An Atheist’s Step 2 — Write Down What a Power Greater Than You Would Be Like – Janine M.

About This Speaker Tape

Janine, sobriety date February 28, 2008, shares at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting from her home group, Fifth Tradition. She opens with a recent story about throwing a tantrum over a return at a specialty store, blowing the chance to apologize to the manager later, then bumping into that same manager at a workshop and finally making the amends. She ties the episode to fear of her finances and reads from page 66 of the Big Book — resentment is fatal, and the first time she got drunk, the last time she got drunk, and the time she almost drank in sobriety were all over the exact same resentment.

Raised in Lima, Ohio by a single mother after her parents divorced when she was five, Janine shared a bedroom with a younger sister she describes as the worst bully of her school. She was a people-pleasing good kid who barely drank in high school but exploded at Ohio State, where she learned to purge in the bathroom and keep drinking to stay with the boys. After college she married, had two daughters, divorced, and quickly landed in a 13-year second relationship where she drank every day — often with her kids or other people's kids in the car. A 1994 blackout driving 80 mph on the Atlanta Connector sent her to one AA meeting, but she compared herself out of the room.

Her real bottom came in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she had moved chasing a long-distance boyfriend who immediately told her he only wanted to see her once a week. Two detox attempts failed — Anchor Hospital sent her home because she wasn't detoxing, and a counselor told her she was a situational drinker. Her last drink was tequila shots at a bar after a counseling session, where she heard a clear inner voice say, you can't spend the rest of your life sitting in bars talking to strangers. She paid her tab and walked into a 10pm candlelight meeting.

A committed atheist, Janine got sober on a list her sponsor told her to make — what God would be like if there were one. Weeks later she realized the desire to drink had been removed and she hadn't picked up the list once. She lost custody of her youngest daughter to that daughter's father during her drinking, something she calls choosing drinking over her child; today they are close and she gets near-daily pictures of her first grandchild. She closes with a pitch for 2,000 more volunteers at the upcoming International Convention in Atlanta.

Topics

Timestamps

• 2:30 Specialty store hissy fit and the workshop amends with the manager
• 6:00 Reads Big Book page 66 on resentment being fatal to the alcoholic
• 9:00 Lima, Ohio childhood — single mother, bully sister, people-pleasing good kid
• 13:00 First drunk at Ponderosa — bourbon, burned steaks, passed out in her car
• 17:00 Ohio State drinking — purging in the bathroom to outlast the other girls
• 24:00 Blackout on the Atlanta Connector and one-and-done first AA meeting
• 32:00 Choosing drinking over her daughter — sending her to live with her father
• 40:00 Charlotte move, Anchor Hospital turns her away, last drink with the tequila voice
• 48:00 The list — what God would be like if there were one — and the desire lifted
• 55:00 Near-slip at year and a half, working with a new sponsee saved her; convention pitch