Picking Men Like Rescue Dogs: Pathetic, Starving, and Dangerous – Lynn

About This Speaker Tape

Lynn shares her story at the Big Island Bash in 2012 with nearly 30 years of sobriety dating back to June 22, 1982. Originally from Quebec, Canada, she describes how alcohol solved her lifelong feelings of insecurity, separateness, and fear from the very first drink at age 13 — and how she immediately slapped her best friend for drinking her last beer. She moved to California chasing a geographic cure, found a wealthy boyfriend, and descended into blackout drinking, promiscuity, and total dependence on a man she was simultaneously betraying.

Her bottom was brutal and specific: after being kicked out by her boyfriend, she returned to his house offering to reseal Mexican tiles for free, scrubbing floors on her knees while his friends walked past her, culminating in a degrading sexual encounter on the floor where the man who once loved her could barely stand to touch her. She binged for days, found she could no longer get drunk, and called AA — where they hung up on her because she only wanted to learn how to have five or six drinks. Two hours later, something got quiet in her mind, and she called back.

In sobriety, Lynn tackles her ongoing character defects with disarming honesty, especially her fear of intimacy and difficulty in her first marriage at age 52. She describes hilarious failed attempts to follow her sponsor's advice, reporting her husband to her sponsor, and nearly fleeing to Africa to avoid his visiting teenagers — which led her to start a nonprofit for Maasai schoolchildren in Kenya. She shares the devastating grief of losing her dog Misty, a moment on an airplane where she nearly drank after speaking at a 2,000-person conference, and how she applied the twelve steps to grief itself. Throughout, she demonstrates that long-term sobriety is not immunity from pain but a deepening reliance on a higher power and the fellowship.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction at Big Island Bash, thanks to committee and service workers, sobriety date June 22 1982
• 3:30 Walking home barefoot from the car after a fight with husband John on the way to couples meeting — 28 years sober
• 6:00 First drink at 13, slapping best friend Susan over the last beer, geographic cure from Quebec to California
• 10:00 Sleeping with boyfriend's best friend Kirk while too drunk to get home, losing everything, sleeping bag on the floor
• 15:00 Scrubbing Mexican tiles on her knees, party guests walking past, degrading encounter on the floor
• 19:00 Calling AA and being told to call back when she wants to stop drinking, the quiet moment of surrender
• 24:00 Beverly and Ron taking her to detox, the 20-question test, relief at finally knowing what was wrong
• 32:00 Marriage difficulties at 52, fear of intimacy, reporting husband to sponsor and botching the two sweet sentences
• 40:00 Safari in Kenya, meeting Mr. Mina at Baraka Primary School, starting a nonprofit for Maasai children
• 48:00 Dog Misty dying at 3 AM, inconsolable grief, nearly drinking on the airplane, applying the 12 steps to grief