Borrowing a Sponsor’s Higher Power Until She Found Her Own – Betty P.

About This Speaker Tape

1985, Santa Fe. The wreckage was a lifetime of "evaporating" sherry and power lunches. Betty P. lived as a high-functioning contradiction: a respected telephone company supervisor who drove the company car with hangovers and poured bourbon on cake to hide her habit from her husband. She recalls the grit of her drinking days—mixing scotch with milk to soothe a failing stomach and the cold reality of burying her husband, her longtime drinking partner, while feeling only the loss of her companion in the bottle.

The bottom came in her own front yard, tripping and passing out while her daughter looked on. After a chaotic stint in a treatment center that nearly burned down, Betty navigated a series of mismatched sponsors until she found one who offered a lifeline: "Borrow my Higher Power." From the second stall of a women's bathroom, Betty prayed to a borrowed God until she found her own, eventually trading the bottle for a life of service.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opening gratitude and mentions of the conference committee.
• 5:15 Childhood adoption and the 'tremendous rage' felt when her secret was revealed on the playground.
• 12:40 Early drinking habits at the telephone company and the 'zombie' drink blackout in Española.
• 22:10 Drinking with her husband and the 'power lunches' of her sales career.
• 31:00 The bottom: passing out in the front yard and the 'alcoholic prayer'.
• 35:45 Treatment experience and the false fire alarm caused by the adolescent ward.
• 42:10 Working the 4th Step with the tattoo artist sponsor and the 'grade school composition' corrections.
• 51:20 Meeting Dick C. and the spiritual awakening in a small church.
• 1:02:15 The 9-year journey to make amends to her oldest son.
• 1:12:30 Finding her biological family and the 'throwaway kid' resentment.
• 1:25:00 Visit to Bill W. and Lois' house and reflections on the founders.
• 1:32:00 Closing poem about wearing purple and a red hat in old age.