Told Charlie the Big Book Displays a Conspicuous Absence of Intelligence — Don’t Drink, Read It Again 😆 – Nick

About This Speaker Tape

Nick shares his story of growing up in Hawaii in a dysfunctional family with a periodic alcoholic father, where heavy drinking was woven into the culture. He first found AA in November 1969 when a longtime sober member named Chinaman Charlie silently led him from a park bench on Skid Row in Honolulu to his first meeting. Nick got sober young but couldn't ask for help, hid behind intellectualism, and after about four years picked up a drink at a six o'clock morning bar in Los Angeles. That drink took him out for roughly eight years.

The relapse years ended in devastation — 56 drunk-in-publics, lost jobs and businesses, bankruptcy, wandering the San Francisco waterfront at night hearing foghorns. In May 1982 he arrived at Highland Hospital in Oakland dying of alcoholism, clutching a quart of Kessler whiskey. He went through grand mal seizures, delirium tremens, and Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome so severe they put him on an IV alcohol drip to keep him alive. A nurse caught him turning up the drip and asked, "Why are you throwing your life away?" — words that penetrated during a moment of clarity. Emergency surgery followed for a hemorrhaging kidney, failing liver, and burst appendix.

On May 23, 1982, Nick had what he calls a private illumination — a spiritual experience that shifted him from problem consciousness to solution consciousness. He got a sponsor named Bill Mason, found a home group at Tri-Valley Fellowship in Pleasanton, California, and rebuilt his life with his wife Robbie, who had stayed through all of it. He ran one of Northern California's largest social-model detox programs and traveled to India, where a dying leper named Sukidro gave back 30 of his 40 rupees to buy something for the sick alcoholics at the detox.

In 1991, Nick was diagnosed with a malignant kidney tumor and had his right kidney removed. In 1999, cancer returned in his remaining left kidney. His wife found a top cancer center online, and he was treated with stereotactic radiosurgery by Dr. Gil Lederman. He closes with a parable about a sharecropper family and a mirror, drawing a parallel to seeing his own defects in the 12 Steps and hearing Higher Power say He loves him because he is His.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Nick opens with humor about standing before a podium instead of entering a plea, jokes about 236 twelve-step programs
• 4:30 Growing up in Hawaii — dysfunctional family, periodic alcoholic father who disappeared on benders and climbed neighbors' windows
• 10:00 First drinking experience with Red Mountain wine, party culture in Hawaii, early blackouts
• 14:00 Chinaman Charlie silently leads Nick from a park bench on Hotel Street to his first AA meeting in Honolulu, November 1969
• 20:00 Old-timer sponsors in early sobriety — Marine Corps Smitty, Margaret at the coffee shop, hiding behind intellectualism
• 25:00 Geographic move to Los Angeles, relapse after four years at a morning bar, eight years of insanity including 56 drunk-in-publics
• 30:00 Near-death at Highland Hospital May 1982 — seizures, DTs, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, IV alcohol drip, emergency surgery
• 37:00 Spiritual experience on May 23, 1982 — shift from problem consciousness to solution consciousness
• 45:00 Running a 35-bed detox in Northern California, trip to India and meeting Sukidro the leper who gave back rupees for the sick alcoholics
• 55:00 Kidney cancer in 1991 and 1999, stereotactic radiosurgery, closing parable of the sharecropper family and the mirror