Stopping Drinking Is Not the Same as Getting Sober — a High Bottom Still Needs the Steps – Patty P.

About This Speaker Tape

Patty, a high-bottom drunk sober since December 14, 1997, shares from the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NABBA Club. Born in 1959 to two alcoholic parents in a violent home, she was given NyQuil by her mother starting at age five to help her sleep, then passed out behind friends in grade-school huffing games, and escaped into dares for a few minutes of feeling okay in her skin. She dropped out of high school, ran with users and dropouts, and at eighteen fell in love with alcohol over 65-cent Budweisers in a European bar — the clouds opened and she finally felt she belonged.

She drank her way through nursing school, a 14-year first marriage, and a long run of fooling around with other men while telling herself that no intercourse meant no infidelity. Trying to get pregnant and staring at her own bleary mirror face, she stopped drinking in 1988 — but not successfully. Off the alcohol, flashbacks of sexual abuse by her father came up, she was diagnosed with a dissociative disorder, cycled through mental hospitals, and spent years as a zombie on benzos and antipsychotics prescribed by an addictionologist she had not been honest with.

Her last drink came in 1997. A therapist refused to keep working with her unless she went to AA; love for a man she met in the rooms in 1999 got her to meetings seven days a week; his 2003 relapse drove her into Al-Anon, where a sponsor who spent two free hours with her and demanded she get a real AA sponsor and work the steps finally broke her open. She argued her way through Step Two but came to believe by watching herself and others recover.

Today Patty is weaned off all mood-altering drugs under a doctor's care, holds the same job she has had nearly her whole sobriety, sponsors three women she adores, and — after shacking up fifteen years — recently married her partner. In September he was diagnosed with stage four head and neck cancer, the same cancer that killed her mother. She came of age watching her mom die as a saint; AA has taught her nobody is a saint, her sobriety has to come first, and she and her husband will both be carried a day at a time.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Julie opens the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at NABBA and introduces Patty
• 2:30 Patty identifies as a high-bottom drunk sober since December 14, 1997, home group NABBA Bridge Builders
• 5:00 Born feeling weird — chameleon kid, took dares, climbed the flagpole for a few minutes of feeling okay
• 8:00 Mother administered NyQuil at age five to make her sleep, and the huffing games at school that knocked her out
• 13:00 First real drunk in Europe at eighteen on 65-cent Budweisers — the clouds opened and she finally felt she belonged
• 18:00 Cheating her way through a 14-year marriage while calling herself faithful because she did not have intercourse
• 24:00 Stopped drinking in 1988, flashbacks of her father surfaced, dissociative disorder diagnosis, years of benzos and antipsychotics
• 32:00 1997 last drink; 1999 met her man in AA and followed him to meetings seven days a week
• 38:00 2003 Al-Anon sponsor who spent two free hours with her refused to keep working unless she got a real AA sponsor and worked the steps
• 48:00 Husband's stage-four head and neck cancer, the same cancer that killed her mother, and choosing to put her sobriety first so she can be of service to him