Step 6 Means Doing It, Not Just Wanting It – Diane O.
About This Speaker Tape
Diane O. shares from a 1990 assembly in Humboldt County, California, with nearly sixteen years of sobriety. She traces her alcoholism back to a childhood defined by an inner rage she could never explain — a force that drove her to attack animals, lead neighborhood gangs, and wage war on anyone who would not bend to her will. After a pivotal fight at age seven left her banned from every neighbor's home, she made a conscious decision to never show emotion again, shutting down completely and living behind a facade for the next two decades.
She describes her first drink at twenty-two as the 'magic elixir' that instantly relieved a lifetime of internal suffering, and from that moment she drank every single day. Her disease progressed through a marriage to a childhood sweetheart she did not love, an impulsive move to New Jersey chasing a man she mistook for a rescuer, a four-year obsession with converting to Catholicism to win a priest, and a hospitalization so severe she coerced a boyfriend into smuggling vodka to her through a straw while she was immobilized with IVs in both arms. She destroyed her relationship with her mother, who had flown cross-country to nurse her, by exploding at her for cleaning the apartment.
After being thrown out of detox for inciting rebellion among the other patients, Diane went back out and reached a bottom of total degradation. She crawled back to AA and spent six months white-knuckling it — refusing to identify as alcoholic, trying to get men to sponsor her, and sitting by the door. Then one day, after every red light, every grocery store aisle, and every human interaction had frustrated her to the breaking point, a bomb went off inside her. She saw a flash of a starving child from a magazine photo surrounded by rubble and recognized it as herself. In that moment, Steps One through Three landed simultaneously: she was powerless, a Higher Power had kept her alive, and she was done running the show.
She asked a woman she had admired from a distance to sponsor her, completed a thorough Fourth and Fifth Step, and learned that Step Six meant practicing right behavior — not just being willing in theory. Her sponsor guided her through service: GSR, district committee member, district chair, alternate delegate, and finally Panel 35 delegate to the General Service Conference. Each rotation stripped away more ego and taught responsibility, commitment, and how to listen. At nearly sixteen years sober, she is back serving her home group as treasurer, married to a sober AA member for eleven years, reconciled with her family, and playing competitive doubles tennis — something her old self-will could never have permitted.
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