Turn the Penny Over and It Says In Higher Power We Trust — That’s the Entire Third Step – Tim T.

About This Speaker Tape

Tim T. from Cleveland opens with a penguin joke that sets the tone for a talk full of hard-won humor and gut-level honesty. He grew up watching his father's alcoholism firsthand — his dad got sober in 1946 through AA but relapsed and died with ten years of continuous sobriety. Tim had six stepfathers, thirteen stepmothers, attended over twenty schools, and never finished eighth grade. He left home at fourteen, hitchhiked across the country for four years, and then married a fifteen-year-old girl he picked up hitchhiking. What followed was seven years of mutual destruction, twelve years cycling through jails and penitentiaries, and a 20-to-40-year prison sentence that was later reduced.

After prison, Tim found everything gone — wife, car, possessions — and drank himself into a corner for three months. On June 23, 1982, he hit his bottom: 112 pounds, hepatitis, shaking on his living room floor. A psychiatrist in the psych ward turned out to be a recovering alcoholic who handed Tim his first AA meeting schedule. His mother dropped him at his first meeting on July 4, 1982, with the instruction to get a sponsor and stay away from the women.

Tim walks through the steps with trademark storytelling — the penny that explains the Third Step, the pink socks that teach why you read the directions, the Honda Civic that runs out of gas to illustrate powerlessness. He married his third wife in an AA wedding with a clambake and an Elvis impersonator, where 350 people showed up for 320 invitations — a stark contrast to the day no one on earth would accept his collect call from prison.

At twenty-two years sober, Tim spends his days caring for his eighty-six-year-old mother who recently broke her hip and suffered a stroke. He reframes obligation as privilege: he does not have to be with his mom, he gets to be with her. He closes with a reminder that what matters most is what you do between the Lord's Prayer and the next Serenity Prayer — the hours you actually live the program.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opens with the penguin-in-a-pickup-truck joke and introduces himself
• 3:30 Family background: alcoholic father sober in 1946, six stepfathers, thirteen stepmothers, never finished eighth grade
• 7:00 First drink at 13, blacked out in a stranger's backyard — that woman turned out to be three months sober in AA
• 12:00 Hitchhiking years, wanting the American dream from the billboards, marrying the first girl he saw back in Cleveland
• 18:00 Arrested 63 times, represented himself in court for verbal abuse of a police officer in Parma, sentenced to 20-to-40 years
• 24:00 Released from prison to find everything gone, drinks in a chair for three months, second wife story and the Pirate's Cove bar
• 30:00 Bottom on June 23 1982: 112 pounds, hepatitis, psych ward, recovering alcoholic psychiatrist gives him a meeting schedule
• 38:00 First meeting July 4 1982, gets a sponsor who teaches him never say no to AA, one page of the Big Book per day, please and thank you
• 46:00 Steps walk-through: the penny and the Third Step, pink socks and reading directions, fourth step and forgiveness in the eighth
• 54:00 Wife's PhD vs his GED license plates, AA wedding with 350 guests, caring for his mother, closing on what you do between prayers