Seventh Step Prayer — Please Only Remove the Defects That Are Giving Me Trouble, Leave the Rest – Beth B.

About This Speaker Tape

Beth B. tells her story at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NABA Club, marking just over nine years sober with a sobriety date of January 18, 2008. She grew up in a single-wide trailer in Hall County, Georgia, pulled between her mother's wealthy family and her father's chicken-farming poverty. Early scenes — cutting a hole in a silver-coin piggy bank to buy school supplies so kids would like her, getting mocked in a private school for saying "zinnia," being called a quitter by her father — set the pattern of never fitting in. Her first drink came at 14 at a Jekyll Island Elks Club convention with cold duck. From the first sip she fit in her own skin. She went to Emory at 16, worked for a congressman in D.C., came back to UGA on a scholarship, then took over the family highway-construction business when her father got cancer.

She married into a heavy-drinking family, had three children, and knew she was an alcoholic when she could not stay sober nine months carrying the second child and not a single day with the third. A husband-ultimatum in January 1990 got her 90 days; she picked back up and eventually stayed out for a year and a day — then ran it for seven more years. The bottom came in late 2007: half a gallon of vodka a day, paying women to stand her in the shower, and a January 18, 2008 morning where she arrived at detox so determined she had thrown up two bottles of Dom Pérignon the night before and blew a 0.0. Her mother drove her to the liquor store for a pint of vodka so they would admit her.

Sixteen weeks inpatient, and sobriety by the skin of her teeth. The steps came grudgingly, then gratefully. A hidden criminal secret from her Emory days — she set a fire to get out of an exam — came out in a fifth step in her sponsor's Buford living room; her sponsor laughed. Things changed around year four when she finally sponsored another woman and realized she was a miracle too. She credits the six words — trust Higher Power, clean house, serve others — and a willingness to keep redoing the steps instead of thinking they were one-and-done.

She closes with the scene that made her "what I'm like now" real: six years sober, her sixteen-year-old son handed her a half-gallon of vodka he had found hidden in the roll-top oak desk drawer where the computer tower slid out. He had poured it down the sink. She walked around the house holding the empty glass handle for thirty minutes before her husband took it. The warmth and security of that bottle came right back. She accepts a Hall County Jail AA-qualified-member badge with laughter and is followed by Julie's 22-year medallion.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tim reads the Blue Chip Speakers preamble from page 29 and introduces Beth B. as a big-book thumper with sponsees everywhere
• 2:30 Disclaimer: childhood stories are shared without resentment, they are part of the journey
• 4:00 First drink at 14 with cold duck at a Jekyll Island Elks Club convention — fit in her skin from the first sip
• 6:30 Silver-coin piggy bank and the spanking for buying her classmates' affection
• 10:00 Emory at 16, a congressman's office in D.C., back to UGA on scholarship, taking over the family highway-construction business
• 15:00 Marriage into a heavy-drinking family, three children, could not stay sober nine months with the second or one day with the third
• 20:00 January 18, 2008 — two bottles of Dom Pérignon thrown up, 0.0 breathalyzer, mother buying the pint that got her admitted
• 27:00 Fifth step in Buford — the hidden Emory arson secret, her sponsor laughing, the weight lifting
• 38:00 Year-four turning point — sponsoring a dying woman whose liver was failing and watching her turn around in 90 days
• 48:00 Six years sober — the half-gallon of vodka in the roll-top desk drawer, holding the empty glass handle for thirty minutes