You Really Have to Get Up Early in the Morning to Drink Enough to Get Kicked Out of the University of Georgia 🤣 – Jiggs T.

About This Speaker Tape

Jiggs T. speaks to the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting on NABA Zoom on December 7, 2020, introduced by Tim R. He opens with a joke about finally being done selling Medicare Advantage plans and not having to watch Joe Namath on TV anymore, then settles into a quiet, grateful story from a man with nearly 34 years sober.

His first drink was an ice-cold beer between his junior and senior years of high school in Daytona Beach. He didn't like the taste — he liked that it made a shy kid feel powerful enough to talk to girls. Drinking followed him to the University of Georgia in 1963, where as a first-quarter freshman he got mouthy with Dean Star and came within an inch of being expelled from, in his words, the worst drinking school in the South. His father, grandfather, uncle, and cousin Jack Whitworth were all alcoholics, and when his first wife named the problem he refused to hear it because he didn't want that life. Around age 37 something shifted chemically; from that morning on he drank every single day, often starting in the morning to get through work, collecting two wrecks without ever catching a DUI.

In January 1987 he walked into a Gainesville sandwich shop owned by Suzanne and Wesley Gailey. Suzanne looked at him, wrote down Elaine Hickey's phone number, and told him to call her. He drank a big cup of scotch in the car and chewed gum before the appointment; Elaine saw straight through it and told him he had to deal with his alcoholism first. Furious, he went home and got as drunk as he ever had, then tried to prove her wrong by going ten days clean — smoking, he says, about a pound of marijuana to do it. When he marched back into her office expecting an apology, she asked him the question that broke him: 'Do you think you could quit for a year?' His sobriety date is Valentine's Day, February 14, 1987.

Nine months on a pink cloud ended when every feeling he'd numbed came out as tears — he carried a towel in the car because he had to pull over and cry at lunch. A lifelong atheist, he finally walked into a Big Book study at the Hickey House in Robertstown, said his name and the word alcoholic, and knew it fit. Tom Hickey became his sponsor, and he credits Elaine and Tom for teaching him to pray to a spiritual Higher Power — not a religious one — that he still turns to every morning. He closes with the line he uses on himself when he backslides: 'I'm not an example of how well AA works. I'm an example of how well I work AA.'

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tim R. opens the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers NABA Zoom meeting and introduces Jiggs T.
• 2:00 Jiggs opens with gratitude that December 7 means no more Medicare Advantage sales and no more Joe Namath commercials
• 4:30 First drink between junior and senior year at Daytona Beach — ice-cold beer made a shy kid feel powerful with girls
• 9:00 As a first-quarter freshman at Georgia in 1963 he mouths off to Dean Star and nearly gets expelled
• 13:00 First wife names him an alcoholic; he names his father, grandfather, uncle, and cousin Jack Whitworth as alcoholics and refuses to be one
• 17:00 At 37 something changes chemically and he begins drinking every single day, including mornings to get to work
• 24:00 January 1987 sandwich shop — Suzanne Gailey writes down Elaine Hickey's number and tells him to call
• 30:00 Drinks scotch in the car, chews gum, then tries to outtalk Elaine Hickey's BS meter
• 34:00 After ten dry days fueled by marijuana, Elaine asks, 'Do you think you could quit for a year?' — the question that breaks him
• 40:00 Nine months into the pink cloud he crashes — carries a towel in the car because he has to pull over and cry; an atheist walks into the Hickey House Big Book study and finds a Higher Power