Family of Origin Sent Me Walking for Beer Before I Could Read the Label – Kim A.

About This Speaker Tape

Kim A. tells her story at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the Nava Club. She grew up in a family where drinking was ordinary — her father was proud she walked for beer as a kid — and she ran away from home at 14, bonding every subsequent relationship over substances. She met her first husband at the Crystal Palace because he had a car and a driver's license; she stopped using while pregnant with her daughter, but he didn't, and the marriage collapsed in a pattern of emptied checking accounts and bounced checks that bottomed out during her own labor at a bank drive-through.

The back end of her drinking was a final relationship where she and her partner locked each other out of the house in turns. She screwed the windows shut with a cordless drill, watched him push a window air conditioner through, and drove him back out. A 2,500-square-foot house had been repossessed and her belongings were crammed into an 800-square-foot duplex with no power, gas, or water in midwinter. She was driving a truck her dad gave her, scrapping metal to buy gas to scrap more metal — 'one homogenized piece of crap every single day.' After one last night sleeping in the truck with her dog, she borrowed $5 from a girl in a shed and drove to her sister's. She didn't go back.

Sobriety started on her sister's couch with Keeping Up with the Kardashians and a square of carpet at a time with the vacuum. A guy on an NA porch waved her into the AA meeting that followed, and she stayed — for the cussing, the dirty jokes, and the ice cream. A first sponsor told her to clean out her 'alcoholic truck'; Kim defied her by stopping at a car wash on the way over, and was fired as a sponsee a few meetings later. The second sponsor, Karen, became the first honest relationship of Kim's life and stayed six years until her death.

Kim frames her recovery as evidence of a Higher Power — she is 'not the kind of person who stays sober,' but she is. A phone call from a friend interrupted her staring at a gambling storefront in Clayton County while running her weekly errand for cash. Her sponsor later asked, 'Have you ever thought about going a different way?' — and she hadn't. Years later, shaking with anger after a yoga class about love, a young man with long braids at the Kroger looked her in the eyes and said, 'Love is the first law the Higher Power ever created,' then turned back to his conversation as if time had resumed. She closes with the truth that got her through: one square of carpet, one meeting, one terrible roll at an AA meeting later — she stayed sober.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Nava Club Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers preamble and introduction of Kim A. from the Turned and Lost and Found group
• 2:30 Family drinking culture — dad proud she walked for beer as a child; ran away from home at 14
• 7:15 Meets first husband at the Crystal Palace because he has a car and a driver's license; towing him down 285 with a chain
• 12:00 In labor in the car while husband tries to cash the tax refund the bank refuses him
• 18:45 Final relationship: screwing the windows shut with a cordless drill against a six-foot boyfriend pushing the AC unit through
• 24:30 Scrap metal hustle in Clayton County — buying at the scrapyard to sell back; no power, gas, or water in midwinter
• 31:00 Borrows $5 from a girl living in a shed, drives to her sister's in Senoia, and doesn't go back
• 36:15 Sister's couch: Keeping Up with the Kardashians and one square of carpet per vacuum session
• 44:00 First NA meeting in Newnan bleeds into the 8pm AA meeting — cussing, dirty jokes, ice cream
• 52:30 Sponsor Karen and six years of the first honest relationship of her life; Karen's death four years ago
• 1:00:00 Kroger encounter — young man with long braids says, 'Love is the first law the Higher Power ever created,' then time resumes