Step 7 and the Seven Step Prayer as a Mantra – Carla R.

About This Speaker Tape

1987. The date the clock restarted. Carla R. describes the "spiritual cushion" that stands between her and the first drink, warning that when the cushion shrinks, the mental defense vanishes. For her, alcohol was the "great counterfeit power," a quick fix that replaced the need to wonder about a Higher Power's will. She speaks of the "bottom below the bottom" and the grit required to stop digging.

The narrative shifts to the wreckage of a mother who once left her daughter for four years to live on a barstool, only to face the mirror of her own failures when that daughter returned home at eleven years old, bloody and jumped by gangs. Carla details the "pukey little stuff" of ego—like trying to run the show at a minimum-wage job at Home Depot—and the necessity of a daily reprieve. From the trauma of a violent intruder to the simplicity of breathing through her nose to keep her mouth shut, she treats the steps as a recipe for survival.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Dale introduces Carla R. and mentions her calming presence.
• 2:15 Carla discusses the 'spiritual cushion' that stands between her and the first drink.
• 6:40 Discussion of the 'bedevilments' on page 52 of the Big Book and the need to change one's point of view.
• 11:20 Carla describes the 'absence of catastrophe' as a marker of emotional sobriety.
• 15:45 A raw account of her history of abusing her daughter and the guilt associated with it.
• 20:10 The 'Home Depot monastery' story: learning to be a helpful employee under a teenage supervisor.
• 26:30 A harrowing account of being raped by an intruder five years into sobriety.
• 31:10 The courtroom scene: applying the Step 11 perspective to her attacker.
• 35:40 Closing thoughts on the lifelong practice of inventory and the daily reprieve.