The Difference Between a Solution and Spreading the Disease – Deb H.

About This Speaker Tape

Nine years old, standing in a basement in Ohio, picking bottles off a bar by their labels. Deb H. describes the first time she felt the "magic" of alcohol—not as a party, but as the only way to get her shoulders off her ears and her hands out of fists. Raised in a violent home where the sound of tires on a gravel driveway signaled danger, she found a chemical escape from a world of shadows and shouting.

A blue-collar kid who played the part of the straight-A student and varsity athlete while drinking "the clock round," Deb lived a double life of academic success and total oblivion. She recalls the gritty reality of crossing the tracks to a dark house just to slide down a wall with a fifth of vodka. After a disastrous attempt to "get the deal done" by overdosing on random pills to avoid passing out, she landed in treatment. It took a five-dollar bet from an old-timer named Mac to finally prove she couldn't control the switch in her throat. For Deb, the Higher Power wasn't a sudden f...

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opening remarks and gratitude for the fellowship.
• 4:30 Discussion of the 'Women Suffer Too' story and the tragic contrast between Bill W. and Willie S.
• 11:15 Childhood in Rittman, Ohio, and the physical manifestation of fear (shoulders to ears, fists balled).
• 16:40 The first drink at age nine and the immediate 'magic' effect of alcohol on her anxiety.
• 24:10 The 'high-functioning' mask: 3.8 GPA and varsity sports while drinking around the clock.
• 32:00 Getting caught and the 10-day evaluation in Cleveland; description of the detox room.
• 41:50 Laughter: Stories of disrupting early AA meetings with her sister.
• 48:20 The encounter with Max S. and the 'five dollar' experiment to test controlled drinking.
• 56:10 The relationship with her sponsor Jane S. and the requirement to learn the Four Absolutes.
• 1:05:30 The spiritual journey and her marriage to Lee H.
• 1:18:10 The account of her husband's fatal motorcycle accident and the immediate aftermath.
• 1:28:40 Refusing anger toward her Higher Power and the message from Walter H.