Everything in My Life Had to Fail Me Before I’d Go to Higher Power — So Everything Did – Keith D.

About This Speaker Tape

Keith D. from Loma Linda, California shares his story as a self-described fifth-generation alcoholic who was incarcerated by age twelve and a half after an alcohol-related hit-and-run. He describes a childhood steeped in alcohol, leading to 27 different jails and two penitentiaries before he turned nineteen. He married a woman he met at a honky-tonk dance after she finished a fight he started, and their volatile relationship became the backdrop for years of escalating chaos -- a house painted four different colors, a German Shepherd that chewed its own hair off, and a Pinto held together with duct tape and denial.

Keith attended roughly 500 AA meetings while still drinking before his final run. After stealing a load of cocaine during a transport job and then forgetting where he hid it, he went into hiding from January to May 1976. When he crawled back to AA, people detoxed him and began showing him another way to live. He describes attending meetings on a Native Canadian reservation during a blizzard in Alaska, where elders with over 200 combined years of sobriety rocked him and showed him what recovery looked like.

At three and a half years sober, Keith nearly died from internal bleeding -- doctors replaced nine of his thirteen pints of blood. Twelve alcoholics he claimed to hate sat with him and told him they loved him. His sponsor then pushed him into working with others, starting with a bizarre sponsee who could not write and needed Keith to transcribe his fourth step. That moment in the front yard, watching his sponsee drive away, was when recovery moved from Keith's head to his heart. He went on to listen to over 800 fifth steps, chair the Southern California Convention, and witness his daughter carry the AA message to Milan, Italy -- all tracing back to a single act of honesty when he returned a stranger's lost organizer instead of stealing it.

Keith closes with his absolute commitments since May 11, 1976: no violence, no infidelity, no hot checks, and no debating Higher Power. He credits old-timers who had the patience to wait until he was ready to implode, then sent Alcoholics Anonymous to meet him exactly where he was.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and opening -- Keith identifies as a fifth-generation alcoholic sober since May 11, 1976
• 3:30 First incarceration at twelve and a half after a hit-and-run -- twenty-seven jails and two penitentiaries by nineteen
• 6:00 Meets his wife at a honky-tonk dance -- she finished the fight he started, they dated two weeks and were nicknamed Hatchet and Hammer
• 11:00 Household chaos in California -- the German Shepherd, the Pinto, felt paintings from Tijuana, hippie neighbors and the rock fight
• 18:00 Court-ordered AA after the rock fight -- wife drives him to his first meeting with a butcher knife ultimatum
• 22:00 Stealing his daughter's piggy bank -- separating silver from copper while she watches from the closet
• 27:00 Steals a cocaine shipment, forgets where he hid it, goes into hiding until May 1976 when he crawls back to AA
• 33:00 Alaska sobriety -- blizzard drive to a Native Canadian reservation meeting with over 200 years of combined sobriety on the front row
• 40:00 Near-death at three and a half years sober -- nine pints of blood, twelve alcoholics at bedside saying we love you
• 48:00 God story -- returning a stranger's organizer leads to that man rescuing Keith's daughter in Milan four years later