Picked the Dalai Lama as My Higher Power Until Someone Asked What I’d Do When He Dies 🤦 – Yvonne H.

About This Speaker Tape

Yvonne is an Irish-born alcoholic who came to America in 1996 with $500 in her pocket and a bicycle, and found a home in the restaurant business and in the bottle. Raised in Dundalk, County Louth — a border town haunted by IRA violence — she grew up with a bank-manager father who was held at gunpoint during a robbery and never recovered, taking his rage out on his children behind locked doors. When Yvonne was eleven, her older sister Carol was hit by an 18-wheeler and came home paralyzed, refusing to let Yvonne near her. That rejection shaped everything: Yvonne spent decades trying to fix her sister, earn her father's approval, and outrun her own shame.

In America she drank through managerial jobs, hid beer cases from the cashier at the gas station, and lashed out at family over email whenever she relapsed. She describes nine-month relapses, a sponsor who fired her, and the day she hauled a 30-pack up to the register and silently begged her Higher Power to make her stop. A dog-park friend pestered her with emails until she finally walked into a speaker meeting in Buford in December 2013.

It took three years and multiple relapses before it stuck. She white-knuckled Step One, Googled her way out of Step Three, and cycled through sponsors. A woman from her home group hugged her after a meeting, said "you're not alone," and died three weeks later — at the funeral the reverend said the same words, and Yvonne finally believed in a Higher Power without needing to name it. Sobriety date: May 19, 2016.

She left the restaurant business to work with children, including a toddler with Down syndrome, because she knew she couldn't drink and do that job. She went back to Ireland after 20 years to find her father locked inside Parkinson's and dementia, drooling, whispering "I'm a bad man." Her anger finally dropped. The steps, she says, are what let her meet her Higher Power — and she came to this podium because in 2013 a well-dressed woman spoke without shame, and Yvonne promised herself one day she'd do the same.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Napa Club Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers intro — Tim welcomes Yvonne, who a few weeks earlier had walked up and asked 'how do we get our speakers?'
• 3:00 December 2013 — Yvonne's first meeting in Buford, the well-dressed woman with no shame, and the promise to one day do the same
• 6:00 Dundalk, Ireland — bank-manager father, the IRA robbery with a pillowcase and a gun to his head, and the locked-room punishments that left her claustrophobic
• 12:00 1982 — sister Carol hit by an 18-wheeler, British military helicopter ceasefire, and the rejection when Carol came home paralyzed
• 20:00 1996 — arriving at Hartsfield with $500, buying a bicycle, meeting Kevin at Le Madeleine who christens her 'Whiskey'
• 26:00 Mother drunk in the American driveway saying she doesn't want to go on anymore while Yvonne tries to fix it
• 32:00 The 30-pack at the gas station — the silent prayer that somebody would help her stop drinking
• 37:00 justanswer.com — paying Dr. Seuss online who tells her she's 'moderate severe' on the drinker seesaw
• 45:00 Sisters in Solution home group — the women who made her speak, and asking a stranger in tears to be her sponsor
• 55:00 The home-group woman who hugged her saying 'you're not alone' and died three weeks later — the reverend saying the same words at her funeral, and Yvonne finally believing in a Higher Power
• 1:05:00 Ireland after 20 years — father in the chair with Parkinson's, whispering 'I'm a bad man,' and Yvonne's anger finally dropping