Why the Big Book Is a Book of Experience – Paige F.

About This Speaker Tape

The edge of a cliff, a cloud of unknowing below, and a monster barreling in from behind. This is where Paige F. found herself—trapped between the obsession of the mind and the allergy of the body. For years, she treated sobriety as an intellectual exercise, arguing with the program like a customer arguing with a bartender about the hops in a beer while the liver failed. She describes the "self-imposed crisis" of the alcoholic: the desperate need to stay sober coupled with the absolute inability to do so.

Paige views the Big Book not as a manual of theory, but as a book of experience. She challenges the newcomer to run the experiments: try controlled drinking or try leaving liquor alone for a year. To survive, she had to stop relying on "seconds and inches" she didn't earn and take a leap of faith into a Higher Power. By trading her "rinky-dink" plans for rigorous action, she moved from the wreckage of the dumpster to a state of neutrality.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:45 Paige F. discusses the 'I know' mentality and the trap of treating recovery as an intellectual exercise.
• 4:15 Detailed breakdown of the Step One experiment: trying controlled drinking to identify the physical allergy.
• 7:30 Discussion of the second Step One experiment: attempting to leave liquor alone for a year to test for mental obsession.
• 11:10 Paige F. explains the difference between being allergic to onions and being powerless over alcohol.
• 15:40 Step Two: Moving from intellectual barriers to the 'spiritual demonstration' of seeing other recovered alcoholics.
• 20:10 The 'Monster' metaphor: describing the obsession of the mind as a beast chasing her through the wilderness.
• 24:30 The Fourth Step promise: matching calamity with serenity through the experience of writing inventory.
• 28:15 The Fifth Step experience: the 'delight' that comes from withholding nothing.
• 32:00 Analysis of the Step Nine promises and the shift from self-pity to interest in others.
• 36:45 The Tenth Step promise: the return of sanity and the feeling of neutrality toward alcohol.
• 40:10 Closing appeal to the newcomer to take the leap of faith into the 'cloud of unknowing'.