It Was Love at First Vomit — Schlitz Malt Liquor at Twelve 🫠 – Siobhan W.

About This Speaker Tape

Siobhan, an Atlanta woman celebrating 25 years sober (sobriety date June 21, 1990), grew up in Midtown with a theater-director father and a mother who were both late-stage alcoholics, embedded in a life of cocktail parties and culture but no insurance, no budget, no safety. Her father took vitamins with scotch in the morning and died of alcoholism at 39, when she was 7. She and her sister found him purple in bed and, used to seeing him passed out, poked at him, laughed, and went to watch cartoons. Her mother died of breast cancer when Siobhan was 11.

As a ward of the court, she was placed with another alcoholic family. At 12, one of that family's grown children — a person in her 30s — gave her Schlitz malt liquor. "Love at first vomit." She drank every day from that point, failed out of two high schools, had several medical overdoses, and by 18 was being threatened by a man in the house she believed would kill her. She fled in the middle of the night to an aunt in Pennsylvania, where late-stage alcoholism took full hold — blackouts so total she once came out of one mid-mugging in downtown Philadelphia, talking to the muggers. She prayed that her Higher Power not take alcohol away from her — the last painkiller she had left.

An addictions counselor, Diane Shields, sent her to detox on June 21, 1990, at 19. Siobhan credits grace more than willingness: three meetings a day, emptying ashtrays, a sponsor who told her "you are finding your Higher Power" before she knew she was. She got into Penn State with a transcript full of F's and 76 absences, ran 16 miles a day, then transferred to Rosemont, a women's Catholic college she picked because "you can't get more gooder than that." She cocktail-waitressed her way through school and the obsession never returned.

Eight months before this talk, her brother — who had followed her into sobriety after four years living together — died of congestive heart failure. She worked his three-year hospitalization as a triangle: graduate school, work, hospital, meeting. His death tested the acceptance page of the Big Book, and she stayed sober. Her current definition of success: remembering people's birthdays. Taking a phone call when she doesn't want to. AA, she says, raised her.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Jackie opens the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NABBA Club; Judy reads from Big Book page 29
• 3:30 Siobhan introduced as an Irish sprite whose thorny background proves thorns have roses; she opens with her 25-year anniversary yesterday
• 7:00 Midtown Atlanta childhood — three little kids streaking through Piedmont Park after Mom said to wait until sundown
• 11:00 At age 7 she and her sister find their father dead in bed, poke at him, and go watch cartoons — Dad took vitamins with scotch in the morning
• 14:00 Mother dies of breast cancer when Siobhan is 11; three kids become wards of the court and are placed with another alcoholic family
• 17:00 First drink at 12 — Schlitz malt liquor given by a 30-year-old in the house; "love at first vomit"
• 22:00 At 18 a man in the house threatens to kill her; she and her sister drive to Pennsylvania in the middle of the night
• 26:00 Blackouts at 19 — comes out of one being mugged in downtown Philadelphia, talking to the muggers; prays her Higher Power won't take alcohol away
• 30:00 Counselor Diane Shields asks if she'll go to detox today; she goes June 21, 1990 — three meetings a day, Reading Pennsylvania AA raises her
• 45:00 Brother dies of congestive heart failure eight months ago; the triangle of school-work-hospital-meeting, and the Big Book's acceptance page tested