Fourth Step with a Fourth Column — What Would Higher Power Have Me Do Instead – Shannon V.

About This Speaker Tape

Shannon tells a Monday-night Blue Chip Speakers meeting about ten years of sobriety earned through two failed attempts, the suicide of her oldest son at seven years sober, and the death of her stepmother the Monday before the recording. Her sobriety date is December 7, 2006. Born in Pennsylvania to an Army father and a mother who locked her and her sister in closets at night to go drinking, Shannon was told for years that her mother was dead. Reunited at eleven, she learned early that home was not safe.

She didn't like alcohol at first — one wine cooler, one Tom Collins, a fifth of Southern Comfort puked up face-down in her jeans jacket at fourteen — but by her early twenties a Bacardi and Coke fixed the problem. Pregnant at sixteen, married at sixteen, a second child at seventeen, divorced at eighteen, she drove a U-Haul from Georgia to Pennsylvania alone with a one-year-old and a two-year-old, took a bartending job above a bar, and lived out three marriages, a third child, an eight-year-old son who disappeared for three years, and a third husband who matched her half-bottle of Bacardi a night.

At twenty-eight, divorced, she drank past the edge of wet brain and detoxed three days alone on her apartment floor before calling the AA 800 number. A first four-month stretch ended when her sponsor betrayed her confidences. Six months back out showed her the same bottom coming, so she made a ninety-day deal with herself — sponsor, service, steps, chairing meetings — and if she still wanted to drink at day ninety she'd drink. The obsession lifted inside those ninety days. A forgiveness retreat at Hazelden at ten months sober gave her a foundation. At seven years sober she got the Walgreens phone call that her oldest son had hanged himself; seven people from her home group showed up at her door that night.

Her message is plain — if the program held through that, it holds through anything — and the obsession can come back even at seven years if the meetings slip. She is a paralegal now, has kept a job over three years, is raising two grandsons by presence, sponsors women, and has come back to meetings after letting them drift while she buried a son and a stepmother.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Kat opens the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NAVA Club and introduces Shannon
• 1:30 Shannon opens — sobriety date December 7, 2006, born January 1975 in Pennsylvania
• 4:00 Her mother locks her and her sister in closets to go drinking; Army father wins custody; stepmother raises her
• 8:00 First drunk at fourteen on a fifth of Southern Comfort, waking up in a puddle of puke in her jeans jacket
• 14:00 Pregnant at sixteen, married at sixteen, divorced at eighteen; U-Haul drive to Pennsylvania alone with two babies
• 20:00 Second marriage introduces harder alcohol; third baby; oldest son disappears for three years
• 27:00 At twenty-eight, divorced — loses bodily functions, fears wet brain, detoxes three days alone, calls the AA 800 number
• 33:00 Ninety-day deal with herself; Hazelden forgiveness retreat at ten months sober; fourth and fifth step relief
• 40:00 Oldest son's suicide at seven years sober — the Walgreens phone call, seven home-group members at her door that night
• 48:00 Stepmother moves in with MRSA and sepsis, dies the Monday before the recording; Shannon returns to meetings with two grandsons and a paralegal job