The Pause Button That Saved Her Family – Sharon C.

About This Speaker Tape

A broken jaw and a concussion in a Louisiana ditch served as the final slide across the bar for Sharon C. Her wreckage is a map of defiance: stealing booze in Iowa screaming at organic sheep in Wisconsin and working a shooting gallery in a carnival where she maced patrons with tequila in her system. After a stint in a Bogalusa lockup and a period of homelessness in Los Angeles she found a lifeline through a woman named Chris and a man named Maurice S. who wrote her sobriety date in pencil in her Big Book

. Sharon details the slow painstaking process of mending fences with her father through a four-year series of checks and letters and the grief of losing her husband Casey to cancer. She speaks of 'smart feet'—the intuitive drive to show up for the program even when the head is grumpy—and the ripple effect of a quiet sober example.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Sharon C. opens with her sobriety count and a quote from the Big Book about the 'age of miracles'.
• 6:15 Description of her rebellious youth in Iowa and the feeling of connection alcohol provided.
• 11:40 The carnival years and the incident in Louisiana that led to her arrest.
• 16:20 Details of her 'bottom' in a Louisiana lockup and the subsequent DTs.
• 22:10 The 'slide across the bar' in Los Angeles and the loss of employment at Barney's Beanery.
• 30:45 The physical assault that broke her jaw and her spiritual experience in the ditch.
• 36:10 Arrival at her first AA meeting and meeting Maurice S., who wrote her date in her Big Book.
• 42:30 The 'pause button' and a cathartic moment in an Iowa cornfield.
• 47:15 The detailed process of making amends to her father via checks and letters.
• 54:20 The story of her father 12-stepping the town drunk.
• 60:10 Discussion of her husband Casey's battle with cancer and the support of the men in AA.
• 66:40 Closing thoughts on 'smart feet' and the Third Step Prayer.