Steps 6 and 7 — My Two Biggest Defects Are Fear and False Pride Which Is Also Fear – Michelle M.

About This Speaker Tape

Michelle M. shares from the Monday night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NABA Club, sober since Martin Luther King's birthday — January 15, 1989 — and now 26 years dry. She grew up in South Philadelphia above a funeral home, one of six daughters in an Irish-Italian Catholic family with a rageful father who beat them and a mother who hid her own family's rampant alcoholism until after she died. Michelle's older sister handed her a gulp of Southern Comfort at 14 to bring her out of her shyness; she went home, sat in the basement, and thought, "I love this." By 16 she was a blackout drinker, slipping into Jersey bars, watering down her father's scotch until he caught on, and puking up gallons of Gallo Paisano.

The disease progressed through college and a federal job in central Pennsylvania, where she used sick leave for hangovers and totaled a car against a telephone pole, knocking out her front teeth in a blackout. Grad school in Charlottesville was worse — driving drunk, checking under the car each morning for damage, wondering why she was still alive. The last drunk was on the Eastern Shore of Virginia: she lost her handbag, took out a mailbox, woke up in a research station with no money, and had to borrow gas money from the caretaker to cross the Bay Bridge home. The first AA meeting she'd tried a year earlier had felt dark and dismal; the second one was big, jolly, and sunlit.

Her first year stuck because she went to the Episcopal church next to the Catholic one, saw a counselor, and slowly built up to six meetings a week. Then came seven dry years of drift — too few meetings, a marriage to another sober alcoholic that fell apart, the crazy returning. A woman with a Volkswagen van and an AA triangle decal pulled her back in, and a Richmond crew of mountain-biker AAs cemented the habit. Her sponsor Donna — picked because of how she shared, not because she had what Michelle wanted — produced a quantum leap. Michelle moved to Atlanta in 2009 for her dream job at the CDC with 20 years sober and felt brand new all over again.

The heart of the talk is the God box: a willow box with a brass clasp that a friend gave her, which she filled with post-it notes of names and resentments until she finally understood what "turn it over" meant. She names fear and false pride as her two biggest defects, credits service jobs (treasurer, GSR, church work) with saving her more than sponsorship did, and says the gift of this program is a real relationship with a Higher Power she now loves instead of fears.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Jackie introduces Michelle M. from the TOCO group, sober since MLK's birthday 1989
• 2:30 South Philly upbringing above a funeral home, Irish-Italian Catholic family, rageful father, mother who hid the family alcoholism
• 5:30 First drink at 14 — Southern Comfort in a friend's basement with her older sister, came home and thought 'I love this'
• 9:00 Watering down father's scotch until he told them to stop, drinking gallons of Gallo Paisano, Jersey bars at 15
• 14:00 Totaled the car into a telephone pole in a blackout, knocked out front teeth, finally knew she was the problem drinker
• 20:00 Last drunk on the Eastern Shore — lost handbag, took out a mailbox, borrowed gas money from the research station caretaker
• 26:00 Walks past the Catholic church to the Episcopal church next door — finds a spiritual home that doesn't trigger her resentment
• 34:00 Seven dry years of drift — DC isolation, marriage to another sober alcoholic falling apart
• 42:00 Volkswagen van with the AA decal in the parking lot — pulled back into meetings via the Richmond mountain-biker crew
• 52:00 The willow box with the brass clasp — fills it with post-it notes and finally understands what 'turn it over' means