Surrender Looked Like Two Choices on the Patio — Keep Drinking or Keep My Kids – Lisa K.

About This Speaker Tape

Lisa, sober since April 8, 2012, tells her story at the Monday Night Blue Chips Speakers Meeting at the NABA Club. Spoiled and reinforced for tantrums as a child, she had her first drink at thirteen — four wine coolers with a friend named Lisa — woke up sick, and immediately wanted to do it again. That pattern set the tempo for the next two decades. First DUI at nineteen; in the holding cell she cried not about the arrest but because the cops took her jewelry. She married Bob at twenty-eight, had kids in 2001 and 2003, and collected DUIs five and six in 2002 — rolled into a single sentence in front of a Gwinnett County judge who called her a menace to society. Work release, house arrest, community service in an orange vest cleaning park toilets. None of it stopped her drinking.

In 2010 the court ordered her to AA. She did the minimum — two meetings a week, three when she wanted to escape Bob — and walked into her four-month chip with ten or twelve drinking friends seated in the back of the room. She drank again. Had a friend buy her a six-pack so no one from AA would see her at the store, finished it, and knew immediately she needed more. That was the moment she understood she was an alcoholic. DUI number seven followed. Her kids called Bob in California one night because they couldn't wake her. Neighbors took the children out of the house while she was outside, oblivious.

Spring break 2012, Bob took the kids and left. Alone, broken, she finally heard her sponsor-to-be Leslie say, 'That's the sound of your head coming out of your tuchus.' A friend who had never told anyone shared that her own mother had died of alcoholism eight years earlier. A high school friend suggested Easter Sunday, April 8, as a sobriety date — a rebirth. Lisa walked back in, took another white chip, and stayed.

For the seventh DUI she expected prison and got house arrest with two ankle monitors — one SCRAM, one GPS. Her probation officer asked her to talk to the other women on her caseload. Today she and Bob have celebrated sixteen years, the kids are twelve and fourteen, and she credits a Higher Power and the AA fellowship for trading restless, irritable, and discontent for happy, joyous, and free.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Kat chairs the Monday Night Blue Chips Speakers Meeting at the NABA Club and introduces Lisa
• 2:30 Lisa identifies — sobriety date April 8, 2012, home group First Things First in Beaufort
• 6:00 First drink at thirteen — four wine coolers with her friend Lisa, walking sideways through the room
• 9:30 First DUI at nineteen — crying in the holding cell because the cops took her jewelry, not about the arrest
• 16:00 DUIs five and six in 2002 rolled into one sentence; Gwinnett County judge calls her a menace to society
• 22:00 Passed out at home while Bob is in California; the kids call him because they can't wake her
• 28:00 Court-ordered to AA in 2010 — invites ten drinking friends to whoop in the back when she picks up her four-month chip
• 34:00 Has a friend buy her a six-pack so AA won't see her at the store; finishes it and knows immediately she's alcoholic
• 42:00 Spring break 2012 — friend tells her, 'That's the sound of your head coming out of your tuchus'
• 52:00 Seventh DUI sentenced to house arrest with two ankle monitors; probation officer asks Lisa to talk to other women on her caseload