Beth H. at the Design for Living Group – 2020

About This Speaker Tape

1988. A county detox center. Beth H. is 29 and a half, staring at a future she never expected to see. She had spent years as a "badass biker" in a lemon-yellow AMC Pacer, running with gun-toting crowds and bartending in places where people shot at each other. For Beth, alcohol was the only way to exhale; it turned a room of strangers into the friendliest people on earth. But the wreckage was absolute: a marriage that was a "one night stand that dragged on," children removed from her custody, and a word that meant nothing to anyone.

She describes her early attempts at sobriety as "drive-by AA"—cruising through treatment to ace the test, then vanishing. The shift happened when she stopped modifying the program and started doing what the book said. She notes the paradox of the "lame" meetings; they stay lame until a spiritual change alters your perception. Through a Higher Power, Beth moved from the Dew Drop Inn to a life of integrity.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:45 Beth H. introduces herself and mentions her sobriety date of June 26, 1988.
• 2:15 Laughter: Beth describes her 'borderline sociopathic' ability to lie to employers about her attendance.
• 5:10 Beth discusses her childhood restlessness and the 'chorus of voices' in her head.
• 8:20 Beth describes the feeling of 'exhaling' for the first time when she first drank at 15.
• 12:40 Beth explains how the Steps change one's perception of the rooms from 'lame' to the friendliest place on earth.
• 16:10 Beth describes her 'drive-by AA' period and the danger of 'acing' treatment without getting sober.
• 19:30 Beth shares the wreckage of losing her children and the impact on her mother.
• 23:15 Beth contrasts her own ego with her daughter Sarah S.'s resilience in swimming.
• 27:40 Beth describes the turning point in county detox and the voice that told her she would live to 80.
• 31:10 Mention of Step 4 and 5: Beth discusses working the inventory and the speed of her early recovery.
• 33:45 Laughter: Beth mentions her lemon-yellow AMC Pacer as a symbol of her rock bottom.
• 35:20 Beth references Carl J. and the concept of 'spiritus contra spiritum'.