Scored 17 Out of 20 on the Addiction Test, Lied on Two, and the One Honest Answer Was Have You Ever Drank While Pregnant 🤣 – Scott H.

About This Speaker Tape

Scott H. shares his story at the Buffalo Fall Convention, describing himself as an alcoholic who defied the typical profile. He grew up in a stable, loving home with parents married over 58 years, no family alcoholism, and every encouragement a kid could want. He was the golden child — captain of every team, valedictorian, student body president — yet carried a persistent feeling that something was wrong with him that wasn't wrong with other people. At 13, his first drunk on Southern Comfort showed him that alcohol dissolved every uncomfortable feeling he carried, and that pattern defined the next two decades of his life.

Scott describes himself as someone who always "fell up" — he'd get blackout drunk before the LSAT and score in the 98th percentile, get pulled over with two bottles of vodka in his open car and have a gas station robbery distract the officer. He never got arrested, never lost a job, never got divorced. But the disease quietly took things from him: a basketball scholarship he couldn't accept because afternoons and weekends were spoken for, relationships hollowed out by his need to push people away. His doctor told him his liver enzyme scores were 748 when 70 was considered high, and that he'd be dead within a year. Scott's response was to dismiss the doctor as a quack.

His path to recovery came through the Lawyers Assistance Program and a fellow alcoholic who simply shared his own story rather than lecturing Scott about his drinking. After a failed first attempt at AA, two treatment centers, and a detox, Scott came back willing to try the steps. A group of men refused to take no for an answer and pulled him into a step group. Through working with a patient sponsor named Mark, Scott found a conception of a higher power that worked for him — not the TV preacher Higher Power he'd rejected, but the quiet inner voice he'd been drowning out with alcohol and ego.

Scott closes by describing how service work and helping others became the real magic of his sobriety. He learned through his sponsor's guidance that his thinking was deeply flawed — illustrated memorably by throwing rocks at a mama bear in his backyard while drunk, and by a years-long battle with an orange juice lid that his sponsor solved in one sentence. He quotes from an AA pamphlet about the blind seeing, the lame walking, and the poor in spirit having the good news told to them, saying that this is exactly what he has heard and seen in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opens with gratitude, thanks Buffalo AA friends who showed him how to live with joy
• 3:30 Reads parable from AA 25th World Service Meeting — the king's road and the bag of gold under the rocks
• 7:00 Grew up in a stable loving home, parents married 58 years, no alcoholism — yet here he is
• 10:00 First drunk at 13 on Southern Comfort, mother saved him from choking in the night
• 14:00 The beaker analogy — fear, shame, hopelessness dissolve when you pour alcohol in
• 20:00 Got drunk before the LSAT, scored 98th percentile — falling up
• 26:00 Doctor delivers the liver enzyme verdict: 748, dead within a year
• 33:00 Relapse cycle — two treatment centers and a detox before finally being willing to try the steps
• 39:00 Sponsor Mark helps him find his own conception of a higher power — as we understood him
• 48:00 The mama bear story — throwing rocks in sock feet with one drink, illustrating flawed alcoholic thinking
• 54:00 Closes with the Gospel of Matthew passage from an AA pamphlet — the blind see, the lame walk, the poor in spirit have the good news told to them