Every Fear I Had at 11 Years Old Was Still Running My Life at 50 — Until AA Showed Me the Bondage of Self – Mary N.

About This Speaker Tape

Mary shares her story at a NABBA Zoom Blue Chip meeting, tracing a life shaped by fear, family alcoholism, and a 30-year dry period that almost ended in relapse. Raised in a volatile household by an abusive, alcoholic father and an angry, hyper-religious mother, Mary discovered alcohol around age 11 or 12 when her parents left her home alone for a week. That first drink from her father's liquor cabinet silenced every fear she had, and she chased that relief for years — through high school as a functioning cheerleader, through college blackouts and sorority parties, and into her first marriage to her accounting professor, who proposed by dropping a ring into her drink.

The drinking escalated through her first marriage as they moved from New York to New Jersey to Atlanta and back. Social anxiety drove her to drink before every outing, and a year-long period with outside substances brought terrifying blackouts — waking up in New Orleans with no memory of how she got there, finding herself in a station wagon in Las Vegas. She got lost driving to work and started needing lunchtime drinks to stop shaking. When she became pregnant in September 1976, a doctor pointed his finger and told her to stop drinking, and she did — cold, for 30 years.

But sobriety without recovery left Mary white-knuckling through decades of unaddressed fear, controlling religion, a crumbling marriage to a man hiding affairs, sex addiction, and financial fraud. A counselor identified her as an adult child of alcoholism and sent her to Al-Anon around 1989, where she learned about the family disease. It was an Al-Anon member who eventually suggested she sit in on AA meetings, and there she heard her own story told back to her. The Big Book passage about the man who stayed dry 25 years and died within four of picking up again shook her to her core — she had been planning to buy a bottle of wine once she got her own apartment.

Mary picked up a white chip on January 17, 2004, to a standing ovation at the early morning study group she had attended as an Al-Anon member for three years. Through AA she found the strength to leave her husband, and through what she describes as Higher Power working in her life — an unexpected inheritance, a job at a law firm that handled her divorce and IRS debt for free — she rebuilt. She met Gary N. at a NABBA Valentine's Day dance, and together they built what she calls a recovery marriage. A serious illness in 2013 that left her bedridden for 18 months with autoimmune diseases tested her faith, but a new sponsor who had been through something similar walked her through it with rigorous step work. Mary closes by calling AA an absolute miracle she never wants to take for granted.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tim opens the NABBA Zoom Blue Chip meeting and introduces Mary
• 2:30 Mary's family background — Italian mother, abusive alcoholic father, childhood fear and illness
• 8:00 First drink at age 11-13 from father's liquor cabinet while home alone for a week — fears vanished
• 13:00 College blackouts, sorority life, and the accounting professor who proposed by dropping a ring in her drink
• 19:00 Escalating blackouts — waking up in New Orleans, Las Vegas station wagon, getting lost driving to work
• 24:00 Pregnancy in 1976 forces her to stop drinking cold — husband walks away emotionally
• 30:00 Al-Anon around 1989 after counselor identifies her as adult child of alcoholism
• 35:00 Discovers husband's affairs, sex addiction, forged financial documents — AA gives her strength to leave
• 40:00 Big Book passage about the man dry 25 years terrifies her — picks up white chip January 17, 2004
• 46:00 Meets Gary N. at NABBA Valentine's dance, recovery marriage, 2013 illness, and closing on gratitude