Willingness as the Thing That Overrules Your Own Judgment When Your Judgment Is the Problem — Pat Y.

About This Speaker Tape

Kat shares her story of drinking from age thirteen, when a rum and coke at a party transformed her from a shy churchgoing girl into someone who could finally laugh, dance, and feel comfortable. From that first blackout forward, alcohol became the thing that let her function, even as it slowly dismantled the life she had imagined for herself — the marriage, the children, the church, the garden.

She describes a first marriage built on nothing but drinking together, a young brother killed overseas, and a cruelly-worded card she mailed him before his death that she carried as a secret for over a decade. Unable to grieve or speak honestly, she left her husband, moved to LA, and cycled through a year-long job pattern: competent secretary, then drinking at lunch, then scandal, then out. A drunken dare at a strip club in front of her boss launched what she calls her 'show business career,' followed by a Vegas marriage, purple flannel bathrobes, Scotch in water glasses, and three a.m. phone calls to boyfriends from age twelve.

At thirty she called AA drunk, went to her first meeting hungover, and met a sponsor who circled every night of the week on her meeting list and told her to call three women a day. Years later, when her second husband was dying of cancer and she needed to reach out, that habit is what saved her — she called eleven people before anyone answered. The rest of the tape walks through her amends to a stepfather she hated, a needlepoint Christmas gift that broke the resentment open, losing the house where they'd hosted hundreds of friends, and caring for her ninety-year-old mother in the apartment next door.

Her closing message is simple: get a sponsor, get a home group, and find one friend you call before you call your sponsor. She credits willingness and taking direction — especially when her own judgment told her it would never work — for everything good in her life.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Kat introduces herself and names the miracle of being in the room
• 3:00 First drink at thirteen — rum and coke at a party, instant relief from shyness and self-deception
• 9:00 Brother injured in the Navy; the 'only the good die young' card and her prayer that he'd die before it arrived
• 15:00 Psychiatrist appointments she wasted by lying, then walking to the bar around the corner afterward
• 22:00 Strip club audition in front of her boss and the beginning of her 'show business career'
• 30:00 Vegas wedding with a pint from a liquor store, then the purple bathrobe, Scotch in water glasses, and sad records
• 38:00 Watching the young family in the sprinklers and realizing she cannot stop drinking on her own
• 48:00 First AA meeting — Norm speaking, laughing for the first time in years, man at the door making her feel welcome
• 58:00 Sponsor circles every night of the week and says call three women a day — the habit that saved her three years sober when her husband was dying
• 70:00 Stepfather amends, the needlepoint Christmas gift, and discovering he'd worn the gift out from handling it