57 Resentments and Not One of Them Was Alcohol — Everything I Blamed Was a Person – Allie M.

About This Speaker Tape

Allie shares her story of growing up as the oldest of five kids in a strict Boston Irish Catholic family that moved south when she was young. Homeschooled from age nine through eighth grade, she developed deep resentment toward her mother over rigid rules that left her feeling excluded from peers. When she finally entered public high school in East Cobb, Georgia, the clash between her sheltered upbringing and her desire for a normal teenage life intensified. Her first drink came at a Christmas party her senior year — four Jack and Cokes — and she notes even then the quantity was abnormal for a 17-year-old girl.

At the University of Georgia, Allie threw herself into the party culture she felt she had been denied, deliberately training herself to drink and quickly making alcohol her top priority. Her grades tanked, she started experimenting with other substances, and a date rape incident nearly got her expelled. She managed to turn her academics around enough to graduate while bartending and drinking constantly. Her first DUI at 21 barely registered — she considered it street cred in Athens. But the progression accelerated through a second DUI on I-85 at a 0.229 BAC, then a high-pressure sales career where she drank whiskey on the highway during her commute, drank at her desk, and spent $120 a day on Ubers for two and a half years to avoid a breathalyzer interlock.

The bottom came fast: a third DUI at 0.35 BAC after rear-ending someone, followed two weeks later by a fourth DUI in the rental car from the third. She describes the phenomenon of craving hitting her physically as early as age 21, and the complete insanity of believing she was doing fine aside from the drinking. After 104 days dry in 2018, she relapsed at the Super Bowl, spending $3,500 on a ticket and missing the entire game standing in the beer line. More cycles of white-knuckling and bingeing followed until December 2019, when she prayed in the shower, called her mom, and Ubered to the Galano Club to pick up a white chip. That night she went through violent DTs with hallucinations and believed she would die.

She survived, went to a meeting on Christmas Eve at Triangle Club, and began 90 meetings in 90 days. She got a sponsor at 30 days, worked the steps, and discovered 57 resentments on her fourth step — most of them people, rooted in anger she did not know she carried. COVID hit at 90 days but she stayed sober. Today she is engaged to a sober alcoholic, sponsors women, and says the greatest gift of the program is that people outside AA now come to her for help. She no longer lives a double life.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Meeting opening and introduction of Allie by her home group member Lisa
• 2:00 Family background — alcoholism on father's side, strict Boston Irish Catholic upbringing, oldest of five kids
• 5:30 Homeschooled at nine, excluded by peers, resentment toward mother over strict rules begins
• 9:00 Enters East Cobb public high school with a sixth-grade education, clashes with mom escalate
• 12:00 First drink at 17 — four Jack and Cokes at a Christmas party, no normal first-drink experience
• 16:00 University of Georgia — deliberately training herself to drink, grades collapse, learns to drink in the morning at tailgates
• 22:00 First DUI at 21 in Athens at 0.18 BAC, phenomenon of craving hits for the first time on a Sunday needing alcohol
• 28:00 Third and fourth DUIs — rear-ends someone at 0.35 BAC, gets fourth DUI two weeks later in the rental car from the third
• 36:00 Prays in the shower, picks up white chip at Galano Club, violent DTs that night with hallucinations — believes she will die
• 44:00 Works the steps — 57 resentments on her fourth step, discovers anger and self-will she did not know she had, life today engaged to a sober alcoholic