Everything on My Fourth Step Fear List Has Come True and I’m Still Standing – Erin G.

About This Speaker Tape

Erin G. shares her story at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NABA Club in Atlanta. A New Englander from Portland, Maine, she grew up competitive in sports and band with loving parents she would later mischaracterize in her first fourth step as demanding perfectionists. Her first drink at 15 or 16 immediately triggered the phenomenon of craving — she vomited all over a stranger's house and wanted to drink more. She chose her college based on which recruiting trip had the best party, did keg stands her first night, and was eventually suspended from the soccer team. After being sexually assaulted freshman year, she spiraled into shame and promiscuity. She transferred to a state school closer to home and repeated the same pattern, getting kicked off that soccer team too.

After college she worked at a group home on the overnight shift, smoking pot while developmentally disabled kids slept in her care. She moved to Atlanta, landed her dream job as a recreation therapist at the Shepherd Center, and got her own apartment — which she describes as the beginning of the worst year of her life. She fabricated a bleeding ulcer to cover her absences, complete with an unnecessary endoscopy and a researched list of foods she wouldn't eat at work. Her therapist suggested AA twice before she finally went, driving 20 minutes away so no one from work would see her. She spent six months collecting white chips and crying in the back of meetings.

Erin went to treatment, then sober living, and began working the steps page by page through the Big Book with her sponsor. She describes learning to pray to a Higher Power she didn't believe in, making phone calls she didn't want to make, and going to Saturday pizza nights she resented. After moving out of sober living, she stopped talking to her sponsor and became suicidal in sobriety — the only two options her brain offered were drinking or killing herself. A woman named Rebecca physically dragged her across a meeting room to ask a new sponsor. Coming up on 10 years sober, Erin has since come out as gay, married her wife who is sitting in the audience, walked through her father's massive heart attack, job loss, homelessness, and her wife's mother's death — all sober. She says everything on her fourth-step fear inventory has come true except her parents dying, and she's still standing.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction by meeting chair Lisa at the NABA Club Blue Chip Speakers meeting
• 2:30 Growing up in Portland, Maine — competitive sports, band, chess club, parents still married
• 7:00 First drink at 15-16, vomits over the deck railing, wakes up on the bathroom floor wanting more
• 10:30 Chose college based on best party during recruiting trip, dancing on a bar top at 17
• 15:00 Sexually assaulted freshman year, school sweeps it under the rug with weekly therapy sessions
• 20:00 Transfers to state school in Maine, kicked off second soccer team for lying about skipping class
• 25:00 Dream job at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, fabricates the bleeding ulcer cover story
• 32:00 Six months collecting white chips, driving 20 minutes to meetings so coworkers won't see her
• 38:00 Treatment, sober living, reading the Big Book page by page with sponsor, learning to pray
• 45:00 Suicidal in sobriety after isolating from sponsor, Rebecca drags her to a new sponsor
• 50:00 Coming out as gay, parents' reaction, marrying her wife, showing up for others through loss and grief