Stoned to Death With Fridge Magnets - AA Speaker - Sean A.

Sean arrived at his first Hollywood AA meeting smelling like a gimlet and terrified of 400 friendly strangers, then felt something he had not experienced in years: safe, understood, and accepted. ☀️ 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 Sean began drinking at fourteen, entered the theater professionally in his early twenties, and built a successful Broadway career while consuming a quart of scotch a day and maintaining what he calls a wonderful world of chemistry. The outside still looked impressive, but inside he lived with the fear of not getting what he wanted, losing what he had, being exposed for who he was, and being punished for it. After an arrest at the end of a long vodka run in April 1974, Sean admitted he was alcoholic to a sober coworker. She stopped everything, read the Big Book with him, shared her own story, and brought him to a 400-person Hollywood Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. He arrived frightened, unwell, smelling like a gimlet, and unable to understand the barrage of slogans coming from cheerful strangers, but identification gave him his first feeling of safety in years. A sponsor then guided him through the Twelve Steps as actions rather than subjects for discussion. Inventory showed Sean that he did not have baggage but cargo; the Fifth Step gave him one person who knew the complete story; amends became a commitment to change; and continued inventory, prayer, meditation, sponsorship, and service taught an alien and outsider how to belong. At thirty-three years sober and newly divorced after a long marriage, Sean is candid about the fear, sadness, embarrassment, and uncertainty beneath his jokes. He returns to AA for reassurance and reports to the fellowship as his teachers: recovery is not a finished destination or a lawn chair on a plateau, but a full-time adventure in which people learn to carry the good news into their homes, work, communities, and relationships. Sean A. from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada speaking at the 33rd Annual AA Rally in Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada - August 5th 2007 Music: Deep by KaizanBlu