Skulking Across the Street to Steal Miller Lites from the Neighbor’s Carport Fridge Like a Grown Man 🫠 – David H.

About This Speaker Tape

David H. shares his story at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the Nava Club. Born in Atlanta to parents who both suffered from alcoholism — his mother died from the disease at 71 — David traces his drinking back to age 14, when he and friends bought Mad Dog 20/20 and Boone's Farm from guys outside the Claremont liquor store. He got terribly sick and couldn't wait to do it again the next day. He went on to the University of Georgia, where the drinking age was 18 due to the Vietnam War, and he became what he calls a functional alcoholic — keeping his grades up while drinking more than anyone around him.

David built a career in finance at AT&T, married a drinking buddy, and had two children, Katie and David Jr. They moved from Atlanta to New Jersey, then to London, then to Northern Virginia. Through it all, his drinking progressed steadily. In New Jersey he drove his small children around in snowstorms with a cooler of Miller Lite beside him, and his four-year-old daughter asked him why he drank so much beer. He stole beers from the neighbors' carport refrigerator. He used his role as the family provider to bully his wife into silence. He cycled through babysitters because he and his wife would come home hours late, drunk and arguing in the driveway.

By the time they returned to Atlanta, the marriage was irretrievably broken. His daughter didn't want him to move her into her college dorm because she was afraid he'd stagger. On February 2, 2006, David ended up in the North Fulton Hospital emergency room after a fall. Doctors suspected cirrhosis. The next day — February 3, 2006, his sobriety date — he went to a primary care doctor, got a liver biopsy scheduled, and was directed to his first AA meeting at 8111 Roswell Road. The biopsy came back negative for cirrhosis, but the doctors made clear that continued drinking would be fatal. David grabbed onto that like a drowning man grabs a life preserver. He credits Higher Power with giving him the gift of desperation and the fellowship of AA as the tools to stay sober.

David closes by sharing that his brother recently passed away after a heart transplant at Duke Medical, and for the first time in his life, the thought of drinking never entered his mind during a family crisis — evidence, he says, of a program that works.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Meeting introduction and reading from page 29 of the Big Book
• 2:30 David opens with the story of his brother's death at Duke Medical and how the program sustained him through it
• 6:00 Hilarious story about Ken at the 5:45 meeting — the old crusty guy who spoke only in slogans, then took a white chip
• 9:00 Childhood in Atlanta, both parents alcoholics, father's beer ritual with Schlitz and Carling Black Label on the grill
• 12:00 Feeling different as a kid, kindergarten teacher Miss Flint raising concerns, the traumatic Ricky Landrum playdate
• 16:00 First drink at 14 with Mad Dog 20/20 and Boone's Farm, got sick and couldn't wait to do it again
• 19:00 University of Georgia years as a functional alcoholic, nearly the town drunk of Athens
• 24:00 AT&T career, marriage, move to New Jersey — neighbor Cindy giving him milk thistle, stealing beers from their carport
• 30:00 Driving kids through snowstorms with Miller Lite, daughter asking why he drinks so much, son defending him
• 36:00 London posting, Gatwick Airport bar, return to Virginia, marriage falling apart, kids confronting him
• 42:00 February 2006 — ER visit, liver scare, first AA meeting at 8111 Roswell Road, biopsy results, finding the fellowship