Went to Interview for Atlanta PD and Did a Fifth Step with the Detective 🤦 – Kerry S.

About This Speaker Tape

Kerry S., a native Atlantan with 32 years sober (September 2, 1988), opens this Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers share carrying fresh grief. Last March his 23-year-old niece was killed in a murder-suicide; three weeks before this share, his last living uncle and father figure died; the day before, a close friend was diagnosed with stage-four bone cancer. He names the heaviness up front and still carries the message.

He grew up an only child inside a sprawling family of 48 first cousins. His father, a Korean War Purple Heart recipient with a head plate and violent epileptic spells, drank heavily and terrified him at home. On Valentine's Day, after his father got sober and told Kerry for the first time that he loved him, his father was murdered by his own brother-in-law. Kerry was eight. He buries that loss under attention-seeking as the bright kid who could recite Bible books at five, and later, at 14, under pink champagne and a progression into hard narcotics.

Through the University of Pittsburgh, a Kroger career, and corporate banking, Kerry lived to use and used to live. He turned down a Tuskegee-grad drug dealer's recruitment pitch but still lost his car, his apartment, and his dignity. A hit was once mistakenly put on him by his neighbor-dealer's wife, and he started sleeping with a gun. Charter Peachtree rehab in 1988 and a first white chip changed the trajectory.

The cornerstone of his share is Step Three: it took him 25 years of sobriety before he could truly turn his will and his life over, held back by ego and the fear of what his Higher Power might ask of him. He walks through amends highlights — most memorably sitting across from an Atlanta police detective and disclosing the drugs he sold, the weapons he carried, and the drunk driving he did, and years later finding his old Kroger supervisor who had covered for him. Remarried six years ago to a woman in the fellowship, a birder and an Audubon member, he closes on daily reprieve — that yesterday, under compounded grief, he wanted escape but not a drink.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Tim Morrow opens Monday Night Blue Chip Speakers on Zoom; reading from Big Book page 29
• 2:30 Steve introduces Kerry from the 938 AM group at NABA
• 4:15 Kerry opens in active grief: niece murdered, uncle died, friend diagnosed with stage-four bone cancer
• 8:00 Only child raised among 48 first cousins; attention and being the bright kid as first addictions
• 14:30 Korean War father with Purple Heart, head plate, epileptic spells, and rage drinking; the ripped stuffed animal
• 20:00 Valentine's Day: father sober, says 'I love you' for the first time; murdered by uncle the next morning
• 24:00 First drink at 14 — pink champagne — progresses to daily drinking and narcotics through Pitt
• 33:00 Dealer-neighbor's wife mistakenly puts a hit on him; Kerry starts sleeping with a gun
• 37:00 Charter Peachtree rehab; sobriety date September 2, 1988; one white chip
• 46:00 Step 9 amends to an Atlanta police detective; disclosing selling drugs, carrying weapons, driving drunk
• 54:00 Closing on daily reprieve: under yesterday's grief, wanted a reprieve but not a drink