Thirteen Years Sober and Planning to Jump Off the Building Before My Sponsor Said Get Professional Help – Sandy W.

About This Speaker Tape

Sandy shares a raw, unflinching story that begins with a childhood shaped by loss and chaos in New Jersey. As a kid desperate for attention and approval, he lied compulsively, climbed trees in his tuxedo at weddings, and avoided schoolwork at all costs. His world cracked open when his parents divorced, his father attempted suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in the family garage — Sandy was the one who called 911 — and then his sister died of throat cancer at boarding school age. His grandmother followed the next year. By the time Sandy was 13, he was numb to death and ready to drink.

His first drunk on warm Moosehead beer made him sick, but getting high before high school was the real ignition point — from that moment, using was all he wanted to do. He failed classes, stole change from his mother's car for toll money, got arrested with a weapon and drugs, and was shipped to a wilderness program in New Mexico followed by three years in an abusive "emotional growth school" that introduced him to AA through a warped lens. He graduated with 3.5 years sober, relapsed within two months (a fortune cookie warned him), and descended into substances he never thought he would touch.

After burning through his inheritance in Atlanta, getting kicked out by roommates who threatened to shoot him, and ending up feverish on the side of Memorial Drive after a rave, a family friend gave him the choice: get out of the car on I-20 or go to Ridgeview. He chose rehab but left against medical advice, relapsed again, and finally stumbled into lasting sobriety around 2002 when friends doing a book study pulled him along almost by accident. He cried watching Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man the day after his fifth step — the first real emotion he had felt in years.

Sobriety brought its own challenges: eight years to finish a four-year math degree, watching his closest sober friends relapse and some die, overworking himself into suicidal ideation at 13 years sober, a crisis of faith at 16 years, and pandemic isolation. Through it all, Sandy kept showing up — GSR duties, district meetings, service work. He names the gift AA gives him plainly: those few seconds of pause between a destructive thought and acting on it. That space, he says, is everything.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction — Sandy opens with his sponsor's advice to get dressed up for speaking
• 2:00 Childhood in Connecticut and New Jersey — climbing trees in a tuxedo, lying compulsively for approval
• 5:00 Parents' divorce and father's suicide attempt — Sandy calls 911 from the neighbor's house
• 8:00 Sister's cancer diagnosis and death, grandmother's death the following year — becoming numb to loss
• 12:00 First drunk on warm Moosehead, first high before high school — instant obsession with using
• 17:00 Arrests, wilderness program in New Mexico, and three years in an abusive emotional growth school
• 22:00 Relapse after 3.5 years sober, fortune cookie warning, descent into harder substances in Atlanta
• 27:00 Rock bottom — feverish on Memorial Drive, family friend offers rehab or the side of I-20
• 31:00 Getting sober by accident through friends doing a book study, crying at Spider-Man after his fifth step
• 36:00 Suicidal ideation at 13 years sober, sponsor's humility in directing him to outside help, return to Ridgeview
• 40:00 Higher power crisis, pandemic isolation, service work as DCM, and the gift of the pause between thought and action