Five Months Sober and Wouldn’t Touch the Fourth Step — Three Blackouts Later She Finally Wrote It – Susan W.

About This Speaker Tape

Susan shares her story at the Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NABBA Club, tracing her path from a chaotic childhood in Hapeville, Georgia, to long-term sobriety. Her parents divorced when she was two, and she split time between a mother who bartended and dated a violent, heavy-drinking man who owned a liquor store, and a father who was an air traffic controller and alcoholic himself. Her older brother and sister let her drink beer at age eight, and by the time she was a teenager she was stealing liquor, shoplifting wine from convenience stores, and running with a fast crowd. Her father got sober in AA when she was ten, and she attended Alateen, but that exposure did not stop her own progression.

After bouncing between her parents in Georgia and Alabama, Susan was doing cocaine, crank, and acid by her senior year of high school, living on her own and renting a room from a friend's grandmother after her mother demanded rent at sixteen. A friend on their senior trip in Panama City told her plainly she was going to die. She moved back in with her sober father in Alabama but quickly found the same drugs through cosmetology school connections. Her sister was killed in a car accident alongside a boyfriend who dealt cocaine, a loss that sent Susan spiraling further. She moved back to Georgia, picked up her first DUI at twenty-one after hitting a family on I-75, married Tyler's father Ron who could not stop using cocaine and Valium, and divorced him within four months.

For years Susan maintained a functioning exterior while binge drinking whenever her son Tyler was away. The turning points came in rapid succession: Tyler's friends drew fake stitches on her face with a Sharpie while she was passed out, and then his childhood friend Kyle told her she was drunk while she tried to change Tyler's surgical bandage. She saw a psychiatrist who wanted to send her to detox, but she insisted on trying AA, walking into her first meeting shaking and barely able to read How It Works aloud. She made it five months before relapsing because she refused to do a fourth step, drank four times in eleven days with three blackouts, then poured her beer down the drain and asked Higher Power for help.

With a new sponsor, Susan worked all twelve steps, made amends starting with her mother, began sponsoring other women, and built a curriculum for step work that her sponsees still use. Her father, who had suffered a brain aneurysm and stroke, lived long enough to see her pick up her four-year chip before he passed away. Her son Tyler went through a court diversion program as a teenager and is now an operations manager and motorcycle enthusiast. Susan closes by emphasizing that getting sober is hard but staying sober is easier, and urges newcomers to let someone help them.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Meeting opening and introduction of Susan at Blue Chip Speakers meeting, NABBA Club
• 2:30 Early childhood in Hapeville — parents divorce at two, climbing out of crib, known at South Fulton Hospital by name
• 7:00 Brother and sister let her drink beer at age eight; mother bartending nights, no supervision
• 10:00 Father has nervous breakdown at work, gets sober in AA; Susan starts attending Alateen at the Terror Club
• 14:00 Steals father's gin and vodka for the skating rink, gets caught drunk; father gains custody with one year sober
• 20:00 Moves back to mom at 15, sleeps on porch, brother's friends party constantly in Hapeville; living alone at 17 renting a room
• 26:00 Sister killed in car accident in Atlanta; cocaine and crank use out of control; moves back to Georgia to escape police attention
• 32:00 First DUI at 21 hitting a family on I-75; marries Ron who uses cocaine and Valium; marriage ends in four months
• 40:00 Drinking escalates to nightly blackouts; Tyler's friends draw on her face; Kyle calls her out while she tries to change Tyler's bandage
• 48:00 Walks into first AA meeting shaking, reads How It Works; relapses after five months, pours beer down drain, gets new sponsor and works all twelve steps