Carla R. Spent Nine Months in AA Fighting the Obsession to Drink

About This Speaker Tape

Juvenile halls, mental hospitals, and a career in sex work: Carla R. spent the chaos of the 60s in the wreckage of institutionalization and street survival. She maps out the slow grinding process of her surrender admitting she spent nine months in the rooms before the obsession to drink finally lifted.

Carla describes the brutal reality of her alcoholism—losing her daughter and her job in a single afternoon on a barstool—and the mortification of rolling across a school office floor in front of her child. She dismantles the idea of religion as a substitute for recovery recounting a violent intruder's assault on her five years into sobriety and the subsequent courtroom battle where she had to choose between anger and the Seventh Step prayer. She makes her case for a 'right-sized' life defined by the grace of being a present grandmother and a reliable employee.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:45 Carla R. discusses the importance of seeing long-term sobriety medallions (22+ years) to believe the program works.
• 2:15 Discussion on the nine-month delay before the obsession to drink was lifted.
• 6:10 Recounts her time in juvenile halls and her entry into sex work in San Francisco.
• 9:30 Describes being institutionalized in a mental hospital at 15 and the use of five-point restraints.
• 13:45 The 'barstool' moment: losing her job and her daughter in one afternoon.
• 17:20 Laughter: The story of rolling across the school office floor in front of her daughter.
• 22:10 Describes the 'coincidence with a capital C' of moving in next to a sober neighbor.
• 26:40 Recounts her first home group meeting in Sierra Madre and the 'elegant simplicity' of hearing a man talk about his lawn.
• 31:15 Discussion of the first round of amends and the lifting of the obsession.
• 35:40 Recounts the trauma of being raped by a former AA member who left the program for religion.
• 41:20 Mentions the Seventh Step prayer and the process of forgiving her attacker in court.
• 47:10 Closing thoughts on 'right-sizing' and the daily practice of meditation.