Redemption Means Exchange — That Was the One Word That Finally Cracked Step 3 Open – Noelle W.

About This Speaker Tape

Noelle W. tells her first-ever story at the Monday Night Blues women's speaker meeting at Nava Club in Atlanta, standing on a sprained ankle she did at the curb Friday night. Sobriety date May 22, 2010 — five years and seven months on the nose. Grady baby. Raised by a teenage mother and a violent alcoholic stepfather in the Pittsburgh community and Thomasville Heights, with long stretches spent at a maternal grandmother who sold fifty-cent shots out of her house. Noelle grew up thinking the whole world smelled like whiskey and mothballs. She went missing for a day at six years old, and the adults in her life told her either nothing happened or that whatever did wasn't bad enough to talk about.

Her first drunk was slow gin fizz on a senior-class cruise to the Bahamas, where a boy told her she was cute and funny and she decided alcohol was the answer to feeling awkward and inferior. It worked for a long time — restaurant scenes at the Ritz Carlton in Buckhead where she threw wine at a boyfriend who tried to break up with her gently, walking Peachtree with her heels in her hand talking to no one, splashing in an empty downtown fountain arguing with an APD officer, getting physically escorted out of Mr. V's Figure 8 Club. By May 2010 her life had shrunk to her, a bottle, and a light bulb. She took a week off work to kill herself but got sidetracked by an insane idea that she couldn't get into heaven without first proving she'd tried AA, so she went for a white chip as a checkbox on the way out.

She didn't leave. A window of clarity opened, she called central office, picked up a white chip at Nava, and has been coming back every day since. A woman she barely knew called her on Memorial Day weekend when she panicked about staying sober through a holiday without work, and that phone call got between her and a drink. Her sponsor — 'Awesome Blossom' — walked her through the steps. Step 3 cracked open when a friend told her 'redemption' meant exchange, a word she could hear from her fundamentalist background. Steps 8 and 9 taught her that some people forgive, some don't, and consequences are part of staying sober. A friend she borrowed money from will not speak to her to this day.

She lands on what keeps her sober now: an intimate Higher Power that can get between her and the first drink, a home group that meets seven days a week at 5:45, the breakfast club, her sponsees, and the small operational rules — don't drink no matter what, keep coming back even if you drink, keep the main thing the main thing. Recovery is a mirror; sponsors and sponsees hold it steady so she can't shift it when she doesn't like what she sees.

Topics

Timestamps

• 1:30 Noelle opens — sprained her ankle off a curb Friday night, first time ever telling her story, 'I'm not nearly as brave as I come across'
• 8:00 On her sponsor Lisa P. — fear is an evil and corroding thread, faith is a healing and connective thread running through her recovery
• 15:00 Pittsburgh community and Thomasville Heights childhood — grandmother sold liquor, the whole world smelled like whiskey and mothballs
• 22:00 First drunk on a senior-class cruise to the Bahamas — slow gin fizz, a boy called her cute and funny, she decided alcohol was the answer
• 28:00 The suicide plan — took a week's vacation, stocked up on food and bottles, drank around the clock intending not to go back to work
• 38:00 90 meetings in 90 days — bought a calendar and sticky star dots like she was rewarding a child, counting down so she didn't accidentally go to 91
• 48:00 Ritz Carlton Buckhead — throwing wine at the boyfriend who tried to break up with her, walking Peachtree with her heels in her hand
• 57:00 Going missing at age six and the family denial — 'if home isn't safe, there aren't a lot of places to feel safe'