Burt F. Smith: the fiftieth stab at sobriety
Burt F. Smith’s story is he’s making his like fiftieth-odd stab at sobriety in AA. Once devoutly R.C., Burt F.S. has potentially lethal trouble with Faith In A Loving God ever since the R.C. Church apparently granted his wife an annulment in like B.S. ’99 after fifteen years of marriage.
Context
The chronic-relapser's presence in the room as a standing warning: the "fiftieth-odd stab at sobriety" is what recovery looks like for many — not a single arc but decades of failed attempts — and Burt F.S.'s "potentially lethal trouble with Faith In A Loving God" locates the specific place the program can fail a man, at the Higher-Power turn, when his life has given him no evidence for a loving one. (The Xmas-Eve mugging that cost him hands and feet loops him back to the yrstruly street thread; carried as cross-ref, not re-landed.)