Fit Spiritual Condition — Not a One-Time Deal but a Daily Reprieve – Renee D.

About This Speaker Tape

Renee shares her story at a meeting, tracing her path from a childhood in Indianapolis through military service to long-term sobriety beginning March 25, 1985. She grew up in a family of six children with a father whose excessive drinking embarrassed and frightened her. Molested at age four by a babysitter, she internalized the shame and began keeping secrets from her mother, a pattern that compounded when further sexual abuse followed. She took her first drink at eleven from her father's Old Granddad bourbon and immediately felt alive for the first time, not even realizing she had been in pain.

School, sports, orchestra, ROTC, and taekwondo became strategic shields against low self-worth, but her drinking escalated after her family moved to Atlanta, where the legal drinking age was eighteen and she discovered bootleg houses. She enlisted in the Army, made it through basic training sober, then fell apart at her first duty station in Hanau, Germany, drinking and blacking out until the command sent her to treatment at Longstreet. She encountered AA there but dismissed it as a cult and spent the next three years trying to drink secretly.

A DUI at Fort Riley, Kansas became her bottom. A sponsor with only six months of sobriety walked her through Steps One through Three, and when Renee took the Third Step on her knees she felt the obsession lift. Transferred to Hawaii, she briefly relapsed after a friend spiked her Sprite at a Commodores concert, but she picked up a white chip the next day at the Black Experience group in Honolulu. Her new sponsor, Gail Dupree, worked her through all twelve steps over Saturday sessions. She describes Step Nine as the moment the burden lifted and Step Ten as her favorite, quoting the passage about ceasing to fight anything or anyone. Now with decades of sobriety, she DJs, sponsors others, and closes with the Freedom From Bondage passage about getting everything she needs in AA.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Meeting opening with Big Book reading from page 29 and introduction of Renee
• 2:00 Renee introduces herself, AA birthday March 25 1985, Primetime Group in Decatur Georgia
• 3:30 Growing up in Indianapolis with twin brother Andre, childhood family life and fathers drinking
• 7:00 Molested at age four by a babysitter, begins keeping secrets from her mother
• 10:00 First drink at eleven from fathers Old Granddad bourbon, immediate relief and sense of feeling alive
• 14:00 School as strategy, honor roll, sports, orchestra, ROTC, taekwondo black belt as an egomaniac with an inferiority complex
• 20:00 Moves to Atlanta, discovers bootleg houses, drinking escalates, enlists in the Army
• 27:00 Sent to treatment in Longstreet Germany, first exposure to AA, dismissed it as a cult
• 32:00 DUI at Fort Riley Kansas, hits bottom, sponsor with six months takes her through Steps 1-3, obsession lifts at the Third Step
• 40:00 Hawaii, spiked Sprite at Commodores concert, picks up white chip at Black Experience group, works all 12 steps with sponsor Gail Dupree
• 50:00 Walking through the steps, Step 9 as freedom, Step 10 as favorite, spiritual awakening, closes with Freedom From Bondage quote