I Was Pre-Alcoholic Before I Ever Took a Drink the Way People Are Pre-Diabetic – Melinda H.

About This Speaker Tape

Melinda H., sober since June 1, 2015, speaks at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speaker meeting at the Nava Club, visiting from the Chapter 3 group at North Springs First United Methodist. She comes from an alcoholic family in Detroit, started blacking out at 14 or 15, and describes herself as a pre-alcoholic long before she ever took the first drink — fearful, vindictive, low self-esteem wrapped in egomaniac behavior. She drank hard for 25-plus years with hospital trips, alcohol poisoning, and a DUI in her 20s that included a slow-speed chase after she hit a police car — yet she still showed up to her sentencing drunk, and never connected alcohol to the wreckage.

By 2009 she had moved to Atlanta from Cincinnati, picked up a second DUI, lost a job for drinking, and was ghosted by friends of twenty years. The turning point came in Las Vegas for her birthday and a cousin's wedding — she left her boyfriend mid-tantrum, flew home alone, and on the way had attended her very first AA meeting where someone handed her the Big Book and she read Bill's story out loud. She didn't remember going until two years later, which became central proof for her that a Higher Power was moving her before she asked.

The what-it's-like-now half is working-the-steps basics: white chip, sponsor, 90 in 90 while driving the Southeast for work, service work, hotline shifts, sponsoring women, and reading pages 83 to 88 every day for her first couple of years. She's been tested — paralyzed during a 2016 outpatient procedure, lost relationships, deaths — and never considered drinking on any of it. She leans on page 64 on resentment, meditates when she remembers to as her pause-when-agitated tool, and uses the Sandy Springs drive as her litmus test for emotional sobriety.

Her through-line is that the book has the answers, her higher power put her into sobriety because she has too many defects to handle alone, and boundaries — even with family — are an act of love, not punishment. She closes on the promises: not extravagant, sometimes very slow, but real when the work is done.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Nava Club Blue Chip Speaker meeting opens; reading from page 29 of the Big Book
• 1:30 Chair introduces Melinda, visiting from Chapter 3 group at North Springs First United Methodist
• 3:00 Melinda states sobriety date June 1, 2015; from Detroit via 'purgatory — I mean Cincinnati'
• 6:00 Alcoholic family on both sides, Yankees raised Southern Baptist, blacking out by 14 or 15
• 12:00 First DUI story — slow-speed chase through three counties after hitting a police car
• 18:00 Second DUI in 2009 after moving from Cincinnati to Atlanta; July 4th weekend with two accidents
• 24:00 Las Vegas white-light moment — leaves boyfriend, flies home alone, forgets she already attended her first AA meeting
• 30:00 Jumps into the program — white chip, sponsor, 90 in 90 while driving the Southeast for work
• 38:00 Paralyzed during 2016 outpatient procedure; reflects that no situation ever made her want to pick up
• 44:00 Daily practice — pages 83 to 88, resentment on page 64, meditation, and Sandy Springs drive as emotional-sobriety litmus