Old Ideas About Me, You, and Higher Power — Cleaned All Three Boxes Out at Two Years Sober – Brenda J.

About This Speaker Tape

Brenda shares her story at what appears to be a Texas roundup, opening with the Third Step Prayer and a rapid-fire, hilariously self-aware introduction. Sober since July 3, 1990, she describes growing up in San Angelo, Texas as one of nine children in a family riddled with alcoholism. She stumbled into AA sideways — attending a treatment center's family day for her father's drinking, drifting into Al-Anon, and finally being coaxed by a counselor (the "van lady") into saying "My name is Brenda and I'm an alcoholic," which shattered every wall she had built. Her early sobriety is a comedy of defiance: bringing newspapers and headphones to meetings, flinging ashtrays across the room when asked to help clean up, and telling her mother she expected to be named AA president.

At two years sober, Brenda hit a devastating depression and wanted to die despite doing everything right on paper. She entered outpatient treatment and did deep work on her old ideas about herself, others, and Higher Power — three boxes she cleaned out and began refilling with truth. She went to college, made the dean's list (which terrified her because she had been on too many lists), and graduated with a teaching degree. Her classroom became a place where she gave twelve-year-olds everything she never received as a child — presence, belief, and unconditional worth. Her students scored perfect hundreds on standardized tests, and when asked how she did it, she told 800 teachers she simply showed up emotionally for the first time in her life.

The emotional center of her story is reconciliation with her father, a man who once threatened to knock her teeth out if she cried at her mother's funeral. Years into sobriety, when he was diagnosed with cancer, she sat beside him and told him she was glad Higher Power gave her him as a father. He put his arms around her, and she exhaled in his arms for the first time. His cancer went into remission, returned years later, and then vanished again after chemo. She closes by reading from the Twelve and Twelve on true ambition — to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of Higher Power — while facing job loss and the end of an eight-and-a-half-year relationship with grace and humor.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Third Step Prayer and rapid-fire introduction — recovering lesbian, Hispanic, Catholic, alcoholic
• 3:00 Spanish greeting turns into bilingual humor; sober since July 3, 1990
• 8:00 Story of attending treatment center family day for her father, counselor says 'get in the van'
• 14:00 Al-Anon meetings, buying 32-ounce beers out of anger, counselor pushes her to say 'I'm an alcoholic'
• 19:00 First AA meeting on honesty, women's meeting, dinner at the Kettle — Last Supper image
• 24:00 Fight at AA meeting with blood and cops — two simultaneous thoughts: 'I don't need this' and 'I'm home'
• 30:00 Sponsor Pam, the ashtray incident, thirteenth-stepping by Pat and the phone call that ended it
• 38:00 Depression at two years sober, outpatient treatment, cleaning out three boxes of old ideas about self, others, and God
• 48:00 College, dean's list terror, graduation day — father catches her eye and nods from the stands
• 55:00 Teaching sixth grade, kids score perfect hundreds; reconciliation with father during his cancer diagnosis
• 65:00 Father's cancer returns and then disappears; losing job, home, and relationship — still showing up sober; reads from Twelve and Twelve on true ambition