Terminal Uniqueness at Seven Years Old Is How I Drank Before I Ever Drank – Isaac T.

About This Speaker Tape

Isaac shares from the Monday night Blue Shield Speaker Meeting at the NAVA Club, with a sobriety date of August 21, 2007 and a home group of Easy Does It in Atlanta. He grew up in Northern California feeling fundamentally different from everyone around him. His father died of lung cancer when he was two, his mother struggled with mental health problems and minimum-wage work, and after she remarried and started a new family, Isaac felt like an outsider in his own home. By thirteen or fourteen, his first drink was euphoric — he knew immediately he never wanted to give it up.

By nineteen he was drinking daily, couldn't hold a job, was stealing and fighting, and got kicked out by his mother and stepfather. With nowhere else to go, he flew across the country to an aunt in Atlanta. Her three rules — no drinking, no drugs, pay rent — were rules he could not keep. After getting kicked out and arrested for public intoxication, he stood outside the DeKalb County jail with no idea where he was. His aunt offered to take him to a meeting before buying him a one-way ticket anywhere he wanted. He went to NABBA at 5:45 PM on August 21, 2007, and for the first time in his life, the people he heard could relate to him.

A group of members let him detox at their place and gave him somewhere to live. He got a sponsor, worked the Steps, and learned the Eighth Step required forgiving people too — including the stepfather who had stolen money from him. Around the year mark he relapsed into chaos without drinking — got fired, kicked out — and a fellow he'd met his first day took him in. That man's wife was diagnosed with cancer and Isaac had the privilege of driving her to chemotherapy.

Eight years in, he's a lead machine designer transferring to Georgia Tech, married to another recovering alcoholic, and a new father to a baby boy. About a year ago his mother died — she'd confessed to him at nine months sober that she was using drugs and drinking again. He attended her funeral and felt grief mixed with relief. He says he's living a better life than he ever dared want when he was drinking.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Meeting opening at NAVA Club Blue Shield Speaker Meeting, Isaac introduced
• 1:30 Born in Northern California, father dies of lung cancer at age two
• 5:00 Mother remarries, new family forms — Isaac feels visibly excluded
• 7:30 First drink at thirteen or fourteen — euphoric, knew right away he'd never give it up
• 12:00 Kicked out at 19, aunt in Atlanta agrees to take him in with three rules
• 17:00 Arrested for public intoxication, released outside DeKalb County jail with nowhere to go
• 20:30 First meeting at NABBA, August 21, 2007 — heard people he could finally relate to
• 26:00 Eighth Step — learning he had to forgive his stepfather before making amends
• 38:00 Year-sober crash: lost job and apartment, friend took him in while wife battled cancer
• 48:00 Mother's death, funeral next to his father, relief mixed with grief