46 Years Old with Zero Self-Assessment — Fourth Step Was a Brutal Introduction to Myself – Alan H.

About This Speaker Tape

Alan H. shares his story at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speaker Meeting at the NAVA Club in Atlanta. Born in 1969 to a single mother who left his abusive biological father, Alan was adopted at age four by his stepfather. Despite gaining a large extended family, he grew up feeling inadequate compared to his older cousin Glenn, who excelled at everything. Alan became the class clown, using humor as a defense mechanism to win acceptance. His first drink came at nine years old, and by his teenage years he was a blackout drinker, beginning a pattern of destruction that would span decades.

At seventeen, Alan got his first DUI and witnessed a friend accidentally shoot himself during a drunken episode, leaving the boy brain dead. Even that trauma was not enough to stop him. He built a successful sales career, married into a prominent family of heavy drinkers, and landed a massive retail contract that made him feel invincible. But five DUIs, jail time, job loss, divorce, and a shattered relationship with his daughter followed. He spent 2015 cursing AA and making excuses while drinking himself toward death, his organs visibly failing.

On January 8, 2016, a man named Len who had introduced Alan to AA years earlier walked into his office on unrelated business. Alan reached out, and Len arranged immediate detox and treatment with no negotiation and no delay. Alan describes that day as a divine act of providence, with his doctor revealing ten years of sobriety and a nurse sharing she had just lost her brother to alcoholism. He woke the next morning without shaking or vomiting for the first time in years, and the desire to drink was lifted immediately upon his surrender.

Alan worked the twelve steps with a patient sponsor and rebuilt his life. His daughter, whose heart he had broken repeatedly, trusted him enough to let him be a grandfather. He closes with a reading from Dr. Bob's Nightmare about the four reasons he carries the message, crediting the program with giving him a design for living he had searched for his entire life.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Charlie introduces the Monday Night Blue Chip Speaker Meeting at NAVA Club and brings up his friend Alan from Gainesville
• 3:30 Alan opens with his sobriety date of January 8, 2016 and reads from the Doctor's Opinion about the phenomenon of craving
• 6:00 Born to a single mother in 1969, adopted at four by his stepfather, growing up feeling second to his cousin Glenn
• 12:00 First beer at nine on a camping trip, blackout drinking by twelve, drinking golden grain at fourteen with his cousin
• 18:00 First DUI at seventeen and the night his friend Ricky accidentally shot himself and was declared brain dead
• 25:00 Sales career takes off, marriage, daughter born in 1997, landing a massive retail contract during the recession
• 32:00 DUI number four in 2007, first AA meeting, court alcohol program catches him with 16 positive tests, jailed
• 40:00 Career gone, drinking Steel Reserve 211 daily, daughter catches him drinking, relationship with her deteriorates
• 48:00 January 8, 2016: Len walks into his office, arranges immediate detox with no delay, the divine act of providence
• 55:00 Working the twelve steps with a sponsor, rebuilt relationship with his daughter, becoming a grandfather, closing with Dr. Bob's Nightmare