Ain’t You Gonna Ever Get Honest? — Dick’s Lesson on Self-Honesty That Shattered Her Halo – Alabama C.

About This Speaker Tape

Alabama C. shares her remarkable story of recovery spanning 34 years of sobriety at the time of this 1986 talk in Abilene, Texas. Born in a small southern town of 400 people, she was the youngest of seven siblings and started drinking at 16 when boys at a Sunday night party gave her rum disguised as wine. She married a mining company manager and lived a glamorous life as a company hostess, entertaining Wall Street executives and traveling extensively — but her drinking steadily worsened. In one memorable scene, she called the chairman of the board a "son of a bitch" at a formal dinner party after he accused her of having "communist desires," ending all mixed company events at the corporation.

Her husband died of a sudden heart attack about a year before she got sober. She took Antabuse but drank on top of it, went into a coma, and spiraled through hospitals, blackouts, and cross-country chaos — including running up a thousand-dollar tab at the Waldorf Astoria during a blackout she has no memory of. Her brothers finally confronted her, saying they didn't want their children seeing their aunt drunk. After breast surgery that wasn't malignant, she went home believing she'd never drink again — and ordered a case of whiskey the first night.

A woman came to her apartment on the fifth day of a bender and took her to her home, where AA members sat with her through the night. She was taken to a makeshift detox above an empty store in Independence, Missouri — the nearest thing to Skid Row — where a man named Walt, himself a recovered alcoholic who'd been found trying to kill himself in a Kansas City jail, sat in a reclining chair for five straight nights with her as she went through maniacal withdrawal. When medicine had done everything it could, Walt asked her to pray, and she heard Higher Power tell her she could be sober and sane on a lifetime basis, a day at a time. She believed it then and has believed it every waking moment since.

Alabama rebuilt her life with the help of four male sponsors and their wives, worked her way from a drugstore clerk to department manager in seven months, and painstakingly repaid every debt over five years with token payments. Her mother, at 80 years old, began telling people about AA and even started detoxifying people herself. Alabama's home group is the North Hollywood group where she first attended, and she closes with a powerful lesson about self-honesty taught to her by a fellow member named Dick — that the only difference between her and the woman she pitied upstairs was circumstance, not character.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction — 34 years sober, Episcopalian, grateful to be alive and invited
• 3:00 First drink at 16 at a Sunday night girls-only party — boys gave her rum disguised as wine
• 7:00 Falling into her dinner plate at a party with mining executives — husband warns her he can't marry her if she keeps drinking
• 12:00 Calling the chairman of the board a son of a bitch at a formal corporate dinner in North Carolina
• 18:00 Husband's death, drinking on Antabuse, coma, hospitals that wouldn't write alcohol on the chart
• 25:00 First AA meeting at the North Hollywood group — navy blue suit, pearls, hiding money in her bra
• 32:00 Brothers' intervention — told they were enabling her, family cut off financially
• 40:00 Taken to the detox above an empty store in Independence — Walt agrees to take a woman for the first time
• 48:00 Walt's prayer and spiritual experience — heard Higher Power say she could be sober and sane a day at a time
• 55:00 Rebuilding — drugstore job, paying debts with token payments, Dick O. teaches her about self-honesty