The Danger of Meeting-Based Sobriety – Katie P.

About This Speaker Tape

1966, a hospital room in Texas. A nine-year-old girl looks at her sick mother and thinks only one thing: I want out of here. Katie P. doesn't start with a drunk story because "there's a lot of humor in drunk stories, but I don't know that there's a lot of knowledge." Instead, she traces a lifetime of being "self-consumed," from the childhood thrill of hyperventilating to the "old ideas" that turned her into a professional cheater in school.

She warns against the trap of meeting-based sobriety—getting the "relief" of the rooms without the "freedom" of the steps. Katie describes the danger of "finding Jesus" without a program, admitting she once nearly shoved a woman into an intersection "under the name of Jesus." The wreckage peaks with the death of her husband; she recalls the brutal honesty of her first thought upon his diagnosis: I'm going to drive that damn bus forever. Now, she relies on a Higher Power and the grit of active sponsorship to stay sane.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction and gratitude for sobriety since 1984.
• 4:15 Laughter: Discussion of being the 'tortured' third-born child.
• 7:30 Childhood memories of hyperventilating and using Vicks F. 44 to change how she felt.
• 12:40 The 'right on red' incident in Texas and the danger of spirituality without a program.
• 16:10 Discussion of 'meeting-based sobriety' and the difference between relief and freedom.
• 20:45 Stories from her time driving a school bus and her 'self-will run riot' with the students.
• 25:10 The discovery of Joe's brain tumor and her honest reaction to the news.
• 28:30 The tragedy of Joe's death from a heroin overdose and the return of the obsession.
• 31:00 How Mark H. and Chris R. pulled her back into a Big Book study.
• 34:20 Closing thoughts on the necessity of working with others to survive.