Took Direction From a Higher Power Instead of My Own Plans and the Anger Just Evaporated – Kelly T.

About This Speaker Tape

Kelly T. from the Gainesville Morning Miracles Women's Group speaks at the Monday Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NAVA Club. Sober since March 15, 2017, she's 36 years old, an abstract painter who now owns a paint party business where she teaches art. She cracks open a LaCroix, opens with the Third Step Prayer, and admits she loses her train of thought if she makes eye contact. She describes a magical early childhood shadowed by a young intuition that drinking and her Higher Power were somehow connected — an instinctive reluctance she eventually overrode at 14 at a boyfriend's house, where the first drink melted her insecurity and she felt warm, happy, released from care.

The progression was long and slow — slow enough to boil the frog. College brought an ADHD diagnosis, Adderall abuse that suppressed appetite and worsened suicidal feelings, and her heaviest drinking ever in freshman year. After graduating with an art degree, she bounced between her mom's place, her brother's, and Atlanta, where she was evicted. Back home, she sank into free-roll poker at a daytime bar and kept a studio at Tannery Row Artist Colony in Buford where she couldn't paint without alcohol and something else. Her last resentment came after a blackout at the poker place — she woke at her mother's house with no memory, her dog left barking in a cage at the studio, a ladder up, her car missing.

She came into the rooms at 29. She's had the same sponsor her entire sobriety, works the steps at book level, and describes the Step 9 amends to her father — after two years of no contact and a resentment so heavy she feared drinking over it — as the moment the anger evaporated, even though he never apologized or owned his side. She's candid that pain doesn't disappear in sobriety: she's giving this talk fresh off fifteen days stranded in another country after her relationship with her partner collapsed on a trip abroad. She didn't yell, didn't drink, read a Buddhism book, prayed, did step work with her sponsor at 1 a.m. her time, and made it back in one piece.

She quotes Sandy B. — the program in two words is let go — and Mel Robbins on the five-second window where courage fades. Her core instruction to newcomers: move in those inches and seconds, fight for the life you were meant to have before everything got to you.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Meeting opens — Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at NAVA Club, Big Book page 29 preamble, Kelly T. introduced from Gainesville Morning Miracles Women's Group
• 2:30 Kelly cracks a LaCroix, says the Third Step Prayer, admits she stares off to avoid eye contact
• 5:30 Magical early childhood, an intuitive spiritual reluctance to drink, then the awkward stage ends and the popular kids start paying attention
• 9:00 First drink at 14 at a boyfriend's house — body felt warm, happy, released from all care and worry
• 13:30 ADHD diagnosis in high school, Adderall reaction — suicidal feelings, appetite loss, heavy freshman-year drinking
• 20:00 Art degree, abstract painter identity, the romance of the mess, fun becoming fun-and-problems becoming just problems
• 28:00 Tannery Row studio, free-roll poker during the day, the blackout morning and waking at mom's house with the dog left in a cage
• 38:00 First meeting at 29, same sponsor ever since, step work in the Big Book — obsession, allergy, spiritual malady hitting her in the gut
• 48:00 Step 9 amends to her father after two years of no contact — resentment evaporates even though he doesn't apologize or own his side
• 56:00 Fifteen days stranded abroad after her relationship falls apart — Buddhism book, prayer, 1 a.m. step work with her sponsor, no drink; closes with Sandy B.'s 'let go' and Mel Robbins on inches and seconds