Steps 8 and 9 – Step-Tember to Remember Workshop – Part 4 of 7 – 2025 – Cleo D.

About This Speaker Tape

Step-Tember To Remember Workshop - 2025

A philosophy degree and a habit of blowing coke to stay awake while drinking didn't save Cleo D. from a life of wreckage. She describes a chaotic youth spent stealing $31,000 from Nordstrom and driving blindfolded while a heroin-addicted friend gave directions. For years Cleo played the game of 'pretending' to work the steps switching sponsors whenever the truth became too heavy. The turning point arrived when she stopped the 'selfish amends' and faced the people she had truly harmed including a man she once tried to throw off a balcony and another she sent to prison. By confronting the lies she told herself to remain the victim Cleo found a professional and spiritual freedom that shifted her from a 'scary person' to someone capable of honest living. She now navigates the tension between her career in decorative painting and the daily discipline of not letting her ego run the show.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Opening reading from the Big Book, page 79.
• 3:15 Laughter: Cleo jokes about the 'smart' female speakers all having philosophy degrees.
• 5:40 Cleo describes the chaos of driving blindfolded while a friend gave directions.
• 11:20 Discussion of Step 8 and 9 and the 'selfish amends' she made early in sobriety.
• 16:45 Cleo details stealing $31,000 from Nordstrom and the subsequent amends.
• 24:10 Analysis of the Conduct Inventory and the necessity of making amends to opposite-sex partners.
• 33:50 The story of the Starbucks meeting and the revelation that she tried to throw a man off a balcony.
• 42:15 Account of making amends to a man she sent to prison while he smoked a joint.
• 51:30 Discussion of the 'constitutionally incapable' and the struggle for self-honesty.
• 58:10 A current-day example of a Step 10 amends to a coworker regarding workplace boundaries.