Why the First Three Steps Keep More People Out of AA Than Anything Except Booze – Clancy I.

About This Speaker Tape

Clancy I. speaks at a Bristol, UK convention about what he calls the disease of perception, walking through all twelve steps with stories from his own experience. He describes nearly ten years of slipping in and out of AA, going from a high-bottom drunk on the faculty of the University of Texas to being thrown out of a Skid Row mission in Los Angeles with no front teeth. His sponsor Bob, an actor he chose hoping to get money and teeth from, became the hard-nosed guide who ground him down and taught him what the steps actually mean.

The heart of the talk is Bob's seminar on the first step: that powerlessness over alcohol does not mean being a falling-down drunk, but that alcohol produces an unnatural reaction, a perception shift that makes things better, and every drink becomes Russian roulette. Bob draws the critical distinction between an alcohol problem, which you can fix by cleaning up your act, and alcoholism, where getting sober has no significant long-term effect on the underlying pain. Clancy describes how conceding this to his innermost self in the winter of 1958-59 meant he never again had a severe desire to drink.

Clancy tells the story of being fired as a dishwasher at eight months sober, attempting to walk to the Pacific Ocean to drown himself like the movie A Star Is Born, giving up because it was five more miles, and then calling his sponsor who told him to write his inventory. That inventory and fifth step became his real third step surrender. He shares seven inventory questions he now gives sponsees and describes how the amends process transformed his relationship with his estranged father, giving him an entirely different perception of the same set of facts they had lived through. He closes with an analogy of Higher Power's grace as a television signal broadcast to everyone equally, where prayer, service, meetings, and changed behavior are the knobs that tune the picture clearer, even though the pickup truck of life keeps rattling the reception.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and greeting to Bristol audience, joke about California weather and Adam's talk
• 3:00 The puzzlement: why 90-95% of alcoholics still die drunk despite AA's proven effectiveness
• 8:00 His bottom: thrown out of a Skid Row mission, former university professor and award-winning ad writer living on the streets
• 12:00 Bob's seminar on Step 1: the unnatural reaction to alcohol and the Russian roulette analogy
• 20:00 The distinction between an alcohol problem and alcoholism: getting sober does not fix the underlying pain
• 26:00 Step 2: using his sponsor as higher power, sanity defined as sustained reality without needing to drink to stand life
• 32:00 Fired as a dishwasher, attempts to walk to the ocean to drown himself, gives up because it is five more miles
• 38:00 Writing the fourth step inventory and the fifth step drive to Oxnard with a flashlight, his seven inventory questions
• 48:00 Amends to his father: visiting Eau Claire, hearing his father's entirely different perception of the same facts, reconciliation before death
• 58:00 The television set analogy for Higher Power's grace: prayer, service, and meetings as knobs that tune the picture clearer