Family of Origin — My Trust Issues Were Sealed Before I Turned Five – Pat R.

About This Speaker Tape

Pat R., a recovered alcoholic with 31 years of sobriety, shares from a Step 10 series at the 12 Step House, though he spends most of the talk on Steps 8 and 9 and the long road of repairing defective relationships. He opens with a passage from the Twelve and Twelve on how faulty relationships with other human beings have been the immediate cause of most of our troubles, and frames his entire recovery as a journey of repairing three core relationships: with Higher Power, with himself, and with others. He traces his trust and abandonment issues back to a childhood he can barely remember — being bounced between relatives, wetting the bed at his uncle's cockroach-infested house, and staring out the window night after night waiting for a father who never came.

The heart of the talk is a series of vivid amends stories. He describes the pain of writing an $8,000 check to the IRS when his old-timer Bud threw a cigarette pack at him and said "what's the problem then?" He tells the raw story of accidentally dumping his Fifth Step at a meeting while his ex-wife snuck into the back of the room — she slammed the door, but the truth being out began the healing, and they eventually remarried at two years sober. He shares the gut-wrenching moment his mother came out of a coma and her first words were "why can't you get along with your sister?" — revealing that what she wanted most was simply for her children to be at peace with each other.

Pat describes hitting a spiritual wall at 15 years sober when his second marriage ended and he wanted to become a hermit in Cook's Forest. His friend Billy Galvin called out of nowhere because Pat was "on his heart," dragged him to hear Russell speak, and Russell opened the meeting saying he was there for the guy 15 or 20 years sober who was dying inside. Peter Marinelli then challenged him to go back to the church of his childhood and "leave for a good reason this time." Pat returned to church for the first time since age 13 and had a spiritual experience that put a name to his Higher Power.

He closes by reframing the Promises through alcohol — at 16, when he picked up his first drink, he knew a new freedom and happiness, fear left him, he intuitively knew how to handle situations. Alcohol was never the problem; it was his solution to the spiritual malady. The nine steps gave him back everything alcohol once provided, without the destruction. He urges newcomers that all it takes to start is the willingness to believe it might work.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opens with Twelve and Twelve passage on defective relationships as the root cause of alcoholic woes
• 3:30 Childhood timeline exercise — fear before age five, bouncing between relatives, cockroach phobia origin at Uncle Jack's house
• 8:00 Trust and abandonment issues traced to father who never showed up; the punishment of the cheater, thief, and liar
• 12:00 Financial amends — IRS story, Bud Reichardt throws cigarettes and says write the check
• 16:00 Amends to ex-wife — accidentally dumps Fifth Step at a meeting while she listens from the back row
• 22:00 Remarriage at two years sober, eventual divorce at fifteen — she wanted Friday nights out, he wanted meetings
• 27:00 Stepfather amends and sister's overdose death — three of four siblings caught the disease
• 32:00 Mother's knee surgery, flatline, coma — prayer over her blackened feet and the overnight miracle
• 38:00 Oldest son's text at 27 years sober — 'don't regret anything, it was all part of the journey'
• 43:00 Spiritual crisis at 15 years — Billy Galvin's call, Russell's meeting, Peter Marinelli sends him back to church
• 50:00 Reframes the Promises through alcohol — what drinking once gave him, the steps now provide. Alcohol was the solution, spiritual malady was the problem