Trying To Be A Husband When You Are One Hundred Percent Self-Centered – Bill G.

About This Speaker Tape

The speaker recounts a life built on professional pretense and self-centeredness, where addiction—first through drugs, then alcohol—was the constant undercurrent. His initial attempts to manage the chaos through sheer intellect failed, leading to cycles of institutionalization and denial. The turning point wasn't a single event, but the cumulative weight of his failures, culminating in a moment of profound unmanageability.

True change arrived only when he was forced into the structure of AA, where the simple act of reading the Big Book and accepting the concept of a Higher Power provided the necessary shock to break his intellectual defenses. He found that the cure wasn't in the drugs or the accolades, but in the shared, messy reality of the Fellowship.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction by the chair, setting the stage for the speaker's talk.
• 0:42 Speaker begins, describing his initial descent while driving under the influence.
• 2:15 Recounting his professional life and feeling inadequate in all roles, leading to early substance use.
• 5:00 Detailing his self-centered nature and how his addiction followed him from Mississippi to Atlanta.
• 11:00 The confrontation with his wife, Ruth, leading to a period of compliance and underground living.
• 14:00 The experience in the Georgian clinic and the initial resistance to admitting the disease concept.
• 22:00 The pivotal moment when he encounters AA and is moved by another member's story.
• 35:00 The experience in the federal hospital, where he finally encounters the Big Book and the concept of 'Contempt Prior to Investigation.'