The Book I Was Going to Write Was Called It’s All About Me 🤦 – David K.

About This Speaker Tape

David shares his story at the Monday Night Blue Chips speakers meeting at NABBA, returning to the podium a year after his previous talk. His sobriety date is October 13, 2013. He drank and used from age 15 to 50 — a long, slow slide punctuated by blackouts rather than daily drinking.

He traces the arc from his first drink at age 12 after synagogue (too sick to go to Radio City Music Hall with his family), through a New Year's Eve in high school where friends left him passed out in front of his parents' house, through a fraternity initiation blackout, and into a 1986 Bonita Springs, Florida night that ended with him walking down the street out of control, picked up by an undercover police officer, a gash on his foot, and losing his first job out of grad school. The bottom finally arrived in 2013 in Dunwoody: arrested, three nights in DeKalb County Jail over Columbus Day weekend. In the cell he wrote a letter to his Higher Power and to his family saying this was it.

An attorney told him to get to meetings before anything else. He landed at the 81-11 group, sat in a chair, and kept coming back. DeKalb drug court ran alongside AA and humbled him out of his three-months-sober know-it-all phase. He has had four sponsors, did his fifth step in the parking lot of Marist, and credits meetings — at home and on the road for his sales job — with keeping him sober.

The payoff shows up in the relationships. His mother was diagnosed with cancer in February and died in April; this time he was present — shades up, phone on, close with his sister and mom in her final weeks. His sons, 19 and almost 16, have gone to meetings with him and know their dad is sober. The president of the Japanese company that bought his employer keeps telling him how much he has changed.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tim opens the Monday Night Blue Chips speakers meeting at NABBA, reads page 29, introduces David for his return visit
• 2:00 David introduces himself — sobriety date October 13, 2013, drank and used from 15 to 50
• 4:00 First drink at age 12 after synagogue — grape wine, too sick to go to Radio City with family, never forgot the feeling
• 7:00 High school New Year's passed out in front of parents' house; fraternity initiation blackout in college
• 10:00 1986 Bonita Springs Florida — happy hour with roommate, woke up walking down the street, gash on foot, undercover cop, lost the job
• 15:00 MARTA train to a Memphis business meeting after an all-night bender — railroad-track rock-bottom image
• 18:00 2013 arrest in Dunwoody, three nights in DeKalb County Jail, letter to his Higher Power written in the cell
• 23:00 Attorney tells him to get to meetings; first meeting at 81-11 at 10 o'clock, humbling call from St. Louis
• 28:00 Fifth step in the parking lot of Marist; DeKalb drug court running alongside AA
• 38:00 Mother diagnosed with cancer in February, died in April — present instead of shades-down isolating; sons 19 and 16 know their dad is sober