Mark Fell Over Laughing at the Fifth Step Mountain I’d Made From a Molehill – George M.

About This Speaker Tape

George M., known as Big George, tells his story at the Monday Night Blue Chips Speakers Meeting at the Nava Pub. He came in at 23 years old on November 23, 1981, after a five-day white-knuckle attempt to quit that ended with audio hallucinations while riding around Stone Mountain drinking Tab. A friend's girlfriend told him alcoholics taper off, handed him aspirin and a beer, and he drank through the night. The next morning he looked in the mirror and hated himself more than he had ever hated anything. He called Peachford, talked to a woman named Pat Schultz, and she pointed him toward the Biscayne Room that Tuesday night — a crowded, smoke-filled meeting where he grabbed a white chip on instinct.

He was born at Kennestone Hospital in Marietta to a Lockheed engineer and ex-Marine who was a rageaholic and sex addict, and a nurse mother raising five kids. The family fractured when he was five; he spent first and second grade in Blue Ridge, Georgia, then moved to Doraville. He learned what being a man meant from the Mullinax brothers around the corner — stealing, fighting, drinking, chasing girls. His first drink was a PBR Tall Boy at 13, poured for him by his sister after her Vietnam-bound husband left a five-pack in the fridge. He felt the click Paul Newman talked about in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Boone's Farm Applejack and Mogen David 2020 followed, bought from a Korean store owner on Flowers Road who did not ID.

A DUI at 17 doing donuts in his mother's Dodge Dart behind the Doraville police station led a judge to wipe the charge if he joined the Army. He ended up in meteorology school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Out of the service, he worked the GI Bill at DeKalb College and bounced at Pogos in Atlanta, one of nine bouncers on a Friday night. A 1980 wreck in a Dodge Challenger — hitting a pole head-on at 60 mph, engine in the passenger seat, steering wheel snapped where his face had been — should have killed him. A blackout at Helen Oktoberfest had him waking under a truck behind the Habersham County police station in a bloody t-shirt while a little kid squirted him with a squirt gun. He thought he would shoot himself if he drank one more day.

In sobriety he worked Maggie Harrison's three-day ordeal at the Biscayne, drinking her concoction of orange juice, yeast, and honey. His sponsors were Doug Lauer, an old acid head from 14th Street who turned out to be one of the wisest spiritual men he ever met, and Mark Truitt, who fell over laughing at the shameful molehill George confessed on his fifth step. His uncle Alton M. was 19 years sober at the Terror Club and the one who first told him about young people in AA. Around nine or ten years sober he hit suicidal depression and a friend named Big Carl told him a doctor could be a higher power — the medication saved his life. Losing his mother almost broke him. He says he is sober from eight different addictions now, that the steps exist to deflate the ego so the sunlight of the spirit can enter, and that he cannot stay sober on yesterday's sobriety.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Kat opens the Monday Night Blue Chips Speakers Meeting at the Nava Pub and introduces Big George
• 3:30 November 23, 1981 — five-day quit attempt fails at Stone Mountain with audio hallucinations and a girlfriend telling him alcoholics taper off
• 7:00 Calls Pat Schultz at Peachford, walks into the smoke-choked Biscayne Room on a Tuesday and grabs a white chip
• 12:00 Childhood in Marietta and Blue Ridge, Georgia — rageaholic Lockheed-engineer father, nurse mother raising five kids, Appalachian poverty with bowls of sweet rice at the school dining hall
• 19:00 First drink at 13 — a PBR Tall Boy his sister hands him while her Vietnam-bound husband's Tall Boys sit in the fridge; the Paul Newman click
• 26:00 DUI at 17 in his mother's Dodge Dart doing donuts behind the Doraville police station; judge offers to wipe the charge if he joins the Army
• 31:00 Bouncing at Pogos with nine bouncers on a Friday; standoff with a Georgia Tech linebacker after a beer pitcher flies across the floor
• 35:00 1980 Dodge Challenger wreck — hits a telephone pole at 60 mph, engine in the passenger seat, blood where his face was on the snapped steering wheel
• 40:00 Helen Oktoberfest blackout — wakes under a truck behind the Habersham County police station, eats a hamburger with mustard running down his arm while a kid squirts him with a squirt gun
• 47:00 Fifth step with sponsor Mark Truitt — the molehill George thought was a mountain, Mark falling over laughing
• 54:00 Nine or ten years sober, suicidal depression — Big Carl tells him a doctor can be a Higher Power and medication saves his life