Step 4 Wasn’t a List of People I Hurt — It Was Finding Out Why I’m a Selfish Son of a B*tch – Glenn S.

About This Speaker Tape

Glenn S. tells his story at the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NAVA Club, celebrating ten years of sobriety with a date of January 15, 2007. Raised in Atlanta near Chastain Park in a loving, stable home he compares to the Cleavers, Glenn started stealing liquor from the cabinet at 15 or 16 and got honorable mention for being the drunkest guy at every college party. After graduation he chased an endless road trip through California and ended up staying two and a half years in the Rockies working at a restaurant where the drugs and booze were constant. He got his first taste of AA there, stayed sober five months, then slipped right back when winter came.

Back in Atlanta he picked up two DUIs within seven months and never once connected them to his drinking. He met his future wife, moved to Orlando, then back to Atlanta for the family business. Their twin daughters were born preemies at under three pounds in 1998, and Glenn was passed out drunk when his wife's water broke at 2 a.m. — she had to shake him awake to drive her to Northside Hospital. He hid half-pints in his boots, poured gallon vodka bottles into marked water bottles under the bed, and commuted home on 400 cracking beers in traffic.

By 2005 his wife had enough and they separated. Living alone in Decatur, Alabama, Glenn turned professional — paranoid, bloated, feeling his organs cramp, terrified he'd die on a couch like a friend of his had. On January 4, 2007 he walked drunk into an AA meeting, got gently redirected to the Al-Anon room by two kind men who drove him home, then poured every bottle down the sink and cried until five in the morning. His brother drove from Atlanta to haul him to rehab in Nashville.

Home from rehab, Glenn hit 150 meetings in 90 days but had no sponsor, no steps, and was miserable enough to see two shrinks. A 5:30 a.m. meeting full of old-timers slowly pulled him over to their table. When a friend told him to just go get drunk since he wasn't working the program anyway, Glenn asked Eddie to sponsor him the next morning. Step Four cracked him open. He reconciled with his wife after a year of work, disclosed his alcoholism in a job interview and got hired anyway, and found a Higher Power he describes as having no gender or religious affiliation — a power greater than alcohol, which had clearly been more powerful than him.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tim opens the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NAVA Club and reads the page 29 preamble
• 2:30 Glenn introduces himself, sobriety date January 15, 2007, says he was a dead man walking
• 5:00 Atlanta childhood near Chastain Park — Cleavers household, great parents, no voices raised, alcohol present but never abused
• 10:00 College and the two-and-a-half-year Rockies stretch — first AA meetings in Colorado, five months sober before winter relapse
• 18:00 Two DUIs in seven months, meets future wife, Orlando move after knowing her two months, daughters born preemie in 1998 while he was passed out drunk
• 26:00 Decatur, Alabama — hiding half-pints in his boots, vodka in marked water bottles, 40th birthday dinner where his mother cried while he just wanted to leave
• 34:00 January 4, 2007 — walks drunk into a meeting, two men redirect him to the Al-Anon room and follow him home, pours every bottle down the sink and cries until dawn
• 40:00 Brother drives from Atlanta to Decatur to take him to rehab in Nashville — the padded room he needed
• 46:00 150 meetings in 90 days with no sponsor, still miserable, old-timers at the 5:30 a.m. stairway group invite him over to their table
• 54:00 Friend tells him to go get drunk since he's not working the program — next morning asks Eddie to sponsor him, Step Four cracks him open, reconciliation with wife, disclosing his recovery in a job interview and being hired