I Graduated Magna Cum Laude from a 1.23 GPA – Emily S.

About This Speaker Tape

Emily S. shares her story of growing up with crippling anxiety, isolation, and a loud inner voice that told her something was fundamentally wrong with her from childhood. She describes running away to the basement at age two, refusing to join other children at church, and preferring to play alone as Indiana Jones rather than face the terror of social interaction. By twelve she was convinced everyone else had received a manual for living that she never got.

She first drank at fifteen on the softball team bus and immediately experienced the phenomenon of craving — while her friends played cards and socialized, Emily got blackout drunk and loved every second of it. Alcohol dissolved the wall between her and the world, creating a sense of connection she had never felt sober. Within a year she was drinking daily, getting wasted before high school, and convinced herself none of her lifelong friends actually liked her. She transferred schools, had panic attacks when sober, and cycled through therapists she lied to about her drinking.

College at Temple University lasted less than a month before she ended up in arm and leg restraints at the hospital. She burned through book money on vodka, ate one slice of pizza a day, and drank alone in her room while her roommates gave up on her. The moment of clarity came driving home broke and sobbing — she called a friend and admitted she could not stop drinking and did not want to die. That friend asked her to try an AA meeting, and when Emily protested, asked the question that stopped her cold: what do you have to lose?

Emily describes the terror of her first meeting, choosing a sponsor based on an Australian accent and a possible romantic fantasy, and the night she nearly relapsed when a dealer showed up at her house. Her new sponsor talked her through the third step prayer — a spiritual Xanax — and for the first time Emily felt a sliver of peace without a substance. She went through the steps, rebuilt relationships including a powerful amends with her grandmother, graduated magna cum laude from a 1.23 GPA, and today sponsors other women. The girl who could not order a pizza without a panic attack now speaks in front of rooms full of strangers and means it when she says she does not care what they think.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and joke about being assigned the topic peculiar mental twist
• 2:30 Running away to the basement at age two with a pink Barbie suitcase over a denied cookie
• 5:00 Refusing the children's sermon at church, preferring isolation to being around other kids
• 9:00 First drink at fifteen on the softball bus — Coors Light and Zimas in a field in Kutztown
• 14:00 Lying on the grass drunk thinking I want to feel like this for the rest of my life
• 20:00 College at Temple — drinking daily, hospital in restraints within a month
• 27:00 Living on one slice of pizza a day, roommate witnessing the fifth of rum at noon
• 34:00 The phone call — sobbing to Amanda that she cannot stop drinking and does not want to die
• 40:00 First AA meeting, white-knuckle grip on the chair, refusing the 24-hour chip
• 50:00 Third step prayer with sponsor as a spiritual Xanax — first moment of peace without a substance