Tradition One Asks Me Every Morning Am I a Unifier or a Divider — Mary K.

About This Speaker Tape

Mary Catherine, 49 years old with 17 years sober, shares from the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NABBA Club. Born into a Sarasota, Florida upper-middle-class family with deep Southern roots and a one-star Army general grandfather, she describes a home full of drinking, abuse, and parents who distrusted non-drinkers. Her parents put brandy in her baby bottle; she took her first conscious drink at 11 and had her first blackout at 13 after a Tom Collins at a wedding, waking in a crown of her own vomited cherries and turning it into a joke at school the next day.

Her drinking career was a steep descent hidden in plain sight. She skipped high school for the Midnight Pass Pub, scraped through Emory's summer program, and landed at Oxford College in Covington where she presided over LBA — Les Belles Amis, or Let's Be Alcoholics — wrote bad checks at DJ's Package Store, and spray-painted her own name on historic buildings in a blackout. While she drank, her family imploded: her brother went to jail for possession with intent, her father had an affair with her mother's best friend, and her mother was hospitalized for two years.

A dry, controlling year of marriage to Wes in Virginia ended when summer stock and one beer pulled her back out. She got through the Asolo Conservatory acting master's in Sarasota, watched her father die of cancer and hid under a table to drink the day he went, then crawled through Chicago and a fired-from-a-play Christmas in Florida. A friend named Joe finally snapped at her — when are you going to grow up — and her New Year's resolution to start flossing gave way two weeks later to her first AA meeting in New York, where a woman in the back row told her she was in a safe place. She calls that night her spiritual experience.

Seventeen years later she belongs to the High Noon Group in Virginia Highlands and drifts to the NABBA Club for its strong sobriety and singleness of purpose. She leans hard on Tradition 1, asks herself daily whether she is a unifier or a divider, and frames her primary purpose as a redirect: when in doubt, go to a meeting. She is married to Wes, who got sober separately in Florida, and mothers an 11-year-old son named Harrison who has never known a drunk parent. Her closing point is simple — the gift of sobriety is sobriety; everything else is icing.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tim opens the Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers Meeting at the NABBA Club, reads the page 29 preamble, introduces Mary Catherine from the High Noon Group with her 17-year chip
• 2:30 Mary Catherine opens — 49 years old, admits she doesn't feel grateful to be asked, scared by the assignment to talk about finding a Higher Power
• 6:00 Family of origin — Sarasota, Princeton grandfather who was a one-star general in the Chemical Corps, parents who distrusted anyone who didn't drink, brandy in her baby bottle
• 10:30 First conscious blackout at 13 — Tom Collins at a wedding, 40-year-old guitar player drives her home, wakes up in a crown of vomited cherries and turns it into a joke at school
• 15:00 High school at the Midnight Pass Pub instead of class — friend picks her up, Burger King, drinks all day, home at 5 for more drinking, no one noticing or asking
• 20:00 Oxford College in Covington — bad checks at DJ's Package Store, president of LBA drinking-club hazing, spray-paints her own name on historic buildings in a blackout
• 25:00 Whole family explodes at once — brother in jail, father's affair with mother's best friend, mother hospitalized two years, Mary Catherine adrift and drinking
• 32:00 Father dies of cancer during acting grad school at Asolo Conservatory — she buys groceries and wine, never eats, drinks under a table, any illusion of foundation gone
• 38:00 Christmas at mother's house — drinks scotch, cusses out the neighbors, calls friend Joe who tells her to grow up, New Year's resolution becomes flossing
• 42:00 First AA meeting in New York in a sheepskin coat — woman at the back tells her she is in a safe place, she raises her hand and says she is Mary Catherine and just really tired