Relapse Is a Trap Door Under Every Bottom — Forget It and You Repeat It – Leslie D.

About This Speaker Tape

Leslie D. tells her story at NABBA, the Atlanta clubhouse where she and her husband Terry got sober. Her father went through Peachford Hospital in 1975 but didn't attend meetings; Leslie first tried AA in 1981 after her own Peachford stay, then spent 17 years bouncing in and out — a year here, nine months there, a geographic to California, another three-year stretch in Santa Monica that ended when an old friend coaxed her into a jazz club in Mill Valley and she ordered a glass of white wine.

The bottom came January 8, 1998. After a fight with her father she swallowed a handful of pills with a hidden beer, woke up in ICU getting her stomach pumped, and a woman from Georgia Regional walked into her room, wrote down the address of a clubhouse, and said "I don't want to see you here again." Days later Leslie sat in the parking lot of Dottie's bar with her foot on the clutch, remembered the Third Step prayer, and drove 85 mph to NABBA instead. She stood on an orange chair in the smoking room and said she finally knew she was an alcoholic.

Leslie walks through her step work with Cindy Tracy as her first sponsor — the four-column inventory done at Colorama in Highlands, the white squirrel that showed up on a tree branch as a God-moment, the fifth step, the amends she made to police officers at a Wendy's who'd pepper-sprayed and hog-tied her during a DUI arrest on the anniversary of the Rodney King beating. Her father eventually started coming to meetings with her and Terry and lived with them until he died.

She closes with the old-timer service ethic she learned at NABBA: pick up cigarette butts, make the next pot of coffee, welcome the newcomer with a half-cup so they don't spill it, call the sponsor, plant a flower, take the next indicated action. Trust the Higher Power, clean house, help others — one eyelash at a time.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Terry introduces his wife Leslie — they met at the 545 meeting at NABBA, first dance was the Valentine's Day dance
• 3:30 Leslie opens, names the faces she sees including her father, remembers Hoyt Allison and Cindy Tracy
• 8:00 Father got sober at Peachford in 1975 but wouldn't go to meetings — 'I ain't going to sit around and listen to people moan'
• 14:00 Age 16 car wreck on Floyd Road — white light, gripping the wheel saying 'dear God help us' — her first conscious reach for a Higher Power
• 22:00 Santa Monica DUI arrest on the Rodney King anniversary — hog-tied, thrown in the back of the cruiser, 686 hours community service and 86 AA meetings
• 30:00 Mill Valley jazz club relapse — the old friend, the white wine, the candle being blown out
• 36:00 January 8, 1998 bottom — suicide attempt, ICU, woman from Georgia Regional hands her the clubhouse address
• 42:00 Dottie's bar parking lot — foot on the clutch, Third Step prayer comes up, drives 85 mph to NABBA
• 50:00 Fourth step at Colorama in Highlands, NC with Cindy Tracy — the white squirrel on the tree branch as confirmation
• 58:00 Amends to the officers who arrested her — walks up to 10 cops at a Wendy's and owns what she did