Don’t Put a Question Mark Where a Higher Power Put a Period – Jane D.

About This Speaker Tape

Jane D. from Tallahassee shares her story at the 12th Annual Southwest Women's Conference in Cocoa Beach, Florida, with 15 years of sobriety. She grew up in a loving Irish Catholic family in New Jersey, attended an all-girl Catholic high school, and began drinking at 14 while watching the original Star Wars with her cousin. College in Manhattan in the 1980s launched her into the club scene, and she chased geographic cures from France to Japan to the Florida Keys, each time resolving to change and each time finding the same pattern waiting.

Her bottom came in the Keys when, driving drunk on the old Seven Mile Bridge, she crashed into a barrier, killing her boyfriend Max and breaking her own neck at C1-C2 — the same fracture that paralyzed Christopher Reeve. A police officer who inexplicably turned down the closed bridge road found her and saved her life. She was sentenced to five years in prison and ten years of probation, which included mandatory daily AA meetings for a decade.

In prison, Jane had transformative spiritual experiences — a priest who angrily told her to stop confessing the same sin and accept Higher Power's forgiveness, and a recovering alcoholic priest who heard her Fifth Step. She met women she deeply admired behind bars and decided to dedicate her life to love and service. After release, she rode her bike miles each day to work at a Marriott and attend graduate school at Florida State, rebuilding from seven dollars an hour.

Jane earned her Master's in Social Work, became a professor teaching chemical dependency, and was awarded Professor of the Year and Social Worker of the Year. Her family relationships have been fully restored, and she is in a loving relationship with Patrick, also in recovery. She closes by sharing that she was just diagnosed with breast cancer days before the convention, finding comfort in the fellowship of the women around her and reading the Big Book passage about being given the keys to the kingdom.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opens with thanks to committee, reads the poem Breathing Underwater and connects it to alcoholism
• 7:00 Growing up Irish Catholic in New Jersey, disciplined track-coach father, loving family
• 11:00 First drink at 14 watching Star Wars with her cousin, then college partying in 1980s Manhattan
• 17:00 Geographic cures — junior year in France, backpacking Europe, blowing travel money in Amsterdam
• 22:00 Teaching English in Japan for Time Life, daily drinking with Japanese businessmen
• 27:00 Deterioration in the Florida Keys — down to 90 pounds, near-homeless, incomprehensible demoralization
• 31:00 Fatal crash on the old Seven Mile Bridge — Max killed, neck broken at C1-C2, rescued by a cop who followed a spiritual nudge
• 40:00 Five years in prison — angry priest's Easter confession, Fifth Step with a recovering alcoholic priest
• 48:00 Rebuilding after prison — biking to Marriott job and grad school, mandatory daily AA meetings for ten years
• 55:00 Life today — Professor of the Year, Social Worker of the Year, breast cancer diagnosis, closing with Big Book passage on the keys to the kingdom