Esteemable Acts Are What You Do When Your Self-Esteem Tank Hits Empty — Judy E.

About This Speaker Tape

Judy, a 76-year-old Jewish woman with almost 20 years of sobriety, tells her story at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NAVA Club. She traces her people-pleasing back to age four and a half, when her father died in the night and her mother told her at breakfast and then sent her outside to play. From that morning forward she wore a mask, a habit reinforced when the family took the children to see Bambi the day after the funeral. She married young, stayed 34 years to an internationally known scientist whose 'body was a means of transportation to get his head to a meeting,' and then at 55 found herself alone in Atlanta with no realtor, no insurance, and no plan — only a wig she bought to become a goddess.

The centerpiece is her 'goddess summer' in Paris, where her wig caught fire from a workman's cigarette on Halloween night and she had to flush it down a friend's toilet. She came home to a house a neighbor had decorated pea-green, hung with Polynesian monkeys and paintings of white gingerbread houses framed by tornadoes. Her therapist's machine said to call 911. Instead Judy bought six gallons of cheap alcohol, put 'gone on a spiritual retreat' on her own answering machine, and drank in a planned relay until the words on the popcorn ceiling told her she was killing her children's memory of her. Her brother in Rochester called NAVA, two members broke in, and she was flown to Hazelden in active alcoholic coma.

At Hazelden a woman looked at her and said, 'You're in hell, aren't you?' — the first time anyone met her where she was instead of shaming her into willpower. She came back to NAVA, lived at the club, took a roommate who once stored a dead mouse in the freezer because it had died on Sabbath, and slowly stopped trying to be hero or zero. She talks about three earlier sobriety attempts that ended in relapse, writing a self-help book called The Joy Around You while sick enough to need a psych hospital, and a recent moment when a younger boyfriend called to say he wasn't coming home and her sponsor cracked her open with, 'Why did you leave me, daddy?'

The through-line is authenticity as following your author, esteemable acts when self-esteem is gone, and the simple program promise that no one ever says don't come back. She closes by telling newcomers they are blessed, not lucky — luck can run out, blessings don't.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Julie introduces Judy at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NAVA Club
• 2:30 Judy on Halloween as the perfect alcoholic holiday — wearing a mask since age four and a half
• 6:00 Leaving a 34-year marriage at 55 with no realtor, no insurance, only a wig to become a goddess
• 9:30 Paris goddess summer — Algerian workmen, wheelbarrow photos, French friends Anne-Marie and Philippe
• 13:00 Wig catches fire from a workman's cigarette on Halloween night — sputtering in the toilet
• 16:00 Pea-green Atlanta house, Polynesian monkey art, tornado paintings — the monkey on her back moment
• 19:30 Therapist's voicemail says call 911 — Judy buys six gallons and posts a fake spiritual retreat message
• 24:00 Words form on the popcorn ceiling — brother calls NAVA, two members break in, flown to Hazelden
• 30:00 At Hazelden a woman says 'you're in hell, aren't you' — the first time someone met her where she was
• 42:00 Younger boyfriend doesn't come home — sponsor says 'why did you leave me, daddy' and the four-year-old grief surfaces