Why Action Counts More Than Motives – Karen G.

About This Speaker Tape

Lincoln, Nebraska. A woman the color of squash, weighing 95 pounds with a liver in ruins, sucking on a bottle of Mad Dog on Skid Row. Karen G. didn't just hit bottom; she lived in the wreckage. A former surgical nurse who threw her license down the toilet, she recalls a life of "total insanity"—from the drug-fueled haze of the original Woodstock to the moment she used superglue to surgically alter her ex-husband's groin in a drunken rage.

She speaks with a raw, jagged honesty about the "alcoholic hell" of her withdrawals and the irony of falling into an eight-foot grave while visiting her mother. For Karen, motives are useless. She describes a Higher Power and a program where action is the only currency that matters. After cycling through 19 sponsors and losing everything, she found a lifeline not through her own outreach, but through the grit of others who refused to let her die in a hospital ward.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Karen G. opens with her sobriety date of May 30, 1982, and welcomes newcomers.
• 5:15 Description of hitting bottom on Skid Row in Lincoln, Nebraska, with a bottle of Mad Dog.
• 11:30 Laughter: The story of the 'retired hooker' outfit and her sponsor's reaction.
• 16:45 The 'pot' argument with her sponsor and the requirement to change her sobriety date.
• 22:10 Laughter: The detailed account of falling into an eight-foot grave in Nebraska.
• 34:20 The superglue incident: a drunken act of revenge against her ex-husband.
• 45:10 The loss of her nursing license and the period of homelessness and drug theft.
• 55:30 The encounter with Clancy and the beginning of a rigorous sponsorship relationship.
• 1:05:15 The process of getting her nursing license reinstated by the State Board of Nursing.
• 1:18:40 The story of the liver transplant baby and the 'bear juice' IV.
• 1:30:10 Reflection on the 12th Tradition and the importance of service and love.