Women in the Rooms Were My First Healthy Relationship with Another Human Being – Angela W.

About This Speaker Tape

Angela W., sober since January 28, 2007, tells a nine-and-a-half year story that begins with a Korean mother and a Vietnam-veteran father whose PTSD and drinking shaped her earliest memories — ketchup sprayed like blood across the walls of military housing, and her father burning open her plastic piggy bank in the middle of the night to steal the coins. Her parents divorced when she was six. Her father eventually got sober through AA before dying of cancer when she was fifteen, and at his funeral the blue-book men showed up in force.

Alcohol did nothing for her as a teenager — she tried wine coolers and felt nothing. College introduced her to a pill that gave her the euphoria she had been chasing since an eight-year-old dream she could never get back to. Tequila followed. Working in a bar as a binge drinker, she once served herself 18 shots on a customer's tab before he looked at her differently and said he was worried. Her therapist pressed her on AA. The night before she walked in, she looked at the sky and asked whoever was out there for help to stop drinking.

She found the Monday noon meeting at Knott's Landing in Duluth, stared at her feet through the whole thing, and tried to bolt when the women surrounded her with hugs and phone numbers. She kept coming back as a coffee maker and tissue buyer. When she prayed for a sign about a sponsor, Kelly sat down next to her the next day. Kelly was at the birth of her first child.

Now married, with a seven- and five-year-old, she traded the word balance for harmony after someone pointed out that a full life is music, not a scale. Her father left an aunt a box for her containing ten things he wanted his daughter to know, including that he wanted to live to see his grandkids. She closes on Martin Luther King's lines about seeking soul, Higher Power, and brother and sister and finding all three — and on the admission that before AA she was on the road to an unconscious suicide, killing herself every day.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Chris opens the Monday night Blue Chip Speakers meeting at the NAVA Club; Kelly introduces Angela as a friend of nine years
• 2:30 Angela, sobriety date January 28, 2007 — sober almost as long as she was drinking; opens with Howard Thurman quote about coming alive
• 6:00 Childhood dream of kids playing in sunlight at age eight — the elusive bliss she chased the rest of her drinking life
• 9:30 Ketchup on the walls in military housing — six years old, thought it was blood; first memory of her father's drinking
• 13:00 Father burning open her piggy bank at night; later his PTSD nightmares begging the floor not to die
• 18:00 Father gets sober in AA, dies of cancer a year later without drinking again; AA men fill his funeral
• 23:00 College pill gives her the euphoria she'd been chasing; tequila follows; binge drinking while bartending
• 28:30 Customer counts 18 shots on his tab, tells her he's worried; therapist asks if she's heard of AA
• 33:00 Night before first meeting — looks at the sky and asks a Higher Power she doesn't know for help to stop drinking
• 38:00 Monday noon meeting at Knott's Landing in Duluth; women crowd her with hugs and numbers; tries to flee
• 44:00 Prays for a sign about a sponsor; Kelly sits next to her the next day — asks her and Kelly says 'of course'
• 50:00 Balance versus harmony — husband, two kids, carrying babies in a Bjorn to meetings; father's box with ten things he wanted his daughter to know
• 55:00 Martin Luther King close: sought soul, Higher Power, brother and sister — found all three; admits she was on the road to unconscious suicide