The People Who Quit Meetings and Stay Sober Aren’t Here to Tell Us – Jeff P.

About This Speaker Tape

Jeff P. shares his journey through two rounds of alcoholism and recovery. Growing up as a self-described nerd in Farmington, Missouri, he worked in a hospital pharmacy at 16 and stole his first bottle of vodka at 17. He drank exclusively to get drunk, flunked out of pharmacy school, and watched his first marriage crumble over 11 years. He eventually graduated first in his pharmacy class but used his access to narcotics to feed a growing pill addiction alongside his drinking, mirroring Dr. Bob's pattern of sedatives by day and alcohol by night.

He entered a 28-day treatment center in Boca Raton on August 26, 1988, weighing just 128 pounds at six foot one. He arrived believing they would detox him and teach him to drink properly. Instead, he encountered AA for the first time at the facility's Sunday night meetings and was struck by how genuinely happy the sober people seemed. He got a home group, worked the steps with two sponsors, and stayed sober for over a decade.

But Jeff stopped going to meetings, reasoning that people who quit meetings and stayed sober simply were not around to report it. Without a support system, he crumbled when his third wife fell into a severe depression. Standing in the narcotics closet of a Jacksonville hospital, he convinced himself he could pocket a few pills and even things out in a couple weeks. A year later he was walked out in handcuffs and convicted of drug possession.

He surrendered his pharmacy license, moved in with his mother on house arrest, and started over at the Driftwood Club's Living Sober group. This time he realized he had only turned over his alcoholism in his third step, not his whole life. He threw himself into general service, becoming a GSR, DCM, area webmaster, and multiple other roles. Twelve years into his second sobriety, he builds guitars, runs a web design business, and credits service work as the requirement that keeps him connected to the program.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Jeff P. introduces himself — sober August 26, 1988, relapsed, back June 4, 2002
• 2:00 Growing up as the nerd who gave a high school speech on bringing back prohibition
• 4:00 Working in hospital pharmacy at 16 and stealing his first bottle of vodka at 17
• 8:00 Pharmacy school in Kansas City — girlfriend announces pregnancy, married at 20
• 12:00 Flunking out of pharmacy school, drinking escalating, daughter Michelle born
• 16:00 Working at Eckerd in West Boca — sedatives by day, drinking by night, mirroring Dr. Bob's pattern
• 20:00 Treatment center in Boca Raton — arrived at 128 pounds expecting to learn how to drink properly
• 26:00 Stopped going to meetings after several years sober, second and third marriages fail
• 30:00 Standing in the narcotics closet — 'I could take some of this stuff, couple weeks things will even out'
• 35:00 Starting over at the Driftwood Club, service work as a requirement for sobriety, making guitars