‘Do You Want Temporary Sobriety?’ Is the Question That Got Me a Permanent Sponsor – Meredith M.

About This Speaker Tape

Meredith McCabe, sober since May 30, 1998, tells her story at the Monday night Blue Chip Speakers meeting. She drank her first champagne at age ten on Thanksgiving, drained her siblings' glasses, and never forgot the magic of that feeling. She grew up in a Mad Men-style cocktail-party household, moved from suburban New York to a 23-kid high school class in the Adirondacks, and started drinking alcoholically from the gate — vomiting on Jerry Rosenbaum's car, blacking out at 16, leading a double life as honor student by week and ashamed drinker by weekend.

She graduated magna cum laude with a self-initiated major, then worked third shift at a diner where truckers called her "little tomato." Bartending became the dream job; getting fired from it started a slide down to a tourist-town gin mill where regulars nicknamed her "Nightmare." Her last two friends drinking were Pizza Sam and Toothless Joey. A cousin finally mailed her the pamphlet "Letter to a Woman Alcoholic" with a sticky note, and she walked into AA — but stayed 90 days and went back out. When she returned, a woman whose share had "depth and weight" became her sponsor and asked the question that landed: "Do you want temporary sobriety?"

The sponsor took her through the steps thoroughly — morning-and-night knee prayers, fourth step on cards passed down from a home brewmeister, one-week deadlines on amends. Meredith learned that the answer lives deep within, not on mountaintops or in muscle cars. She worked through a career crisis seven years into sobriety that forced new dependence on a Higher Power, then met Justin, a chronic-relapse survivor rebuilding his life after cancer and a custody loss. They became close; he got a job in Minneapolis, reconnected with his son, and then stood up and died after surgery — two weeks after her mother died.

She tells the quiet scene of helping her dying mother shower wearing sunglasses because her mother asked. Five years after Justin's death she is godmother to his thirteen-year-old son, close with his ex-wife, and taking the boy snowboarding in twenty-seven days. She closes with Dr. Bob's four reasons for carrying the message and the promise that a Higher Power will never let you down.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Karen introduces Meredith at the Monday night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the Napa Club
• 2:30 Thanksgiving at age ten — champagne, drinks her siblings' glasses, face and ears go red, needs a nap
• 7:00 Adirondacks small town, 23 kids in class, feels like an outsider, Boone's Farm on the blinking-light corner
• 12:30 Women's college choice to avoid boys, ends with self-initiated drama major and a diner third shift
• 16:00 Moves to Georgia, waitressing near the perimeter, subterranean apartment, earns the nickname Nightmare at the bar Whiskers
• 21:00 Cousin mails the 'Letter to a Woman Alcoholic' pamphlet — Meredith cries on the first page
• 26:00 Asks new sponsor to be temporary — sponsor answers 'Do you want temporary sobriety?' and quotes the lost power of choice
• 33:00 Saturday at sponsor's house taking steps one through nine in a single day, fourth step on cards from the home brewmeister
• 45:00 Seven-year work crisis forces a new dependence on a Higher Power, meets Justin a chronic-relapse cancer survivor
• 52:00 Mother dies, then Justin stands up and dies after surgery two weeks later; Meredith helps mom shower wearing sunglasses
• 57:00 Godmother to Justin's son, snowboarding trip in 27 days, closes with Dr. Bob's four reasons from his Nightmare