alcoholics
• 9:00 Brain wave studies on babies of alcoholic fathers showing hereditary differences — alcoholism passed through genes
• 13:00 The mental obsession — the great obsession of every abnormal drinker that somehow they will control and enjoy their drinking
• 16:00 Arriving at North Hollywood AA on February 8, 1950 weighing 82 pounds, malnourished, insane, and unable to function
• 21:00 Ego and boredom lead to relapse on June 11, 1951 — the fantasy of the group coming to beg forgiveness
• 26:00 Three shots of whiskey and she is on the floor dying — the alcoholic doctor runs two blocks to revive her with a needle to the chest
• 32:00 The spiritual malady — the Higher Power-shaped hole that nothing else can fill, and finding the missing link after her relapse
• 38:00 Losing both sisters to alcoholism, daughter and grandson finding sobriety, divorce after 33 years
• 44:00 Reconnecting with her 90-year-old father after a lifetime of indifference — honor thy father and thy mother — his death two months later