Never Got a DUI, Never Lost a House, Never Had Just One Drink in My Entire Life — Ginny N.
About This Speaker Tape
Jenny tells her story at the Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the Napa Club. She grew up north of Boston, the youngest of six children. Her mother died when she was two weeks old, and her father — an alcoholic — was removed from the home when she was five. Raised by a depressed, overwhelmed grandmother named Vera, Jenny endured physical, emotional, and sexual abuse from family members. Painfully shy and desperate to be invisible, she started smoking at nine, drinking and using at twelve, and never drank normally from the start — her first experience with vodka ended in alcohol poisoning.
Jenny barely finished high school, dropped out of college after a year, and spent her twenties working nine-to-five while drinking every night and using during the day. She married at twenty, divorced after seven years of spending rent money on alcohol, remarried, and had a daughter. She eventually went back to school in her thirties, earning a bachelor's and then a master's in counseling — all while drinking continued in the background. Her brother's suicide, her father's death from cirrhosis, and her grandmother's death sent her into a deeper spiral. After her daughter left for college, she isolated completely, hiding wine bottles around her own house and drinking alone until she passed out every night.
A geographic move to Utah unexpectedly led Jenny to AA when her new neighbor — a woman in the program — invited her to what Jenny thought was a Mormon church event but turned out to be a speaker meeting. The speaker told her story, and Jenny felt the shock of identification for the first time. She got a sponsor but resisted the steps, stayed on a marijuana maintenance program, relapsed after five months, and drank worse than ever. That three-day relapse in 2014 broke through her denial. She came back, got a new sobriety date of November 29, 2014, and began working the steps seriously with an old-school sponsor who made her journal every step.
Now living in Gainesville, Georgia — where she moved so her daughter could live with her during graduate school — Jenny has over three years of sobriety. She sponsors others, attends three to four meetings a week, and credits the steps with saving her life. She speaks openly about her ongoing vigilance against complacency, her evolving relationship with a compassionate Higher Power she had to build for herself after a punitive Catholic upbringing, and the daily work of living without self-medicating. She closes by urging newcomers to get a sponsor and work the steps without worrying about doing them perfectly.
Discussion
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