The Obsession Hit Me at 30,000 Feet - AA Speaker - Tom I. - Edisto, SC

Tom I. found Alcoholics Anonymous inside a Michigan penitentiary and built a recovery so powerful that the prison system hired him back — 44 years later he says this was his finest year yet. We just launched our new Episodes page — search hundreds of AA speaker meetings by topic, speaker, or step ☀️  Sober-Sunrise.com Tom I. started drinking at 16 and tore through eight years of escalating chaos — demotions, firings, jails, blackouts, and a trail of overrated first impressions followed by spectacular self-destruction. It all came to a head when he struck and killed two people while driving in a blackout and woke up in jail not knowing what he'd done. Sentenced to 5 to 15 years in Michigan State Penitentiary, he walked in believing he'd never come out alive. A rookie social worker pointed him to the prison AA group, and a speaker named Shy Walker gave off something Tom had never encountered — a signal of life from a man who'd been where he was. Over three and a half years behind bars, Tom found the first power he ever believed in inside that group of 300 convicts, wrote his first inventory on the edge of his bunk, and conceded to his innermost self that he was an alcoholic. Two months after release he was back inside as a volunteer sponsor, then hired into the prison rehab system, and eventually offered the warden's chair — an ex-con running the institution. Now in his 44th year of sobriety, Tom says without a trace of cheerleader talk that this has been his finest year in AA. Tom I. from Southern Pines, NC speaking at the Edisto Roundup - April 7th 2001 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu