Never Had a Head-On Collision in My Life — I Always Hit Them in the Rear 🤦 – Kay S.

About This Speaker Tape

Kay S. shares her story at the 40th West Texas State Convention in Austin, Texas, with 19 years of continuous sobriety. Originally from West Virginia, she moved to Akron, Ohio at 17 and quickly fell into the bar scene. She discovered White Lightning moonshine at 14 or 15 and loved everything about drinking from the start. After a first marriage that ended in divorce after 13 years, she married KC, a fellow heavy drinker, and her alcoholism accelerated rapidly — lost cars, rear-end collisions, canceled insurance policies, and four DWI arrests.

Kay describes the progression with devastating honesty: morning drinking that started when KC insisted it would "make the butterflies go away," losing pride in her appearance as a hairdresser who could no longer hold her hands steady, inventing excuses like sinus trouble and "change of life" to explain her deterioration. She attempted suicide. One of the most painful moments she recounts is her 16-year-old son walking into a jail cell to pick her up, and all she could say was "come on, let's go — I need a drink."

The bottom came during a three-week bender where she and KC lay in bed unable to get up, drinking water glasses full of liquor and blacking out, hallucinating cats and dead bodies in clear suitcases. Both were hospitalized. When they came home, KC awkwardly asked Kay to pray — their first prayer together became the turning point. Kay called what she thought was St. Thomas Hospital but reached Alcoholics Anonymous instead. Her sponsor, a dignified small woman, simplified the program to four principles: honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love.

Kay relapsed after 10 months when prescribed pills led her back to drinking during a trip to West Virginia. The last drunk that followed brought her and KC back to the same desperate bottom. They got sober together on September 24, 1966, attended meetings from the very first night, and barely missed six meetings in their first year. Kay credits the Akron old-timers, her home group (the Flame Breakfast Group), sponsorship work she started at one month sober, and a simple daily prayer practice with sustaining her recovery. She closes with a passionate appeal to get involved in home groups, intergroup, and general service — and to never settle for half a loaf.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Kay introduces herself at the 40th West Texas State Convention, opens with humor about Craig and feeling important
• 4:30 Discusses growing up in West Virginia, parents' values, finding White Lightning moonshine at 14-15
• 8:00 Moving to Akron at 17, learning to drink mixed drinks, sneaking extra drinks at bars
• 12:00 Marriage to KC, losing cars after bar nights, rear-end collisions, insurance canceled
• 18:00 Morning drinking begins, losing pride in appearance, excuses like sinus trouble and change of life
• 24:00 Jailed in bikini, son picking her up from jail at 16, four DWI arrests, attempted suicide
• 32:00 Three-week bender with KC — bedridden, DTs, hallucinating cats and dead bodies, both hospitalized
• 38:00 First prayer with KC, calling AA instead of St. Thomas Hospital, meeting her sponsor
• 44:00 Sponsor simplifies program to four principles — honesty, purity, unselfishness, love; early AA meetings
• 50:00 Relapse after 10 months on pills, last drunk, getting sober together with KC, Akron old-timers, service work, closing prayer-poem