Good News, I Found Out I’m an Alcoholic — She Said Nope, You’re an A**hole 🤣 – Pat R.
About This Speaker Tape
Pat R., a recovered alcoholic, continues a step series at his Boca Raton group, picking up where he left off on Step 9 amends. He frames the amends process within the arc of Steps 4 through 9, emphasizing that real change — not just words — must precede making things right with the people we've harmed. He describes the spiritual footing established in earlier steps as essential before approaching amends, and warns newcomers against rushing to apologize without demonstration behind it.
Pat shares detailed stories of his own amends: financial restitution to the IRS and creditors, indirect amends for shoplifting by donating to charities those stores support, and a powerful story about losing $400 and being shown by Higher Power that it mirrored money he'd stolen decades earlier — leading him to stop judging homeless people and give freely. He discusses criminal amends, citing the book's guidance about hiring attorneys and facing the music, and tells the story of a woman named Sarah who chose three years in prison over running, started a jail meeting, and found true freedom.
The most emotional passages involve Pat's family amends. His eldest son witnessed domestic violence as a child, and Pat's early amends at 13 didn't land. Twenty-seven years later, his son texted him a message of gratitude and forgiveness that Pat reads aloud. He describes his mother dying after complications from knee surgery — her one request from a coma was that Pat get along with his sister. He made that amends the next day. His ex-wife, whom he married and divorced twice, only began speaking to him again in the last year after a one-on-one direct amends finally landed.
Pat closes with a riff borrowed from Charlie P., recasting the Promises as what alcohol once did for him — Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill transformed a tormented, insecure kid into someone who felt free. When alcohol stopped working, he arrived at AA, identified with a man named Billy G., and learned to chase speakers and Big Book people rather than convenient meetings. He credits a stranger who handed him the Doctor's Opinion with changing his life.
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