Never Trusted Women Until My Tuesday Night Sisters Became the Family I Never Had — Kat H.

About This Speaker Tape

Kat, an Atlanta native sober since May 22, 2010, tells a raw story shaped by epilepsy, a verbally abusive father, and a drinking career that escalated the moment she left home for Ole Miss. She describes getting her "PhD — party hard degree," being kicked out of school, dealing pot, and a three-year physically abusive college relationship that started when a boyfriend threw her across the room into a glass table. Back in Atlanta she found her tribe in the alcoholics and druggies, rented an apartment across the street from her favorite bar, and ran a Jaeger-beer-and-cocaine routine that ended in two DUIs inside five and a half months — the first at 0.191, hitting a tree head-on.

The last drinking night, May 21, 2010, is a string of blackouts: a pool, a cocaine run where her dealer told her she looked like shit, hitting a curb while driving, a passed-out friend helping her change a tire in front of a bar. The next morning she said yes to a meeting and landed at Complete Abandon. She met her sponsor there and met Frank, whom her first sponsor introduced simply as "dad" — Kat called him dad for months before she learned his real name.

At roughly four years and nine months sober, she talks about the slow build of a life: first apartment by herself sober, first car in her own name, a job where she might move up to account manager, restarting the Night Owls 11pm Saturday meeting at her sponsor's quiet suggestion, serving as entertainment director at Biscayne. Her best friend Gina died of cancer and Kat held her hand at the end. She got tattoos in her mom's and brother's handwriting — "beautiful and brave," "loved and survivor."

The spiritual arc is explicit: she came in hating God for making her epileptic and for the father who punched holes in the door beside her head. Today she calls her Higher Power God, credits Him with the wrecks and seizures she walked away from, and says plainly she would not be alive without AA. Sobriety, she warns, is not sunshine and puppy dogs — it's showing up, paying rent on $61, and letting the women who love her text until she answers.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting opening at NABBA Club, Big Book page 29 reading
• 2:30 Frank Waters introduces Kat — tells the room he's been her sponsor since she was almost day-one
• 4:00 Kat opens with sobriety date May 22, 2010, and her first taste of alcohol from a keg at age four
• 9:00 Brother born when she was nine; dad's attention shifts — she attended every piano recital alone while he coached her brother's sports
• 13:00 Father's verbal abuse — punching holes in the door beside her head, "don't let him see you cry"
• 17:00 Ole Miss — the "PhD party hard degree," kicked out, three-year abusive relationship begins with being thrown into a glass table
• 24:00 Two DUIs: December 2005 head-on tree at 0.191, then May 22, 2006 — exactly four years before sobriety date
• 30:00 Last drinking night May 21, 2010 — pool, cocaine, hitting a curb, calling the boyfriend 15-20 times saying she was ready to die
• 35:00 Complete Abandon, first sponsor moves to Buffalo, Frank introduced to her only as "dad" — she didn't learn his real name for months
• 46:00 Tattoos in her mom's handwriting ("beautiful and brave") and brother's ("loved and survivor"); Higher Power reconciliation — she came in hating God for the epilepsy and the abusive father