Hitting Bottom Is an Inside Job Not an Outside Circumstance – Mickey B.

About This Speaker Tape

Mickey B. opens a Steps 1-2-3 workshop with his signature mix of British bluntness and hard-won experience, introducing himself as an alcoholic (and probably an addict too) and warning the crowd he doesn't give opinions — only experience, strength, and hope. He tears into the common notion that Step One is just admitting you're alcoholic, insisting that fully conceding to your innermost self is the real deal, and that admittance, acceptance, and surrender without that concession is what sends people back out the door over and over. He uses a WWI/WWII Germany analogy — the defeated army that surrendered but never fully conceded, then had to be defeated all over again — to explain why so many alcoholics become keep-coming-backers.

From there he walks through what actually makes an alcoholic: the abnormal reaction to alcohol, the invisible line you cross into the twofold disease, and the phenomenon of craving as a feeling beyond mental control. He contrasts himself with normal drinkers and with a friend allergic to abalone — allergy without obsession is not alcoholism. He tells the story of his own bottom on January 15, 1983, when in desperation he asked for help and was sent to AA, where one alcoholic plus another for the purpose of recovery becomes a power greater than either of them.

Steps Two and Three follow the same practical frame. Powerless, he argues, means having no Higher Power in your life when it comes to alcohol — because if the Higher Power is the source and the power over everything, and alcohol is still pushing you around, then in that corner of your life you have none. Step Two brings the power back in through the fellowship, the book, a sponsor, sponsees. Step Three turns will (thinking) and life (actions) — past, present, and future — over to the care of that power, the way you hand a broken Jaguar to a mechanic for repair rather than giving the car away.

He closes by pushing back on the habit of calling yourself powerless forever. Powerless is mentioned once in the program — the first step. After that the book is about power: power to help others, power to not have to pick up the drink, new power flowing in through action. Working the steps, he says, is how that power arrives; not working them is how it leaves.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction as Mickey B., alcoholic and probably addict — workshop on Steps 1, 2, 3
• 3:30 'This is a we program, not a me program' — flipping M-E over to W-E, refusing to give opinions
• 8:00 What we have that newcomers should go to any lengths to get — a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps
• 14:00 Fully conceding vs admitting, accepting, surrendering — and why the difference matters
• 18:00 WWI and WWII Germany analogy: armies that surrendered but never fully conceded, came back and did it again
• 28:00 What makes an alcoholic — alcohol changes his perception of reality, 'nerd remover,' the abnormal reaction
• 36:00 The invisible line and the twofold disease: obsession of the mind plus phenomenon of craving as a feeling beyond mental control
• 48:00 January 15, 1983 — desperate cry for help, Higher Power sent him to AA where one alcoholic plus another becomes the power
• 58:00 Step Three — will is thinking, life is actions, past/present/future turned over like a Jaguar to a mechanic for repair
• 68:00 Powerless is mentioned once in the whole program — the rest is power, power, power to help the next alcoholic