I Was a Lot of Fear with a Little Bit of Skin on It — That Was My Fourth Step – Michelle W.

About This Speaker Tape

Michelle W. from the Vision for You group in Beaufort, Georgia tells her story at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting. Sober since 1984, she was born in Florida to a boisterous Irish Catholic family and traces her alcoholism back to age nine, when the family moved to Kirtland, Ohio and she was handed off five days a week to a man the neighborhood called a babysitter. The abuse lasted eight months and split her in two — a quiet, frightened girl who couldn't fit in with her jovial family and believed her Higher Power didn't like her. Surfing, exercise, and a teenage boy pack became her only safety; a first suicide attempt with pills came when the family moved away from the ocean.

A cousin studying for the priesthood handed her speed at a surf shop, she nearly died in an attic, and touring the country in search of waterfalls she taught herself to drink two bottles of fine wine a night. Hairdressing by day and black market work by night carried her to a Mercedes at twenty-one, a head-on collision with a yellow car she had dreamed about, and a new face for Christmas. Three years of competitive roller skating kept her dry but the disease kept progressing; a Christian couple turned her away from therapy because she wasn't saved, a bridge-jump in a Kamikaze blackout brought her home crawling, and her partner and bodyguard packed a bag and drove her out west to a place called Share.

In rehab they took her scissors, her vitamins, and her perfume, and in the shower she conceded to her innermost self that she was an alcoholic. She wrote a Fourth Step at seven or ten days, read it with a woman with beautiful teeth, and walked outside the next morning into air that smelled different — the obsession to die was gone. A tiny woman said she had been guided to be her sponsor, Wesley Parish brought Charlie P. and Joe M. down for Big Book seminars with yellow markers and squiggly writing, and Michelle's home group gathered on her living room floor for a meeting the Christmas Eve her house was ransacked.

Marriage, a daughter, and a move to Georgia followed — and then three years of physical illness, her husband's relapse after twenty years and walkabout to Colorado, dead dogs, and bankruptcy. Pulled to the Book of Job, she shaved her head, got naked, and asked her Higher Power for help. She came back. Her closing teaching, from page 42: spiritual principles will solve all our problems — all of them, not some.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Chair opens the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting with the page 29 Big Book reading and introduces Michelle from the Vision for You group in Beaufort
• 2:30 Irish Catholic family in Florida, father's 'golf fever' brilliant ideas, move to Kirtland, Ohio at age nine
• 5:00 The pedophile 'babysitter' — five days a week for eight months, the world changes behind her eyes, hiding in a strawberry patch in Parma
• 12:00 First suicide attempt with pills when the family moves away from the ocean; peeling Heineken labels into airplanes as her teenage drinking signal
• 18:00 Speed in the attic at the surf shop — three-day near-death, leaves her body in the corner of the room until her brother throws ice in her face
• 24:00 Mercedes, black market, and the yellow-car head-on collision she had dreamed about — takes her hands off the wheel and asks her Higher Power for help
• 32:00 Kamikaze blackout, jumps the Las Olas drawbridge as it goes up, crawls into the house where her hair hurts
• 38:00 Rehab at Share — scissors, vitamins and perfume confiscated; shower surrender; Fourth Step at seven to ten days with a woman with beautiful teeth
• 48:00 Tiny woman walks up and says she's been guided to be her sponsor; Wesley Parish brings Charlie P. and Joe M. for Big Book seminars with yellow markers
• 58:00 Husband's relapse after twenty years and walkabout to Colorado; she reads the Book of Job, shaves her head, gets naked, and asks her Higher Power for help — page 42 closing