Bill Says the Serenity Prayer Will Work — It Just Doesn’t Work for the First Three Months 😅 — Julie M.

About This Speaker Tape

Julie steps up to the podium as a last-minute replacement for her sister Liz, who tested positive for COVID earlier that day. She opens with a childhood memory of seven-years-older Liz winding the younger siblings up as robots to trick them into hauling laundry — a story that sets up her wry delivery and the sisterly dynamic that's had her covering for Liz her whole life. Born in 1961, Julie took her first drink at 18, a screwdriver at a University of Florida party, and from that first sip the woman in the mirror wasn't her anymore. She drank for 15 years: single-girl Tampa nights, a hard landing in Dallas with a bad relationship and depressive thoughts, a retreat back to her parents' house where she drank alongside her mother at the TV trays during Wheel of Fortune.

The morning her husband snapped "get off the bed and leave," hungover Julie said "Higher Power help me" — and that afternoon told her psychiatrist she was an alcoholic. She finished the executive party she was on the hook for on February 24, drove drunk across Atlanta's top-end perimeter, and checked into treatment the next morning, February 25, 1995. Three days in, reading the Third Step Prayer in the soft-cover Big Book, "relieve me of the bondage of myself" clicked — a physical sensation she says she hasn't forgotten in thirty years.

The body of the talk walks the steps through specific scenes: a rolling-wall moment at the 5:45 meeting when she realized she'd already worked Step 2 without knowing it ("give credit where credit is due"); losing her car keys in the Nantahala with in-laws she didn't like and a stranger at the payphone telling her Bill says the Serenity Prayer will work if you keep saying it; a first-restaurant-visit panic at the Chili's on SoCo Hill where she sobbed on the wooden bench outside the dining room; her sponsor gently calling her a "lonely little girl" and naming her attachment to victimhood; the Microsoft-Word-columns excuse for dodging Step 4 for a year.

At 30 years sober, married 31 years, with two grown children who've never seen her drunk, Julie lands on the Dorothy's-ruby-slippers image: the Higher Power was there the whole time, she just had to walk the road to know it. Her whole life — husband, kids, the room her daughter took first steps in — she credits to the program and to the power she once refused to call on.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Julie introduces herself as refugee speaker filling in for her COVID-positive sister Liz
• 2:30 Childhood 'scientist and robot' game: older sister Liz winding younger siblings up to haul laundry
• 6:00 Sobriety date February 23, 1995; 30 years sober; married 31 years, two grown children who never saw her drunk
• 9:00 First drink at University of Florida: a screwdriver at a party, the genie out of the bottle
• 13:00 Tampa single years, then Dallas bottom with a bad relationship, returning to parents' house to drink at TV trays
• 19:00 Husband says 'get off the bed and leave' — Julie silently asks Higher Power for help, then tells psychiatrist she's an alcoholic
• 24:00 Finishes executive party February 24, drives drunk across Atlanta's perimeter, checks into treatment February 25
• 27:00 Third Step Prayer hits: 'relieve me of the bondage of myself' clicks on day three of detox
• 31:00 Nantahala car-keys scene — stranger at the payphone: 'My friend Bill says if you say it enough, it will work'
• 36:00 Sponsor calls her a 'lonely little girl'; Julie names her love of victimhood and the work of Steps 6 and 7