At fourteen months sober, Pat accidentally tasted vodka and thought nobody would know. The AA foundation built through meetings, sponsorship, service, and washed coffee cups answered with three words: God will know. ☀️ Sober Sunrise App Listen to Sober Sunrise AA speaker talks anytime, track your sober time, take a daily pledge, and keep recovery support close throughout the day. 📱 https://sober-sunrise.com/app If you enjoy the app or find it useful in your recovery, a quick rating or review on the App Store would mean a lot and helps more people find Sober Sunrise. ☀️ Sober Sunrise Episode Archive Hundreds of AA speaker tapes and recovery stories: https://sober-sunrise.com/episodes 🧡 Sober Sunrise Merch https://sober-sunrise.com/merch 🌴 Sober Sunrise Newsletter https://sober-sunrise.com/newsletter Pat, sober since August 28, 1970, grew up in Brooklyn with an alcoholic father and a mother whose long dependence on stimulants and alcohol left Pat watching other people for cues about how to think, feel, and behave. She began drinking alone at fifteen because alcohol quieted the confusion and briefly filled the empty place inside her. Over the next twenty years, drinking became the organizing principle beneath marriage, motherhood, rigid household control, late-night binges, rage, and relationships that looked acceptable from the outside while collapsing internally. After a humiliating afternoon at a family picnic and a blackout behind the wheel, Pat walked into Brooklyn’s Canarsie Group. For one hour, the hole inside her felt filled. A sponsor claimed her, the group put her to work, and she stayed close through meetings, speaking commitments, service, washing coffee cups, sweeping floors, and traveling in caravans with other members. When her family moved to rural New Jersey at fourteen months sober, that entire structure disappeared and the emotions she had never learned to face came rushing back. At a gathering one night, Pat unknowingly took a sip of a drink containing vodka. Her first thought was that nobody would know; the next was that God would. She put it down, called her sponsor, returned to a meeting, and began working the program at a deeper level. Through inventory, amends, prayer, willingness, education, nursing school, a painful divorce, a new marriage, sponsorship, and continued service, Pat found the mind, choices, emotional life, and heart’s desires that alcohol had postponed. Her message is that everything she needed to grow and change was already present in the books, rooms, and people of Alcoholics Anonymous. Pat R. from Lake Hopacong, NJ speaking at the 3rd Buckeye Roundup in Cincinnati, OH - November 11th 1994 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu
