Elderly Recovery Wisdom and the New Generation in AA – Polly P.

About This Speaker Tape

Euless, Texas, in a dangerous motel room. Polly P. was running with a guy from detox, a reckless slide back into the wreckage before she ever found a foothold. Raised Southern Baptist with the constant threat of burning in hell, she hit a wall of hopelessness and tried to end it all. Court-committed to treatment, she met Frank, a former priest who stripped away the "cycle babble" and put her back at Step One.

Polly speaks with the bluntness of forty-three years of sobriety. She doesn't shy away from the dark; she admits to being a physically and emotionally abusive mother, acknowledging that the promise of not regretting the past hasn't fully come true. She describes her "dark past" as her most precious possession, a tool used to reach the most damaged women. From Frank’s rigid foundation to Dottie’s spiritual gentleness, she traces a lineage of sponsorship that keeps her anchored while she cares for her ill husband and navigates the grace of a son who finally got sober at sixty.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Polly P. introduces herself and her home group in Jacksonville, FL.
• 2:15 Laughter: Discussion of Clancy's approach to sponsorship and the 'one short' philosophy.
• 5:40 Polly describes her 'racy' behavior in detox and the dangerous situation in a Texas motel.
• 7:10 Raw account of a suicide attempt and the hopelessness of her Southern Baptist upbringing.
• 10:20 Sponsorship: Frank's requirement to tell the parents' story before the personal story.
• 15:30 Admission of child abuse and the struggle with the Promises of the program.
• 18:40 The role of Frank as a sponsor and his perspective on finding a Higher Power in the rooms.
• 22:10 Polly's transition to Dottie H. and the shift toward a gentler, more spiritual approach to sobriety.
• 26:50 Discussion on the necessity of contact and the 'firing' of sponsees.
• 31:10 Step 12: Polly's early start in service work, taking women from detox to meetings.
• 35:40 Sponsorship: The importance of the 5th Step and the boundaries between sponsoring and therapy.
• 39:20 A miracle story: Polly's 60-year-old son getting sober at 58.