Generational Alcoholism and Why Step Work Broke the Cycle – Dustin B.

About This Speaker Tape

Dustin B. shares his story as a third-generation member of Alcoholics Anonymous whose parents met in AA. Growing up, he witnessed two paths: his father who left the marriage and returned to active alcoholism, eventually dying by suicide on January 15, 1999, and his mother who stayed sober fourteen years but never worked a program and was emotionally devastated. Dustin saw alcohol provide ease and comfort at family gatherings and chased that relief from a young age, progressing rapidly through substances until he was near death at seventeen.

After multiple rounds of meetings without step work, two relapses, and a near-fatal suicide attempt involving phenobarbital and self-harm that resulted in an airlift to a hospital, Dustin was committed by the state of Minnesota to a bare-bones state facility in St. Peter. There, stripped of everything, he finally read the Big Book for the first time and identified with the hopelessness described by the early members. With guidance from a sponsor over the phone, he worked through the steps in that facility, including a reluctant fifth step with the chaplain and a prayer to a Higher Power he did not believe in.

Upon release, a new sponsor pushed him into making direct amends rather than living amends. In a moment he describes as providential, after praying for someone to appear, his ex-girlfriend drove by and he made his first amend at a Walmart parking lot, learning that amends are not about him but about setting things right. At sixty days sober, his sponsor sent him into treatment centers to carry the message and sponsor others, teaching him that he could not wait to get better before helping someone else.

Dustin describes catching fire for the program but then learning the harder lesson: that the twelfth step means practicing principles in all affairs, not just in AA rooms. He had to pay child support, show up for his children, give an honest day's work, and stop bleeding the people around him. Today he has a transformed relationship with his sons, a new wife, a career that came to him unsought, and a daily prayer and meditation practice that connects him to the Higher Power he once refused to believe in. He credits the specific actions of the twelve steps, not meetings alone, with saving his life and breaking the cycle that killed his father.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Dustin introduces himself, mentions home group is the Firing Line Group in St. Paul, Minnesota
• 3:00 Growing up in an alcoholic home: parents met in AA, father drank and set up franchise families, mother stayed sober but locked herself in the bathroom crying for 14 years
• 7:00 Father's suicide on January 15, 1999 gives Dustin a decade-long excuse to drink without being questioned
• 10:00 Hits the streets at 17, ER runs, calls his mom who puts him in rehab, nine months of DT psychosis
• 14:00 First relapse after sobriety becomes a problem instead of a solution, needle in arm two weeks after picking up a drink
• 18:00 Final run: searching the house for people who are not there, wife takes the kids, suicide attempt with phenobarbital, airlifted to hospital
• 23:00 Committed to state facility in St. Peter, Minnesota, reads the Big Book for the first time and finally identifies as a real alcoholic
• 28:00 Works Steps 3-7 in the hospital with phone sponsor, does fifth step with the chaplain after sponsor tells him Higher Power owns the state of Minnesota
• 33:00 Making amends: prays for someone to appear, ex-girlfriend drives by, follows her to Walmart where she says if you can get sober I can get sober
• 38:00 Learns the twelfth step means practicing principles in all affairs: paying child support, showing up for his kids, giving an honest day's work. His son who used to cower now does not want to leave his dad