We Went to Find Our Inner Child and Discovered What We Desperately Need Is an Adult 😂 – Polly P.

About This Speaker Tape

Polly celebrates her 20th AA birthday at a conference in Seaside, Oregon, sharing how she remains on fire for the program after two decades. She describes growing up as an only child in the South with loving parents whose affection she could never feel due to what she calls a spiritual malady and soul sickness. She married an Air Force officer at 18, began drinking and taking Librium and Valium to escape the anxiety of raising two boys alone while her husband deployed, and eventually became a couch potato alcoholic consuming over a quart of vodka and 20 pills daily while dying on her living room sofa.

After a failed treatment stay and a jailhouse romance that lasted 58 days, Polly overdosed on April 8, 1977 — Good Friday — and was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in Bedford, Texas. Her ex-husband had her court-committed to treatment, and on April 11, 1977, she entered a hospital in Dallas and began her sobriety. Her first sponsor Frank, a former Monsignor priest, helped heal her distorted perception of Higher Power from her Southern Baptist upbringing and taught her that the 11th Step Prayer is about being loving, not being loved.

Polly describes the wreckage her drinking caused her sons — her younger son James became a full-blown drug addict by 14, and her older son Russ suffered depression and self-harm. At six and a half years sober, James called and said he wanted what she had; he now has 13 years of sobriety. Russ attempted suicide six times before Polly learned to truly release him to Higher Power, and nine years later he is alive with a new baby daughter Katie. She and her husband Dave, two alcoholics married 16 years, learned to work the Traditions in their relationship by watching mentors Dick and Peggy. Despite losing their house, going through bankruptcy, and nearly dying from the same pneumonia that killed Jim Henson, Polly testifies that every crisis became a blessing and that she is the richest woman on earth because of what AA has given her.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction — 20 years sober April 11, 1977, married to Dave (Polly Pistol), celebrating birthday at NCR Seaside conference
• 5:00 Three requirements for active AA membership — sobriety date, home group (Monday night Seal Beach Speakers), and sponsor (Dottie Harris)
• 9:00 Disease of perception — distorted thinking from childhood, Baptist preachers slamming fists, feelings of never being enough
• 14:00 Higher Power expressed through fellowship — higher power with a sense of humor, being named Polly Pistol and Rule 62
• 20:00 Only child with loving parents she could not feel — spiritual malady and soul sickness, cut off from the sunshine of the spirit
• 27:00 Couch potato alcoholic — quart of vodka and 20 pills daily, dying on the sofa watching soap operas, son's terror
• 34:00 Pronounced dead on arrival Good Friday 1977 — overdose, court-committed to treatment, resurrection metaphor
• 42:00 Sponsor Frank the former Monsignor, marriage to Dave, oak trees metaphor, learning relationships by watching mentors
• 50:00 Son James sober 13 years, son Russ and six suicide attempts, releasing him to Higher Power through We Agnostics chapter
• 57:00 Losing the house and bankruptcy sober, nearly dying of pneumonia, closing prayer — I sought my brother and I found all three