Ninety Days Standing on My Head — Then They Said That Was the Minimum 😅 – George S.

About This Speaker Tape

George, an alcoholic and addict from Columbia, South Carolina, shares his story at the Monday night Blue Chip Speakers meeting in Atlanta, opening with a joke about his Falcons losing the night before. He grew up in a wholesome middle-class family of educators with almost no alcoholism around him, so he had no excuse and no warning for what started in his junior year of high school. A cousin handed him his first beer and joint, and he describes the change that followed as flipping a light switch — grades dropped, skipping started, and the compulsion to do it again and again was instant.

Despite finishing as a National Merit semifinalist, he chose Knoxville College because a full-ride scholarship meant no one could tell him what to do. He flunked out in two months. He tells on his own alcoholic mind repeatedly — stealing CB radios at 19, later lying on his Census Bureau application in DC and quitting in indignation when HR offered to keep him anyway, chasing a Southwestern Bell job to St. Louis as a geographic cure, then using a newspaper map of the city's drug-infested zone to find his spot the same night he read the article. His drug of choice was the powdered stuff you smoked.

After Lancaster Treatment in South Carolina, a fugitive warrant sent him straight from graduation to a St. Louis jail. He pieced together almost five years clean going to meetings while doing no stepwork — a sponsor in name only named Joe who never knew he was George's sponsor. New Year's Eve body shots in the Outer Banks took him out. He tested whether he was really an alcoholic with "just one or two drinks," and within weeks was back on crack. Nine months at Lena Lodge in New Jersey — hardcore, open-ended, men and women forbidden to even look at each other — finally broke him. Atlanta followed, another relapse behind a woman at a meeting, and the bottom: homeless, sleeping on benches, digging through garbage cans for food.

On December 20, 2002 — his mother's birthday — he called Terry, promised to do whatever it takes, and has not drunk or used since. His sponsor had him read the Doctor's Opinion thirty days in a row; somewhere in that reading the physical allergy clicked and he knew in his innermost self he was an alcoholic. He took a fifth step and told things he swore he'd never tell. His father asked him to promise this was the last time; three years later George buried his three-year medallion in his father's casket. He is now approaching fifteen years sober, caring for his 89-year-old mother, and pointing new people toward a sponsor, the steps, service, and a Higher Power of their understanding.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Amy reads the Blue Chip Speakers preamble from page 29 of the Big Book and introduces George
• 1:30 George opens mourning his Falcons loss, qualifies himself, and explains why he spends less time on the drunk-a-log
• 4:30 Wholesome Columbia, South Carolina upbringing — whole family in education, no alcoholism to blame
• 8:00 Junior year — cousin's first beer and joint flip the switch; grades crash immediately
• 12:30 Picks Knoxville College for the full scholarship because nobody paying means nobody telling him what to do; flunks out in two months
• 18:00 Stealing CB radios as Spider-Man; Census Bureau background check confrontation and the indignant quit
• 24:00 St. Louis geographic cure; the newspaper map that leads him straight back to the races
• 30:00 Lancaster Treatment, fugitive warrant, the kind officer who uncuffed him in the car
• 36:00 Almost five years clean with a sponsor in name only; New Year's Eve body shots in the Outer Banks take him out
• 44:00 Lena Lodge in New Jersey — the open-ended nine-month treatment that finally held
• 50:00 Homeless in Atlanta, garbage cans; calls Terry on December 20, 2002, promises to do whatever it takes
• 55:00 Reading the Doctor's Opinion thirty days in a row; the physical allergy clicks; fifth step; promise to his dad and the medallion in the casket