Tried the Geographic Cure in Every State Before I Tried the First Step – Lori S.

About This Speaker Tape

Lori grew up in Michigan in a family where alcohol was everywhere. Her father was an alcoholic, though she didn't know what that really meant — to her, AA was for quitters. From kindergarten on she felt like she never fit in, even inside her own family. Her first drink was a blackout, and every drink after was for the same purpose: to get drunk. She did everything in the right order — school, career, marriages — but could never get comfortable in her own skin without alcohol.

Her drinking accelerated in secret. She hid alcohol behind the bed, in her closet, in a Yeti she filled in the bathroom, and did morning Easter egg hunts for empties before her husband could find them. She tried geographic cures, self-help books, willpower, and even took a job working for a church believing it would keep her sober — it only drove her home to drink more alone. Foxhole prayers became a nightly ritual: let tomorrow be the day. By noon she was planning the next drink. She feared dying in her sleep, and feared killing her four-year-old daughter behind the wheel.

The bottom came in pieces: a friend almost mistaking her for a fatal car accident outside the subdivision, a fellow school mom calling to say she'd smelled alcohol on her, and her husband telling her the church had a program for people who drink too much. She came in on January 1, 2018 planning to stay exactly one year — get sober, get divorced, fix her life, then drink again. Three months in, hearing people describe alcoholic selfishness, she realized she was in the right room.

Six years later she is still married, still raising her daughter, and deep into the Big Book and the 12 and 12. A second sponsor took her through a Big Book Awakening that gave her a Higher Power of her own understanding rather than the inherited one from childhood. She no longer reaches for a drink when life gets loud — she reaches for the tools and the women who will come drag her off the floor when she needs it.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Blue Chip Speakers meeting intro and reading from page 29 of the Big Book
• 2:30 Lori introduces herself — the two committees in her head fighting over whether she's a real alcoholic or a fraud
• 6:00 Growing up in Michigan — alcohol everywhere, AA was for quitters, never felt like she fit in
• 12:00 Geographic cure — changing careers, husbands, locations, always chasing the next thing that would make her happy
• 18:00 Hiding alcohol at home — handles in the closet, beer bottles behind the bed, the Yeti in the bathroom
• 24:00 Foxhole prayers every morning — please let today be the day — and planning the next drink by noon
• 30:00 Taking a job at the church thinking it would keep her sober, and her husband suggesting she sign up for the church's drinking program
• 36:00 The car accident outside the subdivision and the school mom's phone call that scared her into action
• 42:00 Walking in January 1, 2018 with a one-year plan to get sober, get divorced, then go back to drinking
• 50:00 Second sponsor, Big Book Awakening, and finding a Higher Power of her own understanding rather than the inherited one