Joyce P. Opened the Big Book Expecting Drinking Instructions and Found a Higher Power Instead – New-2024

About This Speaker Tape

Joyce P. traces a straight line from a violent Atlanta childhood to a Candy A. red Mustang wrapped around a bridge, then into a grueling thirty-day detox where she fought a nurse over a shot.

Swapping beer for Quaaludes and pot, she chased a “more-ism” that left her paranoid and naked in strange beds. Salvation arrived in a grungy detox hallway and a “DTs group” that became her first fellowship. Through P.

City trips, a husband who ran off to a Baptist church on their wedding day, and the slow grief of losing her parents and her friend Chip, she learned that recovery isn’t about controlling others or reading steps at them. It’s boundaries, confidentiality, and service—Mary Mac telling her to set the table, Judy P. teaching her to drop other people’s secrets.

Thirty-one years later, she wakes early, reads Emmet Fox and the Big Book, and sits on her porch. The ache of the alcoholic is gone, replaced by a fellowship that holds her.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opening prayer of St. Francis and introduction to the program's purpose
• 2:15 Childhood trauma: adoption, violent home life, and running away to church groups
• 4:45 First beer at sixteen, the Sweet Gum Head bar, and the Candy Apple red Mustang wreck
• 6:50 Juvenile detention, detox, and fighting a nurse over a morning shot
• 9:10 Drug substitution phase: Quaaludes, coke, pot, and the paranoia of 'more-ism'
• 11:30 Finding the 'DTs group' and the first white chip at eighteen
• 13:45 Panama City trips, marriage, and the slow grief of losing her parents
• 15:50 Sitting with friend Chip Houston for twenty-two hours before his death
• 17:40 Sponsorship lessons: boundaries, confidentiality, and Mary Mac's table-setting test
• 19:30 Thirty-one years sober, daily meditation routine, and closing reflection on fellowship